MAME -> Gauntlet 2 (Gauntlet Boogaloo)

As with all the great sequels, they're exactly like the first, but with a few new tweaks, and Gauntlet II follows firmly in that tradition.  Somehow a sequel to Marble Madness was never called for, go figure.  Many of the levels of Gauntlet I and Gauntlet II are quite similar, especially the first one.  There's just something about being able to jump to level 8 that's too compelling of a choice.



Level 2: Stun tiles, force fields... kinda boring
Intro to lobbyists... lobbers

Level 3: "It", acid puddles to make sure you spend PLENTY more quarters

Level 4: moving exits, super sorcerers, moving walls, death much faster!  Also, have to wait longer to get key doors to disappear

level 5: poison potions... shoot them!  Reflecting shots, singing/moving walls, ... something else

Level 6: electronic voice says "Let's see you get out of here."  And for good reason!  All the walls are invisible!!!!!!

level 7:

level 8: transporter charm... which means you can't pick up anything either!  Boo.  Also, mugger intro

level 9: hmmm!  Looks like a similar level from Gauntlet 1!

level 10: Green fuzzy walls!  I can't take it!!!
10 super shots... also, looked similar to Gauntlet 1 level

Treasure room: I hate these now

level 11: fuzzy brown walls!  I can't take it!  Also, Warriors apparently can't shoot anything surrounded on four sides by walls... diagonally, that is...

level 12: first appearance of transporters, apparently.  Looks a lot like level 8 in Gauntlet 1!  First red dragon.  Also, they seem to have invented telefragging

L13: ...nothing new, I guess

Treasure room: I hate these now

l14: extra food added for 3 or 4 players... because there's already plenty of ways to hemorrhage health points.  Take that DRAGON, for example!

l15: Repulsiveness - at least, to the enemies.  More 10 power shots!  Love those thingies... except when they destroy treasures 'n stuff.

l16: moving exits again. phuck.  There's a long hallway filled with keys, and a golden potion at the end of it... for whatever reason, I want to get that potion.

l17: power shots are too powerful.  They destroy unshootable food, chests... everything!  Everything except walls!

l18: meh.  At least it wasn't a Gauntlet 1 level

treasure room: exits move around.  Perfect

l19: traps galore.  12 chests at the end! love it!

l20: shots now hurt other players... guess I should work on getting some!

L21: Invulnerability... interesting definition of it.  It means you lose 300 health points, but at a regulated pace.  Terrific.  Also, it seems to look like a Gauntlet 1 level...

l22: oops!  Left too early

treasure room - dang!  It was actually like a normal Gauntlet 1 treasure room! 

l23: shots now hurt other playears.   Damn.  I'm playing by myself like an idiot.
Lemme guess.... the red dragon's guarding the real exit.  Big surprise.... not the case!  Also a big surprise

l24: Has anyone EVER found the hidden potion?

l25: don't be greedy... guess I'll never get to that secret room.  Oh well.  C'est la vie
...wow!  Thought I'd never get out of there!

l26: now that DEFInITELY was a Gauntlet 1 level, just flipped on its proverbial head

treasure room: hoh boy, here we go.... jeebus, but I hate that little blue thief.  Room: lattice of chambers with trap tiles

l27: another G1 classic

l28: meh.  but lots of those super shots!  well, just 20

l29: super-fast monsters!!!

treasure room: lucked out that time!

l30: tip: stall to open doors.  I ought to try that sometime!
See, this level is designed so that you have to use reflecting shots to get the monster generators.  Maybe that works with more than one player, but here's the thing: you have to get up close to the monster generators to destroy them, on account of the monsters it generates blocking the way!!!!!!!!!!!!!

l31: this level's tip: add coins fo rextra health... already thought of that.  Ooh!  The guy burped when he et some food!  Love it.
Fast demons 'n $#!t... stuff.

damn.  left too early

l32: another G1 classic

l33: meh

l34: keys galore

treasure room: what could go wrong in here?
lots of stun tiles here..  At least I got a couple keys.  You get to keep those.

l35: 4 corners... a death in every corner, and a potion to kill them

l36: ...must've been meh.  already forgot

l37: kinda simple!  Great place to collect keys.  Seriously, check the right side; other unlocked door side.  It's all open.


treausre room" made it!
L38: ah, more fake exits.. love those

l39: oh my God... they invented Sokoban!

l40: genius. .. I forget why.  Oh, right; you need that stupid transporter charm to get to secret room.  Only one!  What if you've got four of you?

treasure room: these must be getting easier or sumpthin

l41; not a G1 level

l42: faster monsters, fake exits, not G1... oh crap.  Time to do an excel spreadsh!t?

l43: meh. also the little blue tucker got me

l44: there's a lot of the level that I missed, but apparently it wasn't meant to be because where the exit is located has no way back out.

l45: stupid red dragons

treasure room: well, at least I got that little blue huckster

l46: meh.  this is boring already

l47:

l48: sort of like a similar G1 level

treasure room: just barely made it... so, why is there that 4 second countdown when it shows you the points you scored?

l49:

...;l51: subtle!  You have to keep trying the transport until you appear on the other side of it, and with the exit

treasure room: quick!

l52:


l62: actually got to a secret room!  kinda coo!  Don't know what the hell I did, of course...

l88; I feel like I could play this one forever... and I might have to, too!  Especially since I'm depending on the randomness of these stupid red transports and what not......

l78: a thousand fake exits... too bad I'm not going to remember where the real one is!

l79:

l121: Ah!  I've missed the hedge walls.  Also, I think I know how to defeat the little blue fuc... the blue thief.  Because he's a little tougher now.  If you shoot at him, he runs the other way.  Here's how to fix that: get yourself in a crowd of ghosts or some such thing; grunts, maybe.  The thief will come up through the ranks, killing grunts or other monsters for you... even Death!  What's THAT all about?  Anyway, the monster generators will make fresh monsters that walk up behind the thief, thereby preventing him from running the other way when you shoot.  Problem solved; maybe you hang on to your extra speed for a couple levels, who knows.  They love taking that one away right away, apparently

l122: I dunno....  somehow these shootable walls aren't as fun a feature as I thought they were going to be.  And somehow, the gamemakers themselves knew that instinctively as well, because Gauntlet's all about fighting the clock.  You pay 25¢ for 700 hit points, which effectively gives you 700 seconds of game play.  Now I gotta spend part of that time shooting at all the walls to see which one's a secret?  No think you!

L148: This level is taking wAY too long... WAY WAY too long...... whew!  Just finished.

l149: it says "To enter secret room: don't be fooled."  Welp, didn't make it to that secret room!  Big surprise... ah, they're overrated anyway.  The first thing they take is your speed.

l151: oh boy!  That one again with a million fake exits.  Fortunately, I got a screen cap of it... hopefully the NEXT one is in the same place....

l160: Oh, great!  The grunts now go FASTER THAN YOU!!!!!!!!!

l178 treasure room - 24 seconds!  Wow!  An upgrade!  Still couldn't do it, though.

