jdodson | Cheerful Ghost

3 Died On Halloween - The Seven Stages Of Console Grief

I was at the PIGSquad Halloween Horror Game Marathon when my wife texted me the news. My PlayStation 3 finally passed and it is a sad time around our house. It's been doing strange things for the past month so we kind of saw this one coming. Rebooting spontaneously and constantly needing to check itself for errors,it wasn't too happy in it's last days. Every time we'd boot it the "jet engine cooling system" would rev up and loudly proclaim it was in pain. It's nice to see it finally be at peace.

Over the last few years we've used the PlayStation 3 to play DVDs and Bluray films. I imagine that hurt 3 and deep down, 3 couldn't find a way forward knowing I had moved on to PC gaming. I'll never forget 3 and I spending 8 hours a day over the weekends playing Fallout 3 or completing Borderlands. I had the Orange Box and 3 was right there beside me and even though it was a bit buggy it was magical all the same.

Every year I have a Halloween party and this year I have setup a "Wake Station" above for attendants to pay last respects to my old friend. If you have any memories of PlayStation that you'd like to share, please feel free to do that in the comments I know 3 would like that very much.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/31/2015 at 06:58pm

You gonna replace it? I still found it to be the most affordable, capable Blu Ray player so even though I don't game on it as much as I used to, I replaced mine.

But gone are the saves. The games I played since cloud saving came around are fine, but 100% completion of LittleBigPlanet 1 and 2, I will miss you. My various Rock Band and Guitar Hero careers (which took a damn long time, mind) are at an end. GTA IV, Niko's life in New York has been erased from time. Red Dead Redemption, God of War 3, one set of Fallout 3 and Oblivion saves (but I have plenty of others on other platforms)... the list goes on.

Rest in peace, progress. You're still in my memory, but I can never revisit you again. Not the way you were.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/31/2015 at 07:00pm

3D-capable Blu Ray player, that is. You can get some cheap ones, but it seems the 3D ones are above $100, and I replaced my PS3 for $112

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 10/31/2015 at 07:04pm

It's in a better place.

My fondest memories of 3 definitely include watching RedLetterMedia movies.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/31/2015 at 10:05pm

My PS3 started acting up years ago.. It would shut itself off, even after only being on for a minute or so. Then it would have to check for errors. That was years ago, I can't say how many though. I thought it would die soon. However, it's still alive and seems to be doing fine now. I haven't really been using it, especially since I got my new PC. I was using it with the PS3 media player. Vinny's used it for various games including, but not limited to, Minecraft and Terraria.

Some of my best memories of it are especially of playing Fallout New Vegas, Red Dead Redemption, Skyrim, Oblivion, GTA IV, GTA V, and Batman Arkham City.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 11/01/2015 at 05:27pm

Rest in peace PS3.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 11/01/2015 at 06:49pm

Alas, poor Jon's PS3. I knew him well.

I'll always remember that one time we played Borderlands. And that other time we played RAGE and Unreal Tournament. Those were the days.

Farewell old friend, may you find peace in that big games room in the sky.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/01/2015 at 10:23pm

> You gonna replace it? I still found it to be the most affordable, capable Blu Ray player so even though I don't game on it as much as I used to, I replaced mine.

That's a really great question. I am not sure right this minute. I am going to try and see if I can open it up and see anything obvious. If I can't fix it and I really don't think I'll be able to, I am edging to just buying a nice Sony wifi Bluray player. As much as I'd like to get another PS3 or PS4 I really don't play console games anymore.

I set aside all my PS3 games the majority are on the PC. In fact, the games I enjoyed most like Borderlands, Fallout 3, The Orange Box, Borderlands 2, Rage and UT3 would be the only ones I'd want to play again and I own many of those on PC already.

Looking at a brand new PS3 they seem to start around $250 and might dip less depending. That's more than i'd want to spend for a device I only use to watch DVD and Bluray. If I go used that would be fine but it would just break again. I only know one person (well now with Greg 2) that still have their original PS3, they usually all break. So a used one isn't a great option, it's just a ticking clock till death.

