Back once again with the geek behaviour Not made a blog post in a while as I've been busy with life and stuff, I do however have a number of unfinished posts to complete and publish. but for now here's a pick-up + plans post. The Pick Up.
Picked up a Super Nintendo Console(PAL) on ebay for pretty cheap, came in at 99p + postage, was just the console itself + the original power supply, and I'm fine with that. It was sold as "for parts or repair, not working" description said "powers on so may work" and "found in house clearance". So when I put a bid in, I didn't know if it would work or not.
LE SNES
It Arrived well packed and in pretty good time, so I was pleased with that, gave it a quick clean up with some "Dettol Anti-Bacterial multi action wipes" I use these for general cleaning and normally give things a wipe over with them when I get something used they're citrus-y so I like that too. The console itself is a bit yellowed but by far not the worst I've seen, Didn't have a AV cable(I thought I did but must have got rid a while back) so I hacked together a RF cable from a composite video cable and a old TV RF cable like so:
Like I said quickly hacked together just cut n soldered, this is just temporary to test the console so I'm not going to leave it like this(but does work great for RF), will get RGB SCART cable for it. The console did actually still have the Multi Out AV port cover bung still on it so this was also nice. The Console, as I said it's a bit yellowed but overall it's in pretty good condition for it's age no cracks or chips and no serious marks. So using the new hacked together cable I hooked it up to my LCD TV/Monitor as it's got a tuner in it, stuck Super R-Type in and Powered it on, and got a picture straight away, working, although no sound(oh shit), so I went into TV settings and the Coax input was set to "cable" so I changed this to TV/RF Antenna and went to "Autotune" after a few seconds the SNES was picked up and stored as a channel, now with sound! A-La-Below:
Crap video just showing it all working -
Sorry for the sound and video quality it was filmed with a phone camera, had a hard time getting it to focus and some very lazy half arsed editing + creaky chair noise. Plans for the SNES: Got this SNES with the intentions of Modding it which is why I was looking for a cheap one and not too worried about the condition / yellowing. Mods I have planned are as follows:
50/60HZ Switch
Lockout Chip on /off switch
Cart Slot Mod to fit US Game Carts
Power LED mod
LED's for switches
Paint job with logos and decals
Replacing Capacitors(although all is working fine)
Controller port mod to accept US/JP controllers
As of yet I've not been able to open her up, I ordered the wrong Game Bit screwdriver, i got the 3.8mm one that fits the Cartridges(NES and SNES + others) but needed the 4.5mm one that fits SNES consoles and SEGA Carts + others. So I'm now waiting for the right one to arrive. 3.8mm will still come in handy so I'm not bothered. I Am aware of the supercic/IGR mod etc but don't want to do that yet or to this console. I'm not interested in playing super mario rpg so this will do, at least for now. I'm looking forward to the Retron5 and that is looking like it's going to be pretty good. So yeah that's it for now. more to come...
Yes, It's a bit strange having an honourable mention in before the main content but hey, I'm not one for "properness" and the "correct" order of things so fuck it.
I'm still working on play throughs, getting screen-shots etc. For the other games so this one will do for now. yeah I could google these but prefer to take my own where possible
I picked this game up for pretty cheap on ebay a while back, not really knowing what to expect, the name looked appealing so why not? Purely an impulse buy.
Here it is in the MegaDrive + Mega CD, it's in one of the larger 3rd party carts similar to EA carts and can be opened with a torx bit for easy cleaning.
Zero Tolerance:
I was expecting some kind of shooter or side scroller of some kind, what I got was a 3D First Person Shooter, yes.. a FPS game on the SEGA MegaDrive... It's pretty impressive for the 16-bit console. The game itself is very Doom/Wolfenstein like, and plays surprisingly well on the MegaDrive, although the actual game window is smaller than full-screen(see screenshots), I am aware of other first person games on the MegaDrive, such as Core's "Corporation" which has more "RPG" elements and also known as "Cyber-Cop" in North America. i may look at the PC version of this in another post.
Now you me think "this is just a crappy Doom clone", and you'd be forgiven for thinking that. But you'd be kinda wrong, 1. It's not that crappy, and 2. It's more Wolfenstein in space than Doom.
The Game:
Released in 1994 from developer Technopop, and published by Accolade, this was a MegaDrive/Genesis exclusive, at the time it was overshadowed by the likes of Doom, and Wolfenstein.
The game has a nice animated 3D rotating SEGA logo and a cool looking animated Title screen / intro with nice moody music, Two player mode is also available which is in the options menu it says "Two player (Via Cable)" so a second TV, megadrive, game and the link cable, which connects via the second controller port are required for this, so I have not tested this. Also in the options menu you can enter a password, which you get once completing a level by clearing it of enemies, pause the game and it will list the completed levels with the password beside them, along with a large map of the current level, Now if you're familiar with older games you'll know what these passwords are for and what they do, if not, work it out.