;l190: yeah, this is a repeat level, but it's that fun one where you depend on the kindness of the strange transporters.  So far, they haven't been so kind.  What is it about those transporters and diagonal walls that makes such a toxic combination?

l209: Here's something I just noticed... you can't fight hand-to-hand with Super Sorcerers.  But I'm just a Warrior.  Incidentally, when the axe bounces off the wall back at you and hits you, how do you not lose points?  I just tried it in real life and..................

damn.  I just had to try it.  Welp, found out the hard way.  Saved states don't work for Gauntlet 2.  Probably for the best.  I have to reboot anyway.

Facebook -> Bubble CoCo

...oh!  Neat!  To be perfectly honest, I... and maybe I'm alone on this... but I was expecting something more like this...

Is that asking so much?  Apparently.

Atari 8-Bit Emulator -> E.T. Phone Home

Just a warning up front here: this isn't about the disastrous Atari 2600 E.T. game.  This is about the one for the family of Atari 8-bit computers that languishes in obscurity.  Well, I'm going to change all that with my map of... oh, crap.  Left out the middle.

Vorrak, Level Three

...is that the third one?  I can't tell.  It's so small.  Oh, and... SPOILER ALERT: just go through the middle of the Stibnite Mine section and save yourself some of the hassle.  Love that part.  And so, that's about all she wrote.  The three levels of Rorschach...Vorrak.  We may never know if the extra two levels were added by Avalon Hill, or if the programmer of the original Zardon devised all three.  Perhaps he's out there right now, maintaining a JCobol database on a government mainframe, still waiting for that upgrade that'll never come thanks to government gridlock in D.C.  Or maybe he's now part of that stupid Paul Allen project to make another billion dollars off genome sequencing the human brain.  You know, the sexy world of video games.

Vorrak, Level Two

Oh, The Video Game Fanatic.  Can't you leave ANYTHING to the imagination?  Is there no whimsy left in your world?  Must every last detail be documented and stored on some hard drive somewhere?  Yes.  Yes it must.  For much like the "mine" depicted in Dvorak... Vorrak... it's all about data collection, and Information Retrieval.  And passing the savings on to the taxpayer.  All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredoms amused.
Speaking of which, level 2 of Vorrak looks a little bit like the first level.  So you're probably asking yourself, well, surely there's some sort of algorithm that can make the storage and retrieval of the maze shorter and faster?  Probably, but it probably didn't happen on the Atari.  There was no Zip utility as far as I know.  No simple, fast way to store something in a three-dimensional array, and they certainly didn't plan it so that you could save your game state to take it up later on during the day.  No, this was the barbaric old days where you had to power your way through a game the first time... well, then again, we did have the pause button.  Usually the space bar.  See, it wasn't all bad.  Boy, remember the first time you were able to pause Pac-Man?  Mind-blowing.  And besides, level two is so worth it, because you go from regular "Emerald" to POWER Emerald, which can get you about 100 more points!

Vorrak, Level One

All right, let's get this over with.  If there's a lesson to be learned from Vorrak, it's that security systems are pretty much useless once you learn their patterns.  Then again, that's the lesson from all them Pink Panther movies.  But isn't that the power of video games right there?  You get to be the rogue ship flying into enemy territory, circumventing the slipshod security systems of the ill-guarded lair.  Now, you take a game like "The Dreadnaught Factor"... THAT one gets much tougher with each progressive level.  Of course, The Dreadnaught Factor is programmed in machine language, and doesn't rely on Atari Basic at all.  Ever the tradeoff: Basic games are easier to program, but run orders of magnitude slower than machine language games.  It's theoretically a programmer's paradise these days with JavaScript, the perfect compromise language.
So, unlike Laser Gates, there's only you in the Player/Missile department, and there's no stopping for fuel.  Laser Gates is one of the only, and maybe it is the only, side-scrolling shoot-'em'up game where you actually have to make a stop for fuel.  All the others, you have to shoot fuel dumps in order to fuel your ship... convenient, but that never works with my car.  And I've shot up a lot of gas stations, believe me.  Nope, you still have to pump your own fuel.  What's that all about?  It's like it's some kind of valuable commodity or sumpthing.

Atari Emulator -> Wavy Navy

Oh damn.  It's one of those games where you've got different ranks for each level.  Must find out what each one is.  Welp, apparently, the highest rank you can achieve is President, much like Eisenhower did.  Of course, his Vice President, Richard Nixon, once said that there were offices out there higher than President of the United States, loftier positions to achieve and what not... I guess you'd have to think that if you left office in disgrace, with a trail of tapes in your wake.  Any political hack worth his weight in Himalayan pink salt probably wouldn't like this game, as you seem to stay at the President rank forever.  No term limits?  Lord knows we don't need another FDR!  Think how prosperous the middle class would be then!  And on top of that, you seem to have the same configuration of two mines and the occasional beeping missile.  I contend that the bomb-dropping plane's much tougher, but what do I know.
Anyway, it's Wavy Navy on disk 107... is it an ode to Space Invaders or Galaxian?  Alas, the many features and advanced graphics of Galaga were far too much for Atari to handle... Commodore probably could, the bastard.  Of course, Wavy Navy somehow lacks even the spontaneity, and organized behaviour of the bad guys in groups, of Galaxian, go figure.  And why do the planes splash into the ocean, then reappear in the sky?  Is it the same gaping plot hole / quirk of physics that they used in Pirates of the Caribbean 3?  Probably.
All right, enough of that.  On to the next game.

I AM ZARDON. BRING ME THIS... VORRAK THAT THE MORTALS KEEP TALKING ABOUT

Oh, Zardon.  So out of it.  Only a God would think it's a good idea to come back to modern-day Manhattan and be reborn into the body of Sigourney Weaver's child... no, wait, that was "Half Moon Street," if memory serves.  Anyway, I went to all the trouble to download this thing, so let's try it out.  300 Baud, from an Atari Bulletin Board... just joking.  But those were the days, weren't they?  Oh, if only I thought to get an Atari modem.  I could of ... have been, like, an extra-nerd!  But I didn't, so I'm not.
But the similarities are many and immediately apparent.  The level seems to be the same; font's a little different, though.  I hand it to Avalon Hill: they didn't just buy the game and repackage it, as-is.  They gave it a few good tweaks, with all due respect to original programmer John Bell.  But giving the players the option of choosing cruising speed and the number of lives was indeed very generous of Bell.  But Avalon Hill's got a slightly better sense of showmanship.  For example, when you get to the Emerald section of the maze, the font changes.  In "Zardon," this includes the shape of your bouns ships in the lower right hand corner of the screen!  They change from ships to sine waves!  What the deuce!!?  There's something to be said for a fresh pair of eyes, because programming the thing's hard enough as it is, and Lord knows the programmer doesn't want to change anything.  You know, the God-like power of programming.  Avalon Hill also tweaked the fonts a bit, probably for the better.  But, you know, dodging the lasers that shoot BOXES at you, it's pretty scary.  The sound's basically the same, and the cave walls look like they're the same.  I can't help but think of my old girlfriend Angelina when I pass through that Magnesium Mine.

