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Did you know that RF Generation has a chat room?? We really, truly do, and we like to talk about stuff in that chat room. Be it about gaming, collecting, or truly random crap, our chat room is a wonderful melting pot of the Unrelated Series of Thoughts thread in real time. Did I mention that we're not hateful like other chat rooms seen throughout the series of tubes? Won't you join us? It's pretty damn easy to do.
Why not see some of the crap we talk about in #rfgeneration. Sounds as though we'd like to see you in the chat with us:
[11:01] Malygris: Personally I'd be quite happy with a big ol' "COME IN AND CHAT" link to the channel on the front page along with a button that will manually show you who's in. [11:01] logical123: i've been vouching for that for a while [11:01] logical123:  [11:01] TraderJake: ...no one visits the front page [11:01] TraderJake: it's just there for show [11:01] logical123: I do [11:01] Malygris: Well, wherever. On the main forum page then? [11:01] logical123: I visit it everydat [11:02] logical123: *day [11:02] logical123: poopoo peepee diaper babies [11:02] logical123: XD [11:02] Malygris: It just seems to me that RFG is a fairly decent-sized community, so we should be able to pull in more people to the chat than just the regular half-dozen we've been getting since we came here. [11:02] logical123: yeah... This chat fails to the third degree [11:03] TraderJake: people are too preoccupied with tracking their collections [11:03] * logical123 throws rocks at all the peeps idling [11:03] Malygris: I don't think it's necessarily a big deal, I like it the way it is just fine, but there's no sense not taking the opportunity to at least draw some attention to ourselves.
See.... we want to see you in chat. We need to see you in chat. I swear we're not an obsessive bunch, but it's certainly more fun when lots of people are in the chat and I am sure if you stick around in the chat someone is bound to show up.
For those of you who sort of follow gaming news, however few of you there are, probably have been following the Tokyo Game Show, which is probably the biggest show there is for gaming now that E3 is dead. Long Live E3. So, there are a lot of bombshells and great announcements to come from TGS, and if you want to know what they are I suggest you look at a website that blogs about games. Might I recommend Kotaku. See, I am not here to report all the crap that was announced at TGS. Rather, I want to start a discussion as to the things that excited us. Well, now that I got this out of the way way, let me begin.
Continue reading TGS is going on, what excites you?
Well, here is a treat, it's the Mega Man 3 theme, with lyrics. I was a bit skeptical when I decided to listen to it, but after listening to it, I am very pleased with what the singer has done:
Isn't that awesome? I sure thought so. Tell me what you think in the comments.
 "LOOK AT ME OOOOH OOOH! I AM ME! I AM SUPER COOL! I NEED TO BE LOOKED AT. I AM THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Hey there readers, what you see above is some game developer off in the distance crying out for attention. It happens from time to time really, and it’s god forsakenly annoying. Really, it’s not cool, and honestly I don’t understand why some developers go the route of the attention whore.
You might have at one point been wowed by a game called Eternity’s Child. It had promise, it really, truly did. It’s developer seemed to be a charismatic developer who you might know as Luc Bernard. He seemed cool, and he was more than willing to tell his development story on Destructoid, and from a hype generating standpoint, he did an awesome job getting people excited for his game. The thing though is that you have to deliver on the hype, and apparently he didn’t do a good job finding a competent programmer for the job. Perhaps he should have hired Chainclaw on the side, because those people who have played the game as it was released on Steam found the game to be absolutely atrocious. One site decided that they would be brutally honest in their review, and this is where this story gets fun. See, Luc and Destructoid were buddy buddy prior to the release, and it was a shock to see a 1 rating for Eternity’s Child. We’re not going to go into the reasoning for the score, but you can read all about it on Dtoid.
What is important is what happened after the review. Luc appeared to become a child, criticizing Destructoid for giving his game such a low review when there were going to be many more revisions to come to the game. The thing though is that reviews are generally of the game as it is released, and in his case, his game apparently was straight from the seventh circle of Hell. Honestly, I don’t know anything about the quality of the game, but, if it truly plays like a low budget flash game then that’s rather sad. If a game is bad, be prepared to accept the cold hard truth. People are brutally honest, sometimes, and you got to be prepared for that. In Luc’s case, he wasn’t and he sort of went down in flames.
