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What October would be complete without horror themed playthroughs on the retro and modern side? Over the years, we've played some fun and exciting titles including Alan Wake and Fragile Dreams on the modern side and two installments of the Castlevania series on the retro side, Simon's Quest and Symphony of the Night. Next month on the modern playthrough, we delve into another popular franchise with Resident Evil, which for content purposes, the GC/Wii versions will be played by the hosts. Those wishing to play the original on the PSX are still encouraged to play along, but please note that you may miss out on parts of the discussion and may not be able to abide by the same checkpoints. On the retro side, we return to the Castlevania series once again with our playthrough of Castlvania: Bloodlines. This game is an oddity in that it was the only Castlevania game produced solely for a Sega console. Does it hold up to the rest of the series? Let's find out together!
Continue reading Community Playthrough Announcement: October 2015
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If you thought July was action-packed, wait until you see what we have in store for you in August. Get ready for another great month of community adventure as the RF Generation Playthrough Group takes you to Slumberland and Dubai, two once peaceful areas that are now stricken with unrest. Join us as Fleach moves over to the retro side and hosts a very unique, action-platformer on the NES, Little Nemo: The Dream Master. This title was voted on by the community and we hope that you will join us in playing this classic. Disposed Hero hops over to the modern side this upcoming month to host Spec Ops: The Line, a 3rd person shooter with an emphasis on squad tactics and cover. While the game is little talked about, it has an extremely compelling story and won several industry awards, including Best Narrative at Machinima's Inside Gaming Awards.
Continue reading Community Playthrough Announcement: August 2015
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This July, join the RF Generation Playthrough Group for some high octane action titles. On retro side, Fokakis79 hosts......hey, wait a minute.....what the??? Yes, some of you may recall that one of the prizes from the December 2014 Donation Drive included choosing and hosting a segment of our playthrough for a month. Fokakis79 has waited patiently for his turn at hosting, and he has chosen the classic Sega beat 'em ups, Golden Axe and Golden Axe II (available on the Genesis, and multiple Genesis collections on various consoles). This series will be co-hosted by singlebanana. On the modern side, join host GrayGhost81 as he takes on an alien onslaught of Orks and the Forces of Chaos in the wildly epic, 3rd person shooter, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine available on the 360, PS3, Steam, and PC.
Continue reading Community Playthrough Announcement: July 2015
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This May, join the RF Generation Playthrough Group as some of us knockout our backlog, and others revisit our past loves. On retro side, singlebanana hosts the Playthrough's first attempt at a turn-based, tactical RPG with Shining Force originally on the Sega Genesis/MegaDrive, and also available for the Wii Virtual Console, Sega Smash Pack 1 (DC), Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection (360/PS3), Steam, and the GBA (as Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon [with additional plots and characters]). And on the modern side, join host GrayGhost81 as he plays through the wildly stylistic platformer and 10th installment of the popular Kirby series, Kirby's Epic Yarn on the Nintendo Wii.
Continue reading Community Playthrough Announcement: May 2015
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We started out January of this year with a *BANG* by shooting our way through Angel Land and the streets of some unknown Middle Eastern locale. Currently, we are tromping through Hyrule to rescue the descendants of the Seven Sages and unlocking the mystery behind the 9 doors of a sinking vessel. The month of March will be no slouch either and will be jam-packed with furious action! On the retro side, we join an unlikely, and undead, hero in his quest to defend the land of Gallowmere from the return of an evil sorcerer in MediEvil for the PSX and PSN. On the modern side, we make our first return to the Batman series (since our playthrough in April 2013) as we once again take up the cowl and cape of the Dark Knight in the third installment of the Arkham series, Batman: Arkham Origins on the PS3, 360, WiiU and PC. We hope that you will join us for one, if not two, great games next month!
