The Old School Otaku Lounge

I know a lot of game/electronic stores do promos to help pay for new consoles (last year when the X-bone came out, Best Buy was running a promo that they'd give you a $100 gift card to trade in a 360...which I did, and then used the $100 to buy xmas gifts instead XD). But yeah, I dunno how most people just plop down all that money for a console. I haven't bought a console on launch date since the Wii, and that was because I went halfsies with my ex.

I've always thought it was dumb that companies think they need to pump out a new console ever 7-ish years, but yeah, it's definitely like you said...they need to get their money somehow.

I was really worried about playing the newer Mass Effect installments because of the online-only thing...thankfully, you can still play them offline, it's just annoying because whenever you start up the game, it "warns" you you're not online, yadda yadda. It's really dumb. I'm glad I don't really care about Destiny...I've heard it's an ok game, but if it's like that for even the PS3 version, why bother? It's like you said, those servers won't be online forever.

In actual "what are you playing?" topics...I finished the last chapter of the new Walking Dead "season" from TellTale...really good. I dunno if I'll continue with the series, it depends on how the story goes from here for me, I think.

I also downloaded the demo for the PS3 Hatsune Miku game, Project Diva. I'm not a huge Vocaloid fan or anything, but I LOVE music games...and the demo was a lot of fun! Kind of like an updated version of Bust-a-Groove, if anyone's ever played that. Now I kinda want the full game. XD

I traded in a few nonessential PS2 games and got Akiba's Trip for the PS3. It seems quite funny and fun, in a guilty pleasure way. It's obviously fan-servicey, but it's equal opportunity--you strip male vampires as well as females.

It's interesting how lo-fi some PS3 games still are. Akiba's Trip often looks like Persona 4, except in HD and widescreen. But the character models still have a slightly last-generation look. Apparently the PS3 is very difficult to program for--similar to the Saturn--and most PS3 games don't really take advantage of the console's max power. I think only some of the big budget blockbusters like the Uncharted series and The Last of Us really come close.

Speaking of Persona, I'm glad Persona 5 is still in the pipeline for the PS3 next year. It may well be the last great PS3 title if it turns out well.

I agree. We really don't need new consoles since the technology isn't really growing leaps and bounds. Going back to 8-bit consoles like the NES and Master System, there was quite a big leap up to the 16-bit consoles like the Genesis and SNES. Then 32 bit consoles like the Saturn and Playstation, the 64-bit N64 (which really never struck me as more powerful than a Playstation, but whatever). And then holy crap, 128 bit systems like the Dreamcast, PS2, and Xbox. Wow! Since that generation, however, we haven't been growing leaps and bounds. Just getting slightly faster processors and graphics engines. I really don't see the need for a PS4 since the PS3 was plenty powerful enough. I can't even remember when it came out, but to me it feels like just a few short years ago. I'll be sitting this generation out, too. Forget it. I'll just stay a retro gamer.

Speaking of which, I think I'm getting close to the end of Ys Book 1, and I am 4 hours in. This game doesn't take much time to beat, I guess?

I've also played a bit of Darius Burst on my PSP. That has risen in price within this past year or so, but I scored it back in June at an otaku paradise store called Otakara when my friend came to visit. It's a fun shmup, but the use of the cannon does not entail any sort of real strategy for scoring or whatever, so that is a bit of a letdown. I was kind of expecting something like Border Down on the Dreamcast. (Which is made by G-Rev, some former Taito employees. Thus that game's similarities to Darius G.)

Out of all the PS3 games I've picked up in the past week or so, Valkyria Chronicles is the ones I've been consistently playing. Greg, you're right to take an interest in this as I'm quite convinced it is a top 10 worthy PS3 games. It takes the strategy RPG genre and makes good use of the PS3's capabilities to take it to the modern era. Best of all, it almost never bugs you about you not being online. I also love how Sega still throws in-jokes and references to Sega games for longtime fans in their modern games. Vyse and Aika from Skies of Arcadia are platoon characters in this game! And, I was playing a bit of Bayonetta and there are several references to the original Outrun. The track "Splash Wave" is easily heard in an early cutscene in the game while Bayonetta is riding in a car.

llj wrote: Vyse and Aika from Skies of Arcadia are platoon characters in this game!