You get a choice of 5 characters when you begin the game, when one dies you can chose another. each has their own speciality and varied starting items which can have an effect on gameplay.
There is a Story/plot to the game, but I'll not go into that too much here, basically you're part of a badass "Zero Tolerance" commando unit and you gotta kill all the alien bad guys. What more do you need from a FPS video game plot?
Controls:
The game Controls fairly well on the MegaDrive pad, I've also tried with an arcade stick but find the pad works better, controls can be changed in the options menu you can chose between a few different button configurations, but as standard D-Pad moves back forward and turns left or right, holding A then pressing left or right will allow you to strafe, pressing A and up, will make you jump, and A+Down will make you crawl / go prone, B shoots, C button will cycle through your inventory which is displayed at the top of screen. Turning around can be a bit slow but not to the point where it gets unfair. movement is relatively smooth in the 3D environment which is again impressive from the MegaDrive hardware.
Graphics and Sound:
Music and sound: Although basic during gameplay, is nice and moody and doesn't get annoying or mess with
the sound effects, the Weapon noises / gunshots are also satisfying, the game also includes digital speech which is clear and audible, So, Thumbs up there.
Graphics: The Graphics for the hardware this game runs on are very impressive, textures and enemies are nice and clear when close up, there are also some nice effects like blood splatter on the walls or floor when you kill and enemy although the environment is 3D the enemies and items are 2d sprites which again is expected but are clear and work well.
Having said all that, it can be hard to see enemies at a distance, which is where the hud comes in, with it's mini-map which shows which direction you are facing and enemies show as red dots. also show is an ID card for your current character and health / ammo / item stats, your inventory at the top and in the bottom left your "comms" which will flash up information or when the level has been cleared. the actual gameplay happens in the upper section of the screen, this is probably due to the hardware limitations, as also seen in the likes of duke nukem, quake, doom, wolfenstein etc, having options to reduce the 3D gameplay window size. But here, there is no option to change this, but it's not needed i played this on both larger LCD screens and an older(as old as the game itself) 24"CRT(1994 sony trinitron) and it was fine.
Video of intro, options and gameplay, captured with kazam and played on Gens/GS R7 on 64bit kubuntu 13.04 - played on an emulator as i don't have any capture equipment / decent camera, video put together with openshot.
Conclusion:
Zero Tolerance is nice and satisfying, again this is an impressive game, and a fun one at that, these days being used to super high frame rates and 1080p+ shooters these days it's hard to go back to these limited older titles and actually play them, but it is worth it, and really puts into perspective how much the industry and technology has progressed in the past 20 years.
I would highly recommend anyone with a MegaDrive / Genesis to pick this one up, it's truly a really good title and it's not at all expensive, with 40 levels there's plenty to shoot through, and it packs a decent challenge too.
Bonus Point: Both Zero Tolerance and It's seemingly unfinished sequel have been deemed by the developer as publicly distributable Freeware so feel guilt free to hit the game up on an emulator ;-)
The roms can be acquired here: http://www.technopop.net/ along with plans to make your own link cable for Two player. nice!
Well, like the Title subtly suggests, I have some ideas on new content. As I have not had as much Geeky/Gamer content as I would have liked recently, I'm going to remedy this with Two new blog post categories, which I will explain in this post. There will still be random non-geeky / non-gaming related posts, and due to their random nature I'll not really bother categorising them But will also throw in one non-random(may still be random in it's own right), non-gaming, non-geeky category which Means 3 in Total. Fun times!
Anyway, down to It...
The New Categories:
The OSS - This will be a gaming related category, Focusing on Old School Shooters, mainly first person, but not restricted to any particular genre other than "shooters", decided this as it's one of my favourite gaming genres, and there's many great titles and series / franchises to look at, The name explained is of course OSS = Old School Shooters pretty simple.
The OSEX - Here I will look at two things, Open Source software, and also Operating systems again mainly open source but basically anything that floats my geeky boat, to explain the name, it's simple, OS = open source / operating system, EX = experience, didn't want to call it OSX as this can be confused / associated with apple's OSX, which I most likely will not be looking at.
Booze Reviewze - I will be Reviewing random Alcoholic drinks that I’ve tried from some of my favourite and regular drinks to random and obscure lesser known drinks, this should cover anything from beer, lager, spirits, liqueur, anything really, although I'm not a big wine drinker, I won't rule anything out.
What Else?