Continue reading Retro & Modern Playthroughs: March - June
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Dear Distinguished and Not-so Distinguished Members,
Recently, some of you (especially our older members) may have noticed a change to our home page. What once was a page filled primarily with announcements of podcasts and playthroughs, has been revamped with continually revolving feature stories of game reviews and video game related articles. Only a few days prior to the Metal Jesus video and Kotaku article releases that drove many members to our site, I spoke with Shadow Kisuragi about how I felt that the site was lacking in releasing quality gaming articles for our front page. Of course, Shadow (as he always is) was very receptive to my concern and agreed that we should do something to liven up the primary portal to our site. Little did I know, I would be asked to lead this charge....okay, so maybe I kind of knew.
Continue reading 2014 State of the Blog Address
As Site Director Emeritus (and Current Acting Site Director), I wish to announce the appointment of Adam Bickley to Technical Director of RF Generation.
What does that mean? That means that Adam is now responsible for the back end of the site. More simply stated, he gets to assist Mike and make sure the site runs smoothly from a simply keeping going standpoint. He will have a lot to learn, so be nice to him.
This may seem abrupt to some, but Adam has had access to the back end for a while as a third set of eyes watching over the site in the event the server has a "hiccup". He has the technical background necessary to keep the site in tip top shape.
In case you are wondering, Eddie and I will still be around. We are not going anywhere. We will still be the programmers. We will do what we can to bring new stuff to the site. I am about to lose internet for two weeks so my only internet comfort will be my test site. Maybe I'll tinker with something that is needed for the site...
Congrats Adam! I hope you find your new abilities exciting and don't use your new found powers for evil!
As many of you know, RF Generation was founded on April 28, 2004, by a wonderful group of people. At its insight, we were a tight community of gamers, collectors, and average Joes that loved the community we had. We still love the community to this day.
Many of you probably don't know this, but I was not the original Site Director. In fact, I wasn't even an original staff member. Site Director... was a position developed by me in late 2006 as a way to ensure that we had a group of people that would work together to keep the site moving forward. Prior to that we had a webmaster, and the original webmaster was none other than Michael Collins. We miss him dearly, but since his passing a lot of us stepped up to keep the site growing, and grow it did.
We're not the little community we were in 2004. These days, we've got many, many members who use us as not only a game and hardware reference but also as one hell of a collection tool, coded by my good friend Eddie Herrmann. We've added a lot of things to the site since that fateful day in 2004, and in doing so we've grown dramatically.
We used to be on a shared host. We've since crushed that shared host and then in the course of 3 weeks crushed the VPS we were on. These days, we're on a dedicated server with an 85 dollar a month bill.
We used to not have a submission system for regular members. Back in the day there were the wonderful "Submit Missing Games Here" and "Submit Missing Images Here" threads. Oh, they were lovely things, and that's how you guys were able to submit content.
We used to not have a hardware database or variants. Since then, we do. The system to submit such things has seen more revisions than Michael Jackson's nose.
We used to have one programmer that programmed everything in Perl. After our proprietary file based database began being corrupted under heavy load, I stepped up to assist in transitioning the site to MySQL driven, learning PHP in the process. These days, We're entirely mySQL based with some file based caching for our more intensive scripts.
We used to have a different site design. Check it out on the web archive. These days we have the current template, and maybe someday in the future we'll change it again.
Oh memories. We've grown so much, but in the process those of us who run the site have grown older and busier. You may notice that two of the four directors, Tynstar and Tan, are no longer directors. Life has required them to move on. Similarly, countless staff members have moved on to the site to bigger and better things. We thank them for their grand service.
Now, it is with a tinge of sadness, and also happiness that I must announce that it's time for Eddie and myself to pass the torch onto someone else. It's been a fun 3 or so years, but our age and schedules are finally catching up with us.
It is my pleasure to announce that Mike Fox (NES_Rules) will be assuming the role of Site Director. He's been one hell of an asset to RF Generation, and I know that he'll be one hell of a Site Director. I for one am happy that he took this role, and I thank him for taking the torch and running with it.
