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Funspot

Friday, March 11th, 2016

Today we visited Funspot. It’s the biggest arcade in the USA, and has over 500 games in total including arcade, pinball and redemption machines.

It’s awesome!

Our visit was almost 7 hours in total, but that only cost us about $60 ($43 in tokens plus golf and snacks). Not bad at all considering how long we stayed.

Of course the biggest activity was playing video games, of which they had about 250 on offer. The collection spanned the late 1970s up until the early 2000s, with a heavy emphasis on the early 1980s. Most of the games are in fantastic condition with original cabinets and controls.

I had heard of/played most of the games before, but there were some real obscure machines as well. Here’s every game I played (about 25% of those they had):

Tutankhamen, Trivial Pursuit, Leprechaun (the smallest video game ever manufactured), Computer Space (the first video game), Nova 2001, Zero Hour, Smash TV, Dragon Spirit, Rastan, Kung-Fu Master, Lifeforce, Forgotten Worlds, Space Harrier, Exerion, Video Pinball, Stargate, The Wiz, Juno First, Gaplus, Tetris, Krull, Gyruss, Track and Field, Lode Runner, 1943, Flower, Black Tiger (my #1 fav arcade game of all time), Mini Golf, Chiller, Pengo, Wonder Boy, Rush’n Attack, Timber, Frenzy, Heavy Barrel, Contra, Zombie Raid, Dark Adventure, Cliff Hanger, Domino Man, Alien Syndrome, Tiger Road, Galaga ’88, R-Type and Star Trek.

I didn’t ignore the more mechanical games though, and while their pinball section was smaller (maybe 30 games) the quality and variety were high. I played these ones:

Hercules (the biggest pinball ever made), Paragon, Xenon (somewhat infamous; google it), Black Knight, Black Knight 2000, Big Guns, Close Encounters of The Third Kind (yes, licensed), Pinbot, Grand Lizard, Time 2000, Middle Earth and Playboy.

The video games and pinballs span three floors, and to play everything would take ages. If I lived closer I certainly would though since it’s a well maintained and very comfortable arcade and it’s really inexpensive! Using a coupon our tokens cost $0.16/each and almost every game was only 1 token per play.

The rest of the tokens – and we bought over 250 – went into ticket machines like this one:

We put loads of tokens into many different types of machine and ended up with about 1100 tickets (which cost about $28!), which we ended up redeeming for two souvenir glasses 🙂

Oh yes, we played mini golf as well:

In which KLS beat me 46 to 47 despite me getting two – TWO!! – holes-in-one! We were competitive; it was fun.

The walls were covered in all sorts of ephemera on the history of video games, as well as displays of related material such as the VFD home game exhibit shown above. For a lifelong fan such as myself Funspot was dreamland and I could easily spend several days playing and reading everything.

Of course I have many other photos, but even better are the two videos KLS captured of me playing Whack-A-Mole and Track and Field. You can look forward to seeing my technique in a few days.

Needless to say I loved Funspot. In fact it’s one of the best attractions I have ever visited, and easily made the trip over here worthwhile 🙂

Posted in Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Tech | Comments Closed

2015 in Games

Tuesday, March 1st, 2016

Well it’s a bit late in coming (blame Australia and the blogtastrophe), but it’s time once again for my annual summary of game playing and purchasing!

The numbers were up this past year, with the game-playing drought of early 2014 a mere memory now. Also last year was our first year with the PS4, but as it turns out it wasn’t the system that captured most of my time. In total during 2015 I purchased (or obtained as gifts) 69 games for a total cost of $2006.27, or an average of just over $29 per game. The numbers were up on 2015 by about 50%, but the average cost of games actually decreased. In addition during the year I purchased two new 3DS systems (a ‘new 3DS XL’ for me, and a 3DS for KLS).

As a percentage of total purchases, here’s the chart:

And as percentage of total dollars spent:

That latter chart includes the cost of the two 3DS systems, which is why the 3DS portion is so large.

The most notable element of this data is the abundance of PS Vita, both in terms of games (32) and dollars (almost $800). This system, which was by many accounts DOA even when I purchased it last year, has become a bastion of imported Japanese RPGs, and while many of the games aren’t stellar quite a few of them are very good and I’ve been having a blast buying – and playing – all of them. Very quickly my Vita library has become quite large, and I’ve still got over a dozen unopened games on my shelf (and more arriving every month) that will give this system legs for a long time.

The other notable is the Wii U. Not much to say there, except that the system is not so much dying slowly as has never lived in the first place.

