Mellllting

  • This heatwave is insane. I think we’re going to hit 80 today. For San Francisco in the summer that’s pretty intense. It’s as though Al Gore is flying overhead, causing each and every one of us to sizzle under his baleful, accusatory glare. I take public transportation, Al! I use rechargeable batteries! I don’t have air conditioning! I love my planet! So please, stop making me wear short sleeves. I fear sunlight.
  • I love the fact that the TransFormers/Go-Bot rivalry is still a part of America’s collective unconscious. Lopsided though the rivalry may be. I mean, Go-Bots were totally lame.
  • I have registered the URL retronauts.com, which leads you to my slowly-expanding collection of retrospective blogs and will probably get itself more of a workout than the sadly neglected GameSpite domain. Also, while I enjoy covering individual titles via Retronauts, the topical ones (such as the Konami Code entry) are much more entertaining. I am, however, far too burnt out to come up with my own ideas, so feel free to suggest others.
  • Finally, to reconfirm: yes, the map for Legacy of the Wizard is completely ridiculous.


Post-script: YES. Nice to see the power-ups in action… those weren’t there at E3.

Post-script EX PLUS: I’ve finally posted previews of Nintendo’s bit Generations imports: Boundish, Dialhex and dotstream. I have mixed feelings on these; on one hand, they totally appeal to my snobbish sense of retro-aesthetics; on the other, twenty bucks apiece is an awful lot for what should really be freeware. Nice packaging, though.

I was hoping there would be some video to go along with the previews, but unfortunately all we have is this week’s 1UP Show clip. Nothing against the 1UP Show, mind you, but I hate being on video… especially seeing as I’d barely spent any time with the games at the time of filming. Alas, I tried to take a principled stand to spare everyone the indigity, but they were having none of it. So, my apologies as always.

34 thoughts on “Mellllting

  1. -Its like 25~30 degrees hotter on an average day in KS, it sucks so bad to have 80 degree weather.
    -I think my childhood mind blocked out all memories of Go-Bots because I don’t remember them at all.
    -Its a shame that they don’t post these on 1up anymore, they were one of the more interesting things to come out of the site in recent memory. I guess there is really is no place for waxing nostalgic in “games journalism” without it being something like “OMG NES BELT BUCKLES!!!1!1!!”
    -Honestly, never heard of Legacy of the Wizard

  2. Damn heatwaves. Chico is about this bad normally, but it still sucks to have 100+ degree weather. Especially when you rarely use air conditioning. I’m going to go get another popsicicle.

  3. The heat is insane, isn’t it? My heat-induced sleepless nights don’t usually start until August or September, yet I’ve had two in a row already. And I thought everyone was supposed to be jealous of our weather!

  4. 80 sounds harsh. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going outside into the 104 degrees of Austin heat.

  5. “I love the fact that the TransFormers/Go-Bot rivalry is still a part of America’s collective unconscious. Lopsided though the rivalry may be. I mean, Go-Bots were totally lame.” I agree. The only way the Go-Bots could defeat the Transformers would be by making them die of embarrassment.
    Here’s how much of a non-threat the Go-Bots were. If the Go-Bots came up to the Transformers and said “You’re our greatest rivals and we’ll defeat you no matter what the cost is!” I imagine the Transformers would respond with “And you are?”

  6. I only live a couple hours out of SF (closer to Sac), and we’re hittin’ 106. Even after a few years in a tropical climate, that’s harsh on eleven years worth of pale Alaskan skin. The ten minute walk to and from work is more brutal then the job itself.

    What’s with that goofy walk the male lead has there in Portrait of Ruin…? I mean, it’s a cool clip and all, but that was really the only thing I really got out of it.

  7. “I love the fact that the TransFormers/Go-Bot rivalry is still a part of America’s collective unconscious.”

    Apparently, they make fun of both cartoons in Clerks 2…

  8. 26.6 degrees Cen-tee-grade… more or less.

    I don’t get how you guys don’t get along with mathmaticly strange systems of measurement.

  9. I guess we’re lucky it hasn’t gone over 103 here in Abilene. That I know of. And it’s not the sort of thing I like to keep track of, because it’s depressing.

    Anyway, lame idea, but I’d still like to see another Konami-related retronauts that lists as many of the crossovers/goofy easter eggs in Konami games. There was some of that when you covered Gradius and the castlevania powerups and it was very intriguing.

  10. 26. Twenty six. TWENTY SIX . For real? We’re at 40! Some other state maxed today at 50.

  11. …Maybe you guys didn’t hear me.

    It was 114 TODAY.

    And that was just when I wrote it. High was 118.

    That’s ~48 for the rest of the world.

    Seriously, I win. Let it go.

  12. Some two-bit music mag did this thing: “Shitty Songs on Awesome Albums.” I’d like to read something on “Shitty Levels on Awesome Videogames.” “Read” not “write.”
    It’s 90 degrees in SC. The coldest summer here I can remember.

  13. Hang onto your money for a little while. The second wave arrives next week and is supposed to be quite a bit better than the first series.

  14. First off, 118 in Arizona’s nothing like 108 in Arkansas, you guys there have no idea what humidity is. It’s hot and sufficating. Second, we need a castlevania with 8-way whipping action. Why is it all the advances we got from Castlevania IV was the mostly-useless whip brandashing?

  15. I love Legacy of The Wizard even though it took me six months when I was 13 to finish the damn game. It was the music that kept me playing, and, it felt magical, that same strange magical feeling you get from looking at Depeche Mode videos, but less creepy.

  16. Hmm, I second Pading’s idea. That would be quite cool.

    Oh, and as for that Portrait of Ruin video, I’m really impressed with how many attacks that Dullahan boss has. Compare that with Harmony of Dissonance where you’re lucky if a boss has two and it’s pretty awesome. I don’t know if it was like that in Dawn of Sorrow, as well, since… I don’t have a DS.

  17. QPCES: You are so right. The Go-Bots are superior to the Transformers in only one respect: they are better at dying.

    (OK I stole that, but from a pretty analogous setup I must admit.)

  18. Here in the UK we recently had some “hot” weather, at >32c (90f+, apparently).

    Our roads started melting.

    Some schools had to be shut down, because the heat was unbearable.

    The weather reporters in one part of the country had to get their graphics program changed because it couldn’t display anything above 32c.

    -I haven’t slept properly in 3 nights, and I’m getting rather sick of it.

  19. I’m just looking forward to our minus temperature winter nights again. Oh, how I miss those. Oh, how I long for those. Oh, how I wonder why my Personal Computer hasn’t spontaneously combusted yet. Personally, I wish humanity would get in gear and develop time-stasis. Does anyone really want to be awake and sentient in winter? Anyone of any measurable level of intellect, I mean.

  20. Awake and sentient in summer I meant, summer!

    I can already feel it peeling away layers off my sapience. Oh, what a World, what a World … the humanity of it all, et cetera, et cetera.

  21. I am mesmerized by that video of Portrait of Ruin’s gameplay. It almost makes me want to get a DS. Do they make a senior print edition? Or I wonder if it (or something like it) will become available on the Wii…

  22. moan, moan. Should be freeware. Packaging won’t make it to US. Your writing about games/gamers always seems so jaded, skeptical and disenchanted- it’s not good to read.

  23. I’ve played the three bit-generations games. I was really specting them, but it’s been disapointing-excepting dotstream that can be addicting, the other two are fairly weak (Boundish is just crap).
    By the way, have you cheked the official page of Rythm Tengoku?
    (http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n08/brij/index.html)
    There’s even a video of the wario ware staff un-rythmically dancing!
    Most wanted gba game for sure!!

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