A Bass Guitar Made From... a C64?

Yes indeed. That is a Commodore 64 being used as a base guitar. It's legit too. As you'll see in the video, the sound passes through the SID chip, and you can even change the waveforms.  Makes for some very interesting sounds.

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GUT REACTION REVIEW: Hana Taka Daka!?

GUT REACTION REVIEW: Hana Taka Daka!?

Genre: Shoot 'em up

Company: Taito
Platform: PC Engine

By: Chris "Sledge" Douglas

An anthropomorphized fox gets slammed against a wall.  A female of the species looks on, seemingly concerned.  It seemed like furry bait at first, and if that's all it was, it would have me a bit worried.

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Pasokon Sunday - Emulation Software - パソコンサンデー パソコン新時代!! エミュレーションソフト (1987)

Damn...


What I thought would have been an interesting episode showing early attempts at what we know as emulation... just ends up being a very dry episode teaching their audience about the mechanics of emulation in excrutiating detail. Later they bring up "desktop emulation." Yawn.

This may be interesting to some who may be interested, but for me, it was a snoozefest with very little going for it.

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My Two Cents On The Whole Zoe Quinn Thing... - DA DERP!

Of course, I've never been one to shy away from saying "me too" when it came to an interesting already discussed-to-death topic, so here we go!

I have no concern about the woman's sex life. I have had great friendships with those who are monogamous, polyamourous, whatever. You can live your life however you like.

I am a little concerned with the state of gaming journalism, as I believe it's a microcosm of what is happening with mainstream journalism. There's a bit too much of "lemme give you something for a good review of my game" in today's industry. It's pretty much like how in the mainstream major news outlets don't report on a lot of things that legislators do, because they're afraid of "losing access." Sure the dynamic is a bit inverted, but I hope you get what I'm saying.

But I've heard enough of this stuff lately. It's time to focus on something else.

LIKE THIS GUY's TETRIS ABILITIES!


So what if it's 7 years old!? It's still incredible.

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When CP/M had a chance to be as pervasive as DOS...

Hilarious stolen image aside, it's true. At one point, CP/M was in the running for IBM's main operating system. Of course, we all know the nod went to Microsoft. But, in this edition of the Computer Chronicles from 1995, we get to hear about not only about this, but we get a great rundown of the life of a man who was (and still is) a software icon.

I personally was all about CP/M when I was a kid... mostly due to the fact it shipped with my Commodre 128D (which, unsurprisingly) I STILL own.

Sadly, this past July would have been the TWENTIETH anniversary of his tragic passing.

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So here's a rabbit puppet talking about an old dial up service...

Sure it's public access... sure it was made contemporaneously to the service itself... but I...

I don't even know what this is.

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Apple Macintosh Forerunner Apple Lisa TV Demonstration from 1984!

)

Recorded in 1984, this computer, which sold for $10,000 dollars by the way, was as mentioned in the title, the forerunner to the Macintosh.

In fact, the OS has A LOT in common with the first version of MacOS, and thus, much in common with today's GUIs.

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SITE UPDATE: MENU BETA TESTING

Hey guys... sorry about the lack of updates recently, but we're back!

AND... we're testing a new menu system!

Ok... it doesn't look very good right now...

But we are indeed working on it.


More content to come!

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VIDEO GAMES ARE DANGEROUS!!! WATCH OUT!!!11!!!

Like yesterday's article, this report from Channel 4 in New York from the early 90's is about video games (of course) and their effects on childresn. However, UNLIKE yesterday's video, which was certainly much more optimistic in tone and outcome, THIS one was designed to leach off the fears psrents had about the games their children played. Mentioned here were primarily fighting games like Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat.

As this was around the time that the industry and US government were starting to consider the ratings question, which culminated in the enstatement of the ESRB. It's amazing to consider the fact that the over-protective ideas of a super PC generation still affect us video gamers today, more than 20 years after all this!


Source: News 4 New York

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Video Games Are A Relatively Harmless Distraction (1988)

NUTS FOR NINTENDO! (20/20 report from 1988)


Join John Stossel as he tries to figure out why kids of 1988 loved video games!

