Dreamcast turns 11, PlayStation turns 15

September 9 must be some kind of holy day for Nintendo’s competitors.

It was on this day in 1999 (9/9/99) that SEGA launched the short lived but eternally loved Dreamcast in North America. The little gray box was filled with innovative hardware inclusions like a built-in modem, and powered neat add-ons like VMUs and maracas. The system’s legacy is marred by one fatal flaw: it took Sonic’s career 3D. Ultimately SEGA gave up on its system in North America in 2001. The system is still popular among homebrew hobbyists.

Even further back, on this day in 1995, Sony launched the demonic and definitively hellish PlayStation. That system would go on to sell 130 million units to morons worldwide, thanks to misguided public interest in dull titles like Gran Turismo and Tomb Raider. The system wasn’t all good news for Sony, however, as the company had to discontinue it in 2006 due to lack of consumer demand.

Sources: Wikipedia, Wikipedia

The Dungeon’s Boss: Q1 2010 update, and some Games Played

Already being over a month overdue for what is supposed to be a quarterly update to my games collection database, I have decided that it is now time to make that update. The database now reflects additions and subtractions made to my disturbingly/arousingly large games collection during the first three months of 2010. Since March, a significant number of changes have taken place, but I’ll have to refrain from adding those until the Q2 update.

Quarter 1 saw some incredible changes to my collection. I managed to beat-back the over-heavy presences of both unbeaten GBA games and RPGs. I found $1 copy Space Iinvaders for the Atari 2600 which, for the time being, has no system to be played on, and picked up some NES classics on the cheap, those being Lolo 3, Metal Gear, Blastermaster, and Hogan’s Alley.

Perhaps most significantly, I also picked up a PS1 (at the same thrift store I found the Atari game), along with my first PS1 game, WipeOut XL. I’m excited for another opportunity to check out how the “other half” was living, this time from the era when I was focused on blasting Russians in GoldenEye.

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Games in Review #1 – Suikoden

Welcome to Games in Review, Shufflingdead’s newest semi-regular segment! Games in Review will feature a review, evaluation, and general commentary for games that I, Weskimo, have completed.

I’ve been trying to decide which game to make my topic for my first written review for a while now, and I finally decided that it only makes sense to use one of my favorite games. This is also to partially dispel the idea that Shufflingdead only reviews games to dump on them and piss off as much of the internet as possible. Well, fanboys, good news. I don’t hate Suikoden.

Story

Suikoden is a fairly standard RPG released in 1996 for the PlayStation. The story follows the path of the son of a famous Imperial General, General Teo. The hero starts to work for this empire like his father, and quickly finds himself confronted by cruelty, corruption, and betrayal. After only 2 days under imperial payroll, he’s on the run from the law, with only a pair of bodyguards to aid him. Desperate, he enlists himself with an underground resistance movement and winds up as the leader of a major rebellion against the empire that his friends and family serve so loyally.

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The Dungeon: Final Fantasy Retrospective

Shameful Human of the Week: Tony Hawk

Tony Hawk is a seriously famous dude, but it’s a sort of fame that’s come about in an odd way. Alright, he is a professional skateboarder, and in 1999 he did a 900 degree spin, but it’s not really those things that made him a household name. No, Tony is one of those cultural icons, like Lara Croft, that grew out of the success of the PlayStation. Sure, those original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games came out on the N64 as well, but they were really for those PS1 playing jerks.

Tony’s game franchise hasn’t been able to keep up with today’s gaming trends. His newest game, Tony Hawk: Ride has received negative reviews, and the general consensus is that its plastic board accessory is flawed. Finally, the rest of the world understands what I’ve known all along: Tony Hawk games are terrible and the only people who like them are biased PlayStation promoters.

Now, The Hawk is getting angry, recently stating of gamers “I think that they’re just not giving it a fair shake. And I think a lot of them came into it with an attitude that it’s going to suck.”

Well, Anthony, I think you’re completely wrong! Gamers would never give an unfair shake to something they had paid $120 for! Instead, we would save our money and bitch about the game on message boards having given the game no shake whatsoever! Not unlike myself, having never played your other games!

Yeah, I know, he’s actually a pretty nice guy.

[source]