ctophil

I'm currently playing L.A. Noire for Xbox 360. Definitely another good adventure game in my book. The facial animations are awesome. They made it so you can figure out people's facial expressions to see if they are lying or telling the truth during the game's interrogation scenes. I also like the car and foot chase scenes, as well as the slower-paced investigation moments. It reminds me of the Phoenix Wright games mixed with Grand Theft Auto (you can grab any car in the streets by showing your cop badge).

Hi everybody, it looks like Nintendo Force Magazine's first issue (Jan/Feb 2013) is now available to purchase. It's like $17.99 for just one print issue and $4.99 for the digital version. No subscription available at this time. They said it does not have any ads, so the price does justify for that. It is a magazine made by fans of Nintendo Power. They even said it's not Nintendo Power, but more of a tribute. Check it out: http://nintendoforcemagazine.com/ Update: E-Day says Nintendo Force subscription is available. Woohoo! Subscribe time! :-)

Sure, below are a couple of forums and web sites I visit on a daily basis. They are very passionate about classic games and will be glad to help out. I'm an active member of the first one. So tell them I sent ya. Just post in the general gaming discussion thread. We talk about classic games there. The second one has very high traffic so that you'll get a bigger response on your survey. 1. http://www.jce3000gt.com/forum/index.php 2. http://www.retrocollect.com/forum/

Oh yeah, I heard of Scratches and Barrow Hill, not sure about The Lost Crown (I will look into it though). I wanted to play Scratches a couple of years ago but got too scared to touch it. lol. In fact, there are some parts in Silent Hill 2 that made me stop playing it all together. Fatal Frame series also come to mind. I used to play those games with two other friends, and we still jumped! haha. There is another game that kinda got me started with Adventure Games was D on the Sega Saturn. That game was weird. Even today, I'm not quite sure if the main character was getting flashbacks of her family or some other family being cannibals or something. But it has to be the shortest adventure game of all time, like 2 hours long I believe.

Cool, I always want to support indie movie or game development in some form or another. I just put in my two cents. Good luck and have fun, let me know if you need my feedback or help in any way.

You know, I'm a big RPG gamer as everyone else here on this forum. But there is one genre that hasn't been talked about much thus far: Adventure Games. Though the gameplay is never as in depth as an RPG (nothing else is more in depth anyways), Adventure Games usually has a fantastic story, dramatic music & sound, and very well developed characters. One of the most fun and interesting aspect of Adventure Games is choice. Especially modern ones, the choice you choose makes a very dramatic impact on the story and changes in the characters' behaviors on how they respond to you, either they are your friend, forgive you and stay neutral, or betray you. This surely also impacts the ending and important events in the game. So, the Adventure genre is in some ways similar to RPGs with the story elements but brought to even more in depth interactive storytelling. I love the genre, probably even more so than RPGs sometimes. Though the gameplay is fairly basic, Adventure Games have the potential to really make leaps and bounds in the near future with better technology. You might be familiar with the old King's Quest series on the PC. Those were very early adventure titles. People sometimes call them "Point & Click" adventures. These days, however, the genre has evolved to point, click, puzzle-solving, timed button events, and uses of the Xbox 360 Kinect and Playstation Move for more interaction. Adventure games require a lot of reading and watching the story unfold, but you're already used to that with RPGs, no? Hehe. Listed below are some of the best Adventure games I played on various systems so you can get started with the genre if you ever so inclined. Nintendo DS 1. 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors -- Fantastic story and moral choices, affecting the numerous different endings and branching story events you can get. Nice anime-style character portraits. Highly recommended. 2. Again -- This has a lot of investigating, manipulating with your stylus to check clues and stuff. Story is cool as well with many twists and turns. 3. Hotel Dusk -- Nice adventure mystery in a hotel. A lot of investigating similar to the title above. Super twist towards the end of the game. 4. Phoenix Wright series -- This series is also on the Wiiware. More murder mystery solving as Attorney Phoenix Wright. It's a funny game with extremely dramatic and funky characters in the court sessions--the highlight of the series. Highly recommended as well. 5. Lux Pain -- This one is more a modern day supernatural title. You sometimes fight odd-looking demons and stuff using the stylus. The storyline can be off-the-wall at times. But it has cool anime cut scenes and anime chicks you can woo if you enjoy that kind of stuff. lol. PC 1. King's Quest Series -- As I said, this series was back in the 1990s. A lot of point and click, but still fun even in today's standards. 2. Syberia I & II (Syberia III just started in development) -- Fantastic adventure and mystery even until the very end of the game. It also has this feel of "fantasy" in a modern setting throughout the game. Makes you feel like you are discovering an ancient world. Cool story. 3. Gabriel Knight series -- Although I never got a chance to play too much of the series, it was great from what I played. The story has a conspiracy and mystery vibe to it the whole time, very interesting. This was also back in the 1990s. But that was during the dawn of the best adventure games ever. 4. Broken Sword series -- Another mystery and conspiracy series. I played only the first one, but still very good. Nice graphics & animation for the 1990s. I believe Broken Sword 3 & 4 came out later for the consoles as well after the year 2000. They are still working on a new Broken Sword as we speak. 5. Myst -- Eh, too much puzzle-solving with hardly any story. It is still the one of the best-seller in the genre. Playstation 2 1. Indigo Prophecy (this is on PC & Xbox as well) -- This was a murder thriller. However, as you play the game, it will open up to a very secret mystery that you will never guess until the very end. Super highly recommended! This game got me back into adventure games back in 2006 from a long slumber. This should be your first adventure game if you never tried out the genre yet, since it encompasses all of the best attributes from the genre and gives you a good understanding of it. 2. Shadow of Destiny -- I have this game but never got to play. But it is still recommended by the adventure community. Playstation 3 1. Heavy Rain -- From the makers of Indigo Prophecy, this one has moral choices you can make to change the story events and ending. Top-notch game you should not miss playing before you die. Also compatible with Playstation Move. 2. The Walking Dead (also available on Xbox 360 & PC)-- I just finished playing this one. I highly recommend this one as well. This game will truly affect you emotionally since what you do or say will affect a group morality of survival and future events of the game, including a future season coming out this year. The first season (which is available now) has 5 episodes. Each episode is about 2-3 hours of gameplay. Love it, go buy it now. lol. 3. Beyond: Two Souls -- This one will be coming out sometime this year, also from the makers of Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain. The game stars a young lady who is running away from a SWAT Team. Not sure why she is escaping from them yet, but she has supernatural abilities via a astral entity following her around who gives her these abilities. Quite interesting, be on a lookout for it. If you want more lowdowns on all the cool adventure games (back in the day or recently), go to http://www.adventuregamers.com'>http://www.adventuregamers.com to do some reading.