As usual, I’ll comment on my favourites in a moment. But first, four particular games warrant mention…

The first is Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer for 3DS. This is a charming ‘game’, with beautiful presentation and a massive – massive – amount of content which was tragically marred by some very poor design decisions. Essentially the game is about interior decoration, where you design and furnish houses for the other animals in the game. But the designers chose to omit such obvious things as budgets or rating systems or any sort of currency or systems that promoted gradual improvement. At best it became a toolbox where you just designed homes for the sake of it, and became stale very quickly. A very missed opportunity, and a great disappointment.

The second is Super Mario Maker for Wii U. It’s a wonderfully designed product, and I love making courses… but I don’t have anyone to play them and strangely I don’t particularly enjoy playing the (often terrible) courses designed by random strangers. That said Nintendo has done a wonderful job evolving the product since release, including adding content in the form of special downloadable courses, and I suspect I will periodically return to this one to see what’s new.

The third is Witcher III (PS4), a titanic game with mind-boggling graphics that looks insanely fun and would certainly have made the list below had I played it. But I didn’t, because it’s KLS’s game 🙂

The last (and you can sigh here) is the eternal Puzzle & Dragons (iOS). Yes I’m still playing it (spoiler alert: last Saturday was my 1000th consecutive login) and yes I still love it. The game has evolved so much over the years, and has become so generous that I haven’t actually spent any money on it for going on 18 months now. I’ll likely play until the servers close years from now 🙂

As for my favourites, well it was a year of great games, so I’m going to upgrade from three to five. Here they are in reverse order:

5) Terraria (PS4)

I got into this pixel-art 2D ‘build-em-up’ early in the year and love, love, loved it. The PS4 version cost me an absurd $4.98 in a sale and I must have easily gotten 100 hours out of it. I built a massive castly, dug a shaft all the way to hell and even had my own mushroom farm. I made so much amazing gear, killed every boss and did and saw everything in the game. Highly recommended.

4) Axiom Verge (PS4)

The work of a single guy, this 2D Metroid clone was the game I was waiting for and never knew existed. Again, it dominated my time around Thanksgiving and I loved every last second of it. For an inexpensive downloadable game, this one is a no-brainer.

3) Diablo 3 (PS4)

The PC version was good, the PS3 version better, but the PS4 version is just superb. I played more of this on PS4 than any other game this past year, pushing my Wizard and Barbarian characters (that had been imported over from PS3) to new levels of insane power. The game very recently updated with a brand new patch, so I’ll be returning to this one soon. Or maybe not, since who know’s how long this next game will last…

2) Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U)

When Xenoblade came out for Wii a few years ago it blew away those who played it. Which weren’t many, since it was released here in limited amounts. But it was a masterpiece of a game full of charm and innovation that I remember very fondly. This is the sequel for Wii U, and it’s even better. I’m currently playing it, 80 hours in, and I feel I have only scratched the surface. It’s basically a single player MMO with all the systems you expect from the genre, set in a truly massive world with some of the very best graphics I have ever seen (on the Wii U!?!?!). It’s easily one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played and I don’t think it will ever be surpassed on the Wii U. A monumental achievement in game design. And yet, despite all this praise, not my game of the year…

1) Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (3DS)

You knew it was coming didn’t you? When this game came out my savefile passed 100 hours in the first 10 days. Think about that. I played like a man possessed, but as much as I accomplished there was always more. This is easily the best MH game yet, and the addition of online play directly from the 3DS (a first for the series) took the gameplay to an entirely new level. I ended up putting the game aside after about 250 hours of play, but returned to it after my Oz trip and have amassed another 60-odd hours since then. SFL and I have been hunting regularly every week and it just keeps getting better. At this rate it won’t just be the game of 2015, it’ll be the game of 2016 as well 🙂

Posted in Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Time | 1 Comment »

Out Hunting Again…

Thursday, January 21st, 2016

Monster Hunter 4U came out for 3DS almost a year ago. Of course I played it. I played it like a man possessed. I swung my hammer for about 250 hours in total, rising all the way to G* gold crown rank (the highest). It was probably the most fun I had ever had in a game 🙂

Then I put it aside and moved on to other things. I never forgot it though, because as much as I had done in the game, there was always more. There is always more, both to see that can ever be seen and to do that can ever be done. So recently, as SFL has gotten into the game in a big way, I started thinking about it again. Was it time to return?

These thoughts often occupied me in Australia. I wished I had brought the game with me to play it during downtime. As SFL regaled me with her tales of success I wanted to smash monsters too. I even bought the game for AW, so we may possibly be able to play online together.

