I use Hurricane Electric as my web host. What kind of torrent do you think I should host? Maybe a linux distro, or some other open source project? I want to use my new torrent privleges to bennifit mankind somehow, any suggestions?
Syd and Razor can get the green tentacle a music contract. Michael can develop the undeveoped film, thus making Wierd Ed a friend. Wendy can fix the manuscript making the meteor a star. Bernard can communicate with the meteor police to arrest the meteor....what does Jeff do?
You know, I was just watching Final Fantasy, the spirits within with a friend who hasn't seen it. It was on cable and we turned it on half way through. So, I was explaining the "Gaia" thing and how it related to FF7 and FF8, and all he could respond with was..."These guys have guns that kill ghosts?"... "They have a satellite laser cannon, that kills ghosts?"
Ok, sorry for comparing Miyamoto to George Lucas, that wasn't fair. He still has the ability to make a good game. I guess I'm just asking if he hast the ability to make a GREAT game. That game that parents have to drag their children away from the demonstration at wall mart kicking and screaming. I've played all the games mentioned. They are very good. But in reality, how much of the "goodness" is based on our respect to it's creator, buying the game because, after all "Hey It's Miyamoto, It will be great regardless". Since you asked...
Wind Walker Beautifully, and very faithfully to the series. Zelda's dungeon puzzles are a staple of the franchise, and this one doesn't fail in that respect. But what did they add to the experience? the replaced the ocarina with a different instrument, the horse with a boat, the firefly with a mischievous fairy. But nothing was "added".
Pikmin Brilliant. It was a great way of taking RTS elements and making them feel, well, very "Miyamoto--eske". Spielberg has a way of doing that with his movies. But , I have to ask myself, would the game have sold as well without the Miyamoto notoriety?
Luigi's Mansion I tried to explain this game to my friends.... "It's like Resident Evil, right.... but instead of traumatizing scary zombies, it's cute mario ghosts and a silly vacum cleaner. But it works, I swear!" I honestly had more fun running around the mansion shouting "Marrrio!". At, best, it was "kinda fun".
Sunshine Highly polished graphics, awesome physics engine, superb game balance, but then again so was 64. My favorite parts were the quick levels where they took away the FLUD device and put you in an abstract block maze. My knuckles still hurt thinking about it. But it was like 5 years after 64 came out. I wanted more. And don't you think that towards the end, the game felt a little (c'mon just a little bit) "rushed".
You have a good point. We can't always judge every new game by the greatness of the past. Maybe SMB was just one of those flukes in history that got everything right at the right time. But I want to think that that new "shock and awe" game is right around the corner, the one that makes all the heads turn, the one that turns the industry, an industry that I love, but don't like where it's headed, on it's head. I want the game that once again, levels the playing field, and makes the competition go "What have we been doing making, 30 FPS clones?" And if anyone can make that game, it's him.
Otherwise, I fear the worst for our beloved Miyamoto. I also fear for the industry as a whole. Shigeru has this god like image. It's as if whatever he touches becomes a gold factory for Nintendo. He could sneeze on the most irrelevant Nintendo product and make it an instant success. I'm not even saying he stumbled onto a good idea and ran with it. He really is that good. This week a couple of articles about Eugine Jarvis appeared on slashdot. "Who is he?" "Why just about the greatest video game designer that ever lived....... well besides Miyamoto." What's funny, is that I don't even think that Myamoto even knows how to code. But for the past 22 years, he's done nothing short of being ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT.
He is a god. I worship him. I have sacrificed my dignity (as I am approaching 30 years old with a Game Cube instead of a PS2 or XBox) for him. I know, I place him on a high pedestal. But look at all he has done.
Donkey Kong He made a little known playing card company, a bit player in the video game industry, a household name.
Super Mario Bros He single handedly brought us out of the 80's video game crash.
The Legend of Zelda He brought computer role playing games, a delicacy, enjoyed only by the nerdy elite, to "joe console".
StarFox He laid the groundwork for the 3D Poly revolution a generation early.
Super Mario 64 He confirmed that a 3D platform game, based off preexisting 2D elements can still be among the best games ever to be played.
I am a Miyamoto groupie. If I was good looking and female, I'd follow him around begging to have his baby.
But I'm scared...
This past generation of Miyamoto products leave something to be desired. They aren't bad. They aren't complete idol crushing abominations like Episodes I and II. They just aren't as good as they used to be, and I hope this isn't the beginning of a very depressing downward trend.