Oh, that's right! I remember that now!

Gosh, PS3 games are region-free, right? I could pick up a PS3 here to use as a BR player and maybe import the English version of Valkyria Chronicles. I know that there's a sequel on the PSP, but I've never checked into that one much.

greg wrote:

Gosh, PS3 games are region-free, right? I could pick up a PS3 here to use as a BR player and maybe import the English version of Valkyria Chronicles. I know that there's a sequel on the PSP, but I've never checked into that one much.

Yes, last I heard, PS3 was region free. The sequel apparently isn't as good, but the third one I've heard good things about. Of course, the 3rd one never got an english localization.

Anyway, look what I picked up at Value Village this week:



It came with the AC plug and a few wires, but no controller and hard drive. But, it has an HDMI port which is a HUGE plus (original 360s didn't have HDMI port) All in all, an incredible deal even by VV's donation-calibre standards. The store had a testing station where I could turn it on and test if it actually worked and it did!

So hey, $7.99, worth a shot. I took it home and...



tada! I threw in a copy of Akai Katana that I bought at a Business Depot discount a while back ($9.99) and it runs!

Of course, I immediately became skeptical. Nothing ever comes easy for me. Why would anyone want to give away a perfectly working 360 to Value Village? And to have it being sold for $7.99! Prior to this (about 2 weeks ago) I had only seen 360s at VV for $20 at cheapest. And those ones didn't come with an AC adaptor and hookup wires. It's possible that this was a kid's console and the mother knew nothing of reselling to retro game stores and just donated the console to VV when he or she got tired of it. Or maybe it was a family who owned it and needed to clear some room fast. Of course, my immediate thought was to pry the console open to check if there was a hidden nest of roaches or bed bugs in it.



The process begins! I think I accidentally snapped off one or two holding tabs on the side (not fatal to holding the console together though), but oh well, it's only 7.99. I wouldn't have done this at all if I had paid over $50 for it. If you want to open the 360, be damned careful of the back side with the rectangular tabs. Those were a bitch to open.



The good news is that I didn't find any bugs, but I did find a lot of dust, dirt, and grime and even maybe some hair! The 360 seems to collect dust like no other console. All those holes...



YUCK



Here is the 360 in all its glory. You know, I think this is the first time I've ever really opened up a game console by myself. It's interesting, I expected a lot more computery chips and boards, but most of the space is dedicated to the fan and disc drive. I didn't open the disc drive up because that's beyond my ability. Anyway, the inside was still relatively clean aside from the fan part. I gently wiped the console down and used Q-tips on all those damned holes which have TONS of grime on them.

Satisfied that I didn't see a bug's nest (but still saw some pretty gross grime, which I cleaned the best I could), I put the thing back together in about 1/10th of the time it took me to take it apart.

I suspect this was owned by a child. When I bought it, there was remnant of a girly-looking sticker on the front. Since the console was dirty but in relatively good condition, I would suspect that a little girl might have owned this console. She probably didn't tax it too much and didn't treat it roughly like a boy would, but left it near the floor and rarely cleaned it where it collected tons of grime and dust. In all honesty some of my old desktop computers probably have just as much dust and grime inside them.

My friend used to work at a Game Stop in a ghetto part of town, and aside from having thugs trying to sell obviously stolen games and hardware, he has some interesting stories about the disgusting condition that the hardware would be in. One Xbox (the 1st gen, big black one) was infested with roaches. Bluck! They were probably German cockroaches, since they like to get inside of electronics. Ironically, they aren't even from Germany, but have origins in Asia.

So I have reached an impasse with Ys Book 1. I am ascending the tower at the end of the game, and there is a floor I cannot enter because there is a throbbing pile of skulls blocking the passageway. It sends me into the dungeon every time. I've tried using the mirror that freezes enemies, but that didn't work. There is some evil ring, but it kills me immediately once I try wearing it. I've tried that other ring that shows you hidden passageways, but I could not find any. I had some insomnia last night (my daughter wouldn't stop coughing in her sleep), so I tried once again to get past that stupid skull pile. I should just look this up on Gamefaqs because I just want to get through this part.