Once I returned home, it didn’t take long for the cartridge to once again be put into my 3DS. It had been over six months: did I even remember how to play? And if I did, was I still good? Since I’m in the awful world of ‘always tired but never able to sleep’ jetlag, I’ve had a lot of extra time these past few days. And I’ve been hunting.

My first decision: master another weapon. Hammers are wonderful, but occasional frustrating to use online. Besides, I’d mastered them! Naturally my first choice was dual blades, always my distant second to the hammer as a preference. I had made a few back in the day, but never the ultimate versions (rank 10 weapons). I had my eye on one of them, but it required farming this guy:

That’s ‘raging Brachydios’, an always angry walking explosion that excels at killing players online. A year ago farming him was like pulling teeth since many players were simply not good enough to survive. These days things have changed, and online is mostly populated with the diehards still playing a year after release. The average skill level is much higher; monsters that were once borderline impossible are now just scary. I took the time to kill a few of these guys before he dropped his ‘Immortal Reactor’ part needed to make a fantastic weapon, the first part of my plan.

But what good is a weapon without armor skills? My set is perfect for hammers, and on top of that is fully upgraded using rare materials farmed from guild quests. It’s tempting to keep using it with my blades, but there are more appropriate sets for a blade wielder. So I will make them, which means more farming. The ‘Ferocious Rajang’ are bad enough (although a cakewalk compared to the godlike ‘Apex Rajang’, which routinely wipes multiplayer quests inside a minute) but I’ve almost gotten the parts I need so far. Now I have to move on to this guy:

‘Oroshi Kirin’, an ice-bases subspecies. It’s difficult to be sure, but even worse seems very reluctant to drop the parts I need. I reckon this will take time…

And I haven’t even given much thought yet to the other guys I need to farm, like a ‘rusted Kushala’ (shudder) and epic boss monster variant ‘Shah Dalamadur’ (weep).

But I’ll get it done, because this game is a fierce addiction. Sure I can kill them all already with my hammer (and have), but I want to do it with DB as well.

And then when the armour set is made and the weapon honed then comes the charm farming to make the skills the very best. Even beyond that one could spend countless hours farming guild quests for the super rare relic weapons. Once guild card I’ve obtained from a player online shows his save file to be an astonishing 1035 hours, and he is only HR 729. I’ve already played with a few rank HR999 guys!

And when that’s all done, and I have the best dual blades and accompanying armor, maybe then I could move on to another weapon. After all there’s fourteen to choose from 🙂

Posted in Games, Otaku | Comments Closed

Magic Days

Sunday, January 17th, 2016

That’s the Prince of Randwick himself, preparing his deck at the MTG prerelease tourney we attended yesterday.

It was a fun, low pressure casual event in which everyone won prizes. This was good for me because I badly played a deck I had badly built 🙂

The players themselves here are pretty much the same as in the USA. Except for the funny accents Aussies have 😉

After the tourney we went and checked out the pinballs at the nearby RSL club, which led to a lengthy (and fascinating) discussion with the guy who manages it all and is heavily involved with pinball collecting.

An evening of cricket on the Telly (and more MTG playing!) rounded off a fun day.

Today – my last full day this trip – I walked to Bondi along the cliffs via Coogee Beach. I do this walk (which takes a few hours) every trip and it’s always great.

It wasn’t too hot or too windy, as if the country was apologizing for the weird weather it gave me this trip. Since it was a Sunday, the walk was extremely popular with both locals and tourists alike.

Pleasant weather notwithstanding, I was ruined by the time I got to Bondi Junction mall, and almost wept when I sat down to this:

Which was immediately washed down with this:

Tiredness notwithstanding, today was another great day!

Posted in Games, MTG, Nature, Trip | Comments Closed

Pong

Friday, November 27th, 2015

For my next electronics kit challenge, I made this:

Yes, a TV Pong kit, in component form. It was cheap (about ~$10) and looked easy to assemble. Could it be any good?

Here it is ready to be put together:

Not a bad amount of pieces. The PCB is very clean and easy to solder onto, and compared to some other kits I have made this one was extremely easy to assemble. All told, it only took about an hour. Here’s the finished product:

What you can’t see: my impressive soldering 🙂

But the true test was to come. Skeptically, I connected it to my ‘TV that exists just for old game consoles” and turned it on…

The ball moves so quickly it’s almost impossible to hit it, even in the 1P mode. But whether it is playable is immaterial: it worked first go!

Even if you’re not impressed by that, I was 🙂

Posted in Crafts, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Science, Tech, TV | 2 Comments »

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