I really want more than Mario 128 to be good. I want it to be great. I'm running out of heroes.
All arcades need is the "oh wow" appeal that the arcades can bring to us. We have yet to really see one happen in a while. Pong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Star-Wars, Afterburner and a million others from the golden age had the ability to stop passerbys in their tracks.
I remember when the Neo Geo burst on the sceene. At that time the arcades were far from dead. Street Fighter II had hit the scene, and people were pouring back into arcades. There was kind of a dry spell before then when arcades were stuffed with bland Double Dragon Ripoffs, but it was completely revitalized with the onslaught of "street fighter" fighting games. These games were just like the double dragon style games. However, instead of a million very weak opponents and couple of strong bosses that wore you down until it was time to insert credit, the opponent was another Human being. This completmented with "easter egg" moves made the entire industry boom. Kids crawled back from their parents basements, white knuckeled from years of the NES. Buisnessmen took their lunch breaks to the malls. Everyone wanted to see just how to do that "Haduken" or that "Kano Heart Rip". It was the biggest "OH WOW!" in years.
I think the real killer of the arcades was not the advanced consoles and their ability to compete technically with arcade games. In fact they worked in complete concert with each other. In the 90's the video game junkie would follow the simple steps to video game fantasy bliss. Step 1: Buy Playstation, Teken fighting game and Strategy Guide. Step 2: Follow along the 15 button combination martial arts movies like the little feet from the Author McMurry Dance steps. Step 3. Return to the arcade, decimate the competition, and take the home the women(I said fantasy, right).
The arcades shall rise again. They just need another "OH WOW" gimmick/hook to bring them back. It just isn't about graphics anymore. They don't make our eyes buldge and mouths drool like they used to. You may say that video games are about gameplay, but that only sells for home consoles. That is the reason most arcades are stacked with crazy contraptions, they make joe game browser stop and say "look at that, a scateboard attached to a video game, neato". But there are always new fangled inventions comming out. I don't know what they are, yet, otherwise I'd try to invent them. But someday the noiseland arcade will return with a new toy, and filled with the currious "Oh Wow"'ed. I personally can't wait.
I understand that I'm probably going to be modded "off topic" with this, however, I just wanted to address and ask about the controllers themselves. I own a Nomad, a game-gear, a Microsoft's side winder game pad.... what do they have in common? That really goofy bumpy pancake shaped D-Pad. It's very hard and uncomfortable to use. I always wondered why they went that route when developing the control for these systems.
The classic 8 bit NES controller was a revolution and a godsend. It saved us from about 20 years of joystick riddled "Space Invaders Wrist", replacing it with the not-so-damaging:"Nintendo Thumb". It is probably the greatest contribution (maybe, besides rescuing us from the 80's video game crash) Nintendo has given the world of video games. Their + shaped D-Pad is still used on all Nintendo based home gaming hardware to include Game and Watch, the SNES, the game boy, the N64, the GBA and the Game Cube. I think it's the greatest way to control, especially when a game requires precision diagonal control. There really is no better way to perform the Street Fighter "Hadooken" move, requiring the "scoop" motion.
Some may arguer that the Playstion controllers are better (with 4 buttons indented inward), and they may be right, I can't contest that. I just love that Dpad. And wonder, if maybe Nintendo has a patent on that controller and that's why we don't see it from it's competitors. I really would love to have a PC game pad with that design for my computer. Before I get replies suggesting that I hack/mod my existing Nintendo controller, I understand that's my best course of action. I just think, maybe, Nintendo should release one for the PC. I think they would sell a ton of them.
What do these games have in common? They were once classic games, that were re-released in a format that had nothing to do with the gameplay of it's original. Unlike, for example, the super mario franchise, a franchise that has evolved game by game over the past 20 years, these games have been completely abandoned, then basically repackaged with new fangled technology, creating a brand new game (one that sucks). Instead of letting this game sell itself, they've slapped an old classic name on it and have called it a sequel.
Do you really want this?. Basically some developer just has to to create a badly designed toon shaded alien shooter, with awful control and an unfunny storyline. Once the producers of this game realize that the game won't sell, they can simply, buy the rights to Xenophobe, and just call it a sequel. Please stop asking for this. This is not good for us.