Thrill as he gets yelled at by kids for asking dumb questions!

Interesting note, this report also mentions the video game crash of 1983, and the Dragon Quest fad in Japan. It even lightly touches on the video game violence controversy, which we will be seeing much more of on this blog over the next week or so.

Oh yeah, and according to this report, there were only 2 CATEGORIES OF VIDEO GAMES... sports and adventure.

... also there were LINES FOR SUPER MARIO BROS. 2... which may or may not have been created by limited production runs.

SMB2 is indeed one of my favorite games ever... but apparently not as much as this one kid:

Stossel: What do you like about it?

Kid: Birdo. It shoots eggs out of its nose.

Well said, kid. Well said.


Source: ABC, 20/20

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Well, if you like your NES game footage mixed with 90s pop...

... then THIS video is for you! Because that's ALL it is!

Seriously. Gameplay footage and music. Like Street Fighter 2010 and Janet Jackson's Rythm Nation.

It's like YouTube circa 2006, pre-copyright blitz.


It's called the Nintendo Preview Music Jam by Ultra Hot Video. And people BOUGHT this.


In fact, SO many people bought it that many more volumes were produced!


The music includes:
- "Rebel Without a Pause" by Public Enemy
- "The Humpty Dance" by Digital Underground
- Janet Jackson songs like "Nasty", "Rhythm Nation", "When I Think of You", "What Have I Done With You Lately", "All I Give", "Control" and "Escapade",
- "Gonna Make You Sweat" by C+C Music Factory
- "The Boomin' System" - by LL Cool J

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SAAACKED!!! (For too many wrong decisions...)

Another great skit by Peter Serafinowicz and his Brian Butterfield character.

To hell with Madden... THIS is how motion controls and sports games SHOULD be!

Source: BBC

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Sledge's Gaming Journal - Wet's Forced Challenges... Where to begin? (Literally!)

By: Chris "Sledge" Douglas


So I'm playing Bethesda's Wet and I'm actually liking it. The action is fun, the cutscenes are interesting, and the overall ambiance is really good. I'm not at all happy about the forced tutorials, as those are some of my biggest pet peeves in modern gaming, but I was able to finish them eventually and overall it was a forgivable offense in this case because the game is so damn fun.

However, it all came to a screeching halt in the boneyard challenge stage.

The game went from indicating everywhere you needed to be for certain events to happen, to not telling me a damn thing about where anything is. Sure, it tells me to go to the start position, but it never mentions WHERE the hell those start positions were. Even looking online at some FAQ's did nothing, as both walkthrough FAQs said NOTHING about where those starting points were.

Look, I'm all for modern games not holding our hands through the entire thing. Some games, like Arkham City, do too much of the hand holding I feel, making the game experience feel, while fun, like a guided tour of things rather than me playing a game. The intro stages to Wet seemed to indicate these in a very standard and logical manner. However, as soon as I get that boneyard stage, there is ZERO indication of anything other than where I can do some flippy doos from.

Until I can get SOME hint as to what to do, I'm gonna have to put this one down for a while, maybe to try again in, oh, maybe 2 years or so.

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Japanese Super Mario Question Block Commerical is... Pretty Cool!

Not really much to say here.

It's a commercial.

With kids hitting a GIGANTIC Mario question box!

It's... not bad!

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FOR SALE!!!

I'm not a rich man... and it pains me to do this... but I MUST sell some items from my video game and classic PC collection!

Every item sold will be re-invested into our small business!

Feel free to make an offer!

Atari's Haunted House from 1981

Imagic's Star Voyager for the Atari 2600, from 1982

Giant Gram 2000 for the Sega Dreamcast

Toukon Retsuden 4 for the Sega Dreamcast

Zenith ZVM-121 Vintage Composite Monitor

Apple III Monitor, for Apple II Systems

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Apple's view of the future from the 1990s

Some views of the future are exciting and full of change!

Others are more... meh.

But the 'meh' ones DO tend to be a bit more accurate.


Such is the case with THIS one from Apple!