So right now a fancy Bluray player but I could go another direction.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 11/01/2015 at 11:26pm

$250? Damn! Anyway, when I researched the issue with my PS3, I came to the conclusion that the issue has to do with the thermal paste on the processor. I also had mine standing vertically, which isn't recommended, so I set it down horizontally. I did find some solutions to that issue, but none of them seemed simple. Those solutions also said that they could only extend the life of the PS3 for a little bit more until it happened again.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/02/2015 at 03:54am

Start around $250? The most expensive I can find is $219 at Best Buy.

Since you already have a hard drive you can just get a 12gb for cheap and pop in the old drive. The key is finding one now, I think I lucked out. If you're ok with refurbs you can still get them way cheap.

But yeah, if 3D isn't a factor, you can get a Blu-Ray player for like $60

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/02/2015 at 06:07pm

I just checked the 12gb has no HD mounting tray, so that option is out. I didn't check Best Buy I checked Amazon and for the new quieter PS3, they start at $250 if I want to put in my old HD. Refurb and used are not an option i'd do.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/03/2015 at 04:23am

"I just checked the 12gb has no HD mounting tray, so that option is out."

You can buy a mounting tray for $6, but you don't even need the tray.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/03/2015 at 04:25am

More detail: The mounting tray just means the piece of metal the drive sits into so that you can easily slide it in and out of the PS3. The 12gb PS3 has the ports for the hard drive, just no mounting tray. But the tray itself is super cheap.

However, all you need is a piece of something non-conductive to make a wedge, or even a piece of electrical tape to hold the drive in securely. But if you don't want to live dangerously you can just buy the cheap one.

Proof: I have a 12gb PS3 and my hard drive is living there quite happily.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/03/2015 at 04:27am

This dude goes super high-tech :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWrI6U7fMvI

Travis Admin wrote on 11/03/2015 at 04:59am

And yeah, oddly, Amazon is about the most expensive option in this case. That's very odd.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/03/2015 at 05:15pm

That's all really good to know, thanks Travis. That does make the whole prospect cheaper. Still wondering what the chances i'll ever play a game on it again are?

Good thing Portal 2 came with a free Steam copy

Travis Admin wrote on 11/03/2015 at 07:41pm

Eh, if Portal 2 hadn't come with a free Steam copy, you definitely would have gotten it one of the few times they gave it away for free. Gotta love Valve :D

JaBo wrote on 11/05/2015 at 11:46pm

I have a backwards compatible (PS1 and PS2) 60GB HD original PS3 still working fine. My cousin took great care of it and I bought it off him a year and half or two years ago. There's hope!

If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.

I Recently Completed Link To The Past Four Swords

At Portland Retro Gaming Expo I picked up a new Gameboy Advance alongside Zelda: Four Swords & Link to the Past Advance. Originally I wanted to play a few original Gameboy titles but couldn't because of battery save issues so I decided to play Link to the Past instead. If you grew up in the SNES era, you've played Link to the Past. I didn't know the game could be improved but the simple act of playing it on a handheld made the experience that much better. It's still the same game I remember but being able to play it anywhere I want is so much better. The game isn't as long as I remember nor are the dungeons as annoying as I remember some being. Because I only had a few games as a kid and played Zelda a zillion times, I bet my annoyance with certain parts were due to my constant replay of it.

The game has been reviewed into the ground and I have said a ton about the game here already but I will say this game is still a classic and hasn't lost anything over the years. If I had a slight gripe I guess the story and characters are a bit thin but it's a really streamlined game and is because of it.

Get All Fallout History In 5 Minutes

IGN posted a great video outlining the history of the Fallout series in a video you need to watch. The Fallout universe diverged from ours in a few significant ways and this video does a good job of outlining them, the most significant being the Fallout universes failure to invent the transistor. The transistor thing makes sense, unless you consider that the Fallout universe also has very complicated robots and then it breaks down. That said, the video is still fun and well worth checking out if you are going to be picking up Fallout 4 come launch day.