Destructoid commenters are a cruel bunch, and they absolutely destroyed him in not so nice ways. In reality, Dtoid could have done a better job moderating that comment string, but that’s not of my concern. After the harsh words and not so friendly banter, Mr. Bernard swore off developing games, and insisted that he’d only work on his art. Well, let’s fast forward to this week and what do I hear? Oh that’s right, Luc is working on Eternity’s Child 2.
It came to me as an epiphany. Luc was either a marketing genius, or someone with the emotional equivalent of a 12 year old. See, his game would never have gotten the hype it got if it wasn’t for his Destructoid relationship, which then got caught on with other gaming sites. Truly, for an independent developer, he is a marketing genius. Unfortunately, his game sucked, and in the process we learned that Mr. Bernard couldn’t take the heat of bad press, or maybe he could… It certainly generated a lot of attention, and in the process a lot of us now know about Eternity’s Child 2 because he essentially leveraged attention he got upon himself upon his next project. How very shrewd.
Mr Bernard, you used the bad review to your advantage. You never were going to quit developing games, were you? Sticking to your art would not have given you the limelight you so sorely have wanted. Aren’t you an attention whore, Luc? Isn’t that why Mr. Destructoid was originally in the game? It got you press, didn’t it? When they slammed you, it was gone. Clearly then it wasn’t crucial to the game, now was it? Why else would you have placed it in the game? Maybe you genuinely wanted to do something nice for the site that gave you your attention, but I imagine it was so that Dtoid would keep you in the limelight.
Regardless, congrats Luc! You’ve got everyone to report on the development of Eternity’s Child 2, including now the niche gaming site known as RF Generation! Here’s to you!
Game developers – don’t follow the Luc Bernard route. Here’s a very important marketing / customer satisfaction mantra that you should follow: Underpromise, Overdeliver. The best games don’t need to show itself off like a prostitute from O-Town. For indie developers, it’s a fine line, trying to get mainstream recognition while at the same time underpromising. Well, why not just shoot for the mainstream recognition while not whoring yourself / your game out? Be careful, or your experience could end up blowing up in your face.
God, this really wasn’t about attention whoring, or was it? Might have just been me bitching about Luc Bernard. Oh well. It was supposed to be about attention whoring, but in my eyes Luc is an attention whore.
Wow, two years ago the hardware database did not even exist, but some of you persisted and since October of 2006, we've had a hardware database. In the beginning, there were zero entries for this database. Truly it was something that would have to be nurtured into a viable database. Sure, growth of this database seems at time slow, but on the plus side it's still growing. That said, I am pleased as punch to inform the masses that our hardware database now has over 3000 records. For a database created from scratch, that's a huge accomplishment. I'd really like to thank lots of people for this achievement, but for now I'll just thank the three staff members that truly have made the hardware database what it is today - Marriott_guy, Tan, and Apolloboy - thanks. Of course, they are not the only people who have allowed for this occasion to occur, and I am certainly thankful for all the submissions that you, our community, has made for this database to reach this milestone. Thank you all for your help in getting to this point!
So, it took two years to get to 3000 hardware records... how long will it take to reach 6000? Here's looking forward to the continued health of our databases!
September is over. Long live September! There are a lot of things to be happy about after this last month has passed. There also are a lot of things to be not so happy about (see the economic crisis). But yes, here at RF Generation we're thankful for lots of things!
First, let me thank our donors who keep RF Generation ad-free for all you crazy people. Currently, our server costs run 90 dollars / month, which for someone who is living by himself in Maryland is not a small cost to cover. Thankfully, we have donors that kick ass and take names. Since I last thanked our donors, Sirgin and Nik the Communist. These new donors, plus the rest of our donors keep RF Generation ad-free and free for all. Let me take the time to thank every single one of them at this time:
Bad Enough Dude, Sauza12, St0rmTK421, TraderJake, tholly, Pop Culture Portal, James, Cobra, Tan, Rejinx, Fighter17, TurboGrafxer AKA DCer, Kevincal, djbeatmongrel, UNFORGIVINGPAIN, frood42, NES_Rules, Ghost Soldier, cverz2, Marriott_Guy, logical123, Phillyman, imfromwisconsin, Sirgin, Nik the Communist
These fine people keep RF Generation physically running! Thanks for helping us cover the cost of the server! If you would like to make a donation yourself, you can do so via this link. Any donation helps, and with the server cost the way it is we're always looking for donations!
