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Watch the video here!
By the way, new article coming later this month.
A while ago I received Paper Mario: the Origami King as a gift from my parents. I have played the game a bit, but as I was getting used to the controls, I noticed something. The D-Pad has no functions at all! This is the type of game you would expect the D-Pad to fully work with. Ever since then, I've been noticing the same problem in various other games.
The D-Pad issue has two sides to it: either a) the D-Pad just isn't connected to any keybind at all, or b) it's connected to a set of inputs that makes little to no sense for it to go to. It seems many new games fall into category "a", while games from 2-4 years ago fall into category "b".
I have a theory that this is part of the "technology evolution" we all have been just getting used to lately. Sometimes, things that you don't notice but function perfectly fine are removed. And then, when you actually want to use those things, you realize what happened. (Apple users know this all too well.)
I said that I first noticed this with Paper Mario: the Origami King, but I also noticed it in Scribblenauts Mega Pack before I started really thinking about it. (For reference, in the original PC and Wii U build these versions seem to be based off, the D-Pad will function as expected. It moves you.) But in Scribblenauts Mega Pack, the D-Pad is assigned to a group of buttons that used to be on the top of the screen at all times as part of the HUD. (The originals were touchscreen games.)
My point being that the D-Pad in Scribblenauts Mega Pack is assigned to a menu that makes no sense to me. It's not even explained how the D-Pad functions in-game. I just kinda figured it out myself. What is explained in-game is the ability of pausing the game to get to these actions.
The original "b" case I brought up can be useful at times. I just wish that they would assign it to some other but ton that doesn't get used very often, like Select.
And it is for this very reason that modern controllers (like the DualSense and Xbox Series controllers) still keep the D-Pad in the first place.
In most modern games, however, you will usually get nothing for seemingly no reason. There might be some people who are disabled in a way that they can't use the control stick and use the D-Pad instead; but modern games not accepting any movement options other than stick or even having a way to rebind your controls really makes me worry about accessibility.
I've been koola, and it's called a Directional Pad, not a "Directions Pad".
(What even is the Xbox 360 controller's D-Pad anyway?)
[img width=550 height=688]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-215/bf/U-215-S-06800-A.jpg[/img]
Happy New Year! As we head into 2021, we all know it is a different world than even a year ago. Most brick-and-mortar retail, including for video games, has taken a very rough beating. Somewhat surprisingly, even online stores often had a short supply of many new games. If ever there were a catalyst to speed up our medium's transition to primarily digital download, it was 2020. Conversely...
The retro game market spiked in prices, as would be expected. Even PS4s and XBox One systems became hot commodities in some areas, not to mention the Switch. The massive increase in at-home workers using programs like Zoom meant less bandwidth for online play and slow download speeds. If anything, for me the last year was another reminder of why I enjoy collecting physical copies of video games.
Continue reading Thoughts on Gaming and Collecting Going Into 2021
[img width=550 height=677]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-005/gs/U-005-S-04655-A.jpg[/img]
Should have suspected survival in the future requires extensive use of Imperial Shuttles.
By now you have probably read quite a few gaming articles (including on here) about how folks are doing during these tough times. In light of this moment, there were a handful of topics I tossed about when considering what to expand into a full write-up, and ultimately it seemed best just to take a few ideas and breathe them out a bit. While this may read more like a journal entry, or really a series of rambling and disjointed thoughts instead of a concentrated article, it is my hope that constructively sharing thoughts right now may be more useful and connecting than one of my gaming lists or reviews. Well, more helpful to me at least. 
Continue reading Thoughts On Gaming And The COVID 19 Moment
[img width=700 height=525]https://i.imgur.com/0MPh6Ro.jpg[/img]
With 2019 coming to a close, we can expect to see all the obligatory GOTY lists rolling in. Rather than do the usual Top 10 GOTY list myself, I wanted to reflect on all the games I played instead of just the new releases. 2019 turned out to be a very productive year for me gaming-wise, as my number of games beaten for the entire year sits at 125 games, so I wanted to do more of a stream-of-consciousness reflection of the highlights from my year.
