The Spam Thread!

[cpd2009]

Merry Christmas 2015 =)

Merry Christmas to you too Sandy!

I guess it's time for me to share what I got. Well, first off, I got the much-hated Neo Geo X and the Mega Pack Volume 1. I don't think it's bad at all.



Yes, it has a few flaws. For one, despite having a MicroUSB port for charging, the handheld will not charge if you plug in a standard 5v USB charger. For some reason, you have to connect it to the dock to charge along with having your TV not set to what HDMI port the dock/handheld is using. Charging seems to cease if you actually play any games while connected to the dock. If you want to charge without the dock, you have to find a "rocket cable" specifically made for the handheld. Said cable is only bundled with the Neo Geo X Classics game cards or older releases of the Mega Pack. (mine didn't come with the cable as the firmware update was preinstalled)

The second flaw is the composite video output. It's very dark, so dark that my CRT TV keeps flipping between B&W and color. Perhaps if I ran it through a VCR it would brighten up nicely, but it should have been better designed. The HDMI out is very crisp and bright. Playing retro games on an HDTV isn't my thing, but until I can find another DVD/VCR to route my game systems through, I have to use HDMI.

Overall, I think the Neo Geo X is rather great. My handheld had the newest firmware update pre-installed, which greatly improves the sound emulation and HDMI video clarity.

Other gifts I got were a backpack for my DVD projector, a new tablet case, three SNES games (Batman Forever, TazMania, and Tiny Toon Adventures Wacky Sports Challenge), a cute animal calendar, a reindeer plushie with candy canes, a micro fiber blanket and a couple gift cards.

[cpd2009]

You know.... Batman Forever also gets a lot of hate due to the cryptic nature of the controls and how it reuses the SNES Mortal Kombat engine. But after playing through the first level and part of the second, the game doesn't seem as horrible as people say it is.

Maybe later on it gets more mysterious? I guess I'll find out soon enough.

[cpd2009]

I have been using the Neo Geo X on and off over the past few days, mostly via the docking station due to reasons I will get to shortly. As it stands, with the latest (and perhaps last) firmware update, the emulation is actually good now. Earlier firmware had some rather serious audio emulation issues as was shown in Ashens review of the NGX. Ashens didn't approve of the unit at all, especially of the docking station.

I differ as the docking station is rather cool IMO. It would have been better if they had the NGX dock in the fake cart slot, and I believe one of the early promotional images showed it being docked that way.

The composite video output, as I mentioned earlier, is very dark and over saturated. My CRT TV doesn't like it, and it keeps dropping to a black and white picture. However, if I run it through my old DVD/VCR's AV input, the picture quality is as good as composite gets. Bright picture and colors that are just right.

Now, about the handheld itself. It may have been sitting in a warehouse for too long as the battery up until this point refused to take any charge. The unit wouldn't power on at all if it were disconnected from the docking station, and when connected to the docking station, the battery would appear to charge. The red charge light would start blinking whenever my HDTV's HDMI input was active, or if the composite AV cable was connected. I tried hooking it up to a MicroUSB charger, and it would only show a full battery symbol, and the unit would shut down right as the MicroUSB was removed.

Right now, I have it hooked up to my mobile power bank with the HDMI connected directly to the handheld. The battery seems to be charging as the battery animation is showing. Will this work in the long run? Who knows. I just hope the battery doesn't have any serious problems. The unit was brand new and sealed.

[cpd2009]

Well, I believe the NGX's either has gone to "sleep" after sitting in a warehouse for a long time, or it's not even taking a charge. Either the charger nor the battery inside seem to get warm as they should.

The charge animation appears for only about an hour and then shows it being full. Taking it off the charger still results in a dead handheld.

Seeing as how it's perfectly functional in the dock, I decided to get another mobile power bank for handheld gaming along with a microUSB cable. There is a way to revive a sleeping li-ion battery by sticking it in the freezer apparently, or "boosting" it directly with + and - 5v wires connected to USB, but I'm not opening it up just for that. The mobile power bank is the better option. I just have to see how it compares to the rated life of the internal battery, which is only about three to four hours.