Next, I want to thank our members who really have been kicking ass with amazing blog articles. While we don't guarantee that we'll promote all blog articles, in recent history the quality of the articles have been too good to pass up. Sirgin, logical, Nik, Wolfman, NESman... thanks. You all make me happy that I expanded the front page script to something that can be used by all. I certainly hope you all keep up the amazing work you do with your articles!
Next, I'd like to congratulate NES_Rules on getting his Treasure Hunt Chronicles feed StumbledUpon! You may have noticed that his images all went to "Bandwidth Exceeded" images. Well, now you know why! Congrats, Mike! You make RF Generation proud with your excellent series.
Lastly, I'd like to thank everyone for their submissions over the last month. Our European members have done a great job giving some most needed TLC to the European Database. Special thanks on that goes to Sirgin, Darth Sidious and Madir, and I apologize if I missed someone European who also deserves special recognition. When September wrapped up, we had 3899 submissions for the month, compared with 2962 the prior month. Simply put, you guys kick major ass. September saw almost one thousand new images added to the site, which truly helps solidify our status as the Games Database with one of the most comprehensive catalogs of images. Of course, while we have over 62000 images, we're not happy just with that. We always want more, and there are a lot of game and hardware entries that need images added! Why not help out today? Of course, there are so many people who make submissions, and we're really thankful for alll of them. Similarly, there are those staff members who review your submissions, and without them your submissions would sit in a queue forever, and we just don't want that. This month, Tan kicked ass with 864 submissions! Of you crazy and amazing regular members, Madir kicked ass with the most submissions! From those who review your submissions, NES_Rules kicked ass with reviewing those submissions! Tan though, was not far behind. Of course, we're pleased with this month and we appreciate all your submissions! Let me take this opportunity to thank all those members who made 50 or more submissions:
Tan, Funk_Buddy, ApolloBoy, Madir, logical123, NES_Rules, Darth Sidious, blcklblskt, eaglebeak99, Fuyukaze, Sirgin, Anditheway
Thanks to everyone who has made RF Generation the kick ass site it truly is! Here's hoping for an amazing October! From submissions to blog articles to forum posts, we hope to see you around RF Generation!
Doesn't that box look lovely? I think it sure does, and if I wasn't poor I'd absolutely want that box. Turns out for those of you who are financially better off than me that this package will be able to be purchased, and for gaming aficionados like yourself I bet you find this package strangely exciting. Personally, I am as giddy as a school girl, and a Catholic one at that. Tee Hee.
Oh, and yes, there's other news as well. Turns out that Mega Man launches Monday, September 22 for WiiWare. Why, that's THIS Monday. Even better news, it launches on the 25th for PSN and the 1st for the 360. Won't that make you all happy. I am sure quite a few of you are probably looking to be schooled by Splash Woman, because you just like being abused like that.
All in all, great news about this throwback to retrogaming! Here's hoping that the expectations regarding this game aren't horribly dashed like another high expectation game recently did. (**SPORE**)
Mega Man 9 Retail Package??? [Capcom Admin's Blog]
 Praise the Gods! Our humble beseeching was heard by our humble lords. Our penitent pleas have been recognized by Yevon and in doing so he has ensured that the Wii was in fact the top selling console in Japan last week. What will Yevon do for us next week? Might he protect us from Sin? I only dread the thought of what city could become the next Zanarkand. They embraced technology too much, and in doing so were punished for the techological zeal. That's why I use a laptop powered by a hand crank, praise Yevon. Oh lordy, praise Yevon, for he is GOOD. Like I know that the Wii only sold 1500 more consoles than the 360 last week in Japan, but it least the cosmic order remains.
Oh merciful Yevon, what won't you do to protect your people? How we citizens of Spira praise your magnificence! Save Spira from Sin, in the name of Maester Seymour Guado! May we never experience the same fate as Zanarkand! Guardians, protect us!
Xbox 360 The Best Selling Console In Japan? Media Create Says 'No'
 In what surely is to be a one in a lifetime occurrence, the Microsoft 360 was the top selling console in Japan for the week of September 8 through 14. It's... terrifying. What have we done to cause such a cosmic quirk to occur? Was it our capitalist overlords screwing with the subprime market, causing a financial meltdown? Could it have been the Japanese obsession with Used Pantie Machines finally caught up with them? Was it that as a world we're too preoccupied with shrubberies? I DON'T HAVE A CLUE!
