Never have you ever

[Enoch07]

I like the taste of cheese better than wine.

I always wondered since I was a kid why Mario 2 was always different from the rest. Didn't find out until I started YouTubin'.

My first console was an NES, so I was an inexperienced gamer then, and still suck now. NES games used to **** me off because they were harder for me than any of the other console games. I had to sell all mine when I moved abroad. I had an NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, Wii, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Game Gear, Saturn, PS1. Broke my heart to part with them. Now I all I have is a DS Light and what you have, the SNES with 20 preloaded games. Super Mario World 2, Link to the Past and Donkey Kong Country gets the most play.

Anyway, video games was my life as a kid. If it wasn't for video games such as Mortal Kombat, (blood code enabled, of course) there'd be a lot more murdered GI Joes and Barbies buried in the backyard than usual.

I was only good at strategy and race car games. My brother and cousin would kick my butt on fighting games/shooters.

Let's see I've had the Atari 5600 for like a month maybe, lolz. NES, original gameboy but returned it because it was p00p, then SNES>N64>Sega Saturn>PS1>Sega DreamCast>PS2>Nintendo Gamecube>PS3>PSP>Xbox360>PS4 and then the SNES classic. With a short stint as a PC gamer with an OP AlienWare setup in between Xbox360 and PS4.

Mostly PS4 now but I'm super selective of my games. Just finished Final Fantasy 15 finally and Subnautica. I pick up Ark time to time but it's super time consuming breeding dinosaurs for mutations. Still trying to play No Mans Sky but its gotten so big now its daunting. Mostly I an just waiting for the Final Fantasy 7 remake that's coming out next year. Because it's my all time favorite game. I've bought a couple of times already twice on ps1, 1 steam copy for computer, 1 copy on my ps3, and when it comes out on ps4 will make my 5th purchase of the same game. Of course I did the same thing for FF4 (2) Had 1 copy on SNES, then bought a copy to use on my cuz 3ds, them bought a remake/expansion for PSP called the after years. Mostly I play a app game called Dissidia Final Fantasy Operan Omnia which has a lot characters from every sequel of the game (1-15) including playable "bad guy" characters.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I was also a "grunger" as a teen. I never considered myself old until I heard them play Nirvana on the classic rock station. Depression ensued.

First time I heard Alice in Chains on a classic rock station, my thoughts weren't depression, it was more along the lines of "how dare those ******* call me old! I was above the age crowd of Harry Potter when it came out, so I'm not young young, but I'm not old!" 'Classic' is Zeppelin, Beatles, the Mamas and the Papas, the Animals, and the Stones. Stuff my mom grew up with. It's not Metallica, dammit!

 

[Enoch07]

It's still harder than any other console. Metroid and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles still feast on the tears and frustrations of the unaware and unsuspecting to this day. Not at the rate they used to, but every once in awhile something will happen to cause a younger gamer to play them. And there is much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

Hardest game I ever played on NES?

Maybe Friday the 13th? It was relentless. The first TMNT was brutal as well I agree with ya there!

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

I've owned a Nintendo Switch, XBox One X, etc. But I've sold all of them upon realizing what money-pits they were and how I didn't like investing so much money in them, getting back what money I could. I have a collection of retro games but some of them are too old to play on my TV. So I play classics on Raspberry Pi, many of which have better gameplay than new games anyway, and some games still look pretty good, like Sonic Advance (Gameboy Advance).

 

[Shadow Wolf]

original gameboy but returned it because it was p00p

Auch! I spent many an hour playing Tetris and Space Invaders on the original gameboy. It itself wasn't really that good, hardly better than those single hand held game thingies from around the same time, but those two games devoured many hours of my childhood. As did Tetris on the NES. And later PS1. And I haven't liked any version since the PS1.

NES, original gameboy but returned it because it was p00p, then SNES>N64>Sega Saturn>PS1>Sega DreamCast>PS2>Nintendo Gamecube>PS3>PSP>Xbox360>PS4 and then the SNES classic.