Continue reading Disposed Hero's 2019 in Gaming
[img width=700 height=393]https://i.imgur.com/UNOUwet.jpg[/img]
I recently played all the way through a game that was really outside of my comfort zone. My regular listeners and readers will know that I tend to see gaming as a relaxing, leisurely activity. I am not a fan of difficult games. Life has enough difficulties and although I don't mind a challenge here or there, I'm usually not looking to get my ass kicked. I recently signed myself up for a swift ass kicking, but I did not realize it when I first started River City Girls. I thought I was starting a run of the mill beat 'em up in the vein of Turtles in Time, and although I quickly realized this isn't that kind of game, I stuck with it through the end and I'm glad I did.
Continue reading River City Girls
[img width=450 height=600]https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BqLOhoOitjE/XG77tTP8ENI/AAAAAAAAYL4/pu_Gp0GLYm0ps0U50e9t_g06CKNgeyqoACPcBGAYYCw/s600/IMG_20190220_164649.jpg[/img]
View inside 3 camera photo light box with no item
JJGames.com sells used video games for retro systems like NES, SNES, PS2, etc. Some of the items are 30+ years old and each one has a slightly different condition. Many of our customers are game collectors and they really care about the condition. The best way to show the condition is with high quality photos.
Taking photos can take quite a bit of time though and we have 500-1000 games coming through the warehouse per day. A fully manual process takes about 50 seconds per game (take three photos, upload to servers, and update database with photo info). With 1000 games, it would take 14 man hours per day to take all the photos.
How could we give customers photos they wanted, but not spend so much time taking them? We developed a multi camera light box and wrote a program to take multiple high resolution photos at the same time. Here's how you can cheaply create your own!
Continue reading Creating Your Own Multi-Camera Light Box
From the original Zelda games on the NES to GoldenEye 007 on the N64 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on the PS2, we take a look at the consoles of choice for retro gamers across America.
You never forget the first time you completed Super Mario Bros. You also never forget the first time you held one of those iconic retro Playstation controllers or when the best way to troubleshoot a game was to blow the cartridge.
Times have changed and new consoles have come and gone, but there is still something to be said about those iconic gaming systems that we were raised on. Their games have a unique charm that no amount of fancy graphics can make up for, which is why we turn to emulators and why original NES games still in their boxes go for hundreds of dollars on eBay.
To celebrate the release of a new infographics, which digs into the favorite consoles by state and favorite games by states, we thought wed jump on in and take a look at the data.
Head on over to https://www.jjgames.com/blog/ to check it out!
[img width=700 height=576]https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HF3VdvspI_w/XMn90QouzKI/AAAAAAAAZYs/0doblr5AsgAlWuYQ4-COEBWeBWs760L2ACLcBGAs/s1600/blog-map.jpg[/img]
[img width=700 height=494]https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K0_vZoIwD6E/XMn90fol2UI/AAAAAAAAZYw/qshkZ5sRJ5ka-mgitU2xGdXRi2iCbYhMACLcBGAs/s1600/blog-map-console.jpg[/img]
[img width=428 height=600]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-202/bf/U-202-S-01360-A.jpg[/img]
If you have ever been playing a Call of Duty game and thought "I wish I could just whip out a katana and slash through these fools up close!" then boy do I have a game for you! Devil's Third is an obscure title only available on the ill-fated Wii U, but fans of schlocky action games should take note.
Continue reading Devil's Third
[img width=550 height=302]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/J-044/bf/J-044-S-00040-A.jpg[/img]
I am a huge fan of "to do" lists. I use them at work and in my personal life. There is nothing quite as satisfying as lining up chores and knocking them down until your entire list is obliterated. Why then, have I never used a backlog for video games until this year? Throughout my life as a gamer, as a child, teenager, or adult, I have never so much as jotted down what games I wanted to play or even prioritized what I wanted to play in any way. I play whatever I feel like. I've noticed in the last few years that I fall prey to the FIFO principle, where I end up playing the most recent incoming titles to my collection rather than enjoying a game I have owned for years.
In past years I have made gaming resolutions of all kinds of different types. Whether it was my life-changing resolution of 2012 to finish every game I started, or my 2017 resolution to not spend any of my income on video games, I always find it fun and sometimes challenging to think outside the box and adjust my habits with some kind of goal in mind. This year, I decided to create my first backlog. I'd like to share it here and give an initial status report, as well as give a little insight into how I chose the titles or categories that I did.
Continue reading My First Backlog
[img width=640 height=360]https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/you_twitch.jpg[/img] I totally stole this graphic from Ars Technica. Give them some love.