Of course, when I refer to fonts, I mean the old Atari fonts.  This is, after all, a Graphics 1 game, and you get 128 characters to tinker with, and only uppercase letters.  They were 8x8 in the old Atari kingdom, but they look a bit rectangular.  Graphics 2 was also 8x8, but taller and closer to an actual square shape.  And in an act of sheer bravery, the maze retained the original Atari colors!  Except for the blue, of course; that was a bit darker.  Blue is the only color that doesn't kill you... I mean, start you over at the beginning of the level.  And the pinky-red stuff is the only color of stuff you can shoot... I mean, zap with your phaser, and barely at that.  Sometimes if you zap one edge of something, it doesn't get destroyed, and you can rack up the points, if only briefly.  Now, where Vorrak underestimated the gaming prowess of those who attempt to conquer its three levels, Zardon rather completely OVER-estimates the gaming patience of its enthusiasts.  I mean, ... FIVE-HUNDRED THOUSAND POINTS??!!!!  Now, I'm no expert... incidentally, the "Expert" settings of games like Shamus 1 and 2 and Zeppelin... those go way too fast for mere mortal players.  I'll bet even the best of Gods might have a hard time, especially if they had to use a mere keyboard to play.  But I think "Space Klutz" is a much better rank than "Ground Gripper."  Really?  Seriously?  GROUND GRIPPER?  First of all... ah, skip it.

Oh, what other brilliant observations did I have?  Oh right, I remember now.  Now, I'm a pretty patient gamer, if I may say so myself... but that's arguably open to conjecture.  But I think I found a flaw in Zardon.  See, I finally made it out the other side of this whole cave thing, fully expecting to graduate to the Power Emerald levels 2 and 3.  So I get to the end and boom!  I merely start over at the beginning!  And I'm like, what the deuce?  But this old dog learned a new trick, because I just recalled the "Break" key on those old Ataris.  See, when you're in Basic and you type the "List" command, I swear you used to be able to hit the "Break" key to get it to stop someplace.  I know, I know, but I have no patience for, like, "List 1-1000"... or do I?  Maybe I should try it sometime.  I also tried drawing in Graphics 8 again!  Ah, the good old days.  Anyway, so I got this SECOND chunk of code, and I tried to look for something about levels 2 and 3... no.  Wonder if I could?  That's probably too much, even for me... nope, didn't work.  I broke it.  I tried getting into the old Atari DOS and list the Zardon files, but no such luck.  So I tried changing line 12 to load "Zar2.asm."  It's the only file name that seems to be for the levels.  Alas, it wasn't meant to be.  So did Avalon Hill concoct levels 2 and 3 as well?  I hate to think so!  But whatever.  A toast to the good old days when one guy could conquer the gaming world single-handedly.  Nowadays it's a bunch of companies, and cartels now, too!  Video game cartels.  Imagine that.  And they're almost as ruthless as drug cartels, but apparently they only go after video game reporters... which is one of the reasons why I generally don't do new stuff.  Speaking of which, I was getting a little misty about "FarmVille."  But it's been 20 minutes and the little yellow ""Loading..." bar isn't done yet.  It's just too unwieldy now.  Imagine if that were chess.  You'd have a second board, 4x4, with a second type of pawn or something... hey!  That actually sounds kinda fun!  And pieces that shoot lasers?  How krunk would THAT be?  ...BASTARDI!  Already done.  Boy, Max Peltier was right!  Everything HAS been done already!

VORRAK

Super Cobra.  Caverns of Mars II.  Vanguard... Vorrak?  Well, they're all "side-scrollers," as a turn of a phrase would have it.  Defender doesn't count because you can control the velocity at which the background scrolls by.  One thing that sets it apart is that it relies on the Basic cartridge to play... I probably should've put "Atari emulator" in the headline as I usually do, but I mean... it's Vorrak, man!  Vorrak.  It's an Atari thing; non-Atari people wouldn't understand.  Also, it's like the games of J.D. Casten or something: being a rock star game despite the severe Atari constraints.  Normally, you can barely do anything with Basic, but for those able to master the combination of Basic and machine language, well... the world was their oyster at the time.  Now, some of you originally played this as a game called "Zardon" or something stupid like that, but not me.  Besides, even Broderbund took the occasional "Spelunker" and "Landscape" and turned them into slightly better games.  So did Avalon Hill with Vorrak... I frankly can't vouch for any of their other titles, although I understand there are a lot of them, and I will look them all up on atarimania dot com someday.
Anyway, Vorrak is one of those annoying games... I mean, one of those classic games with that annoying feature of different ranks depending on what score you get.  While we may never know what an "Eradicator Honc" is, I'm older and wiser now and have the power to deduce that it's a truncated version of "Honcho."  You know, like the time Milhouse van Houten played "Bonestorm" using his gamer name, "Thrillhouse."  Now, we may never know how many ranks there are in Vorrak...

...why, there it is right there!  Alas, I couldn't do that with, say, David Lubar's "Pastfinder."  So we got "Ground Gripper"... whatever.  We got "Co-pilot"... I'm sorry, I mean "copilot".  We got "Shuttle Pilot"... hey, those can be tough jobs, man!  Of course, I'm not actually a pilot.  I guess that's how pilots rib each other.  "Ooh!  There's a kite for you to fly!" said the ace pilot to the novice, mockingly.  There's Fighter Pilot, Interceptor Ace, Eliminator Ace, and Eradicator Honcho.  Clearly, the makers of Vorrak underestimate the gaming prowess of their fans.  I scored 10,000 the other day, and I wasn't even giving it my all!  Imagine what I could do if I cheated!

Vorrak's unofficial home at Atarimania.com - Mushca doesn't have it!  Why?  Because it's a Basic hybrid game that needs special treatment, unlike a straight executable file

Emergency Bug Report -> Candy Crush

...still?  Good Lourdes.  What is it with me and that game?  Anyway, I found a bug, so I've decided to not keep it to myself.  Actually, they've already gotten about 80,000 emails complaining about it, so who cares.  So, on level 1295, there's apparently a conflict that the programmers never thought would come up... surprise surprise.
And I actually never knew this before!  So, you've got the Frogtastic frog, and it can ride around on those conveyor belts.  Never happened before... (I'm pretty sure)  BUT... you might ALSO know that chocolate can't grow onto the conveyor belts!  So level 1295 begs the obvious question... say you've got growing chocolate next to the conveyor belt, and the Frogtastic frog comes by.  Will the chocolate grow over the frog, even though it's on the conveyor belt, thereby causing the whole system to grind to a screeching halt, leaving you with the only recourse of pressing the red Abort Game button?  BINGO!  I know, I know, I must hate those poor overworked JavaScript programmers over there at "King", but I'm confident that at least the most senior one will find a way to patch that all up.  Worth every penny, those people are.