Happy 30th Birthday NES - One Of The Best Gaming Systems Of All Time

On October 17th the Nintendo Entertainment System turned 30 and to ring in the occasion CygnusDestroyer made a video showcasing the original 17 games in original NES launch lineup. Funny to consider it's been that long that I obsessed over getting one. I remember the Christmas morning opening it up and being able to finally play Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt whenever I wanted.

Mod Mass Recall Recreates Entire Original Game And Brood War In Starcraft II

If you cut your teeth on PC gaming you might have played the original Starcraft and Broodwar. These games were LAN staples at parties of days past and that love has translated to the new series in Starcraft 2. As with most things in the mod community, they have awesomely remade the original Starcraft and Brood War single player experience in Starcraft II. Using the original levels, cues and voice acting they cut it in with the Starcraft II engine to build a really polished final product. If this interests you head over to the mod project and install it.

The installation directions seem complex but it's a really easy process and worked for me the first time. As old games are lost to time, it's nice to see the mod community breathe life into this gaming classic.

http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/starcraft-mass-recall/#w-auto-install-using-the-scmr-installer

Travis Admin wrote on 10/24/2015 at 04:39am

Great idea. It's still playable on modern systems, but as things improve I find 800x600 to be quite lackluster.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/24/2015 at 04:42am

My smartphone does better than that so yeah, I do too.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/30/2015 at 02:19am

I've played quite a few missions already and DAMN are they hard. The Starcraft 2 missions are really easy in comparison. Like if you don't build just right for the situation you get wrecked. It's not too bad to get wrecked, learn the mission and tank up accordingly but it makes for way longer missions and a much rougher time.

Conversely I don't think I ever played a Starcraft 2 mission twice by it being hard but replayed them because I enjoyed them so much. The original Starcraft story isn't great nor are the characters or storytelling as good, but it's still fun and I like the direction they are going.

One thing I noticed is that Kerrigan and Raynor are NOT boyfriend/girlfriend. In Starcraft 2 they sort of retcon this and since it was so long I just sort of didn't think about it. Kerrigan calls Raynor a pig at one point and they don't have much interaction to warrant a relationship before she becomes the Queen of Blades. Not that a relationship couldn't happen between missions, but it's not called out in Starcraft directly and it's a huge story point in Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm.

Not a huge deal, but something I noticed.

If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.

Doom Alpha Drops As iD Software Releases More Footage

The Doom multiplayer alpha is out and iD is focus testing on one map to run the online portion through it's paces. This isn't the beta we all got as a pre-order bonus for Wolfenstein: New Order but I imagine that isn't too far behind. The multiplayer footage looks great and for a non FPS multiplayer looks like something I might try.

Now I wonder how many face stomp finishing moves I will be able to pull off with actual humans when the game launches? The little demon on my shoulder says a lot, the other one isn't as optimistic.

Stream Steam Games To Your PC or Android With Moonlight

http://moonlight-stream.com/images/steam_framed.png

I just found an awesome open source project that allows you to stream Steam games to any PC, Amazon or Android device called Moonlight. If you have an NVidia card setup with the NVidia experience for streaming, Moonlight is an open source client that can connect to it. Want to stream your PC library to your Android phone or tablet? You now can.

One cool thing about Moonlight is I was able to get my Steam games to stream to my television through my existing Nexus Player. After installing Moonlight on my Nexus Player I paired it with my PC and could start streaming games. It detected the games on my PC and after that was able to near seamlessly stream Borderlands 2 to my television. Some games don't pickup the controller though so not everything works but it's an amazing step to getting PC streaming to my TV using my already existing hardware.