The things predicted here include, GET THIS, a small, almost PAD-LIKE object that humans are able to communicate and take notes through. They also predict that videos on computers will remain tiny, artifacted messes, and floppy disks will remain a part of computing... FOREVER.


...


THE FUTURE!!!

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How To Score More Points On Nintendo Games (Featuring "World Video Game Champion," Skip Rogers

By: Chris "Sledge" Douglas

I've found it! I've finally found it!

I read about this thing back in the late 99 or early 2000... a tips and tricks video by none other than the WORLD VIDEO GAME CHAMPION, SKIP ROGERS!

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Old News: Jack Thompson is a Jerk

I know, I know. Hell, everyone who follows gaming regularly knows that the above statement is true. Regardless, I was introduced to this video by YouTube subscriber Sore Thumbs (thanks!) and really wanted to share it here. It was produced by purepwnage.com:




If you DON'T know about Mr. Jack Thompson, here is a snippet of the intro to his Wikipedia page:

John Bruce "Jack" Thompson (born July 25, 1951) is an American activist and disbarred attorney, based in Coral Gables, Florida. Thompson is known for his role as an anti-video-game activist, particularly against violence and sex in video games.

During his time as an attorney, Thompson focused his legal efforts against what he perceives as obscenity in modern culture. This included rap music, broadcasts by shock jock Howard Stern, the content of computer and video games and their alleged effects on children.

He is also known for his unusual filings to the Florida Bar, including challenging the constitutionality of the Florida Bar itself in 1993. Later the Florida Supreme Court would describe his filings as "repetitive, frivolous and insulting to the integrity of the court". On March 20, 2008, the Florida Supreme Court imposed sanctions on Thompson, requiring that any of his future filings in the court be signed by a member of the Florida Bar other than himself.

In July 2008, Thompson was permanently disbarred by the Supreme Court of Florida for inappropriate conduct, including making false statements to tribunals and disparaging and humiliating litigants.

So yeah, there's that.

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The White Tanooki Suit... Beneficial or Bull? - DA DERP!

By: Chris "Sledge" Douglas

There's a bit of a heated debate over Nintendo's inclusion of what could be perhaps the most game-breaking power up in recent memory... the White Tanooki Suit!

This suit has many features of the original suit from Super Mario Bros. 3, and was indeed one of my favorite suits, right before the Hammer Bros. suit, and and after the frog suit.  But Nintendo tried to do... well something different this time.  I was tipped off by this video from Mike Matei of Cinemassacre:


While I don't find myself engaged with Matei's style of review (as it often sounds too unnatural, and Mike, more so than the Nerd himself, LOVES to get juvenile with his jokes, making for a usually abhorrent viewing experience.  But this time... I MUST agree with him.

And now for a little rant.

NOTHING irritates me more in games than the developers thinking that we would be completely lost without our hands being held the entire way through.  Granted, I grew up in an era where games where much more technologically primitive, and such conveniences were not possible, but does the mainstream marketplace REALLY need this type of thing ALL THE TIME???  This thing literally acts as an invincibility suit that lasts for THE REST OF THE GAME if you choose to keep it!

I'm not against the concept of it... hell, make it a special cheat code thing.  But when the game responds to your mistakes with a "press a button to win the game" type of feature, it really makes me wonder where we are in gaming.

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1 QUARTER RUN - Soulcalibur IV, with OJ-FWA's So Ryung Park! - PRIXEL DERP

Welcome to yet another edition of the 1 QUARTER RUN!

This time, I take on Soucalibur IV's arcade mode!

I know it's outdated, but I really wanted to crack this one open and give it a go. NO CONTINUES.

This one is special, however. In this edition, I am using arguably Matsumoto TV's most popular character, So Ryung Park!




If you want to know more about Park's "story," please check out her Official Bio Page!

Produced by Sledgecorp Productions - http://sledgecorpproductions.blogspot.com

SPONSORS:
Pete and Chris Amusements
http://peteandchrisamusements.blogspot.com

OJ-FWA Pro-Wrestling
http://sports.geocities.jp/ojfwawrestling

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