(11/1/'15, Sunday, 5:40pm) Just checked... nope, still haven't fixed it.  Or maybe I'm just using an older, previously cached version of the game.  Yeah, that must be it.

Andromeda... the Motion Video Game

I never did Andromeda?  Never even used the word?  Shame on me.  I swear, someone's got my password and is deleting stuff from this bog.... blog.  Anyway, as Wikipedia tells us, Andromeda was the Roman god of... galaxies close to the Earth.  Something like that.  Or maybe it's for pretty galaxies.  That Andromeda galaxy is a damn fine and pretty one.  Or maybe we're just lucky it's tilted the way it is in the sky.
Again, that's not the point.  The point is, in video game form from Gebelli Software, it's like Innerspace in game form, or Fantastic Voyage, more like it.  The rules are perhaps a little too simple, there's no clear goal, and any stuff you eat will eventually reappear.  So why the large game board?  I guess to give that Atari 16K a real workout.  Anyway, here's a more complete map of the game board.  Sorry, I didn't quite finish it, but frankly I think I put far far too much work into it already.

Kroger Feedback

...Kroger Feedback?!!!!  THAT's not a video game!  Well, you're right, but the odds of winning something tangible are slightly better.  Owtch.  Not by much, arguably.  But God bless me, I'll keep on trying.  As for Safeway, well... they're a bunch of tools now.  Only one entry a month, my ass.  Well, they're still better than Taco Bell.  One entry every six weeks, my ass.

Windows upgrade

...notice anything different about me?  Me neither.  Actually, world events have conspired to get me to my local computer store for an upgrade.  Well, it's been about nine years... but my Western Digital drive's still going strong.  Suck it, Maxtor and Seagate.  That's right.
Anyway, I'm still testing to see which browsers are best for what.  Well, this being Microsoft, the first option is, of course, their browser.  Now, I've heard that they're phasing out "Internet Explorer."  Which, for Windows Vista, definitely for the best.  But now they've got a new browser they're phasing out called "Edge."  So I start testing Zynga poker with it.  So far so good.  But then.... yup, it's about as slow as the previous computer.  So, I go to check out the Task Manager and... Zynga Poker's using one gig of ram?  How is that even possible?  Even Chrome only ever used about 500,000 K.  Time to try Chrome... yup, it works best so far.  I'm not even going to try Mozilla.
Kewl!  Just won the 2nd round... see, they have this Shootout deal in Zanga Poker, as my dad calls it.  I made the last big hand, and typed "gg" in the chat window.  The other guy typed "fy" back... well, first of all, it's "F.U."  So I tried to type "Follow the leader, dude..." and Zanga Poker told me "No swearing!" ...I'm still trying to piece together that one.  George Carlin's list of seven is falling, and the word "follow" is rising?  I guess that makes sense, in our American leader-obsessed culture... God, I kinda hate this place.  Anyway, time to move on to a little Tetris Battle, for some reason.  I feel the need for speed, Chuck!  Ah, they always keep up with the holidays............ okay, it's sticking a little in Chrome.  Or maybe I'm just too damn slow.  Sure, others beat me in Tetris Battle... but I can still hold my own, and in a totally classy way, too!  Nyaah!!!!

(Sunday, Oct. 4) - Welp, just tried Tetris Battle in "Edge."  It started out fast enough, but towards the end it started gumming up.  And I'm pretty good at it, too.  This isn't the mere complaints of a player who sucks, like Tonya Harding and her faulty shoelaces.  Oh well.  Better get to my other fish to fry.

(Wed., 0ct. 14) - Guess I should of... have known better.  I need a faster PROCESSOR.  I mean, all I've got is a 3.5 GHz one.  It's an AMD A6-7400K Radeon R5.  Also, I just put in 16 gigs of RAM.  And yet... none of that can find its way into making Google Chrome any faster.  And Microsoft Edge, well... you've got TWO strikes against you now.  You can only go back and forth one page at a time, you're ABSOLUTELY NO USE if you want to play Tetris Battle with it... what's the third kludge-y thing about you?  I can't wait to find out!
Also, Tetris Battle itself has lost functionality.  I mean... didn't I use to be able to tell how much time til my next "health point" or whatever the f... ficus plant it's called.  I'm almost tempted to get the Visa card out, even though I'm sooooooooooooooooooo broke.  Well, gotta live up to the blog's name, right?

You have a LinkedIn account. Now what?

Ignore it, of course!  Who wants to hear from Richard Branson and your co-workers in equal measure?  The novelty's officially worn off!  Yeah, we all are skilled in Adobe Illustrator.  So what.

Rock Me Sexy Video Game

I can't tell if this game is for the young people, or for role-playing swingers.  It seems to be for people who hate video games, definitely.  What's the point of virtual social climbing anyway?  It's just a bit confusing, because it seems like it should be called "Knights & Princesses."  But not all brides can be princesses, arguably, even back then in Ye Olden Days.

Zynga Poker?

Lord knows I've referenced it enough!  Didn't have a post dedicated to it, tho.(ugh)  I just thought I'd mention this one thing I learned today... actually, a while ago, but I didn't think to brainfart it on the web.  I learned a new swear word: "follo."  See, if there's one thing they won't tolerate in the chat section of Zynga Poker, it's swearing.  Okay, swearing, and solicitations for chips.  So whatever you do, don't use the word "follow" in Zynga Poker chat, because it'll come out as ****w and a JavaScript window will pop up, saying "No swearing!"  Now, of course, you can say "F O L L O W" like that.  Follow me?... oh, according to urbandictionary dot com, a "follo" is like a wigger.  Boy!  Didn't know they were so sensitive!  Plus, they've got the political muscle in Washington to protect them from such typed-out verbal onslaughts!  Good for them.  They must be House Follo's...

