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If any of you have been reading my blog here and/or on blogger.com then you know that I have been limited in the games I am able to stream due to the fact that I (purposely at the time) got a composite only capture device. I am actually really happy with it as far as what it does and is supposed to do, however, it has gotten to the point where it is quite a limiting factor.
As a collector (and I'm sure at least some of you can relate) not all of my consoles work perfectly all of the time. I am working on getting them all refurbished and in some cases modded. My main roadblock comes in when I want to stream a PS1 game. I have two PS2's, but neither of them will read a PS1 disk (at least one of them did within a year of this blog, but didn't work the last two times I tried) and so I have to use my PS3 to play PS1 games.
If you know anything about connectors you probably already see my issue. The PS3 uses an HDMI connector (I'm sure I could get a composite connector, but that is just silly) and my capture device only has composite. I have a long weekend with Labor Day (woohoo!) so I am planning on doing some streaming. It was getting on my nerves that I may be limited in my selection of game, so I ordered a new capture device off of Amazon and had it overnighted. This capture device is more than twice the cost of my other device, but has composite as well as HDMI inputs for capture.
I am excited at this possibility since it will unlock streaming for any and all of my systems including Wii U and PS4. This allows me to stream absolutely anything from my collection (unless my xbox keeps acting up which only limits me from less than half of my xbox games since half of them run on xbox 360). Needless to say Xbox and PS2's are next to be refurbished and PS2 is getting modded for region unlock, maybe some other fancy stuff.
Anyone else having fun keeping up with refurbishment of their disk based systems?
The other day an online friend on PSN mentioned how he was going to upgrade the thermal grease on his PS4 before it dried out and broke the PS4. Initially my thought was I'll simply wait until that day comes, and deal with it then. As I started to think about it, I realized I didn't want my PS4 to break if all I had to do was change out the thermal grease to save it.
A few days later, I set out to do this task. I started right out with a big mistake: trying to pull it apart as I am watching a random Youtube video about pulling it apart. Things are going fine until the part where the fan connector is in the way, and looks pretty fragile. I see in the video that the guy just leaves it as is, and pulls out the motherboard, and leaves the wires connected. I was not able to keep the wires connected for fear of them breaking.
I ended up pulling outward on the wires, and one of the wires broke free. Immediately my reaction is F&CK! I proceed and finish everything up, and while putting it back, I am concerned that this connection won't work so I make an even bigger mistake. I ended up pulling all three of the wires out of the connector, really messing things up. I attempt to push the wires against the connectors in a hope that I would somehow get the fan to be operational, it doesn't work. I pull the system apart again, only this time I REALLY mess things up, and push against one of the solder joints on the connector enough that it disconnects. Now I'm really screwed, and decide to take it to a specialist to get it fixed. After I broke the fan connection, I found another video that showed how to properly remove it, and it simply pops straight up! So annoyed that I did this wrong when it is so simple!
I bring the system in to this guy, and it is obvious that he is a pro. If anyone can fix it this guy can, he has it out and is working on it very quickly (after already setting out to repair my xbox 360 RROD). The connectors are so small that this guy is having trouble, and after almost an hour, he says he would like to keep working on it, but had to go at that point. In my mind I am sort of concerned, but based on what I saw with his skills, I was pretty optimistic.
Fast forward to today, and I call the guy. He tells me that he couldn't fix it, I'm seriously bummed. I am going to Best Buy today to get a new one. Anyone want to buy a broken PS4 with no hard drive? let me know, lol.
Here's a little story about my first foray into video editing. I was noticing that nobody had watched any of my Youtube videos related to gaming, which essentially were uncut broadcasts from twitch. I realized that this simply will not do, and so last night I set about editing my most recent broadcast into a highlight reel.
To begin with, I should have paid more attention to the fact that Youtube has a video editor right through your account. I did not know this until after I was uploading the video. At any rate, I found a decent video editor online that was relatively cheap. I was going to use Movie Maker, but it wants nothing to do with .flv files.
I then go about editing my video, and I realize pretty quickly that I know absolutely nothing about what I'm doing. I add the video as a resource, OK, then put it into the "story" section. I started to figure out more and more while literally just trying to cut out the parts of the video I felt were not very entertaining. Meanwhile I didn't realize it, but I had actually made some slowdown effects, and a remix effect at a couple random points in the video. I left them in because I sort of find them amusing, and furthermore because I have no idea how to "undo" it.
The video is now up on my Youtube channel, obviously as time goes on, I will get better at it, but it was my first try, and somehow a couple of neat effects happened without me trying. Please check it out, and comments are welcome here and/or on the comments section on Youtube.
