The Blackangel

I love pasta, and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE LOVE LOVE BACON!!!!

The Atari 2600 is available, as is the Colecovision. I have to admit that until now, I had never actually heard of an Atari 800. The only reason I know about those two being available, is because @Rain Dew actually bought them for me before she fully understood that emulators make me fucking sick. Literally sick. Hell, I'm selling my copy of Castlevania IV on the SNES because I recently discovered that it's a fake. Castlevania IV is a rare game. So when I found out that it's a fake, I. WAS. PISSED. I just hope someone is interested soon.

I see Squall's gunblade all over the place, and have had to fight the temptation as well. I do honestly plan on getting one at some point, just not right now. Cloud's sword would be impossible to get home if you're flying. @Rain Dew and I are going to RetroCon next month. It's all about classic games. I'm drooling with anticipation!

I'm bouncing back and forth between FF8 and RDR2. Two games that I absolutely love. I've been playing the epilogue, trying to get all the challenges done. I have a couple completed, but I still have a lot to do and a lot of stranger missions to finish.

Actually, it’s been recommended for a while now that we have 6 small meals now instead of 3 bigger ones. All that crap said, the last thing I ate was a couple chalupas and chicken quesadillas from Taco Bell.

We have a couple Master Swords. I also have a 3 game collection of the ROM-hacks that were created on the SNES, sealed in box. The carts are all gold carts and complete in their own box as well in the display. I also have the limited edition RDR2 Zippo in my Zippo collection.

For those who don't know, Nintendo teamed up with Sandisk again and have released an official 1t micro SD card. You can get it at Walmart for $130 (£104.66 / €119.86) which is a great deal considering. I'm getting it when I get paid. Link To Card

This is interesting. I'm not the biggest Xbox player, but @Rain Dew is. So I'll bring this up to her (she'll most likely be all in) and see what she says. I'll encourage her to log in and reply herself, but she has a hectic schedule most days so it may be a brief time before she's able to. As for me, I would definitely upgrade to the 1t console. It's twice the storage space, which can often be a massive help for people who run out of space often with their games. I'm upgrading to a 1t micro SSD card in my Switch when I get paid next month from the 512g card I'm using right now.

We don't. At least not here at home anyway. I'm not xtian, nor do I believe in xmas. @Rain Dew respects that. She still decorates a tree at her parents' house, but we don't do one here.

I can say that @Rain Dew and I never listen to xmas music. Sure we have a song or two that we kinda like. But that one song doesn't get us to grab for a xmas album. The only song I actually like is Carol Of The Bells. I'm not sure what song(s) she likes.

In a roundabout way, they have already released a Switch 2 with the Oled. But that’s a matter of opinion as it’s just a slight upgrade to the Switch and not at all a new console. The same could be said for the Lite as well. With a new Switch, (or console of any kind) the have pretty much shot themselves in the foot. There’s not much of anything left for them to do, or even place to go, with the exception of VR. They have released a lot of different consoles since the NES, with only 2 serious flops. Those being the Virtual Boy and Wii U. They have done home consoles, motion control, portable, and now a hybrid between home and portable. So I don’t think a Switch 2 is a realistic option unless it somehow ties in directly with VR in some way. There’s nothing they haven’t already done at least once. So a Switch 2 would have to be some kind of monumental system that would completely revolutionize the gaming industry. Something like how they saved the industry in the 80’s.

A lot of it boils down to genre. Unless it’s entirely based on numbers, how could it even be a fair choice? If you’re comparing fantasy against sci-fi against sports against racing, there’s not really a logical argument in any direction. I would be willing to venture that all of us hate a genre or two. Those were just the ones that came immediately to mind from the dozens of genres. Personally, although I absolutely love hockey, I hate NHL video games. Or any hockey video game for that matter. Withe the exception of Mario Kart and others that I can count on one hand, I don’t like racing games. But I absolutely LOVE fantasy. If you can mix it well with sci-fi, then you really have my attention. FF8 did it perfectly in my opinion. So, unless they pick one from every single genre we have, or look exclusively at numbers, there is no valid way to pick.