Truly, someone must have done something to cause this strangeness to occur. It's not as though the Japanese could actually be genuinely interested in the 360, could it? I know it was popular in the US a couple months back, but the US and the Land of the Rising Sun are very, very different. They have Pachinko. We have Casinos. There's no way that the Japanese could be convinced to buy a 360 because of a price drop, could it? COULD IT? All I know is that last week the 360 was the top selling console in Japan, and it's scary. Such a freak oddity can not happen again next week, can it? CAN IT? I really hope not, I fear what would happen to the cosmos if it did.
OH MERCIFUL GODS! Hear my plea! Spare us from the impending cosmic rift! We humbly beseech you! We wish not to invoke your wrath! Please, take these shrubberies as a token of our most sincere acquiescence. Please, PLEASE! Don't let the 360 top the chart for another week, I don't know if the cosmos could take another week of such stress!
Holy Snot! Xbox 360 Tops Home Console Sales In Japan [Kotaku]
 Well look at that, Nintendo isn't going to the Tokyo Game Show, but it turns out they are going to have a press conference of their own. This conference is going to be on October 2, which is actually before the start of TGS. What are they going to announce and talk about? Who the hell knows! Nintendo certainly does not, as confirmed by Edge. Well, that's just peachy. Chances are that it's a malicious lie, and they know exactly what they are going to be talking about, but they just don't want you to know. It's okay, we know how you feel, and so does Jean Luc Picard.
Who the hell cares? Nintendo clearly doesn't care about you much, so why should you care about them? After the riveting hardcore gamer announcement of Animal Crossing: City Folk, I have little excitement in what Nintendo is to announce. But, if this was a Sega Announcement regarding upcoming titles from Platinum Games, then, hell yes I'd be interested. I think the only thing that would remotely interest me would be an announcement that Captain Rainbow was being released in the US. The impact on Nintendo's image would be as beneficial to them as the Lehman Brother's Bankruptcy was to the Dow Jones. Certainly, it would be amazing.
So, do you care that Nintendo has a press conference in 2 weeks? Should you care? I don't think so, and I wholly expect Nintendo to announce some "casual gamer" nongames that will not interest me. Perhaps they'll interest you.
 Oh dear, it appears as though EA doesn't realize that people really, really hate intrusive Digital Rights Management, which you might begrudgingly know as DRM. Some places do DRM right, like Valve. Sure only one user can have a game, but at least that user can install the game as many times as he wishes. Apparently, EA just wants to piss you off if you buy Spore. Never mind enjoying the game, let's find a way to punish you for being on of the righteous buyers of Spore. How does EA do that? By using SecuROM, of course. As stated on everyone's favorite encyclopedia, Wikipedia, "SecuROM is a CD/DVD copy protection product, most often used for computer games running under Microsoft Windows, developed by Sony DADC. SecuROM aims to resist home media duplication devices, professional duplicators, and reverse engineering attempts. The newest versions (v4 and up) prevent 1:1 CD-R copies from being made. Certain programs can circumvent its protection. The use of SecuROM is controversial because certain aspects of the protection are similar to functions of malware, and users are not always informed when SecuROM is included with a product."
So, what aspects of SecuROM make it hated? Well, SecuROM phones home. You want to install that game on your PC? Well, go ahead, you have three installs on three PCs. But here is the thing. Let's say you install on your desktop, and then it goes into an incessant Blue Screen of Death and you have to reformat? Well, you reformatted, so that PC is no longer authorized to play the game. So, there goes a second authorization. After three installs on "different" PCs, you're done with playing the game. Gone are the days where you could reinstall as many times as you want, and here are the days where you're stuck with what the publisher gives you.
Spore, happens to have SecuROM, the lovely piece of software that phones home whenever an update is done or whenever the game is installed. A lot of people don't like that, so much so that on Amazon the customer rating sits at 1 out of 5 stars with 2216 reviews and growing. Turns out people really, really, really hate the DRM known as SecuROM, and they've shown their ire through the Amazon rating system. As one such reviewer says, "First of all, the game incorporates a draconian DRM system that requires you to activate over the internet, and limits you to a grand total of 3 activations. If you reach that limit, then you'll have to call EA in order to add one extra activation. That's not as simple as it sounds, since when you reach that point EA will assume that you, the paying customer, are a filthy pirating thief." Doesn't that sound wonderful?
It gets interesting though. A few days ago, Amazon pulled the Spore reviews. A few hours later, they were back, and their absence was attributed to "a site glitch". You know, I can claim that monkey's fly out of my ass, but that does not make it true. I bet their statement on it being a site glitch is a dirty, malicious lie.