MAME -> Gauntlet II

Welp, now that I've conquered Gauntlet 1 on Mame... and with a rather low per-coin average to show for it... there's clearly only one thing to do: move on to the sequel, Gauntlet II!  But I can tell you right now that this outing is by far much less fun than the original.  It's kind of like what happened to Farmville.  Too many new features, and plus they went all corporate when Lady Gaga got on board.  Reminds me!  I need to harvest my metallic unicorns in Gagaville.  Plus, there's a lot less of the potions.  And rightfully so, in a way, because being able to kill all those angry Grunts in one fell swoop is so much easier than slowly marching through them.
There's all kinds of new features, so the game makers did their homework.  Fake exits, moving exits... a big dragon that shoots fire at you.  All kinds of stuff.  The thief is trickier, and he has a new counterpart: a mugger.  I don't think I'll be able to survive 1,000 levels of this one.
Now, for those of you who don't know, the Gauntlet games are based on an old game for the Atari 8-bit computers called Dandy by... Pale Face Johnson?  I'm sorry, it's John Palevich.  John Howard Palevich...  or Jack, either one.  He had to sue Atari for copyright infringement due to the wildly popular success of the Gauntlet series.  But I think I understand the mentality behind Gauntlet.  The guys at Atari, well, some of them wanted to bring Palevich in as a partner, but the other side won out, of course, saying "So you're telling me, that we're going to let this guy... he's not in the Coin-Op division.  He's NOT EVEN AN ATARI EMPLOYEE... and we're just going to let this guy just kind of... breeze on in here into the halls of Atari.  This n00b, this wide-eyed innocent is just going to waltz on in here and grab the keys to the kingdom?  I don't think so!  How's he going to handle all these new features we're going to put into Gauntlet?  He'll go into sensory overload!  He won't be able to handle it!  SCREW him!  Plus, he'll probably say at every turn, 'This is MY baby, and you're not going to change ONE THING to it.'  So, I reiterate: S C R E W him!"  That's according to the court transcripts, anywho.

Facebook -> Snake

...this got 1,300 "Like"s?  Wow!  Well, it was nice to reminisce about the Vic 20, I suppose... actually, the graphics in this game are probably better than the Vic 20.  I don't think the Vic 20 could handle such vibrant colors terribly well.

The Web -> Pac-Man Variation

Well, you know, if I had more time... anyway, this is from worldsbiggestpacman.com.  You can use Facebook to connect to it, BTW.  Alas, it's never one of the recommended games... you know, unlike those f... wonderful Pou games.  I swear the only reason I found this was because it's in a JavaScript textbook.

Friday, Dec. 9, 2022 - 9:43pm - It's STILL THERE!  That's worldsbiggestpacman.com.  Stop by and design a level today.  Maybe two!

Zune -> Hexic

That's right... I've got a Zune.  Of course, I don't use it to listen to the radio or anything cool like that, or to connect to hundreds of my fellow Zuners.  I've got the manual in deep storage someplace, so I can't figure it out.  But every once in a while, when I'm sitting there, trying to fall asleep at 3 in the morning, trying to not look back at the train wreck that is my life, studying the configuration that the various cars have made, and why I can't seem to move them... I'll turn to my Zune and either watch some videos I have on there (mostly non-porn now) or I will occasionally turn to the unfortunately short list of games.  I was playing the checkers for a while... oh, crap.  Now I KNOW I'm getting old.  Next thing you know, I'll be telling people "Okay, thank you!" all the time as I get ready to go back to the old folks' home.  But last night, I believe it was, I was fiddling around with the ol' Hexic again.  Yes, give that Pajitnov his due.  Even he couldn't replicate Tetris's success with such hasty follow-up fare like "Hat-tris."  Hah!  But his legacy seems to live on, if only for me, in such modern incarnations as your Candy Crushers, your Bejeweled Blitzes, what have you, and now your Hexices: a hexagonal switch-em game.

 But as with all Microsoft products, it ultimately falls upon the users to provide feedback to the programmers and to the finer minds who've chosen the Microsoft lifestyle on a more permanent, salaried basis, yet somehow manage to not find all the flaws that the poor suckers who actually use their products always manage to find.  Of course, games are odd birds, and their logic is far too complicated these days, even with seemingly simple fare like that fu... wonderful Farmville 1 and 2 and all its ilk.  But where they're part of a vibrant community, Hexic is in an all-but-forgotten backwater, and I'm certainly not expecting a patch any time soon... and if I do get one, well, then I'll know for sure that I'm of interest to the NSA and their ilk.  But I think I understand programmers of games, and that they can't be expected to anticipate all the permutations that can arise.  In this case, as you can sort of see from the circle in the lower image, I was on the last move in "Survival Mode," "Expert" level.  The algorithm missed that green combo there, and started the end-of-round tally when the every last move has been exhausted.  So, if anyone does want to look for that glitch, it'd be somewhere in there.  It does the tally, counting all the empty spaces and locking down all the free hexic tiles, then goes on to the next level.  But in this case, it couldn't go on to the next level, because, well, there's one combo that hasn't been processed!  And so, the game froze... hence, my ability to take a picture of the screen.  I had to let the battery run out, and start the whole thing all over again, which as a Zune user (...or a Zunatic?), I'm used to by now.  It happens.  Probably happens with video iPods, too, right?  ...RI-IGHT????!!!!!!!

What a Load of Crap

Well, once the world's sewer systems start backing up, and politicians everywhere start removing scoop laws from the books, I'll be very sorry indeed that I didn't get in on the ground floor of all these so-called "Pou" games, but I'm sorry.  I'm taking a stand.  I'm developing some arrogance on this one, and I'm not playing a game where my avatar looks like a smiling, white-eyed dog turd!  I don't care if it's a ripoff of Pet Rescue Saga, and I'm DEFINITELY not playing a "kissing game" with that thing in it.  I'm not kissing A DOG TURD!  I'm NOT DOING IT!  I don't care how cute it is, I don't care how much they're paying, I'm not doing it.

 ...okay, here's one where it looks more poop-like.  Get on board now, folks!  2,500 people are playing this game!  Nope, I'm sorry.  I'm still taking a stand, and putting my foot down... probably into a big pile of "pou."

Gubble (Anniversary Edition)

Just finished Rennigar, Falzigar and Plumaxia!  I almost gone Tropiso, but got interrupted.  Well... it is just 9pm on this slice of the planet.  Any real gamer worth their weight in zits plays at 2am or so.

