rolling thread of stuff worth reading on videogames

the hardest game i've ever beat is the hugely underrated zelda 2. the final boss fight (yourself) (it's pretty deep) was nervewracking beyond belief. i mean i was six so maybe it'd be easier now but not that much easier, i hope.

in defense of nine?-year-old thomp the U4 main quest is kinda designed to mess with your preconceptions about video games. like one of the things you have to do to progress is not kill fleeing enemies. (but you also can't flee yourself, i think, so those balrogs drive you down.)

Hardest game I ever beat was Ancient Domains of Mystery, took me two years of playing through leisure time and a five-day binge at the end. This was followed by a renewed interest in physical fitness and no patience for videogames of any kind

hardest game i ever beat was Adam Cadre's Varicella. i did use some hints to solve it, but i was proud that i figured a lot of it out myself. that game is a puzzle gauntlet.

oh i'd forgotten about IF! i beat infocom's sorcerer without help. i was so proud of that. then spellbreaker i never got anywhere.

honestly the most amazing thing to me about that CRPG blog is how many of them he beats. all of them! except the ones he decides are No Fun. and he has some seriously forgiving standards in that department.

Oh god, Varicella did my head in.

Owen, did you read crpg addict's four or five posts about Omega? I read them all and their comments late last night. I used to play the town over and over again and die in a lot of random ways. I used to play the first adom dungeon to the southeast (?) as if that were the whole game. The inscrutability and vastness and mystery of some crpgs and roguelikes appealed to me a lot. Beating them seemed beside the point.

on an unrelated note, Film Crit Hulk is on the latest ep of the Indoor Kids, talking about game-related OCD

http://www.nerdist.com/2012/06/the-indoor-kids-50-ocd-gaming-moments-with-film-crit-hulk/

For 1989, I've structured my game list so that a game I know (or at least strongly suspect) that I'll like comes up every four or five games. These cornerstones include NetHack (version 3), Magic Candle, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Starflight 2, Dragon Wars, and Hero's Quest: So You Want to Be a Hero (the game that was later re-named Quest for Glory).

Excited for him to do Hero's Quest. In my eyes it's the first 'modern' RPG game.

Reading these made me realize I've never actually played a dungeon crawler. And level grinding is usually my favorite part of RPGs!

Had zero interest in Spec Ops: The Line, but these conflicting articles have my interest:
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/spec-ops-the-line-ditches-faux-heroism-for-a-harrowing-look-at-how-war-make
http://gameological.com/2012/06/the-greatest-of-ease/

-an acquaintance gave me 'ready player one' to read - 5th generation snow crash xerox copy, ugh

oh dangit, i linked the wrong gameological article
http://gameological.com/2012/06/the-horror/

I love this whole series, Saturday Crapshoot, about only old PC games. This week it's "Street Fighting Man", which looks awesome in a bad way.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/06/30/saturday-crapshoot-street-fighting-man/

i dont know where to put this so im putting it here: http://howlongtobeat.com/

also someone is doing a crpgaddict thing for jrpgs at http://allconsolerpgs.blogspot.co.uk/ apparently? but he can't write and is kind of dense.

and how have i not been to the terrifyingly completist (e.g.) http://segaretro.org/ before?

http://segaretro.org/images/thumb/6/6a/TheBlackOnyx_SG1000_JP_Box.jpg/640px-TheBlackOnyx_SG1000_JP_Box.jpg

I've always loved the disparity between the boxart and screenshots on retro games.

fun: http://gamasutra.com/view/news/172990/The_psychology_of_Diablo_III_loot.php

good article

-an acquaintance gave me 'ready player one' to read - 5th generation snow crash xerox copy, ugh

― Faith in Humanity: Restored (dayo), Saturday, June 30, 2012 12:04 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark

this was like the da vinci code written by a tv tropes nerd as imagined by whiney

http://www.mcvpacific.com/news/read/interview-deus-ex-creator-warren-spector-talks-narrative-heavy-rain/098986
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-06-14-warren-spector-the-ultraviolence-has-to-stop

i'm afraid Spector hasn't put his money where his mouth is for quite some time, but i never played Epic Mickey

anna anthropy's book is terrible, hamfisted, reductive. the fucked up thing is that i basically agree with her thesis but man the way she goes about advancing it is progressive self-defeating bullshit 101.

i guess i should have known from her blog but i was really hoping for a good thoughtful book on videogames and how they could be better.

/goes back to saints row 3, beats prostitute to death with giant purple cock, sips coffee, laments, considers

it's published by random house? hunh

oh, never mind, it's seven stories press but on the random house website because they're the distributor

that's disappointing to hear about anthropy's book; i still kinda wanna give it a shot, but i'm already inclined to fear what you're saying about it

ffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BIGGEST-COLLECTION-EVER-22-SEGA-NINTENDO-PC-ENGINE-FULLSETS-FACTORY-SEALED-/300736846867?pt=FR_Jeux_Vid#ht_163613wt_931

my mouth is literally hanging open

uh that is crazy

egad

sold for 1.2 million dollars.
holy shit in every way

the laserdiscs really make the package

man, some UPS guy is going to have a really bad day

isn't $1.2M still less than original retail value?

also "Unfortunately, Shaq-Fu never was released in Japan" is a sentence i never expected to read.

i wonder how much the lot is worth broken down by piece and based on previous ebay prices.

Reminds me of when i was a kid and i dreamed about winning the lottery and buying every single videogame ever made. Only this is real!

and you really would've had to have won the lottery to get it

That is insane

isn't $1.2M still less than original retail value?

― Philip Nunez, Monday, July 9, 2012 4:01 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

$175 per game? i doubt it...

In the questions at the bottom, someone asked if it includes all the consoles, and he said 'yes', that it also includes consoles either brand new in packaging, or at least mint in box. Still doubt that rounds the average out to significantly less than $175/game though...

I was looking at your collection and I was really impressed until I saw you were missing the Time Gal spine card

lol @ this guy.

how much were the games in japan? (plus adjust for inflation, import from japan, shipping etc...)
i'm thinking this might actually be a bargain.

yes, a bargain.

pennies a day. practically pays for itself.

you could probably flip it for $2M to some hollywood manchild.

Tom Cruise has got plenty of time on his hands at the moment.