If you have an NVidia powered PC and an Android device you should check this out and let me know how it worked out.

http://moonlight-stream.com/

Cheerful Ghost Roundtable: S3 E6 - Hallowon't

Welcome to the Cheerful Ghost Roundtable Halloween special. We talk about what we've been playing, if it's good to release two triple a games at the same time a few retro games and the new Star Wars trailer.

This is a shorted Roundtable as we take off a bit early to stream a bit of Telltales the Walking Dead which you can watch below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HE42nZac-Y

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/22/2015 at 08:38pm

Tim, there are other Final Fantasy games for the PSP you might want to check out. We may have talked about them long ago, I've forgotten. I refer to FFVII: Crisis Core and FFI and FFII. There's also Dissidia, but I'm not sure if I'd recommend it and its sequel. I spent a lot of time playing the first one, though. Oh and there's also FFIV: The After Years, which I also have.

That's cool, Jon, that you have Kirby's Dream Land. I remember playing that on my Gameboy, too. I'm not sure if I still have the cart for it. Oh and there are some Final Fantasy games for the original Gameboy as well, but again I'm not sure I'd recommend them, though I have them.

I don't recall the original Gameboy having a wall charger. I do remember the Super Gameboy, the SNES cart that lets you play Gameboy games.

As for the new Star Wars trailer, I think it looks cool. I also wonder where Luke is. I think I read that he may be in hiding. Also, I liked the newer movies for the first three episodes. I'm not saying they're the best movies ever, but I liked them. I realize many people don't though.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/23/2015 at 01:54am

> That's cool, Jon, that you have Kirby's Dream Land. I remember playing that on my Gameboy, too. I'm not sure if I still have the cart for it. Oh and there are some Final Fantasy games for the original Gameboy as well, but again I'm not sure I'd recommend them, though I have them.

I played Final Fantasy on Gameboy and at the time thought it was OK. It didn't standup to FF Mystic Quest or FF 2/IV, FF 3/VI but it was fun enough.

> As for the new Star Wars trailer, I think it looks cool. I also wonder where Luke is.

IT'S THE MYSTERY OF THE STAR... AGES? But yeah, I don't know either. I think it may be a significant plot point of the new film.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/23/2015 at 02:08am

You know what, I was referring to a different Final Fantasy game and didn't specify that. Final Fantasy Legends, I think is the series I really meant when talking about the Gameboy games. I didn't really like them, but I didn't give them much of a try. Weapons were used as consumables, I didn't like that.

As for Mystic Quest, I was disappointed with that one. It seemed to be too short. However FFII and III on the SNES are awesome! I do have those carts and their later ports. I paid about $50 or more for each of them (the SNES carts) maybe 15 years or so ago. I have no idea what happened to the SNES I used to have around that time, too, though I have a suspicion about how it disappeared.

As for Star Wars, one of the "teaser" trailers had Luke talking about how his parents had the force "and so do you." I don't know if he'll be in the movie, but it makes me think that he or Leia (did I spell that right?) had a kid (or more) and that's one of the main characters in the new movie. Seeing as how I wasn't disappointed with EpI-III, I probably won't be disappointed with VII either.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/23/2015 at 02:14am

Luke is confirmed to be in the movie, but we don't know in what capacity he'll appear.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/23/2015 at 02:18am

> As for Mystic Quest, I was disappointed with that one. It seemed to be too short.

I played Mystic Quest after Final Fantasy II/IV and I was disappointing with it to a point, but finished it because it was a fun simple adventure. The biggest bummer was that Adam had Final Fantasy III/VI and hew as playing it and I was borrowing Mystic Quest from him. Again, it was fun but I really wanted to play III

And yeah, Luke is confirmed as he was in the now iconic shot of the cast meeting before shooting the film.

http://rack.3.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE0LzA0LzMwLzVhL3N0YXJ3YXJzZXBpLmZhNjQ4LmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTk1MHg1MzQjCmUJanBn/bffc1745/1e5/star-wars-episode-7-cast-announce.jpg

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/23/2015 at 02:23am

Mystic Quest was a simple adventure. I'm not saying it was bad, but after having experienced many of the other FF games at the time I played MQ, I expected more.