I'm not even saying that we should let Xenophobe die. It was a great game. If they want to re-release it, GREAT! Remake it. Make the sprites cleaner. Make the control tighter. Make it playable on line. Shit, ad a few wacky cut-scenes. Just keep the original gameplay intact. Just don't make a brand new game and call it xenophobes, that would be an injustice. Don't make Raid on Bungling Bay a flight Sim. Don't make Splatterhouse or ESWAT a FPS. Don't make JB Murder Club another resident evil clone. These games are masterpieces and should be respected, not whored out because a game developer needs a hook.
Well not really a perfect port of pac-man but one that puts the offical version to shame. The article has a Screenshot. When they say perfect port. That just means that unlike the origian version, this version has a black background, blue maze that resembles the original, and most importantly different colored ghosts that acutally display some AI. You can find it where ever atari 2600 roms are found, usually in a zipped in a file because the roms are very small.
I know he's being funny, but there's some truth to that.
Ok, I was 8 years old at the time. It was 1982 and it was a time where i first saw the game Donkey Kong at a Pizza Hut, and was amazed because it looked just like a cartoon. I think I would have played anything at the time as long as it could be classed as a video game. This was an age when arcades were leaps and bounds ahead of the consoles.
It was a time when there really weren't many video game magazines. You have to admit that before EGM (you couldn't find "Joystick" at your local supermarket), nobody was really reviewing video games, there was no set standard. Video games back then were a fad like break dancing and the rubiks cube.
I actually got my Atari in 83 when it was in the clearance bin at a Venture department store. There was no way my parents would have put up with today's 200 dollar must have console and 4 year upgrade system that the industry has us to believe is the norm of consumer spending. Chances are, if you were a child of the early 80s you had ATARI, and maybe Colicovision/Intellevision or a home computer if you were lucky. But at the time atari was home video games. And we would have played anything put in front of us. Yeah, I had an Atari because it was cheep, and i played the hell out of it. I got the games that went on the clearance bin, PAC-MAN was one of them. It had a maze, 4 ghosts, power-pellets and a pacman. At the time, it was all the consumer wanted. I don't remember anyone complaining at the time.
Nowadays, it's easy to think of the horrible business mistakes that Atari made, and the landfill of pac-man/ET games, and the complete shovelware that caused the video game crash in early/mid 80's. At the time, I didn't even realize there was a crash. Today is so different, where the video game industry is judged against the movie industry, that it's really easy to come up with snotty reviews against the games that are being released for the holidays. Today, it is more than normal to buy a game based on what some "expert" says about it on some website or magazine, in fact it's a necessity. But back in the day, all you needed to sell spaceman was to produce the maze, ghosts and pacman and put it out on the market before the competition.
I know I'm kind of rambeling on, I guess the point is... If you wrote an article in 1982 about the horrible translation of pac-man for the atari 2600, no one would have any idea of what you are talking about.
I actually have played the new 2600 Pac-Man on Stella and am wondering (I admit i haven't really done any research on this) if it could actually fit "hardware-wise" on an actual cartridge and released in 1982. Aren't you less limited programing for an emulator rather than the acutal hardware? I really don't know. But when i'm playing it (the better pac-man rom) I think "Sure, now with unlimited RAM, Storage, and a processor thousands of times as fast, I can play neer arcade perfect pacman, programed for 2600 hardware". But could you actually produce a cartridge and connect it to an old 2600 VCS and play it?
The Videotopia was on tour there, and it was really great. The only thing I didn't like was the fact that my wife and I had to pay for IMAX movie tickets just to go upstairs and play (& pay to play) old video games. But it was great nonetheless. It had all the old classics, and some really cool stuff too. When we got there, it looked like they were putting together an old original SPRINT game (a crazy game that had a "well" shape where there were 8 steering wheels for 8 players surrounding a screen facing up. This relec must have been from the late 70's early 80's. It was neat, but it wasn't working at the time)
Anyway there's a book that has an interview with the videotopia guy called Arcade Feaver. There's an amusing antidote where he talks about the lowest point in his life, a time where a mint condition "Discs of Tron" game had just been found, but was demolished while being shipped. The book has a lot of color pictures from video games from the golden age and features a bunch of interviews (the Videotopia guy, Ken Lobb the Defender/Robobron guy, and Nolan Bushnell the Computer Space/Atari/Pizza Time Arcade guy). A good read, that belongs on any nerd's coffee table.
This month's Retrogaming Radio has an interview with David Crane. As much as Shane R. Monroe tries to push Mr. Crane into complaining about the "whoring out" of Pitfall (in recent PSX versions of the game). He responds by basically saying that it's ok for other developers who now own the rights to the Pitfall name, do as they please with their investment. This month's episode also has a review of that new act labs light gun.
