What is the Holiday Season for you? For me, it's the idea of "free time" (and spending time with friends and family, above all else). I am always getting into something, but during free time, I like to experiment with many technical things, ROM Hacking being one such example. I also do other "technical" things that involve long, drawn out processes due to modern hardware being a pain to work with in regards to retro stuff. That said, let's begin...
Experiment 1!
The Video CD, according to Philips
[img width=385 height=345]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a136/DarkTheThief/f38cb4de-4dfc-11e6-966d-7e7ea334f58a_zpsqiarpkkg.jpg[/img]
This is going to sound strange to everyone, I am sure, but I really like what one would describe as "dead formats", but "dead" is far from the truth! While the Video CD is not making a comeback, Laserdiscs and (as far as I know) Betamax Tapes have big collector markets these days. In fact, one store here in my Hometown sells Laserdiscs and makes a lot of money doing it. Anyway, to get to the point, ever since I learned of Video CDs' existence, I've been fascinated with them. So I decided to try my hand at making some. It was hard. See, when the Philips CD-i released (note that my CD-i is the only method I have of playing these Video CDs), Philips added 4 certain files to their Video CDs that prevented them from playing on standard Video CD Players. This odd setup also prevents standard Video CDs from playing on the CD-i. Anyway, the 4 files can be found easily enough by searching the internet, but they can't be added to a CD easily. I learned how to do it thanks to the very helpful folks at the forums here: http://www.videohelp.com/ What's more, your video files need to be of a specific file type and at the same time, encoded a very specific way to work. So why is all this hard? You can't do it on a modern Operating System. You need to use a VM (Virtual Machine), which is an Operating System that works like a program within your current Operating System. Was all this difficult? Yes. Did it take me around 3 days to get it right? Also yes. Was it worth it? To me, very much so. I like older technology, and I'm sure we can all relate in one way or another, considering what this website is.
Experiment 2!
ROM Hacking, because I can
[img width=569 height=521]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a136/DarkTheThief/Faxanadu%20ROM%20Hack_zps3ubsfxno.png[/img]
ROM Hacking is hacking an older game's data to modify/add stuff to the game. One thing I love about RPGs is that you can name (or rename) Characters to whatever you want. The example above is from an NES Game called Faxanadu. In the Famicom Version, you could name the Main Character, but for reasons unknown to me, they took this feature out of the NES Version. I found out about this about a year ago, and at the time, I couldn't do anything about it. As time passed, I learned how to hack ROMs, so I did what you see above to remedy it. I did something similar with The Goonies 2, also an NES Game (though you couldn't name characters in that one in any version). At some point after this, I thought "What if I could do this with a 16-Bit Game?", so I tried my hand at ROM Hacking Shadowrun for the Genesis. This was surprisingly easy, and while I don't have a Screenshot on hand to show it, it was also just a simple Name Change. Was this whole thing stupid? To a few people, yes, but I can say that at least two friends thought it was cool.
I get a lot of free time in October, November, and December, and those are just a couple of things I did this year in said free time. The Holiday Season is great: Time with family and friends, time off from work/free time in general, giving and receiving items, and much more. What do YOU like to do during your free time this time of year?
[img width=577 height=365]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-040/gs/U-040-S-00931-A.jpg[/img]
Here's an interesting one. After Mike Tyson was defeated by Buster Douglas in 1990 (Possibly 1991, I'm not entirely sure), Sega released this sports title in response to Mike Tyson's Punch Out. A short game, there's not really much depth to it, so this will be a very short review.
Gameplay: 6/10
It's a 2D boxing game. You select one of 5 Boxers, including Buster Douglas himself if you want, and fight your way through the 4 other boxers, ultimately aiming to become the World Champion. After you become World Champion, you have to defend your title by fighting the 4 Boxers again, only it's tougher this time, and with the addition of a 5th Boxer, Iron Head, whom I still haven't beaten.
Graphics: 10/10
The graphics are awesome. They look exactly like an Arcade Game from the time period. Of course, this game DID start as an Arcade Game called "Final Blow". Buster Douglas is, in fact, actually just a palette swap. Palette swapping fighters seemed to be popular at the time. (I'm looking at you, Street Fighter 2).