I've had all those except the Sega Saturn and DreamCast, but I have an original XBox and a NES and Genesis classic. And a Gameboy advanced, pretty much for Castlevania and Metroid. With Castlevania being the main reason I want to get a DS with a small price tag eventually.
But I do know I'm not getting and XBox 1 and probably not a PS5. Gaming sucks anymore. The PS2/XBox had some good games, but after the PS1/N64 it seems like the main focus just became on making the games more pretty at the expense of the quality of game and story. Games like Contra may be overkill on difficulty, but at least it's a game, a real game, and actual game, and without constant and excessive hand holding to get you through and hands everywhere reaching for money. Battletoads requires skill and commitment. Assassins Creed requires holding a tiny wanna be joystick forward and pressing a button when the screen tells you to. It will even show you, in game, where to go next and what to do next.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

This may sound crazy, but I consider games creepier on the N64 than on new consoles. The programmable shaders of new consoles make things pretty rather than ugly, quite often, so it's hard to make graphics look horrific.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Hardest game I ever played on NES?

Maybe Friday the 13th? It was relentless. The first TMNT was brutal as well I agree with ya there!

Between the first Turtles game, Contra, and the first Castlevania I'm not sure what the hardest I've played is. It's one of those three though. Technically probably Castlevania, because it does have a hard mode, but I've never attempted because the normal mode is more than sufficiently hard enough as it is. Metroid and Punch-Out deserve honorable mentions, as does Kung-Fu for being the most deceptively difficult game that looks extremely easy but just is not that has ever existed. It also sets the record for being the most humble game that delivers the most brutal of *** kickings before you even realized just how bad you got beat up, lol.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I want another Mortal Kombat to stir up tons of "OH MY GOD!" controversy. I doubt I could get into it today, but at least then even if you sucked at the games there was still the pleasure in the shock it gave the adults. And it was easier to play than Magic: The Gathering as I just needed a friend with a cartridge, rather than a spare deck, lol. (I wasn't allowed either)

 

[Enoch07]

I thought he was in his 50's, too. Those toons were part of my childhood as well. (Don't forget She-Ra.)

I was also a "grunger" as a teen. I never considered myself old until I heard them play Nirvana on the classic rock station. Depression ensued.

Oh yeah still love ThunderCats! To this day! Considering getting into the ThunderCat action figure game.

Alice in Chains technically was the first mainstream label signed grunge band, in 88 iirc. Though Nirvana were without question the Gods of grunge. I loved Nirvana a lot, but my go to is Stone Temple Pilots, Scott Weiland's talent was underrated and ahead of it's time, I even have his solo albums (Happy in Galoshes is epic btw). But of course I love Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Live, Soul Asylum, Collective Soul, etc, etc. ah ha here's one for ya.

 

[Enoch07]

This may sound crazy, but I consider games creepier on the N64 than on new consoles. The programmable shaders of new consoles make things pretty rather than ugly, quite often, so it's hard to make graphics look horrific.

Yeah the n64 had some quirkiness. Zelda was awesome on it though.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I never played Metroid, but I'll take your word for it because you know how hard TMNT was. I never beat most games on the NES, that game included.

It's not the hardest NES game, but it's definitely not the easiest.

 

[Enoch07]

I want another Mortal Kombat to stir up tons of "OH MY GOD!" controversy. I doubt I could get into it today, but at least then even if you sucked at the games there was still the pleasure in the shock it gave the adults. And it was easier to play than Magic: The Gathering as I just needed a friend with a cartridge, rather than a spare deck, lol. (I wasn't allowed either)

MTG is still going believe it or not. I got back into again like 10 years ago during their like 20th expansion, but even now they still keep it going, they even got a couple of digital games you can download and play against real people online now. But yeah the card game is still going strong you can buy the cards at Target, Walmart,.Walgreens etc.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Alice in Chains technically was the first mainstream label signed grunge band, in 88 iirc. Though Nirvana were without question the Gods of grunge. I loved Nirvana a lot, but my go to is Stone Temple Pilots, Scott Weiland's talent was underrated and ahead of it's time, I even have his solo albums (Happy in Galoshes is epic btw). But of course I love Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Live, Soul Asylum, Collective Soul, etc, etc. ah ha here's one for ya.

I'm an Alice in Chains gal, but I'll never object to those you listed. Those like Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, it's unfathomable to me how anyone could not like them.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Yeah the n64 had some quirkiness. Zelda was awesome on it though.

Zelda was great. What I meant was, "I think it's easier to obtain an intentional level of creepiness like in horror/horror elements with N64 style graphics than using the new tools/methods people use now".

