More things I don't need

I've had an itch to fill in the holes in my Game Boy collection lately, primarily hardware. I picked up this Japanese Game Boy Pocket for like $25 on eBay a couple weeks ago, and it finally arrived via EMS.

It's in much better shape than I was expecting, it looks new. Fresh out of 1996.

Why didn't I think of this?

Courtesy of STRAPYA

The video brings the lulz, but I'm thinking about actually ordering one. Seems like it would be therapeutic.

Twisting

The wife and I ducked down to the Shenandoah Valley awhile back to relax and hit up Skyline Drive. If you've never been, it's highly recommended.

Of course, there's plenty of tourist traffic and it's very well policed, so don't expect to really tear it up, but I was still able to hit some sections pretty hard.

We took the CL9, which did a very good job on these roads given what it is. It's very fun to drive while being supremely livable on the boring highway portion of the trip. Next time I'll still probably bring the Roadster though, but it was DOA this particular weekend.


The trees were too full to get a shot downhill of multiple linked turns. Views were great though.

expensive

I know I've had a lot of gaming posts lately, and I'm sure there will be a few more before I shift back to something else. Bear with me.

Anyway, a prototype "SNES CD" controller is apparently up for sale on DigitPress.

The Sony Playstation originally started out as a joint venture between Nintendo and Sony as a CD add-on (i.e. like Sega CD) for the SNES/Super Famicom. Hiroshi Yamauchi freaked at some point about who would own the rights to the new CD games and killed the whole project. Sony, at least partially out of vengeance, then went ahead and turned the technology into the Playstation.

Some of the original SNES CD stuff still exists, mainly development kits and whatnot. A complete SNCD devkit is probably a priceless item, but this is the second time I've seen a controller go up for sale.

This guy is asking $3,000 for his. Expensive, but it's definitely a unique thing and of some historical importance (to nerds).

It's for sale on DigitPress in the "buy/sell" section of their forums right now.

cutting edge technology

I've spent the last week or so playing through Final Fantasy VII again, only this time I'm doing it on the NES. Yep.

Yay China. Yay pirate software.

The enormous market penetration of "Famiclone" systems over there has lead Chinese programmers to adapt newer franchises to the quarter-century old NES/Famicom hardware. The results can be pretty entertaining, actually.

Granted, it needs an English patch and some game mechanics changes to really be playable (get the "97% patch"), but it might well be the best NES RPG I've ever played. It's certainly more engaging than FF1, FF2, or FF3 in their Famicom incarnations.

The WHOLE story is intact, including every last shred of dialogue. Obviously no FMV, and the battle mechanics are very different (materia system still persists), but it's a *really* good game for a Famicom RPG.

There's a Famicom-adapted version of "Link to the Past" circulating also, but it REALLY looks like the SNES game. No ROM dump yet, I might buy a hardcopy and dump it myself. No crime in dumping pirate software!