So, this week the broadcast went very well. I am really happy with how it came out with the exception of my fan blowing on the mic every once in awhile while it was oscillating. It isn't that big a deal, and kind of makes me laugh. We were able to broadcast on time, pretty much, and we played Mortal Kombat for Genesis and Sega CD.
We were going to play Balls the directors cut for 3do as suggested by nupoile, however, the 3do doesn't seem to want to send the composite signal to my capture box. Go figure, the console with no region locking, or game protections whatsoever, has a video signal capture block. So, my buddy picked out Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. We did a blind coin flip and ended up with Mortal Kombat.
Since I have Mortal Kombat for Genesis and Sega CD, we played on both, starting with Genesis, and switching to Sega CD about half way through. I had a blast playing one of my favorite fighting games of my childhood.
I don't know about all of you guys, but now that I have been collecting for a little while and have the "basics" covered as far as consoles go (NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, Dreamcast, PS1 I consider to be the bare essentials for consoles when collecting) and a little bit beyond that, I am starting to contemplate which console will be next.
The consoles I am considering (drooling over) are as follows in no particular order:
Sega Master system
Neo Geo CDZ (CD if I can't find a CDZ) - I would go for an AES but I'm not Bill Gates
Colecovision
Atari 7800
Jaguar CD - I know not technically a console
Does anyone have a suggestion in terms of which one I should snag next? My guess is the SMS is the cheapest option with most likely the largest library of cheap games. I am also guessing that the Jaguar CD is the worst value considering the cost of the unit, and the small library of games for it. I am just trying to decide without the eenie, meenie, miney, moe method of choosing.
Also note that I probably won't be getting any of the above consoles very soon, so please feel free to really take your time before giving a recommendation :-)
Looking forward to the input!
So yesterday was the second episode from my twitch.tv channel. It took awhile to get going since my buddy showed up very late (over and hour late). We got it together finally and began broadcasting around 9:30PM.
I was having a great time beating my friend at Hi-Octane for the Sega Saturn when I noticed one of our fellow RFG members nupoile sent a message telling me that there is massive echo. In the end of the broadcast it is him helping me to mitigate the echo. It turns out that OBS software allows you to select one microphone for more than one mic input source. I still have some echo after removing it from the audio source, but I will be going over it with a fine toothed comb to ensure that the next broadcast is (hopefully) echo free.
I do post the twitch.tv videos to youtube, so if you don't have time to watch live, please feel free to watch on twitch.tv after the fact, or on youtube.
Still going to be broadcasting with my buddy (or buddies when I can get 3+ player games going) on Wednesdays at 8:00PM EST, and will start broadcasting single player more often, but I don't have specific times for it yet.
Anyway, hope to see more of you guys tune in!
Hello All!
This past weekend I managed to get a composite/S-Video capture device so I can capture my video game play. It has been my intention since early on starting with the collecting to eventually start broadcasting some videos related to playing the games.
The reason I am starting now is that I feel like I have enough games in my library to keep it interesting. I am going to focus on multiplayer action with the help of some friends who live local to play the games. The main point of this whole thing will be to have fun playing games new and old on the couch. I will do solo gaming as well, but initially I think I will focus more on multiplayer.
My Twitch.tv channel: http://www.twitch.tv/buckethealien
My Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c.../UCUm7CTUi7S5vvyQramUpwUQ
I have not uploaded any "let's play" videos or anything yet, this is just announcing that it is coming soon, and I'm very excited!
I hope to see you guys checking out my videos when they are up.
I am hoping to have at least one video up, or a live stream done within two weeks time, good luck to me!
If any of you guys have something similar going on, I am curious to check it out.
Has anyone else heard about the Fallout Anthology being released? It contains all of the Fallout games (except Fallout 4 of course) Game of the Year editions (all add-ons etc.).
I have all of these games, but I ended up pre-ordering this Anthology mostly for the mini-nuke packaging. I am such a big fan of the Fallout series, but I have virtually no Fallout merchandise. I never really thought about this type of thing before becoming a collector, but now that I am well into collecting, I want to not just have games, but really cool merchandise of my favorite franchises.
I honestly have almost no merchandise or collectibles or even posters from games with few exceptions.
So now I am on a side quest to obtain merchandise/collectibles/posters from the following franchises that are some of my favorites:
Fallout
Wolfenstein
DOOM
Mortal Kombat
Street Fighter
GTA
I am taking donations from anyone, and could potentially trade something (although I doubt there is much interest in the items I would be willing to trade), or if reasonable I would be willing to make a purchase.