Unless you've been living under a rock the last few years, you'll know that, not only is gaming a huge deal on YouTube, but it's exploded all over the internet, with regards to people streaming their gameplay live. With modern consoles like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One allowing the ability to stream directly to services like Twitch.tv, YouTube, and others, it's more accessible now than ever. Some people even manage to make a living from streaming, or by offering services in conjunction with their streams, so they can make a living doing what they love. Those individuals are the exception, rather than the rule, but as the greater games industry continues to rake in billions of dollars each year, more and more people find creative ways to make a living either directly in the industry, or in the periphery. Others, like myself, see streaming as a fun way to expand upon the hobby we already love, and to be more active within said hobby. I thought I would regale my experiences from my first month of live streaming, and offer a few thoughts on the subject.
Continue reading Adventures In Streaming
[img width=450 height=638]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-075/bf/U-075-S-00760-A.jpg[/img]
I planned to make this post a review of the original Xbox version of Dead to Rights. I picked up a copy after I saw it was part of Xbox One's backwards compatibility list. I started to playing the game and immediately was blown away by how good it looked on a modern television. When you put a compatible original Xbox or Xbox 360 game in your Xbox One, it doesn't play the game off the disc but rather downloads the game to your hard drive and uses the disc itself as a form of DRM. Sure, it's just an up-rezed game from the sixth generation, but Dead to Rights looked so clean and sharp it made me really excited to play it. Not to mention, the main gimmick of the game is the main character's dog Shadow, who can be used in certain sequences to rip the throats out of the hapless thugs who were stupid enough to mess with you.
Continue reading Take this Game and Shelve it!
[img width=640 height=480]https://i.imgur.com/2zQpuE9.png[/img]
During Halloween, it is very easy to find games to play to celebrate the season. Any title with a spooky theme is fair game, and there are certainly no shortage of those these days. But what about the Christmas season? There aren't many games that carry an explicit Christmas theme, so finding an enjoyable title to ring in the holidays isn't always an easy task. Now that the holiday season is upon us, I thought it would be fun to take a look at some games that many may not know are set during the Christmas season to put us in the holiday spirit. Bear in mind that most of these titles have very little to do with Christmas, but don't let that stop you from giving them a try!
Continue reading Games for the Holiday Season!
[img width=700 height=393]https://media.playstation.com/is/image/SCEA/hellblade-screen-01-ps4-us-22apr16?$MediaCarousel_Original$[/img]
Late last year, once all of the annual 'Best of' lists started coming out for the games released in 2016, I lamented the fact that I had only played a paltry four new release titles from the year and thus had no opinion on many of the games that were being discussed. So in 2017, I was determined to play more new release titles during the year in an effort to stay more up-to-date with all of the discussions going on for the latest and greatest games. And just like with everything I do, I went insanely overboard and ended up playing nearly 30 new release titles this year.
Instead of doing a traditional Top 10 list of the games I played this year, I wanted to focus on a select few that I thought were particularly great but may unfortunately go unnoticed and slip under the radar of most people. Most of these games really aren't what you would call obscure, but with the massive amount of great games released this year, it can be easy to forget about the ones that didn't get quite as much coverage. These also aren't necessarily my favorite games of the year, as I am intentionally leaving out some of the more popular titles that were released.
Continue reading Disposed Hero's Games of 2017
[img width=700 height=393]https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4326/35499784613_a54b10c1a0_c.jpg[/img]
If you missed out in June, I was one of many who joined the Playcast gang in enjoying the great last gen action game Enslaved. Most of the discussion, as it should be, was focused on the game itself. The characters, the design, the variety of experiences, the ending, the gameplay, etc. But there was a small side discussion that I found quite interesting and as I've played a few games since then has peaked my interest further. Should technical issues hurt your gaming experience?
Continue reading Literally Technically Complaining
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We are a community of collectors, gamers and the likes, and some of us enjoy to let the world know what is on our mind. For those members, we have the community blogs, a place where they can publish their thoughts and feelings regarding life, universe, and everything. Some of those members might even choose to write about gaming and collecting! Whatever they write about, you can find it on their blog. You can either see the latest community blog entries in the feed you see to the left, or you can browse for your favorite blog using the menu above. Interested in having your own blog hosted on RF Generation? It's rather simple, first be a registered member, and then click the "My Blog" link that you see in the navigation above. Following those two steps will certainly get you on your way to blogging.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy our entries, rantings, and completely unrelated series of thoughts. We write for you to read, so we certainly hope that you enjoy our material.
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