Thanks for the Luke confirmation!

Travis Admin wrote on 10/23/2015 at 02:33am

Mystic Quest was released to be Final Fantasy for Dummies basically, to try to get Americans into the series more.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/24/2015 at 12:35am

Right. Still enjoyed it, even if it did have the bumpers on

If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.

"Artanis: Sacrifice" Is A New Prequel Comic For Legacy Of The Void

http://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/blog_header/i2/I24EJGX2HNXM1445300573216.jpg

Blizzard has released a new 10 page comic called Sacrifice that catalogs Artanis and how he got his position as head of the Protoss for the upcoming game Legacy of the Void. Artanis is the new protagonist and Blizzard is doing much to introduce him as to date he hasn't, to my understanding, been in the game yet.

You can read the whole story below on the webpage or download the PDF.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/media/blizzard-comics/artanis-sacrifice/
http://media.blizzard.com/sc2/media/blizzard-comics/issue/1/en-us/artanis-sacrifice-en-us.pdf

What Do We Do When The Cart Batteries Die?

Recently I picked up Metroid II: The Return of Samus from a local game convention. Metroid II is one of my favorite Metroid games as, for me, it really started my love for the franchise. Metroid II really gets the dark lonely vibe the series is known for and draws this out even more with the monochrome aspect of the Gameboy visuals. That said, when I booted it up on my GBA after about an hour play through I noticed something. Saving didn't work. I tried it a few more times and yeah, I can't save a game to the game cart. Zelda Link's Awakening is another Gameboy title I have that saves and I tried it out too and yeah, the saves no longer stuck on the game cart.

Was I the only one that experienced this? Clearly these games don't last forever but maybe I bought a bad game? Come to find out my game wasn't alone but that the original method for saving games on old game carts is slowly dying. Here is what I found from a very informative Atari Age post about this very subject(i'll clip out the relevant parts but I recommend you read the whole thing):

"In the case with NES games, the battery usually only powers a low-power (or a very-low-power) SRAM chip... Dividing the charge on the drain therefore tells us that the average lifetime of a typically battery-backed NES cartridge is around 70 years (+/- 10)

The other class of cartridge systems I have looked at is Gameboy games. After examining quite a lot of those, I see that two different batteries were used. Older games, usually from 2000 and earlier, uses a whimpy CR1616 battery cell with only about 55mAh (200C). Later cartridges has the CR2025 cell, with 150mAh (540C)... Old MCB1 games with the CR1616 are expected to retain data for 15 years +/- 5 years. About now, in other words."

That post was in 2012 so we are long past the expected battery life of all Gameboy games made in the pre 2000 era. I find this fact a bit depressing as the only way to now play certain games with a save is to emulate them or re-purchase them on a modern system. I still enjoy having the original carts for collecting and they still work I just can no longer save them, which is extremely unfortunate.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/193374-battery-life-of-old-game-cartridges/

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/21/2015 at 02:10am

Bummer dude! I never gave much thought about Gameboy cart saves, but I knew that NES carts had batteries for saves. The only other method around that was by using codes.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/21/2015 at 02:19am

One of my copies of the original Legend Of Zelda no longer saves. I got a replacement because of that.

I also had a multi-slot memory card for the PSX that was partially battery powered. I didn't realize, however, that when the battery died all the saves died with it. I lost a ton of save games, mostly from Final Fantasy game, that way. And it didn't last 15 years either, more like 3 or 4.

Nowadays you can play the PSX games on PS3 and not have to worry about all those memory cards, but you still have to worry about dead drives, etc.

And modern games have save corruption all too frequently.

Are we never safe?

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/21/2015 at 02:35am

Gosh, I forgot about those PS memory cards we had, Travis! Mine are some where around here, along with GameCube memory cards. I like how the PS3 emulates those cards for PS1 games.