It's really a shame that EA had to sully Will Wright's game with DRM. It's even more sad that EA doesn't trust you as a paying customer, and thinks you are obviously a dirty, filthy pirate. Perhaps people would have not had this backlash if only EA trusted them to be righteous consumers. But no, look where we are today. Spore has a 1 out of 5 star rating on Amazon, and people are pissed. Here's to you, EA.
Ed Note: I just noticed that over the last month that "Oh Noooo Otter" was the number 3 referral for our site, just behind the keyword RF Generation. Isn't that fun?
So, Seth MacFarlane does this show called Family Guy. It's quite popular, and you might have heard of it. Turns out that he also does another show called American Dad, which is also quite humorous. Well, Seth MacFarlane has also started a lovely new thing on Youtube called Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, completely sponsored by Burger King. Hail the King.
Anyways, this week marks what appears to be the beginning or close to the beginning of the show, and well, this week, Seth tackles what really happened after Mario saved Peach. Enjoy the show!
[img align=right]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-016/bf/U-016-S-05960-A.jpg&sizex=200[/img]
It seems like just a few years ago that the behemoth known as EA had decided to close a revered studio within its ranks. While EA closed many studios during its ill-fated centralization, the closure of Westwood Studios probably was the most saddening closure for many. After all, it was Westwood Studios that gave the world the series known as Command and Conquer. It's a popular franchise you know, and I hear that Red Alert 3 is coming out soon. The closure of Westwood Studios was sort of bitter for many a RTS fan, but if the RTS fan was to know that it would set a precedent, perhaps they'd be more bitter.
News comes today of the impending closure of Ensemble Studios, the wonderful people responsible for the Age of Empires series. They also are working on the game Halo Wars, and now that game is wrapping up production it seems as though Microsoft has found it as a wonderful opportunity to shutter the studio. It's a shame. It really is. Are RTS's sell poor selling that a studio as storied as Ensemble Studios has to be shuttered? It's truly a shame.
Well, on the plus side, apparently there is a new studio running from its ashes. Is that true? Who knows, but it's still sad that Ensemble is closing. Thanks for the great series and RTS's you given us! You'll certainly be missed.
Shane Kim Delivers Death Blow To Ensemble
Hey, I bet you like games. You're here, right? Chances are that you even have a computer. In fact, I'd almost guarantee that you have a computer. Anyways, on a rare occasion, some people like to give out something truly awesome for free. You see, as a kid, I really enjoyed the game Red Alert. It was a fun time spent playing as the Soviets, reeking havoc on the allied bases and infantry with MiGs and Tesla Coils. Oh my oh my, good times to be had. So yes, imagine my surprise to find out that EA, the cold corporation you love to hate, has decided to let you download Red Alert for free. That's right... free. How can you turn down free? I bet you can't and you'll use the link below to get the game as quickly as humanly possible.
Get Red Alert for Free (Scroll Down Page)
Our databases would be nothing without the submissions of our members. Thanks to the submissions of our members, we can say that RF Generation is THE Classic and Modern Gaming Databases.
August saw lots of submissions - 2962, to be exact. Lots of people helped to make us have 2962 new submissions, and this month, Funk_Buddy kicked ass and took names with 840 submissions! Way to go! We really appreciate it! Rounding out the top 3 were Apolloboy and NES_Rules, and our top non-staff submitter was eaglebeak99! Of course, while these four people submitted a lot of data, they are not the only submitters, and we'd like to thank everyone who submitted, including the following people who made 50 or more submissions:
Funk_Buddy, ApolloBoy, NES_Rules, eaglebeak99, Tan, ga5ket, NayusDante, Sirgin, totalgridlock, Alabama-Shrimp, Darth Sidious, blcklblskt
Of course, for all the submissions, someone must review them all. This month, Tan was the excellent gentleman who reviewed your submissions the most. NES_Rules also helped out a lot. Thanks you two and everyone else on staff that helped with submissions!
From all of us at RF Generation, thanks for the awesome August! Here's hoping for an even better September!
Thanks for the submissions, all!
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This is TraderJake's Blog.
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This is where my thoughts go and are never heard from again.
Well, maybe not, but this is the repository for all of my published thoughts and rantings. It'll make my day if you find at least 10% of it amusing and enjoyable to read.
Sorry for the other 90%.
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