[Stella Grapes]

Happy New Year 2016!

I have a big 2013 Blue Dell laptop! I know I said I'd never go back from Mac, but I need it for law school!

[cpd2009]

Happy New Year 2016!

I have a big 2013 Blue Dell laptop! I know I said I'd never go back from Mac, but I need it for law school!

Wow, you're going to law school? Congratulations!

One day, you should be able to go back to a Mac after law school. You just need to save up for one or buy a good second-hand model. I have come to appreciate Mac OSX more, but my heart still lies with PC/Windows. It's just more configurable and upgradable for techies like myself.

[cpd2009]

So for the past day or so, I have been trying my luck at the classic side-scrolling beat 'em up, Final Fight.



I have two variants of the SNES port... the North American version, and the Japanese version of Final Fight Guy, pictured above. A bit of history: Final Fight originally appeared in the arcades featuring three playable characters named Cody, Guy, and Haggar. It also featured two player cooperative play. When Capcom ported Final Fight to the SNES, space constraints caused them to only have Cody and Haggar as playable characters, leaving Guy out completely. The SNES port only can show three enemies on the screen at one time, the Industrial Area stage was removed, and two player mode was missing.

Capcom released an updated variant of the game in 1992, replacing Cody with Guy yet leaving Haggar in place. They still left out two player mode and the Industrial Area stage. In 1994, Final Fight Guy was released in North America in VERY limited quantities. Thus, a copy of the NA release is $250+ on eBay, while the Japanese cart only runs you $25 to $30.

There is also interesting censorship choices in the NA releases of Final Fight. For one, two of the bosses had their names changed (Damnd and Sodom become Thrasher and Katana respectively), some of the enemies had their skin colors brightened up, alcoholic drink powerups were replaced with soda, knives no longer show a small splatter of blood upon hitting an enemy, and probably the most apparent... the changing of two enemies named Poison and Roxy into Billy and Sid.

I don't know what to think about the last one. According to the developers and the game story, Poison and Roxy are apparently transgender in the Japanese version, while Billy and Sid are explicitly male in the NA release. Whatever version you play, these two are antagonists working with the Mad Gears in the game universe, but still...

Seeing as how I'm a supporter of LGBT rights, I don't know what the best possible outcome would be if Capcom decided to re-release the uncut version in the USA someday, especially since more people are growing supportive of LGBT rights. Would it be okay to leave Poison and Roxy as they are, or would it be better to change them to Billy and Sid and leave everything else uncut? I don't really know to be honest.

Then again... Capcom basically killed off the franchise with the poorly received Final Fight Streetwise...

[Blackberry Bun]

I'm still alive

I'll be writing thesis this semester. Wish me luck.

[huckleberrypie]

Same here, just needed some motivation for a project or two.

[cpd2009]

Same here, just needed some motivation for a project or two.

This forum just isn't the same without David to help keep things going. :/

Anyway, lately, I have been busy getting a new job, and in my free time I have been playing through New Super Mario Bros U for the Wii U. I'm nearly through the game, but let me tell you, even though the NSMB series has been largely the same thing with new gimmicks in every release, they manage to keep the levels challenging and interesting thanks to the said gimmicks. I'm having quite fun with it so far.

If I had one wish for the NSMB series, it would be that they could at least make a future game that reintroduces the veggie-throwing mechanic of Super Mario Bros 2 USA. That would freshen things up a bit.

In other news, I am considering giving Linux another go. I tried for a few months last year, but that was before I acquired a KVM switch. If I do, I plan to thoroughly test it out first by using either an external USB hard drive, or installing a second drive inside Patsy and set up dual-booting. Patsy is a pre-UEFI system and uses an Nvidia GPU, so configuration should be far easier than before.