Atari 2600 -> Super Breakout -> Progressive Level

I guess I haven't blogged about this before, but here goes.  Apparently no one on the web cares about this but me.  But I write about this now because I'm trying to extract some of the music from Super Breakout via YouTube, and these videos aren't as numerous as cute kitten videos.  Go figure.
Now, what usually happens when you've played the Progressive level (Atari 2600, Super Breakout, that is) for any considerable length of time, you'll eventually find yourself almost hopelessly surrounded by a virtual forest of bright green bricks.  Well, gotta eat your vegetables sometime!  Some nice broccoli stalks clean out the ol'... anyway, these bricks are worth one point apiece... but every once in a while, you hit a green brick that makes the game GO COMPLETELY CRAZY!  The ball speeds up, and you start earning hella points... crazy mad points?  This doesn't happen all the time, and not very often at that, but it's happened enough to consider it an easter egg.  What I think happens is this: a brick is chosen at random to make the phenomenon happen.  And what happens is, instead of adding a one to the point accumulator... which, in Super Breakout, as you should know, if it's full of points to be accounted for, the game takes rather a long time to count them out, but provides some nice musical accompaniment while doing so.  Now, for all you computer nerds out there, the Atari 400, 800 and 1200, and a couple others like 800XL or 600XL that we really don't care that much about... they were 8-bit computers, which means they mostly processed integers from 0 to 255.  So I think what happens is, you hit the magic brick, and the point accumulator gets subtracted by one, thereby making it 255.  And of course, if you've got more than about 32 points in the point accumulator, they get counted down by 4 instead of by 1.  And of course, when the brick is hit and the ball speeds up, usually what happens in that panic and frenzy is that I QUICKLY MISS THE FREAKING BALL!!!  But that's that tightrope you walk in Progressive Atari 2600 Super Breakout, as you go for the juicier bricks worth more points.  You don't want to destroy them all at once, because you want some bricks to react with when the next wall comes; at least, until you make a hole big enough to get the ball through to bounce off the ceiling.
But that's a video game fanatic for you.  You build these games right, you'll get bloggers gushing about them 35-40 years after their creation date!  Dayamn... All this Farmville crap's a mere flash in the pan, I tells ya.  Unless, of course, they're investing well.  Then it's here to stay.

MAME -> Gauntlet 1

Boy!  And I thought I was the fanatic!  1000 LEVELS?  Even Pac-Man is apparently not infinite!  I can think of a few games I'd want to play forever, but somehow Gauntlet was never one of them.  I guess it was because all the cool kids played Gauntlet in groups of four... at least, until they got bored.  Then they went back to punching nerds in the stomach.  Of course, I was always seeking justice for "Dandy" creator Palevich.  Don't know why, really; he didn't give a crap about me.  Anyway, this is a place for me to store all my brain farts about my Gauntlet adventure.  First brain fart: love that countdown in the Treasure Room.  "4,5,6... just kidding!"  Damn, those Atari people were good.

8/3/'15 - Welp, I tell you one thing I noticed right away.  There's a couple of levels that sure seem to get repeated a lot... especially that great one where you can see the exit, and there's a Death locked behind a door next to it, and a ham or a turkey.  That's what's so insane about Gauntlet.  It's a game for four players, yet it's full of narrow hallways where you have to go single file, so you have to vary who takes the brunt of everything all the time.  Also, they always seem to put the shootable food behind the enemy generators.  Cute!

 420..... heh heh heh!!!!!!

Boy, I tell ya... this level must've been some kind of huge achievement or something.  It sure seems to pop up a hell of a lot!  Five variations or so!  One for each pathway.  Perfect for four players, of course...

....I can't even remember now.  Not terribly devilish; it was probably a repeat.  Not like that Candy Crush level 666!  Talk about Satanic!

...okay!  This is what it's all about!  All that hard work.............................

...and there you have it!  Much like how on level 1, you can skip ahead to level 8, so too do you skip ahead to 1008 from 999.  Well, they gotta give you something!  Not quite as dramatic as the jump from 50 to 70 in Bubble Bobble... then again, I thought the levels in Bubble Bobble were their own reward!  Go figure.

Facebook -> Tetriex

What can me say?  Me want to try new things.  So I tried clicking on the link to what some have described as the best Tetris clone... and by some, I mean the makers of Tetriex.
So I was well on my way to trying the greatest Tetris clone ever.  Then I had to give permission to use my Facebook friend list.  I confess; I picked "Not now."  Then I had to give permission to post to my feed.  I was given a choice of who could see these posts.  I picked "Not now."
Then I had to give permission to post to my feed.  I was given a choice of who could see these posts.  I picked "Not now."
Then I had to give permission to post to my feed.  I was given a choice of who could see these posts.  I picked "Not now."
Then I had to give permission to post to my feed.  I was given a choice of who could see these posts.  I picked "Not now."
Then I had to give permission to post to my feed.  I was given a choice of who could see these posts.  I picked "Not now."
Then I had to give permission to post to my feed.  I was given a choice of who could see these posts.  I relented and tried "Only me."  I selected the one that wasn't the "Not Now" button... I think it said "Okay."
Then I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
One of those spinny circles came up again.  And again.  And again.
So then I closed the whole window, because I thought that Tetriex had gotten my Facebook password.  Apparently they hadn't yet.  Did I tell you about the time I gave my Facebook password to a malware site?  It was so stupid.  It was a site promising to give me 20 million Zynga Poker chips.  At the last millisecond I thought "...wait a minute.  This is a mistake, right?"  And sure enough, rather than getting 20 million poker chips, it stole all of mine.  Guess I'm a member of the wealthy elite after all!  Go figure!
So, to sum up... Tetriex is the best Tetris clone ever!  And you heard it here as well.  Now time to get back to Tetris Battle.  I'm only about 900 battles away from the next level!  Gotta keep going.

Facebook -> .... Zombie World?

It makes no sense!  It's a Lego guy in a suit.  When I see an ad for a game called "Zombie World," I expect rotting flesh and the eating of brains.  It's false advertising, that's what it is.

Facebook -> Diamond Digger Saga

See, this is how it starts.  I played this game a long time ago in order to aid and abet my success in Candy Crush.  Now I'm starting it up because I'm getting a request from a friend.  On the other hand, it's taking way way too long to load.  What do I do?  What do I do?

Q*bert - Atari Emulator

I think it's been a while since I've done something TRULY fanatical like play the Atari version of Q*bert.  Why, I hadn't even unzipped the muchsa file for it!  It's under 199, for those of you keeping score.  Guess they didn't think highly of it either.  But they've about as faithfully recreated the game within the confines of an 8K or 16K cartridge will allow... feels more like 8 to me.  A little light.  Also, every once in a while, the purple ball will bounce right off of the playing field!  Honest to God!  There's a couple extra empty rows of cubes that the bad guys get, apparently.
Anyway, as you can sort of see, I flipped the score.  A hell of a lot more work than I thought!  It took me to level 30, round 1 to do it, but you young kids will probably get there faster.  Learn from my mistakes.... my many, many mistakes.

New game - Grepolis

As the graphic informs us, this is a cross-platform game.  And as it should be!  Not a lot of people playing games in Unix these days!!!!

The Blogging Game

Okay, I'll admit it... I'm now addicted to watching the "hit counter" stats about my blog, and apparently once every two weeks my hit count spikes up by exactly 189 hits.  Thank you, China!  Apparently they're coming from China or Russia.  China's extra dark green on the map today.

............SERIOUSLY???!!!!