Otherwise, I don't really recall running into much difficulty with saves. Yes, hard drives and other storage devices fail. What about saving to "the cloud?" That could help if you have Internet access. I'm not sure how many games actually do that, but maybe it's something we're likely to see more of. Maybe.....what do you think?

Travis Admin wrote on 10/21/2015 at 02:54am

Cloud saving will save your ass, no pun intended. But for many things it requires a paid account, and corrupted saves can also sync. It helps significantly, though.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/21/2015 at 02:58am

Yeah, don't you get some kind of cloud storage with a paid PSN account? That's what I was thinking about.

Also, what about just replacing the batteries in those carts? I don't know how difficult that would be, but perhaps that's an option.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/21/2015 at 03:27am

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-replace-the-battery-in-a-pokemon-goldsilve/?ALLSTEPS

Not terribly difficult with GameBoy carts apparently. But the NES requires some more work.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/21/2015 at 03:28am

http://www.thejobbitt.com/nes-guides/nintendo-nes-cart-battery-replacement-guide/

NES replacement instructions, requires soldering stuff.

Zach_Foster wrote on 10/21/2015 at 04:43am

Neat little hack I found, I got a 1st gen DS from a friend, and bought an AceKard aka R4DS aka modchip. It is a DS cartridge that carries a microSD card and runs it's own OS, allowing you to run emulators, watch movies (after formatting to a very obscure format), and play music. With another mod card that fits in the GBA slot, (I had to modify mine because it was for the slims and had a lip on it), I was able to play game boy advance games without even an emulator, everything is simply stored on the card. It enables you to play all your favorite old games again, and save them. Plus it requires no hardware modifications or firmware changes on the DS. Once you take the card out, it's just a regular old DS again.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/21/2015 at 08:43pm

Those all sounds like good options. I have some fear around doing electrical work though. I think the best long term solution is emulation though. Looking into what would be good there, i'd prefer a system where I don't have to mod this or that so the i've been looking seriously at the GCW Zero.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 10/21/2015 at 08:53pm

I have replaced NES cart batteries, with no soldering experience. It was fairly easy. I took out the old battery, and soldered in a battery that could be easily replaced in the future. The hardest part was getting the appropriate screwdriver to open the cart. :)

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/21/2015 at 08:56pm

I failed to mention one other possible solution. Nintendo does offer some games via their virtual console. You can check their game shop. While not all games are available, some are and you can play them on your DS, Wii, or Wii U.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/22/2015 at 02:57am

Will: That's not a solution I love but one i'll look into for my Gameboy games. I really don't want to destroy them with a case of sweaty butterfingers.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/22/2015 at 10:53am

@jdodson check the link I posted up earlier about the gameboy games. No soldering needed, apparently.

Also there's no modding involved with the R4 that Zach mentioned, or the CycloDS that I have. It's just a DS cart with a microSD slot. And there are ways to run original gameboy games with them with some success. I got Links Awakening running. I think there are a pretty good amount of emulators for it. And again, there's no modding involved since it's all running from a cartridge.

Basically, standard DS carts are loading a rom that you play-- the R4/Cyclo just lets you pick one of many to run.

If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.

jdodson1

2759 Posts

3 Died On Halloween - The Seven Stages Of Console Grief

I Recently Completed Link To The Past Four Swords

Get All Fallout History In 5 Minutes

Happy 30th Birthday NES - One Of The Best Gaming Systems Of All Time

Mod Mass Recall Recreates Entire Original Game And Brood War In Starcraft II

Doom Alpha Drops As iD Software Releases More Footage

Stream Steam Games To Your PC or Android With Moonlight

Cheerful Ghost Roundtable: S3 E6 - Hallowon't

"Artanis: Sacrifice" Is A New Prequel Comic For Legacy Of The Void

What Do We Do When The Cart Batteries Die?