Bill Budge's Pinball Construction Set was really great! It had all of these drag and drop pinball thingamajigers like flippers and bumpers and a targets. I remember it also had a way to set it up so that when certain things were triggered you could raise the bonus multiplier and such. Also you could change things like the gravity (i guess the slope of the board) and strength of the bumpers. And once you had made this really great pinball game you could go in with the paintbrush utility and put in your own custom artwork. Man, I remember I had like 10 5 1/4 inch floppies full of pinball games. Anyway thanks for the nostalgia, that really takes me back.
Visual Pinball sounds really cool, I wish there was a Linux port.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, my wife and I played Dreamcatcher together a few years ago, that was a wonderful NWN module.
I use Hurricane Electric as my web host. What kind of torrent do you think I should host? Maybe a linux distro, or some other open source project? I want to use my new torrent privleges to bennifit mankind somehow, any suggestions?
ok so,
...what does Jeff do?
Syd and Razor can get the green tentacle a music contract. Michael can develop the undeveoped film, thus making Wierd Ed a friend. Wendy can fix the manuscript making the meteor a star. Bernard can communicate with the meteor police to arrest the meteor.
Actually, someone has actually recreated that game in a web based format. It can be played here..
You know, I was just watching Final Fantasy, the spirits within with a friend who hasn't seen it. It was on cable and we turned it on half way through. So, I was explaining the "Gaia" thing and how it related to FF7 and FF8, and all he could respond with was..."These guys have guns that kill ghosts?"... "They have a satellite laser cannon, that kills ghosts?"
- Wind Walker Beautifully, and very faithfully to the series. Zelda's dungeon puzzles are a staple of the franchise, and this one doesn't fail in that respect. But what did they add to the experience? the replaced the ocarina with a different instrument, the horse with a boat, the firefly with a mischievous fairy. But nothing was "added".
- Pikmin Brilliant. It was a great way of taking RTS elements and making them feel, well, very "Miyamoto--eske". Spielberg has a way of doing that with his movies. But , I have to ask myself, would the game have sold as well without the Miyamoto notoriety?
- Luigi's Mansion I tried to explain this game to my friends.... "It's like Resident Evil, right.... but instead of traumatizing scary zombies, it's cute mario ghosts and a silly vacum cleaner. But it works, I swear!" I honestly had more fun running around the mansion shouting "Marrrio!". At, best, it was "kinda fun".
- Sunshine Highly polished graphics, awesome physics engine, superb game balance, but then again so was 64. My favorite parts were the quick levels where they took away the FLUD device and put you in an abstract block maze. My knuckles still hurt thinking about it. But it was like 5 years after 64 came out. I wanted more. And don't you think that towards the end, the game felt a little (c'mon just a little bit) "rushed".
You have a good point. We can't always judge every new game by the greatness of the past. Maybe SMB was just one of those flukes in history that got everything right at the right time. But I want to think that that new "shock and awe" game is right around the corner, the one that makes all the heads turn, the one that turns the industry, an industry that I love, but don't like where it's headed, on it's head. I want the game that once again, levels the playing field, and makes the competition go "What have we been doing making, 30 FPS clones?" And if anyone can make that game, it's him.He is a god. I worship him. I have sacrificed my dignity (as I am approaching 30 years old with a Game Cube instead of a PS2 or XBox) for him. I know, I place him on a high pedestal. But look at all he has done.
I am a Miyamoto groupie. If I was good looking and female, I'd follow him around begging to have his baby.
But I'm scared...
This past generation of Miyamoto products leave something to be desired. They aren't bad. They aren't complete idol crushing abominations like Episodes I and II. They just aren't as good as they used to be, and I hope this isn't the beginning of a very depressing downward trend.
I really want more than Mario 128 to be good. I want it to be great. I'm running out of heroes.
All arcades need is the "oh wow" appeal that the arcades can bring to us. We have yet to really see one happen in a while. Pong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Star-Wars, Afterburner and a million others from the golden age had the ability to stop passerbys in their tracks.
I remember when the Neo Geo burst on the sceene. At that time the arcades were far from dead. Street Fighter II had hit the scene, and people were pouring back into arcades. There was kind of a dry spell before then when arcades were stuffed with bland Double Dragon Ripoffs, but it was completely revitalized with the onslaught of "street fighter" fighting games. These games were just like the double dragon style games. However, instead of a million very weak opponents and couple of strong bosses that wore you down until it was time to insert credit, the opponent was another Human being. This completmented with "easter egg" moves made the entire industry boom. Kids crawled back from their parents basements, white knuckeled from years of the NES. Buisnessmen took their lunch breaks to the malls. Everyone wanted to see just how to do that "Haduken" or that "Kano Heart Rip". It was the biggest "OH WOW!" in years.