Well, it also is just in time to coincide with that new Adam Sandler movie called Pixels.  Guess the game makers have a little pride after all!  But still... Really?  Seriously?  Pac-Man now has a GARDENING component... well, all those apples, strawberries and keys can't grow themselves, of course!  Pac-Man is a HARVESTER, God damn it!  Not a gardener!  Pac-Man has no concern for global warming or carbon footprints!.... does it?

Failure

Welp, I failed.  I was in the sauna at the gym today and two old guys were talking.  One was lamenting that he ever bought a Nintendo... whichever (he rattled off a bunch of names like "GameCube" and "64"), and the other said that he never even liked Pac-Man.  Guess you just gotta pick your poison in this life... whether it's movies, comic books, or video games.  Also, I'm sitting here in the dark, cross-legged on my floor, with a laptop on a banker's box... but on the bright side, I did just catch a flea!  I tried to kill it by rubbing it on the non-keyboard part of the laptop, but it's too smooth.  God, I hate fleas.  Miniature versions of the alien in the Alien movies, only much worse.  Having the cat is almost not worth it, I dare say!

Official federal Typing Test game (suggested)

...yup, there it is, all right.  Do well enough on this test, and you'll get to type 40 words per minute for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for the rest of your life, for $2,000 a month.  What's not to like?  Of course, typing 40 words per minute for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for the rest of your life... that's a young man's game.  They don't want some old piece of...

My prayers have been answered!

And I have the nerve to call myself a programmer!  Look what someone came up with!  A complete Gateway to Apshai map!  Complete with bug.  Apparently, the original programmers weren't able to make their own logic airtight.  Still, who can blame them?  I mean, to cram 8 levels, 16 dungeons and 7,680 rooms into 24K?  Something's bound to give... I mean, got to give.

Games That Exist

Oh, I don't doubt that the game exists.  Of course, its makers are finding that players aren't using it as they originally intended...............

Juice/Pipeline

I'm not a big believer in first impressions anymore.  I know you have only one chance to make one and all that, but there's other factors at work, I'm saying.  Take Trevor Noah, for example.  He's going to be the new host of The Daily Show with Stew Beef at some point.  Sure, the First Impression dynamic is at work, but what about the Second and Third and Fourth?  Is The Daily Show going to make a smooth transition between these two hosts?  Of course, I'm still scratching my head over how Adam Sandler was able to build and retain an audience for his concerts and what not.
Which brings us to Juice / Pipeline by Arti Haroutunian, author of the meh-Amidar clone Kid Grid.  When I played this at first many moons ago, I admittedly wasn't impressed.  What, another Q*Bert clone by way of Flip and Flop?  It's just not the same without the purple meanies blowing my mind with their alternate gravity!  And yet.... here we are again.  I took a second look at Juice and, I gotta say, compared to Kid Grid, the game play's like, a zillion times better.  Also, the music pointed the way for Datasoft's Zorro and The Goonies. 
But mainly I'm just a sucker for tough levels.  I had to find out if there's a level beyond six on Juice.  (Spoiler alert: no)  Also, I appreciate the fourth level being not as tough as the others.  Of course, I'm a guy in a hurry so I eventually had to use saved states to really beat the sixth level.  And sure, it's a little depressing because the red balls of Q*Bert have been replaced here by multi-colored guys jumping with a lot less "free will" than the red balls of Q*Bert.

A Bone to Pick

Okay, so who's at fault here?  Is it Firefox and Chrome?  Is it Adobe?  Is it Facebook?  Am I really doomed to spend the rest of my days playing Zynga Poker on the now-defunct Internet Explorer?
I've rebooted after downloading the "latest" Flash player.  Adobe says it's version 17, but Flash says it's version 10.  Chrome says I need at least 10.1.0 to run.  Well, maybe I'll just have to live without Tetris Battle and Clash of Candies, but my dad's depending on that Zanga Poker!  What's he supposed to do, go play actual poker instead?  Nurtz to that!  There's only one solution: hire me on the Adobe Tech Support team so people who talk to me can say "... is there someone here who actually knows something?  Anyone at all?"  At which point they'll move on to "Oh!  I didn't know bags of steer manure could wear clothing and speak!  Interesting!  You learn something new every day!"

(later) Help is here, maybe!

I Can't Resist

This has nothing to do with video games... unless you consider that these appear next to the games I'm trying to play today.  Take that, Doom!  Where's your ads?
Anyway, this seems to be a Facebook app called "Are You Interested?"  Spoiler Alert: the Lisa Kudrow-looking chick on the left is not.

The Plutonia Experiment for Windows 95

As you may have guessed, I'm very very very very late to the party when it comes to video games.  But I've fished my blessed Book of Id out of the endless bankers boxes, and I've finally set up the various "Doom"s on my Windows XP computer.  Ah, the good old days with the SoundBlaster card, the 220 port, and what not.  And yet, problems problems.  Quake doesn't want to work, and the various booms and groans slow the game down too much.  Might actually prove to be a benefit when playing the crazy Plutonia Experiment variation.  But I think I've experimented enough with Plutonia to reach the following conclusion: it's too much.  Too many baddies, not enough ammo.  The creators of this fiendish variation have a fondness for the Heavy Weapon Dudes and Revenants that I don't share as zealously.  Okay, maybe one or two, but four or more around every corner and behind every trap door? 
So even though a game of Doom may seem like a very individualistic affair, there are some Socialistic overtones that we're apparently supposed to be on the lookout for.  I mean, the supplies, for one.  All this violence and mayhem just wouldn't be possible if the boxes of ammo and health "kits" weren't just lying all over the place.  Not to mention that everyone wants networking mode, so they can blast the hellspawn side by side with their best buddies.  So as fun as it is to try and take on four Cyberdemons at once, it's just a bit much.  But I'll probably want another bit of the hair of the dog within the next couple days and try it once again.  I plopped the Plutonia wad file into the right directory, and it works great on my Windows Vista computer.  Fits right in the Doom II game, of course.  Thirty two levels, with an Icon of Sin on level 30, two bonus levels... no.  Not enough ammo.  Level 31's just too fiendish, but at least you only have to take on one cyberdemon at a time... I still don't know if an arch-vile can resurrect a cyberdemon.  What does the web say?
(later) ...the web says no.  Commander Keens!  Lol.  Well, never mind then!

Diggy's Adventure

Well, I hate to question the wisdom of the job creators, but to me, an adventure does have an ending.  An adventure that never ends is what they call a desk job.  Also, that maze doesn't look terribly exciting, but that's just me.  I know the type of computer code it takes to generate that.  Any programmer worth their weight in stock options will tell you as such.
10/7/'17 - ...boy, I must be desperate.  Well, I tried Diggy's Adventure a little bit, and... boy, I haven't played one of those games in a while where stuff appears and you have to roll the mouse over it to collect them.  Coins, stars, what have you... Also, I hate to say it, but it's not my idea of a game adventure.  You got that professor guy who's always two or three steps ahead, and he's kinda pointing you to the next thing.  You do all the hard work of digging and smashing stuff, and he's there, waiting for you to hurry up and finish already.  I feel like such a dumb slowpoke.