Anyone else find that they are in need of some cool merchandise to spice up their collections? I would also be interested in seeing some posts of peoples really cool game related swag.
For a long time I have just been ignoring the loose games in my collection because they are relegated to a CD book. Most of them are not worth the money to buy an original intact case with or even without instructions. What happens is they sit in a CD book, and when I'm looking for a game to play, I never open the CD book, it's always something that is out staring me in the face that ends up being played.
Realizing this, I took all of my games out of the CD book (legitimate loose games) and put them into CD cases so they were at least out. This then had the next problem of not being able to identify which games they were. This then turned into me glazing over those cases again since I couldn't quickly identify them, and it seems like work to have to pull them out and look at each one individually.
This reminded me of my original issue, except that these were games that I didn't want to spend big money on getting official cases (even though that would be ideal of course). I wanted a much cheaper solution that would look nice also.
I then remembered that there are lots of people uploading high resolution DVD covers for a lot of these games. Now all I need are some DVD cases. I did some research online and quickly found the best deal, the only drawback is that bulk is necessary when ordering from this particular site (each unit is 10 DVD cases). I picked up one unit of singles, one unit of doubles, and one unit of 6 DVD cases which left me with quite a few extras, but I figure I will use them up eventually.
I then looked online and was happy to find that a lot of these games have high resolution scans of DVD covers, or even custom DVD cover graphics, SWEET! Then I found that there were games that did not have high resolution scans of DVD cases, or even original box art. What to do with that?
I noted the size of the DVD images (3225x2156) and downloaded whatever the closest thing I could find online to the box art as possible, and made custom images to print out for DVD cases. One example of this is Descent: Freespace Darkness Rising, good luck finding DVD image online for that. In some cases the CD box art was available, and I simply stretched the image to make it fit eyeballing where the spine would be (quite accurately I might add).
Anyway, I know this is nothing new, but if anyone else is finding that their loose CD's or DVD's aren't being played, put them in a case so you can see them. Side benefit, it looks really cool when you are done (I printed all of mine in black and white as my laser printer is black and white, but in the end I like the look also).
Is anyone else as excited as I am for Battlefield 3? There are many reasons why I am out of my mind excited about this new game.
The first and foremost reason I am so excited about this game is that it is a sequel to Battlefield 2 as opposed to being another of the Bad Company franchise. Don't get me wrong the Bad Company franchise is still good and fun, but lacks a LOT when compared to the full blown PC Battlefield games of yore. (particularly Battlefield 2142 which to this day is my favorite shooter bar none)
Another reason I am so excited about this new Battlefield game is that it looks absolutely stunning even on the consoles. Granted the system is dumbed down a bit on the consoles (only 32 players as opposed to 64, and cut from 60fps to 30fps), but still looks amazing, and even at 30fps it looks smooth.
This game is going to be so epic that I am actually going to get the PC version of the game as well just to see the full blown awesomeness of unbridled Battlefield 3 (64 players and no frame limit, and I'm quite sure my system will run this game nicely, or give me a good excuse to get a better graphics card)
Anyway, are there any other Battlefield fans out there?
So, I was annoyed to see that my last blog entry was double, and comments made by me were multiplied. It was the first and last time I blogged from my cell phone. Not sure what caused the side effect of multiple entries, but it is definitely due to my cell phone.
On a side note, I definitely appreciate the feedback left from the last blog post, and didn't mean to comment like 3 times in a row, or double up the last entry, simply happened due to my cell phone doing whatever the heck it did.
Peace!
So I have been generally happy with my 32" screen since I bought it back in 2005, but over the past several months I found it more and more annoying that I couldn't see very well from my couch.
Over the past few weeks I really was feeling annoyed since the cold weather is making gaming more critical, more of my friends are online, etc. Well best buy decided to have a sale on hdtvs. This was my time to pounce.
So I get to best buy and what brought me in was the idea of a 46" 1080p lcd for $500. I get there and start looking around. Immediately a sales rep asks if he can help me, so I tell him I am interested in a flatpanel tv.
He starts talking about this and that, which I am barely listening to since I am well informed when it comes to technology. At any rate I see a 55" on sale for $850. This caught my eye since 55" is what I really want.
So I am about to pull the trigger on it when I find out it only has optical audio out. This is a problem for me since my receiver is old as dirt and has no optical inputs. The sales rep jumps into action and suggests that he may ne able to get me the insignia equivalent to what I was looking for.
Great, he finds one, it has analog audio out, and I'm out of my mind excited. I finally have it I thought, the tv I have been looking for at a price I wanted.