The Neo Geo X can be plugged into a regular CRT TV via RCA (A/V cables) or a HDTV via HDMI. I tested on both. It looks great on a standard TV with no slowdown nor any lags whatsoever. It has higher specs than the original AES, so I wouldn't expect it to have lag issues. http://www.thebitbag.com/2012/09/11/neo-geo-gold-details-emerged/ The resolution is exactly the same as the AES. On a HDTV, it looks darker and not much of an improvement, since they kept it authentic by not trying to upscale or anything. If you have a HDTV Widescreen, it will play in the standard square resolution, unless you stretch it using the widescreen feature on your TV. The system does come with both A/V and HDMI cables. I recommend you play it on a regular TV to get the full AES experience like back in the 90s. The portable system's screen is vibrant and clear. It plays in widescreen by default. You can press one of the shoulder buttons to toggle between regular and widescreen. The portable system is nicely designed and feels very similar to the PSP. The rubber backside feels very comfortable and high-quality with a SNK Neo Geo logo embossed on the back.

I would rather buy gold bars with $27,000. Real gold last longer and can be sold to anybody who got the cash, not just to gamers with money to burn. lol.

Yeah, I have been playing with my Neo Geo X for a month now, and the system is awesome. The arcade joystick gives it a very authentic feeling of playing the original AES. On the go, you just take out the portable to game. I'd say it's the poor man's Neo Geo if you can't afford the original. I still can't believe how powerful the Neo Geo was back in 1990 when it was released. The graphics are simply very colorful, and the sprites are very large compared to the SNES and Sega Genesis of the same era. I recommend the Neo Geo X if you are never going to get the AES. It still has more games than trying to buy individual cartridges for the AES, which you will end up spending over $2,000 bucks easily. I do hope they will release more games in the future in SD Card form like Ninja Masters that came with the Neo Geo X Gold.

Well, downloadable games are one thing, but streaming games are coming as well. Those don't need hard drives. They just stream directly to your TV like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, etc. The Onlive service started the whole thing (http://www.onlive.com). The game is hosted on servers remotely and stream directly to your PC or console. Onlive has a little console you connect to the TV for that as well This does make consoles real cheap, since the servers handle all the work of processing the game. And you don't need a real high-end PC to play certain games. It's all beamed directly to your rig. Gamestop is working on their streaming service as we speak (http://www.joystiq.com/2012/09/06/gamestop-streaming-service-to-include-demos-possibly-extra-game/). I assume a company like Gamestop would have contracts with many different publishers to sell games via their streaming service in the future. Every title that people stream, they get a cut in the deal, very similar to cable companies and streaming folks like Netflix and Hulu. The middle man will always be there, since they have the marketing muscle to get games to people so that developers, publishers, and console manufacturers can focus on making games.

Even if Nintendo Power, Gamepro, or any other old magazines resurrect in digital form only, I'm not going to subscribe. It may be convenient and cheaper for publishers to release magazines in digital form, I'm never going to buy into it. Just like the movie rental industry changing to download/streaming (aka Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc.), the video game magazine industry is doing the same thing. Believe it or not, video games in general are changing slowly to digital only as well. The next-gen systems are already talking about very large hard drives for downloadable games, perhaps even streaming games (Gamestop, Onlive, and others are supporting this). Digital is the future, and I don't like it.

