akator

I went a different route for the home automation. There are multiple brands of remote RF outlets available. I chose the Etekcity programmable 5-packs on Amazon. They're pretty cheap, usually under $30 US. Next I tried the Hook, a 2015 Kickstarter now available on Amazon. I ordered one from the crowd funding before they were available at retail. The Hook provides the RF outlets with a web interface (computers, phones, tablets), IFTTT, and Alexa. However, mine didn't last long. It had far less range than advertised, was cheaply constructed, overall buggy, and died after 5 months. Since then I've been using the Broadlink RM Pro (about $30-35 depending on source, mine came from eBay). It is much more reliable with better range. I've been happy with it. There's a way to bridge Alexa with the Broadlink, but I don't care enough to bother. Using Alexa to turn things on and off was cute for a few weeks, but after that it ended up as a "party trick" to amuse guests. Alexa didn't quite work out for us as I had hoped. These days it's mostly used as a voice activated alarm clock and timer, which is still pretty cool, but far less than expected. The music playback features are far too limiting for me and it rarely has the answers to the questions I ask. But as things are, I'm OK not using Alexa for home automation. The scheduled events for lights and devices take care of most of our needs and pressing a button on my phone to turn something on or off is still great.

I really appreciate Retromags, and I hate to complain -- but the homepage has gotten out-of-hand. Today, the homepage is 1166 pixels wide. The browser window needs to be even wider to be display Retromags without horizontal scrolling. Is there any way that be scaled back to be something more reasonable, say 1000 pixels wide? The site would display much more nicely on netbooks that way

Please keep me in mind when you are sizing down. If in good condition, I would be interested in acquiring your unwanted duplicates

Condolences to you and your family, Triverse.

I miss the magazines, but more importantly the sense of anticipation. Of course, I say that while actively participating in and consuming the same forms of internet media that have killed off so many printed publications

No. DS --> DS Lite + same price + significantly smaller + easier to hold + case redesign was more attractive, appealed to wider audience, looked "more expensive" DS Lite --> DSi + bigger brighter screens + SD card slot - higher price - lame low quality cameras - higher price - loss of GBA compatibility

I've got an Intel Mac, so those stupid pop-ups make me laugh as well. I use Parallels when running other OSes: Host | Mac OS X running Parallels | VM | Windows XP | VM | Windows Vista | VM | Windows Beta 7 | VM | Ubuntu

That sucks, but I'm glad to hear it wasn't a real fire and your family is safe That used to happen all the time the one year I lived in a dorm at college. It got so bad that people started sleeping in their clothes because at least 2-3 times a week the fire alarm would go off sometime between midnight and 5AM. It was very uncool. Fortunately, I've never had that happen anywhere or any time since then...

Definitely good news. Little Big Planet will make great portable game. Rock Band as well, but it's a little late jumping on that wagon to capitalize on the craze. I guess better late than never, right? LOL, you mean that isn't what it's going to look like? Next you'll be telling me the Easter Bunny isn't real It seems like every other preview I've seen in the last 10 years is a pre-rendered game intro or cut scene. Hot model chicks never magically appear when I drink popular brands of beer, either. The lies.... THE LIES! Who will save us from the lies?!!

Nice images, but I'm glad the original game graphics are clean, simple, and unrendered in 3D. I'm more than a little burned out on photo-realistic rendering in games and animations.

Agreed again The PSP has amazing games available for it, especially considering it's a handheld. Throughout the PSP's life, its games have been compared to the PS2. Rarely has anyone stepped back and said, "This amazing PS2 port is on a *gasp* handheld?!!!" For some strange reason, Sony hasn't pointed that out. There are tons of PSP games that are original as well. Somehow all of the PSP greatness has been lost in the shuffle. Sony hasn't promoted PSP games that should have been, and successful titles were cut short by limited production. How many late PSP adopters had a chance to buy Ridge Racer or Infected new in the store? Not many, because Sony killed early titles and they could only be purchased used. When companies complain about "used games" stealing revenue, they are themselves often to blame by not making the popular titles available throughout the game's potential lifespan. Not quite a rant

Not me. I intentionally make my repros grayscale and faded, yet still legible. I want my repros to look like repros. That way once I'm done collecting the CIB games I don't have yet, I can go back and collect CIB versions of the incomplete ones Obsessive / Compulsive. Yes, I know it.