For those Red Dead players, I have a few tidbits of advice. If you have 2 horses, your main and your secondary, DO NOT tame a wild horse without stabling your secondary first. You will lose the horse otherwise. I forgot to stable my second Arabian which was the red chestnut Arabian, and when I tamed a Mustang, I lost him. ALWAYS STABLE YOUR SECOND/THIRD/FOURTH HORSE(s) In chapter 4 you will find a guy in St Denis named Algernon Wasp. Do not take on his requests for certain materials. If you do you may find yourself screwed later if you want to pick up where Arthur left off with the challenges. Herbalist 9 is to pick one of every plant in the game. Obviously it's not doable until the epilogue unless you're exploiting some kind of glitch. When Algernon asks you for certain orchids, others get locked out and become completely unavailable, until you get to a request that needs said orchid. For example I have 42 of the 43 plants picked. The last one I need is the Clamshell Orchid. It's locked out so until I finish up with the jackass, I can't complete Herbalist 9 and move on to Herbalist 10. Many of us will want our honor as high as possible. You can't get perfect honor until Chapter 6. You can get high honor prior to Chapter 6, but not perfect honor. So don't get discouraged trying to figure out why it won't go up from a certain point. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS GET THE LEGEND OF THE EAST SATCHEL ASAP!!!! The satchel is virtually a requirement for the game. Yes, it's optional and you don't have to get it if you don't want to. The reason you should get it is because the satchel you start out with only lets you carry a max of 3 of any given item. The LOTES allows you to carry 99 of everything with a rare exception. You can only carry 10 platinum watches for example. If you're short on cash there's a quick way to get some money. Go to Fairvale Shanty in the north part of the map. It's about halfway between Annesburg and the Wapiti Reservation. It's easy to miss as it sits off the road near the edge of the map. If you go inside you'll find a lockbox that has a gold nugget, platinum watch, and some platinum jewelry. Earrings typically. Then ride a bit of a distance away. I use the Witch's Cauldron as a turning point. Then ride back to the shanty. All the stuff you just looted from the box is back again. You can do this as many times as you want and then take your loot to the nearest fence, of which there are 4 in the game. St Denis, Emerald Ranch, Van Horn, and Rhodes. But be careful with the shanty. There's often a grizzly there, so you'll want to take him out. Map image included. When you're hunting predators, put on your cover scent, plant your bait, then climb on top of a boulder. Predators can not reach you when you're on top of one. It's what I do when I'm hunting cougars and panthers. Wolves are way too easy, but I still kill them from a boulder. When hunting legendary animals, always use explosive ammo. Legendary pelts are always perfect no matter what ammo you use. And explosive ammo can bring them down in one shot easily. Even the largest legendaries like the white buffalo. The only one that I can say without a doubt that it takes more then one is the legendary gator. That thing is lightning fast and obscenely strong. So get some distance between you and it, and start unloading explosives in him. There are a few animals that are only available in one specific location. Most are found in several places. The biggest culprit of this is the panther. Now there is one in the swamp, but you will be hard pressed to get it to spawn. The easier one is at the south of Lemoyne. Map image included. Off the top of my head I can't think of anymore tips to offer at the moment. I can guide you through some treasure hunts of you're stuck. While I don't know everything about the game, I do have an encyclopedic knowledge of it.

To no one's surprise, for me it's RDR2.

Colecovision. I remember playing it all the time. My favorite game was Ladybug which is really similar to PacMan. I know I had 2 other games for it, but even after looking through a list of all Colecovision games, I can't remember what they were. I didn't appreciate it at the time, and now I really regret it and wish I still had it.

Sounds kinda like Whoppers.

Huh? What the hell are those?

Whether you have a president, prime minister, or monarchy, what is the proper way to refer to your government leader? Here in the states, we refer to the president as Mr. President. Since we have our first female president/vice president it would be Madam President/Vice President. There is almost always a “proper” way to refer to them that’s appropriate for this day and age. I can’t say I know much of anything about a monarchy, but I would venture to guess that people don’t refer to them as “Your Majesty” or “Your Highness” anymore. With a prime minister, I honestly don’t have a damn clue. I know Canada has a prime minister, but I don’t know how they refer to him/her. And correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Canada a British territory, the way Puerto Rico is to the US? Also, shithead isn’t a valid answer.

A couple days ago I got back into playing Castlevania SOTN. I've pretty much been binging on it. I haven't had my PS3 running in quite a while, and decided to boot it up again.

While I personally DESPISE Tetris, there’s no denying that the game is extremely popular with a huge and very dedicated fan base. Give a monkey a banana and he’ll make a split.

I grew up on the 2600, Colecovision, and then the Nintendo systems starting with the NES. I was also a Sega gamer. There were other companies in the mix later, but that’s just where I got started into gaming. All that rambling taken care of, a company coming back 40 years later and releasing a game for their original console that released in 1977, just seems weird as hell to me.

I think a lot of people liked the PSP for the same reason I initially did. Because you could watch movies on it. I was much more interested that than the actual gaming experience. But you never know. The PS Portal could be some kind of a test run, while an actual handheld is in R&D right now, this very minute.

Personally, I think Nintendo shot themselves in the foot after releasing the Switch. There have been home consoles and portables in the past, all over gaming. But a hybrid system like the Switch has kinda left them nowhere to go. Unless they pick one or the other between portable and home, I can see them going the way of Atari and Sega to just making games and no more consoles. But that’s a narrow minded, pessimistic prediction. Realistically speaking though, considering the size and power Nintendo has, they will never go down. I just honestly don’t know what’s left for them to do if they want to keep doing something completely different from the others. If their next console could have some more intense and powerful processors, that would surely put them at the forefront of the pack.

I got in about an hour of RDR2 a couple days ago. I’m going through a burn out phase right now. So I haven’t been gaming except for randoms on my iPad.

It all depends what you’re gaming on. For example, with today’s games, the graphics are crucial. But if you go back 30+ years, the graphics aren’t all that important. If you’re gaming on an NES, which for those who don’t know, is an 8-bit system, the graphics aren’t super important. If you look at Atari games, which were 2-bit graphics, they DEFINITELY didn’t matter. But the modern games require the most lifelike graphics available. If they didn’t have those graphical standards, companies could lose billions. They have to keep up with the times. Just look at the difference between RDR1 and RDR2.