Other Changes to come.. A domain name! lol maybe a website and a .com, we shall see what happens there. Some artwork and design are needed I think, so there's plenty for me to work on. other than that, I may also throw in some cooking related content, and other valuable and useful skills for the collapse of civilisation or whatever random apocalypse that may or may not come to pass. Video content is also something I'm looking into although I do not have a decent camera so would need to get that sorted first.
Completely unrelated to anything other than my Love of all things Guinness.
Now Guinness is as they say an Acquired taste, but once it has been acquired through drinking a few pints of "The Black Stuff" there's little better out there in the world of booze than a nice dirty big pint of Guinness. So if You've never had a pint of Guinness, get down to your local Irish bar, pub or booze store and remedy that problem with one(or more) of these:
A Freshly poured pint of Guinness(left)
still settling, as the saying goes "good things come to those who wait" - Let the Guinness settle before drinking.
This Pint of Guinness(right), has Settled and is Ready for drinking, a sip has already been taken.
Now, down to business and the whole point of this post. Guinness, (or perhaps Diageo who own the Guinness brand along with others like Smirnoff) have decided to branch out with the Guinness name into... Chocolate! While there are a few different "flavours" I will focus here on the one I tried personally, and this is the result:
Guinness Luxury Milk Chocolate Caramel Bar
Packaging:
Nice, clear, simple easily recognizable Guinness logo, easily distinguishable from other competition on the shelves of a store etc. outer packaging is card that opens at either end, easy to open and inner packaging is foil.
Now for the important bit.. the chocolate:
Now these next two pictures are not my own, shamelessly stolen from Google image search, as i forgot to take pictures of the bar itself, and by the time of writing... It had been nom'd
Showing inner foil packaging and the bar itself, it's divided up into 12 blocks, that can be broken off and nom'd individually.
Showing the Guinness Flavoured Caramel inside.
Taste:
The chocolate itself is nice smooth milk chocolate as described on the packaging, the Guinness flavoured caramel, also nice and smooth, not too runny or too hard, just the right gooey consistency, and yes, it does have a Guinness taste to it, which although is only stated to be 2% Guinness, does give the caramel a liqueur taste so it may not be to everyone's liking.
Out of my Test Subject(Guinea pig) sample group, no-one died, so this was good, no reported illness nor any other medical issues arose due to consumption of the chocolate bar in question. 2 people out of 6 did not like, 4 out of the 6 including myself did like it which gives us a 66.6% approval rate
In conclusion:
It's not for everybody, but neither is Guinness itself, my advice:
You only live once, Try it, also if you've still not Tried Guinness Try that too!
This will be an update as to where I am now, The initial post was made on the 7th July 2013, so just a few weeks ago.
As of right now, All i have been doing is watering the plants each day, nothing particularly meticulous or scheduled, and they are still sitting in the same pot with the same home made compost as they were planted in, sitting in the same window.
We've had unusually good weather, it's been sunny and bright, only in recent days has it became stormy and a bit more rainy and overcast, the sun was great however while it lasted, but it seems not just for me but for the plants also.
The Tomato plants have grown very quickly, and even the citrus plant has done well, although considerably slower growing than the tomato plants. I may change this to it's own pot very soon.
Here is a before and after comparison shot:
Before. (07/07/2013)
After, (now) 08/08/2013
bad angle but this is a close up of the Citrus plant
The tomato plants have Grown like erm.. something that grows very fast.. And the citrus plant has grown, although much slower, but still alive and developing, which is great. As I said above I will probably move the citrus plant to it's own pot soon.
All in all not bad I think for someone who has no clue regarding these things, helped out i think by the great weather we have had and the awesome home made compost.
Home Made Compost: How To
As it worked so well, I thought I'd add this at the end although it's all common sense, obvious and as simple as simple gets, here's how to stockpile your own home made compost. it helps if you have a garden, yard, shed or garage.
What you will need is a container to put your compost in for it to do it's thing and become erm.. compost... anything will do really you could even skip this and just have a heap in a corner or your yard or garden, but a container is just easier and more tidy.
you can get specially designed compost bins, or just use any old plastic bin / container or whatever you like, i have some compost bins for the job.
Basically what you want to do is anything decomposable waste from your day to day activities collect instead of binning, it helps to have a small container you can use throughout the day or week and then empty it into the compost bin when full.
Obviously be sensible with what you put in try and stick to vegetable / fruit waste, e.g. peelings, cores any parts you don't use, you can also throw in things like used tea bags, egg shells, garden waste also paper can be put in too. basically use your common sense.
what you also want is worms getting into the compost to do their thing and help it along, some things may need to be shredded before putting in like wood eg branches, also you don't want to add anything that will grow like seeds. but grass trimmings are fine.
once you've build up a fair amount just leave it for a few months to do it's thing normally about 3-4 months is fine. plenty of in depth tutorials online.