I think the real killer of the arcades was not the advanced consoles and their ability to compete technically with arcade games. In fact they worked in complete concert with each other. In the 90's the video game junkie would follow the simple steps to video game fantasy bliss. Step 1: Buy Playstation, Teken fighting game and Strategy Guide. Step 2: Follow along the 15 button combination martial arts movies like the little feet from the Author McMurry Dance steps. Step 3. Return to the arcade, decimate the competition, and take the home the women(I said fantasy, right).
The arcades shall rise again. They just need another "OH WOW" gimmick/hook to bring them back. It just isn't about graphics anymore. They don't make our eyes buldge and mouths drool like they used to. You may say that video games are about gameplay, but that only sells for home consoles. That is the reason most arcades are stacked with crazy contraptions, they make joe game browser stop and say "look at that, a scateboard attached to a video game, neato". But there are always new fangled inventions comming out. I don't know what they are, yet, otherwise I'd try to invent them. But someday the noiseland arcade will return with a new toy, and filled with the currious "Oh Wow"'ed. I personally can't wait.
I understand that I'm probably going to be modded "off topic" with this, however, I just wanted to address and ask about the controllers themselves. I own a Nomad, a game-gear, a Microsoft's side winder game pad.... what do they have in common? That really goofy bumpy pancake shaped D-Pad. It's very hard and uncomfortable to use. I always wondered why they went that route when developing the control for these systems.
:"Nintendo Thumb". It is probably the greatest contribution (maybe, besides rescuing us from the 80's video game crash) Nintendo has given the world of video games. Their + shaped D-Pad is still used on all Nintendo based home gaming hardware to include Game and Watch, the SNES, the game boy, the N64, the GBA and the Game Cube. I think it's the greatest way to control, especially when a game requires precision diagonal control. There really is no better way to perform the Street Fighter "Hadooken" move, requiring the "scoop" motion.
The classic 8 bit NES controller was a revolution and a godsend. It saved us from about 20 years of joystick riddled "Space Invaders Wrist", replacing it with the not-so-damaging
Some may arguer that the Playstion controllers are better (with 4 buttons indented inward), and they may be right, I can't contest that. I just love that Dpad. And wonder, if maybe Nintendo has a patent on that controller and that's why we don't see it from it's competitors. I really would love to have a PC game pad with that design for my computer. Before I get replies suggesting that I hack/mod my existing Nintendo controller, I understand that's my best course of action. I just think, maybe, Nintendo should release one for the PC. I think they would sell a ton of them.
What do these games have in common? They were once classic games, that were re-released in a format that had nothing to do with the gameplay of it's original. Unlike, for example, the super mario franchise, a franchise that has evolved game by game over the past 20 years, these games have been completely abandoned, then basically repackaged with new fangled technology, creating a brand new game (one that sucks). Instead of letting this game sell itself, they've slapped an old classic name on it and have called it a sequel.
Do you really want this?. Basically some developer just has to to create a badly designed toon shaded alien shooter, with awful control and an unfunny storyline. Once the producers of this game realize that the game won't sell, they can simply, buy the rights to Xenophobe, and just call it a sequel. Please stop asking for this. This is not good for us.
I'm not even saying that we should let Xenophobe die. It was a great game. If they want to re-release it, GREAT! Remake it. Make the sprites cleaner. Make the control tighter. Make it playable on line. Shit, ad a few wacky cut-scenes. Just keep the original gameplay intact. Just don't make a brand new game and call it xenophobes, that would be an injustice. Don't make Raid on Bungling Bay a flight Sim. Don't make Splatterhouse or ESWAT a FPS. Don't make JB Murder Club another resident evil clone. These games are masterpieces and should be respected, not whored out because a game developer needs a hook.
more information from the author of this hack: here.
Well not really a perfect port of pac-man but one that puts the offical version to shame. The article has a Screenshot. When they say perfect port. That just means that unlike the origian version, this version has a black background, blue maze that resembles the original, and most importantly different colored ghosts that acutally display some AI. You can find it where ever atari 2600 roms are found, usually in a zipped in a file because the roms are very small.