Looks like the AVGN's Youtube channel is back up again. I don't think a little copyright issue will put James down. If so, you would have thousands of protesters at Washington D.C. in a matter of days. And you thought the middle east wars were bad. lol. But seriously, all the games he reviewed were over 20 years old. Kinda like the magazines we post here on retromags. People actually take those old games and hack them to create something different all the time without any copyright issues. So I don't see why James would have an issue with just showing content from those games.

Well, if you read the patent carefully, the game discs are associated with your PS4 user name you created when you first booted up the system. The user name can be transferred to another system later on, as long as you know the password. I heard Microsoft is doing something similar with the next Xbox as well. So the next generation might be a bummer for folks who want to buy or sell used games. But yeah, this would destroy 70% of all Gamestop sales, Ebay, Craigslist, or any used games avenue. Personally, I don't have a problem with it because all I buy are new games, and I keep them forever. Even 20 year old games, I still buy them new, despite the high cost. Remember though that hackers will always be on the case as soon as the PS4 comes out. If you really want to get used games, there will always be a way. Despite PC DRM, hackers always managed to get games working. I don't condone such actions. But if you want it badly, there's a way around it.

Yep, I find myself enjoying older games on the Super NES, Genesis, and Playstation/PS2 more often these days. I only play new games with my friends online. Seems older games are just more fun to play. Simple as that. The small, downloadable games though have the more old-school feel. You should try those.

Whoa, very cool. They said the final issue would be awesome. Looks like they are living up to those standards. So as Nintendo Power is closing its doors, the video game industry is closing its old age and dawn of a new one. You may like or dislike it. But it is growing up and becoming more mature, although somewhat childish at times, just like a person going through their growth phases. However, we have yet to see its prime. We are still seeing its teenage years. Get ready for it and embrace the new age of video games.

Hey everybody, Just bought this Gobots DVD miniseries. Man, it took forever for this mostly unknown TV series to hit DVD. Can't wait for the rest of the episodes to get the DVD treatment. I remember as a kid, the Gobots would come on TV at around the same time as The Transformers. I even owned a few toys as well! Gobots were not as good as The Transformers. However, the series had its own charm. Grab your own copy at Amazon.com if you remember the Gobots: http://www.amazon.co...keywords=gobots

I surely agree. It's like a time capsule about video games in time past. Just like ancient scriptures and books, they capture a chronological history of events that happened in print form that you can pass to future generations about the roots of video games and where it came from. Sure, you can design a web page to talk about video game history; but can you really create that inspiration and feeling you hold in your hands from a magazine that was printed in 1989? The mood and excitement that journalists wrote in 1989 are totally different from today's perspective. My Nintendo Power and EGM magazines will never be sold to anyone. It will remain in my archives for many generations as a part of history.

Awesome. This movie is a long time coming, but all worth it. James (The Nerd, main actor in the movie) is very talented and is extremely passionate about making movies. If you're a long time follower of AVGN, you know he started making videos and short movies since he was a little boy with many and varied subject matters as video games, horror, classical drama, comedy, action/adventure, etc. That's why I support his dreams of making a full-length movie wholeheartedly. This is his first attempt, and I assure you it's an entertaining and wonderful, comedic ride full of surprises. Even with a pretty low budget, it will rival some of the best Hollywood movies out there. AVGN: The Movie will hit independent and some theaters across the nation, hopefully, sometime next year. There is not a solid release date yet as he has got a lot of filming in the east coast left to do, as well as tons of editing from the movie shots made in CA earlier this year. The online version, DVD, and Blu-Ray will be on sale shortly afterwards. So when it does come out, support James in his greatest endeavor so far by picking up a copy. :-)

Cool, AVGN is awesome. I helped funded the upcoming AVGN movie since last year. The movie trailer is hitting CA and PA via special events this month, as well as the online version in a week or so. I'll post a link here when it comes out.

Ah, the eventual death of physical video game magazines. Soon, the Official Xbox mag will close down, followed by the rest going fully digital: Game Informer, @Gamer, and EGM. Watch for it. I don't want that to happen. It's just inevitable.

Yep, I already got mine pre-ordered from Amazon.com! Man, I wanted the Neo Geo for the past 15 years! It was just too expensive. I'm so glad they re-released in a modern form. Phew, I haven't bought a console on launch date since the Sega Saturn! lol.

Well, when EGM first relaunched, the egmmag.com site had new issues come out like once a week or 4 times a month. As you can see, no new digital issues have come out for a few months. My ipass code still works. Not sure if new subscribers have any problems. As for the physical mags, they are currently on a bi-monthly subscription or once every two months. However, they have stopped putting the months on the cover since the last issue # 256. So technically, physical mags are still reaching people's mailboxes, albeit quite late most of the time. Send an email to customer service about your ipass code. They still respond to you but may be clueless about the current status of EGM.

I'll probably wait until the Wii U gets more games. I usually wait about 1-2 years after a console launches anyway. The last system I bought at launch was the Sega Saturn, lol. Although, I am quite interested in the Neo Geo X Gold. http://www.neogeox.com After all these years, I still can't afford the original Neo Geo. I think it's high time for me to own one with this re-release console.