 

[Shadow Wolf]

MTG is still going believe it or not. I got back into again like 10 years ago during their like 20th expansion, but even now they still keep it going, they even got a couple of digital games you can download and play against real people online now. But yeah the card game is still going strong you can buy the cards at Target, Walmart,.Walgreens etc.

I tried to get into it, and I do enjoy collecting cards for the art work and occasional non-serious, non-competitive league play, I just don't want to keep dumping money into it to stay current. And because I've tried to get into it a few times, I have "chunks" of cards a cluster of years, hardly anything, and then another chunk clustered around when I got back into it, and so on. I have a "punch them 20 feet into the dirt" deck and "plague of tokens" deck because of the sporadic collection that gives me those powers from here, enhanced by an artifact from then, sorcery spell from 15 years ago, monsters from 10 years ago, and the styles of art and boarders of the cards do vary. A lot, lol.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Yeah the n64 had some quirkiness. Zelda was awesome on it though.

I managed to retain my gold copy of Ocarina of Time over these years. Hologram copy of Majora's Mask was stolen, as was many other rare games I used to have, with some being otherwise ruined (speaker was knocked over by my cat, it fell on cracked one of the discs of FF8, and a dog quickly snatched up and took off with my copy of KotoR when I turned my back). But I still have Ocarina of time, Link to the Past, Final Fantasy 2 on SNES, Mario Kart 1, Shinning Force, and some others in a decent collection of what are now rare, hard to find games (or, rather, just expensive these days since Amazon and Ebay have made it so few things are actually hard to find anymore).

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

I found out recently that Nintendo has got to be the most skilled software developer(s) even today. How do I know? It was revealed a couple years back in all entirety that the Wii U used a CPU clocked only at 1.24GHz that is heavily, and I mean heavily, based on the GameCube's CPU. If they and their first-party developers weren't so efficient, technically the Wii U wouldn't have had a few games more technically advanced, like with more enemies, than the XBox 360 and PS3.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I found out recently that Nintendo has got to be the most skilled software developer(s) even today. How do I know? It was revealed a couple years back in all entirety that the Wii U used a CPU clocked only at 1.24GHz that is heavily, and I mean heavily, based on the GameCube's CPU. If they and their first-party developers weren't so efficient, technically the Wii U wouldn't have had a few games more technically advanced, like with more enemies, than the XBox 360 and PS3.

Yeah. Nintendo has pretty much always been rather simple but really advanced. Until the made a blunder by deciding to make the N64 cartridge based instead of disc based, followed by the GC using mini-discs, which limited developers. And then the lack of HDMI or component on the Wii. But even with the SNES they did way more with far less. Pretty much since the days of Sega and the dawn of Playstation, Nintendo has been an under-powered under-dog that occasionally knocks a home run into orbit. And sometimes it even happens very late into a consoles run, like what they and Squaresoft did with Super Mario RPG on the SNES. And sometimes they have to rev up the hardware, like was needed on the N64 with Majora's Mask and Perfect Dark.

 

[Enoch07]

I'm an Alice in Chains gal, but I'll never object to those you listed. Those like Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, it's unfathomable to me how anyone could not like them.

How you feel about the new lead singer? He sounds very close to Layne!

Aye I love me some Alice in Chains. I have 6 main artist that play in my car only. Alice in Chains, STP, Def Tones, Mumford and Sons, and Tool/Perfect Circle. Occassionally some KoRn, SlipKnot, Inflames, Childish Gambino, Drake, and a couple of local/lesser known fellas, like SevenDust who I knew a guy that went to high school with those fellas.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

So story time. Whether or not anyone believes it is up to you.

As someone working as a computer benchmarker, you kept close relationships with manufacturers who wanted you to test their products. I befriended an engineer for a graphics card company. They were going the way of adding more and more and more shaders to the graphics cards, thinking it might future proof the graphics cards, well I was graphics programming as well at the time, much like the game developers, and ran out of power in the other parts of the graphics card before I did shaders in my personal apps. One time my friend asked me for ideas since he thought me smart and respected me, on how to move forward in graphics tech, and I told him to focus a bit more on ROPs and TMUs, two of the other parts of the graphics cards, instead of just shaders. Whether or not he/they followed my ideas as they stood, my ideas did come to pass.

To sum up this story and what's interesting about it? I did suffer some health problems for years which made me a shell of that man who gave these incredible ideas to people, but I am kind of getting back to what I was, and at an increased rate lately.