I know he's being funny, but there's some truth to that.
Ok, I was 8 years old at the time. It was 1982 and it was a time where i first saw the game Donkey Kong at a Pizza Hut, and was amazed because it looked just like a cartoon. I think I would have played anything at the time as long as it could be classed as a video game. This was an age when arcades were leaps and bounds ahead of the consoles.
It was a time when there really weren't many video game magazines. You have to admit that before EGM (you couldn't find "Joystick" at your local supermarket), nobody was really reviewing video games, there was no set standard. Video games back then were a fad like break dancing and the rubiks cube.
I actually got my Atari in 83 when it was in the clearance bin at a Venture department store. There was no way my parents would have put up with today's 200 dollar must have console and 4 year upgrade system that the industry has us to believe is the norm of consumer spending. Chances are, if you were a child of the early 80s you had ATARI, and maybe Colicovision/Intellevision or a home computer if you were lucky. But at the time atari was home video games. And we would have played anything put in front of us. Yeah, I had an Atari because it was cheep, and i played the hell out of it. I got the games that went on the clearance bin, PAC-MAN was one of them. It had a maze, 4 ghosts, power-pellets and a pacman. At the time, it was all the consumer wanted. I don't remember anyone complaining at the time.
Nowadays, it's easy to think of the horrible business mistakes that Atari made, and the landfill of pac-man/ET games, and the complete shovelware that caused the video game crash in early/mid 80's. At the time, I didn't even realize there was a crash. Today is so different, where the video game industry is judged against the movie industry, that it's really easy to come up with snotty reviews against the games that are being released for the holidays. Today, it is more than normal to buy a game based on what some "expert" says about it on some website or magazine, in fact it's a necessity. But back in the day, all you needed to sell spaceman was to produce the maze, ghosts and pacman and put it out on the market before the competition.
I know I'm kind of rambeling on, I guess the point is... If you wrote an article in 1982 about the horrible translation of pac-man for the atari 2600, no one would have any idea of what you are talking about.
I actually have played the new 2600 Pac-Man on Stella and am wondering (I admit i haven't really done any research on this) if it could actually fit "hardware-wise" on an actual cartridge and released in 1982. Aren't you less limited programing for an emulator rather than the acutal hardware? I really don't know. But when i'm playing it (the better pac-man rom) I think "Sure, now with unlimited RAM, Storage, and a processor thousands of times as fast, I can play neer arcade perfect pacman, programed for 2600 hardware". But could you actually produce a cartridge and connect it to an old 2600 VCS and play it?
The Videotopia was on tour there, and it was really great. The only thing I didn't like was the fact that my wife and I had to pay for IMAX movie tickets just to go upstairs and play (& pay to play) old video games. But it was great nonetheless. It had all the old classics, and some really cool stuff too. When we got there, it looked like they were putting together an old original SPRINT game (a crazy game that had a "well" shape where there were 8 steering wheels for 8 players surrounding a screen facing up. This relec must have been from the late 70's early 80's. It was neat, but it wasn't working at the time)
Anyway there's a book that has an interview with the videotopia guy called Arcade Feaver. There's an amusing antidote where he talks about the lowest point in his life, a time where a mint condition "Discs of Tron" game had just been found, but was demolished while being shipped. The book has a lot of color pictures from video games from the golden age and features a bunch of interviews (the Videotopia guy, Ken Lobb the Defender/Robobron guy, and Nolan Bushnell the Computer Space/Atari/Pizza Time Arcade guy). A good read, that belongs on any nerd's coffee table.
This month's Retrogaming Radio has an interview with David Crane. As much as Shane R. Monroe tries to push Mr. Crane into complaining about the "whoring out" of Pitfall (in recent PSX versions of the game). He responds by basically saying that it's ok for other developers who now own the rights to the Pitfall name, do as they please with their investment. This month's episode also has a review of that new act labs light gun.
Bill Budge's Pinball Construction Set was really great! It had all of these drag and drop pinball thingamajigers like flippers and bumpers and a targets. I remember it also had a way to set it up so that when certain things were triggered you could raise the bonus multiplier and such. Also you could change things like the gravity (i guess the slope of the board) and strength of the bumpers. And once you had made this really great pinball game you could go in with the paintbrush utility and put in your own custom artwork. Man, I remember I had like 10 5 1/4 inch floppies full of pinball games. Anyway thanks for the nostalgia, that really takes me back.
Visual Pinball sounds really cool, I wish there was a Linux port.