Atari emulator -> Crystal Raider

I'm relieved in a way.  I thought I was going to have to make the map!  Digitpress dot com has already come to the rescue... but they don't have the one for Firefleet!  Nyaah nyaah... Alas, Crystal Raider wasn't a childhood favourite of mine, so I don't care so much for it now.  But they do have one of the sound effects from Gridrunner!  I recognize that!  Also, I can't tell if I'm jumping or just have an exhaustless jetpack.  ALSO also, when the screen turns lime yellow I can't see the bad guys as good as I should be able to.  Oh, this is so not a Microsoft game.

Mame -> Bubble Bobble 1

I keep forgetting that this isn't a good game to play on a laptop, especially if you're like me and you forget how to rotate the display of your laptop... or, rather, UN-rotate it.  It's Ctrl-Alt and the arrow keys!  You know... WHAT YOU USE IN BUBBLE BOBBLE.  Also, that "Windows" key's a little too close for comfort.  I'd be better off playing that knife and fingers game, really!  Now, that's a blog worth reading!

4/3/'15 - Okay, played it on the desktop.  Dayamn, but that level 95 is unforgiving.  But it just makes it all the sweeter when you jump all the way to the top and find that one narrow window of opportunity to get all them Duke boys... I mean, those space invaders and drunks and put 'em into bubbles.  So now I just have to figure out how to decipher the cryptic message at the end.

Wikipedia: Bubble Bobble in its "List of video games considered the best."  Which can be important to some, but... Super Meat Boy?  Clearly I'm not a gamer.

Anyway, before I look it up elsewhere, I'm going to try and guess what the big 8-letter mystery word is.  Of course, there's always the possibility that the Japanese team at Taito might have made up a word accidentally... sure, their words are usually correct, but the grammar's a little off.  "No Miss Clear"?  "This Words"?  Anyway, the numbers have been crunched, and for now, these are the possible words: Atlantan, biajaiba, camshach, diapsids, diureide, Esbensen, refusers, reposers, revisers, sedatest.  I'm thinking "Atlantan", given the nature of the game and what not.  Seems like they want to be part of a legend like Atlantis.

(later) ...I knew I couldn't wait.  The key to the alphabet... at least, the teeny letters, is here.

MAME -> Arkanoid

Well, I can't think of a better way to prepare for bombing my big accounting final in a few hours than by playing a little Arkanoid 1.  The two must be similar!  After all, what is Arkanoid but a fancier version of Breakout, which is just Pong by yourself.  And after all, what is accounting, but basic arithmetic all gussied up to look terribly, terribly official.  I mean, arithmetic by itself is hard enough as it is, so with accounting it's all about the powerups... I mean, the official certifications.  All the endless hoops to jump through.  Meanwhile, people who do math like calculus look down their noses and laugh... and frankly, rightly so.  But I think both parties began to get puzzled looks on their faces during the end of the last Bush administration, when the worlds of real estate accounting and calculus began to merge.  What the douche?  These two worlds were meant to be bipartite entities!  Separate, even.  But that's why I'm the nobody I am, and Goldman Sachs is the financial giant that it is.  No taking of risks, that's my problem.
At least, the wrong kinds of risks.  I have yet to successfully guess my way through an accounting test.  Probably won't happen tomorrow, but what the hell.  I grow weary of the world of debit and credit accounts, and I'm sorry, but I don't think I had enough time for statements of cash flows to grow on me.  I'm happy as a clam that they can be so different, that each statement of cash flow is indeed like a snowflake; no two are equal... but I'm still just a newbie at this thing and I need something I can cling to as I slide down the sheer cliff face that was my grade point average.
As for Arkanoid, well, what can me say?  I rocked it!  Took a lot longer than I thought I was going to, but I got to that Easter Island head and pounded the crap out of it... it's a lot easier to dispatch than in the sequel, that's for sure.
And, of course, it's a lot less fancy than the sequel, but maybe that's part of its charm.  Most of the basics are still there: the 'E' pill that makes you bigger, the 'B' one that lets you skip one level ahead.  Ah, powerups.  The gamer's best friend.  And yet, there aren't any in Boulder Dash.  Well, some games don't need them.  I got a screen capture, but it's on the other computer.  Also, I only did one every 60 seconds, so I missed most of the big finale.  Not one shot of the big Easter Island head!  Not one!
Well, I best be getting to bed, but I'll probably have to play a couple games before doing so.  Had to play Hard Hat William again last night, and of course, I had to make it all the way through without state saving.  If that ain't fanatical, I don't know what is... oh, right.  Modern games and systems.

MAME -> Arkanoid 2

I should of... have just done a bloody screen capture.  Oh well.  Firing up the old camera's more fun.  Welp, I did it!  Boy, that brain with the five tentacles was a pain to defeat.  Good defense mechanism.  Also, the levels in the second half seem easier somehow.  The "N" is still my favorite "powerup."  What could be better?  Let the balls that have the wrong trajectories fall to one side, thereby spawning new ones with the right trajectories, in the areas of the screen you need to clear.  Anyway, that golden powerup seemed a lot rarer this time.

Tetris Battle 2015

Oh, Video Game Fanatic... so stuck in your old ways.  So unwilling to try new products.  I know, I know.  How do I expect to get anywhere in this life?  But all I need is about 4,000 XP to get to the next "level" in Tetris Battle!  Yes, no matter how much they change the rules, I can't help but go back for my occasional adrenaline fix, and get my ass beaten by my fellow Tetris battlers anew.  Arguably, I did a little ass-beating myself... to my fellow Tetris travellers, that is.  And yet, when I've lost about three times in a row, I can't help but keep trying!  You know, it wasn't so long ago that we would get 100 "energy points".  Now it's still down to 30.  Apparently, people aren't using their credit cards enough with this one.  Almost makes me want to write my own web-based version of Tetris, but I dunno.  The video games that I make just don't have the same thrill of one that someone else made.  Plus, the ones I make are kinda lame anyway.  I know... "kinda"?  Spare me.

3/10/'15 - Ah, the new jittery Google Chrome.  Is my computer getting hacked again without my knowing?  What did I do to deserve this?  Not upgrade to Windows 8?... oh, that must be it.  I know, I know.  No, you see, with the things moving slower, and more blurry?  That's a good thing!  Probably because it forces you to stop playing and go on to something else.  Well, I guess the hackers haven't guessed my password yet.  Must be a low-value target or sumpthing