Awesome find, llj! Love when I find things like that! I once found a working Super Nintendo for a friend for $10.

I love PS3s as media players more than for games. Youtube, Netflix, Hulu, and then you can watch things you download on it, and Blu-Rays. I hardly ever played games on it. It's too bad the region free also doesn't include DVDs, though.

greg wrote:My friend used to work at a Game Stop in a ghetto part of town, and aside from having thugs trying to sell obviously stolen games and hardware, he has some interesting stories about the disgusting condition that the hardware would be in. One Xbox (the 1st gen, big black one) was infested with roaches. Bluck! They were probably German cockroaches, since they like to get inside of electronics. Ironically, they aren't even from Germany, but have origins in Asia.

Oh yeah. I've heard all sorts of horror stories of infested consoles. I've heard stories of people bringing their consoles into stores and when the store manager turns the consoles on, hundreds of insects come running out of the console. I remember someone on a video game forum I frequent posted a picture of a ratty looking Street Fighter Alpha 2 SNES cart he got and found dozens of dead bugs inside, and bizarrely enough, they were dismembered! My city has some reasonably strict building laws for bug control even in their poorest apartments, but you never know when you're getting a second hand console. There was a bed bug panic in major US and Canadian cities about 2-3 years ago, but that seems to have calmed down recently. Or maybe we just learned to live with them.

So I have reached an impasse with Ys Book 1. I am ascending the tower at the end of the game, and there is a floor I cannot enter because there is a throbbing pile of skulls blocking the passageway. It sends me into the dungeon every time. I've tried using the mirror that freezes enemies, but that didn't work. There is some evil ring, but it kills me immediately once I try wearing it. I've tried that other ring that shows you hidden passageways, but I could not find any. I had some insomnia last night (my daughter wouldn't stop coughing in her sleep), so I tried once again to get past that stupid skull pile. I should just look this up on Gamefaqs because I just want to get through this part.

I've only played the PC Engine version so it might be different. But I remember I had to go back several floors down in one part of the tower to talk to someone before a pathway opened up so I could go up further. In fact, there's a lot of backtracking in this last part of the tower as you have to go and talk to characters before you can progress further. My advice is to go talk to any characters you've met up with in the tower, if you can remember where you last saw them. It's really my biggest problem with this game, this last part. For your problem, it sounds familiar and IIRC I think you have to find someone to tell you to take a secret passageway. Are you playing this in Japanese?

ryoran wrote:Awesome find, llj! Love when I find things like that! I once found a working Super Nintendo for a friend for $10.

I love PS3s as media players more than for games. Youtube, Netflix, Hulu, and then you can watch things you download on it, and Blu-Rays. I hardly ever played games on it. It's too bad the region free also doesn't include DVDs, though.

Yeah, the PS3 being a multimedia machine seems to affect its overall performance as a game console though. Freezing is an annoying problem. Its operating system is so finicky...if you turn off the console improperly, you could ruin the hard drive or OS startup. Its low memory doesn't help either as junk data builds up really quickly and the memory cannot always handle it or dump enough of it regularly. That said, the PS3 is home to far more Japanese games than the 360, so for those who like to play a lot of them, the PS3 is what you have to live with. The 360 has the CAVE shmups (it's a miracle we even got 2 of them localized, with another available on XBLA), but JRPGs and niche games seem lacking for it. On the flip side, all the multiplat games run better on the 360 than the PS3, because most developers create games for the 360 as a base and then port them over to the PS3.

llj wrote:[For your problem, it sounds familiar and IIRC I think you have to find someone to tell you to take a secret passageway. Are you playing this in Japanese?

Nah, it's the English release that came with a soundtrack CD. I checked on Gamefaqs and it says to use the mask to reveal a hidden doorway in the hallway with the row of statues. I was trying that mask on the floor below that pile of skulls. So, I will try it out there.