That makes sense. But isn't that also counter-productive to business in general? Is that a common practice with game developers/publishers these days? If so, I expect that many more companies will be having trouble... Agreed completely. [rant] To add, Sony could really get a clue with the PS3 as well. All that bluster and no storm. Sure, they're gradually coming out with stuff now, but it's a day late and a dollar short. Ignoring the PS3 launch problems in the US, and how Sony completely screwed that up, a simple look at history provides some reasons for the PS3's problems. The PS2 had a lackluster launch library, but 1 year into the console's release there was a lot of SCE content. The third party developers/publishers followed and took over. 1 year after the PS3's release, there weren't enough SCE or 3rd party titles to justify buying the system for most people. 2 years into the console, and Sony was were they were at with the PS2 within the first 6 months. The PSP is an amazing blunder. It's interesting that PSP sales increased after the iPhone was released, and that the sleekness and coolness of the iPhone boosted the PSP. Makes me wonder just how much could have been possible, considering the PSP was available over 2 years before the iPhone... To Sony's credit, the PSP recently crossed 50M in hardware sales. Prior to the PSP, the Sega Game Gear was the only handheld not made my Nintendo to reach 10M. I suppose that is worth something... [/rant]

Yeah, that's a good question. From what I've read about past developers filing Chapter 11, it's almost always because they "advance" merchandise to the retailers. When the retailers can't meet the debt (like Circuit City), the developers and publishers are out of luck. When Circuit City declared bankruptcy, I remember reading some enormous figure of how much they owed game companies. I recall a TV interview (don't remember from where) in which a developer said Circuit City owed them over $6M, and Circuit City's bankruptcy would hurt the developer very badly. So why is Midway in debt to any of the retailers? I would think it would be the other way around. What did Toys R Us do that Midway would owe them over $500K?

Service Games was founded in 1952. In 1964, David Rosen merged his company with Service Games to form Sega. Sega's first video arcade game was released in 1972. They had massive arcade hits throughout the 80s. Sonic the Hedgehog was released in June 1991.

Ugh. I don't think that would enhance either of the experiences it combines. It strikes me as a solution looking for a problem that no one was aware of.

LOL

Sorry for the faux pas. I use Gamefly to try games before I buy them, which is a better alternative than downloads because you get to actually play the game and not an unreliable copy from who-knows-where. Gamely is also a lot easier than dealing with downloading. I do not condone piracy, especially for current games or software, as it cuts into the profits needed for developers to continue producing new work. Apparently I must live in a bubble where the people I know personally don't behave that way. My friends, relatives, and neighbors have all bought their favorite PSP games even if they played it before purchase. I think it has something to do about the physical copy being safe, whereas downloads easily "disappear" from hard drives for various reasons (especially with kids in the house). It's only a theory, but I suspect the games that have been hurt most by Gamefly and downloads are the below average titles. Years ago you had to buy a copy and be disappointed with your purchase. I sure bought a lot of stinkers in my day, and sometimes it even turned me off to gaming for a while so I stopped buying and playing altogether. Good reviews on websites and in magazines didn't prevent bad purchases. Thanks to Gamefly, I didn't have that experience with the PSP. If I hadn't, I would have been very disappointed by some of the games I was initially excited about playing -- and I would own only 5 PSP games instead of 53. Not mention that it emulates PSX games well. I've got over 400 PSX games, and the PSP does a pretty good job with most of them. Agreed, it's a great media device. For a while I was using it as a portable TV with a Location Free. I don't use it so often for streaming TV these days, but it's still fun once in a while. This has been Sony's problem from the start. Before the system was released, Sony promised many things. The homebrew community made up for Sony's lack of delivery. Sony could have embraced legitimate development, as they did with the PSX, and created official channels for user development while at the same time disabling the ability to play pirated games. Instead, Sony almost halted software development except with releases which only upgraded the software to prevent homebrew and piracy. I started using homebrew for emulation and internet radio. Internet radio was one of the things promised by Sony in 2004. A homebrew developer released PSPRadio in 2005. Sony released their less capable, slow, and limited internet radio player in December of 2007. Sony's version can't play internet radio stations I like, whereas PSPRadio uses Shoutcast. If Sony would get on the ball, one of my primary reasons for using PSP homebrew would disappear. Sony promised both free and paid network media content. That's still pretty much missing in the US. Many of the PSP's coolest games and gadgets never arrive in the US. We still don't have the GPS, camera, or the Talkman translation software/game. And why aren't great scrolling shooters making their way to the US? I love Star Soldier on the PSP. Why isn't Sony releasing more of their foreign titles to a hungry US market? With all of that said, I still like the PSP as a great portable gaming platform. It's too bad that Sony has missed the ball with all of the other possibilities.

I have a similar setup myself, with 2x 4GB Memory Sticks dedicated to emulation. It's a perfect pocket emulator, plus there are plenty of decent modern PSP games to choose from. Many have blamed piracy for killing official development for the PSP, but I disagree. I've downloaded my share of PSP games, but I've also bought many more than I ever planned. When I find a game that I like, I buy it to have a physical copy. When the system was new, I never imagined that I would have bought and kept over 50 games for it. There's nothing like having a physical copy for later on down the road, since if the PSP is anything like my other systems I'll still be playing it in 20 years

Unbound Saga looks like it could be interesting. I'm a big fan of the PSP, it sure would be nice to see more games for it. Last year there was a drought of PSP releases, sometimes no US releases for weeks...