Difficulty: Unbalanced
Okay, sure, the game does start out easy, and is pretty much that way for the entire game, but when you fight the last boss, Iron Head, it gets very hard, to the point where you will be mashing buttons in anger. That's what makes it unbalanced. I personally hate this in games, and I'm sure many others do too.
Sound: ??/10
Unfortunately, I had to keep the volume all the way down at my time of playing this, so I cannot judge the sound at this time. I'll edit this review as soon as I can. Sorry about that.
Overall: 6.5/10
This is a decent game, and there IS fun to be had, but it's incredibly short, and not as colorful as Mike Tyson's Punch Out. In fact, you can win most of the fights simply by mashing buttons, which may take away from the fun for some people. You owe it to yourself to at least try this one.
Thanks for reading!
See that Flyer? That's the Flyer for the original Arcade version of Splatterhouse. Tell me, are Arcade games usually long? No. Do they usually take HOURS to beat? No. Splatterhouse breaks both of these rules with it's Nightmarish difficulty. I just spent THREE hours playing through this game, and let me tell you, it was not a walk in the park. Splatterhouse has got to be the toughest Arcade game in the world, without question. I continued over 200 Times, played for three hours, and I finally managed to beat it. Seriously, if I was playing the actual cabinet (I was playing an emulated version on the PS3 Version of the game), I would be out a year's salary. It's THAT tough.
Anyway, your probably thinking "Why didn't you just quit then?". I ask myself that same question, as I honestly have no idea. Normally, my temper and low patience would have led me to quit a game like this, but for some reason, I didn't. I just kept pressing forward until I finally beat it. I knew Arcade Games could be sadistic, but I never imagined one would take it this far. The people who developed it are probably laughing about it to this very day. In all honesty, I don't see how anyone could have allowed a game like this to be released. This game probably crushed a lot of kids' spirits when it was first released. Imagine the toughest game you've ever played, and multiply it's difficulty times four, and you have this.
But enough about how tough this game is. How does it play? This time, you can go figure it out for yourself, because there is no way I can give this game an honest review. It's just not in me. If you want to punish yourself for some reason, then go and play this. I just do not think I can give this game a fair review after what I went through tonight. If you want my advice though, stay away from this game and play Ninja Gaiden II instead. You'll save yourself a lot of frustration. Yeah, I went there. It's THAT tough, if I haven't made myself clear enough yet.
This is ReddMcKnight, signing off, and hoping that I won't ever get the urge to play this game again.
[img width=640 height=929]http://pics.mobygames.com/images/covers/large/1081062175-01.jpg[/img]
Who do we have here? That, my friends, is Bubsy The Bobcat. 
Who is he, you ask? To many, he's a failed (and hated) Mascot, but to me, he's an awesome, wise-cracking bobcat who likes to fight Aliens.
But what makes Bubsy stand out from other Platforming Mascots? Where to begin?
Well, for starters, before each level begins, he'll utter some kind of funny line in a digitized voice relating to the level itself. For example, in the first level, he'll say his catchphrase "What could possibly go wrong?", and on the last level, he'll go "WHOA! Are you still playing this thing?!". To make him even cooler, he's got his own Nerf (That's right, the famous toy gun makers Nerf) Gun to shoot his enemies with.  Although that only appears in the second game, it's still awesome. He can also run faster than Sonic The Hedgehog. (!!)
But what went wrong? For one, his games are TOUGH! Save for the second game, he only takes one hit to die, and invincibility T-Shirts (Yes, T-Shirts) are scarce. Also, he was marketed as being the Character who would stomp on every other Mascot, so I guess it disappointed people who thought his game wouldn't be cheap in terms of difficulty. Me, I can't even get past the 2nd Level of the first game without a Game Genie. That's actually the only way I can beat it. Fortunately, the second game is less punishing. Still, the games ARE fun once you figure out how to get Bubsy under your control.
Did I mention he was popular enough at least to get a TV Pilot in the form of a Cartoon? Although it's not shown on the Box above, some of them have a sticker telling you to look out for his Thanksgiving TV Special. My Box is one of the ones that has it. Nowadays, you can find the Cartoon on the Internet if you search on Google.
Anyway, that's it for this entry on one of my favorite Characters of the 90's. Thoughts? Just shout out in the comments.
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