What I’m Playing #24
November 28, 2024 2 Comments
Your favorite Atari games, only played with.. um.. popsicles? Paint brushes? Dip switches in the correct position?
My friend Ryan got the Atari 2600+ to try out. I’m waiting for one with more modern console-like features, especially built-in media capture/upload and digital stores. Besides, I’m sort of over carts. I took a “no plastic pledge” at the start of this generation (IE Nintendo Switch), which I didn’t completely stick to, but it’s not my fault. Most of the physical media I own was given to me as gifts. You can’t wrap digital data for Christmas or birthdays. I have hundreds upon hundreds of Switch games, but only around fifty physical games, and they’re mostly Nintendo ones or retro collections. It’s the same story with PlayStation and Xbox. Loaded with games, but very little in the way of physical ones. And it’s made no difference in my life. I only beat most games once, then put them away and they sit, occupying a shelf or sitting in a box somewhere. Who needs that? I get that people are upset about physical media coming to an end, but it’s something we probably all should get used to, and I’m getting ahead of the curve. With that said, I do have a lot of Evercade carts, BUT THAT’S DIFFERENT! So, what AM I playing?
That dinosaur died, and 65,000,000 years later, a beverage company found the fossilized remains and the CEO said “this dinosaur died via orange crush. Hey, wait a second, let’s call our soft drink.. Dr. Pepper!” Where did you think that story was going?
“Where the hell is Tetris Forever?” It’s done, but I’m adding bonus content and there’s so much I want to get to that I’m making it my Christmas feature this year. Last year, LCD Games IX and LCD Games X – Game & Watch Gallery: The Definitive Review did great, and reviewing EVERY Game & Watch is going to be tough to top. Then, I realized that the Tetris thing I’m already working on is better. That’s fine, as I have another collection to do: Taito Milestones 3. There will be no delay in it. The review will go live December 9 (I originally had the release date as December 8, but it’s actually December 10), no matter what. Bonus reviews are limited by time. There are a couple, but I’m only revealing one right now. It’s Parasol Stars, which you can also buy on all consoles. And hey, this means one Definitive Review will have the first three Bubble Bobble games, which I think everyone will enjoy. Unlike the games of Taito Milestones 3, I’ve already played Parasol Stars all the way. It was a surprise highlight for me in the TurboGrafx-16 mini. I *really* liked it. So, here’s the Taito Milestones 3 lineup.
The lineup, and before yesterday, I had never played any of the games on there, or at least the arcade versions, except Bubble Bobble.
There’s a pretty strong chance my time with one game, Runark (or Growl as it’s called in Taito 3 since that’s the American name) will be extremely limited due to epilepsy concerns. No matter what, there will be a review in the feature for Runark even if I can’t write it. Unlike Tetris, most of these games are sold separately via Arcade Archives for $7.99 each. Therefore, like Taito 1 and 2, I won’t assign different values to games. A YES! is worth exactly $8 in value to Taito Milestones 3. Three of its games (Dead Connection, Thunder Fox, and Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga III) are exclusive to Taito Milestones 3. You cannot get them via Arcade Archives, but I’m keeping the value at $8 because they run off Arcade Archives’ interface. Based on my early sampling, my prediction is 5 YES!, 5 NO!, which is good enough for my Seal of Approval, but that is obviously not final. I’m not even really finished with the games I’ve written most of the review for. That’s because I haven’t gotten to co-op yet, and most of these are co-op. It’s Turkey Day in America, and to help my nieces and nephew, who will no doubt be bored waiting for dinner, I’m going to force them to play co-op with me ask politely for them to play co-op with me.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Hug your loved ones. Tell them you love them.
Indie Gamer Chick 
As someone else who mostly buys digital: I get why people are mad about physical going away. Until laws are passed to prevent companies from merely selling you a *license* to a game or other media allowing them to take said media away at any time (instead of selling it to you and you owning that copy permanently), and said laws apply retroactively to any and all digital media purchases, physical media is arguably superior. Sheesh, some companies would take away your ownership of physical games if they could.
As for the preservation argument for physical media: I get that too, but my counter has always been that true preservation shouldn’t rely on just one thing. We should be preserving both physical *and* digital media.
I remember having a conversation on Twitter with IGC about this very issue and I think the problem comes down to the fact that retailers/creators/sellers are given IP rights but there’s no guarantee that they will hold up their side of the bargain (i.e. that their creations will be public domain 70 years after they pass or whatever) and we maybe need to think about making that a requirement of protection from copyright law (which is, after all, enforced by public bodies) rather than the current “*shrug* I suppose things will still be around then”; what was likely with printed words is not likely with online-only digital media like games.