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I'm curious what other peoples' favorites are/were. I can only remember a few off the top of my head... 07 Adventure 06 Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego 05 Beyond Castle Wolfenstein 04 Castle Wolfenstein 03 Arkanoid 02 Star Blazer 01 Conan What are your favorites? EDIT: Topic should read "Apple II" and not "Ii"... mistyping...

My preferred order would be Sega, Game Informer, EGM, GP Nintendo Guide... but whatever you scan will be appreciated

I've got the one that came out last year, not the one from 2000. The list may help you not feel bad about missing it... 100 Crackdown 360 099 Psychonauts PS2 098 Sensible Soccer Amiga 097 Tekken 3 PSX 096 Wipeout PSX 095 God of War PS2 094 Gitaroo Man PS2 093 Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door GC 092 Resident Evil GC 091 Super Smash Bros Melee GC 090 Devil May Cry PS2 089 Tomb Raider PSX 088 Sega Rally Championship Arcade 087 Mr. Driller GC 086 OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast Various 085 Silent Hill 2 PS2, Xbox 084 Phantasy Star Online DC 083 Nights Into Dreams Saturn 082 Lemmings Various 081 Robotron 2084 Arcade 080 Virtua Tennis 3 Various 079 The Secret of Monkey Island Various 078 Doom 2 Hell on Earth PC 077 Football Manager 2007 PC 076 Ikaruga DC, GC 075 Burnout 2 Point of Impact PS2, GC, Xbox 074 Thief The Dark Project PC 073 Puzzle Bobble Arcade 072 Killer7 GC, PS2 071 Ninja Gaiden Black Xbox 070 Ridge Racers 2 PSP 069 Pilotwings 64 N64 068 GTR - FIA GT Racing Game 2 PC 067 Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 360 066 F-Zero GX GC 065 Darwinia PC 064 System Shock 2 PC 063 Lumines PSP 062 Jet Set Radio Future Xbox 061 Manhunt PS2 060 Pac-Man VS GBA, GC 059 Star Fox 64 N64 058 Tempest 2000 Jaguar 057 Soul Calibur DC 056 Guitar Hero PS2 055 Counter-Strike PC 054 Chrono Trigger SNES 053 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 Various 052 Disgaea Hour of Darkness PS2 051 Pokemon Ruby Sapphire GBA 050 Shenmue DC 049 Animal Crossing GC 048 Puyo Pop Fever Various 047 Far Cry PC 046 Quake III PC 045 Company of Heroes PC 044 Super Mokey Ball GC 043 Bomberman Various 042 Rome Total War PC 041 Gran Turismo 4 PS2 040 Warioware Inc Minigame Mania GBA 039 Secret of Mana SNES 038 Virtua Fighter 5 PS3 037 Starcraft PC 036 Battlefield 2 PC 035 Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty PS2, Xbox 034 R-Type Final PS2 033 Castlevania Symphony of the Night 360, PSX 032 Project Gotham Racing 2 Xbox 031 Katamari Damacy PS2 030 Shadow of the Colossus PS2 029 Deus Ex PC 028 Perfect Dark N64 027 Rez DC, PS2 026 Advance Wars GBA 025 Simcity 2000 Mac, PC 024 Prince of Persia The Sands of Time GC, PS2 023 Metroid Prime GC 022 World of Warcraft Mac, PC 021 Okami PS2 020 Civilization IV Mac, PC 019 Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion 360, PC, PS3 018 Final Fantasy VII *** PSX, they said PS2 *** 017 Goldeneye 007 N64 016 Street Fighter Anniversary PS2, Xbox 015 Pro Evolution Soccer 6 PS2 014 Super Mario Kart SNES 013 Ico PS2 012 Grand Theft Auto Vice City PS2, Xbox, PC 011 Yoshi's Island SNES 010 Super Metroid SNES 009 Tetris Various 008 Final Fantasy XII PS2 007 Halo Combat Evolved Xbox 006 Zelda A Link to the Past SNES 005 Super Mario World SNES 004 Half-Life 2 PC 003 Super Mario 64 N64 002 Resident Evil 4 GC, PS2 001 Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time N64 Does anyone else see the many, many things wrong with this list? I can find many, but I'll only point out this: it's titled "The Top 100 Games of All Time," and only a handful of games predate 1995...

Yeah, I suspected that you playing Saturn wasn't the real cause of the breakup The only time my wife has complained about gaming was when I had non-stop marathons that lasted over two weeks. Over the last few years she has joked that I'm having a mid-life crisis because of my game collecting hobby, but she also says that it's a lot better than buying a Porche or having a mistress. Plus, she likes some of the old games as well...

Wow, the way you told that story is kinda pathetic. Then again, it sounds like the two of you were just incompatible... My girlfriends, then my wife, have always been happy when I stayed at home playing games because that meant I wasn't out drinking or getting into trouble.