So he brings the box out and I think "oh boy gonna be a tight fit" in my '08 civic Si four door. Yeah not even close.
So I call my roommate who has a jeep Cherokee and it barely fit. Got it home, set it up, and loaded up battlefield bad company 2. Wow, I am psyched! I load up some other games, sweet!
At this point I'm ready to setup the genesis, Saturn, and dreamcast. Wait a second, there is no composite input! Nooo! So, quickly I try to figure out how to resolve this issue since I won't relegate my segas to the 32".
Well it turns out there are composite to hdmi upconverter available, so I ordered one. Fortunately I have the er converter for the genesis so I hooked that up in the meantime and loaded up ghouls and ghosts and it was epic!
So basically the point here is if you are looking for a way to enhance your gaming experience and don't have a big tv, go get one it will enhance your entire game library.
So I have been generally happy with my 32" screen since I bought it back in 2005, but over the past several months I found it more and more annoying that I couldn't see very well from my couch.
Over the past few weeks I really was feeling annoyed since the cold weather is making gaming more critical, more of my friends are online, etc. Well best buy decided to have a sale on hdtvs. This was my time to pounce.
So I get to best buy and what brought me in was the idea of a 46" 1080p lcd for $500. I get there and start looking around. Immediately a sales rep asks if he can help me, so I tell him I am interested in a flatpanel tv.
He starts talking about this and that, which I am barely listening to since I am well informed when it comes to technology. At any rate I see a 55" on sale for $850. This caught my eye since 55" is what I really want.
So I am about to pull the trigger on it when I find out it only has optical audio out. This is a problem for me since my receiver is old as dirt and has no optical inputs. The sales rep jumps into action and suggests that he may ne able to get me the insignia equivalent to what I was looking for.
Great, he finds one, it has analog audio out, and I'm out of my mind excited. I finally have it I thought, the tv I have been looking for at a price I wanted.
So he brings the box out and I think "oh boy gonna be a tight fit" in my '08 civic Si four door. Yeah not even close.
So I call my roommate who has a jeep Cherokee and it barely fit. Got it home, set it up, and loaded up battlefield bad company 2. Wow, I am psyched! I load up some other games, sweet!
At this point I'm ready to setup the genesis, Saturn, and dreamcast. Wait a second, there is no composite input! Nooo! So, quickly I try to figure out how to resolve this issue since I won't relegate my segas to the 32".
Well it turns out there are composite to hdmi upconverter available, so I ordered one. Fortunately I have the er converter for the genesis so I hooked that up in the meantime and loaded up ghouls and ghosts and it was epic!
So basically the point here is if you are looking for a way to enhance your gaming experience and don't have a big tv, go get one it will enhance your entire game library.
So, even with my miniscule collection compared to the people in the first few pages of RFG I am having trouble sometimes deciding what to play. I am pretty sure I can't be the only one, and so I'm curious as to what people do to decide what they want to play.
Granted sometimes it's clear, I have a hankering for X game, and so you load up X game and all is well in video game land. What happens when you have time to game but don't know what it is you want to play at the time? Maybe you are in the mood for a handful of games and cant decide exactly which one.
At any rate, while I could technically play two games at once, it is not realistic, and sometimes there are more than one game I want to play. What is the secret to deciding what to play?
This was not as much of an issue for me in the past because my methods were simple: go buy a new game and play the shit out of it until you are sick of it, repeat. Now, with the mix of old and new it's hard for me to decide what to play particularly since at this point a lot of the "retro" games I get, I have only played long enough to know that the game works properly.
This is made even worse because typically when I get "retro" games I usually get a few at a time. Hell, a lot of the time I can't even figure out what system I want to play on, and I only have 7 to choose from!
How do you guys do it?
So, after reading the interview of singlebanana it made me think about what the reasoning is behind my collection. My collection is put together by several factors.
The first thing about my collection is that it has current systems (Wii and PS3). This is strictly due to the fact that I wasn't a collector at all. I dumped my old systems almost immediately after a new system came out (see my description).
The second criteria of my collection is that it began as "strictly" optical disk based systems. This got thrown right out the door as soon as a genesis was donated to me, haha.
The third thing about my collection is that I emphasize the SEGA systems pretty heavily. This is mainly due to the fact that I never had a SEGA my entire life until recently.
The fourth criteria of my collection is that I take donations. "If it's free it's for me." Right?
And last but not least in terms of why I get certain games is pretty simple. If I know the franchise already and it's in the series, chances are I'll get the game. Other selections are based on reviews, or are simply looked back on as must haves, or classics, or even games that defined a particular system.
What about you? What is your reasoning for the things you collect in the video game world?
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