What does that mean for the site? Well, that means that Mike runs everything now instead of me. It also means that Eddie and I will be taking a lesser role in the operation of the site. While we will be sticking around as the technical crew that keeps the site up and running and also quashing programming bugs, Mike will be the guy who ensures that the site continues to grow. I know he'll do a great job.
So, on behalf of Eddie and me, I welcome Mike to his new role. Thank you Mike, you're a great asset to RF Generation, and I know you'll be fantastic.
RF Generation strives to be THE Classic and Modern Video Games Database (see the right corner of the site). This site is a labor of love of the staff and members that contribute to make it what it is, and as of today we are looking for a few bright souls to help continue to make RF Generation what it is today, and even guide it to something better. If you are interested in becoming part of the staff, the people who keep the site moving forward, I encourage you to read on, and if you are interested to apply to become a part of the team that makes RF Generation great.
If you've read on then I imagine that you understand what RF Generation is about. We strive to provide video game collectors and enthusiasts with a place to call home in the vast, dark depths of the internet. It's a scary place, that internet, but we have a cozy community here, and amazingly it is rather diverse, hosting people of many nationalities and backgrounds and interests. We are looking for people who understand the community, and are a productive member of the RF Generation community. While a person with 0 posts will not be completely discounted from consideration we do look favorably upon those applicants who are an active presence in the community, and who understand what RF Generation is. A vibrant community is important to us, and we want people who share our viewpoints on the matter.
Content addition is also an extremely important aspect of RF Generation. In the past, we let staff members go on an "add when you feel like it" policy. Well the truth of the matter is that we have members who add when they feel like it, so we are going to look for applicants that are willing to submit to a schedule and work under an editor. No, this scheme doesn't mean that you have to put work into RF Generation every day, but rather that we, the directors and editors of the site, wish that staff members would post on a consistent basis rather than once every few months. As such, we would like to find people that would be willing to work with an editor to get a schedule going. It would be up to the editor to determine how often you would be working on the site, but you probably would not have to do a significant addition / news post once a week, perhaps even less depending on what you are doing. We're not looking to work anyone to death here, we're just hoping that the front page doesn't go through a month without a news post, or a section of the site goes too long with out a significant addition. We've begun the process of rectifying certain fallacies in the system by restructuring the staff. If brought on to the staff you would be working for an editor. Each editor is specialized in making sure a certain area of the site grows. It would be your job as their staff member to help them make sure that their part of the site grows. Right now, we are looking to fill the following positions:
- Blog Writer: A blog writer is a person that wants to help post to the RF Generation blog. A blog writer must be able to find stories regarding gaming, collecting, otaku, or anything else interesting and relevant via the internet or other media and be able to post them here on the in an interesting, engaging fashion. Due to the nature of blogs, we'd be looking for someone who would be willing to post something on a fairly consistent basis, a basis that would be determined between you and the editor. If you become unable to continue on this basis, we'd have to place you On Hiatus or remove you from staff. We are looking for quite a few blog writers, each with their own specific interests and perspectives, so please, please apply. A blog writer should have a very good grasp of the English language, and should be able to write well and proficiently. Journalistic skills such as citations and the like can be taught, but having some idea how to write blogs and cite correctly would be a major plus. Once again, we are really, really looking for blog writers, so if you are interested and want to help make the RF Generation blog something to be checked every minute then do send in your application. The editor of the blog, and subsequently the front page, is Tan
- Japanese Contributor: The Japanese contributor helps to make the Japanese database meaningful. Title Additions, Page Edits, Screenshots, and Image Submissions would be a part of the things you would be doing for the Japanese database. A Japanese contributor would need to have an affinity for Japanese games, and should be able to Romanize titles. Currently, there is no editor for the Japanese database, but you would be working along with Fuyukaze to make the Japanese database better. It is greatly desired that any incoming Japanese contributor have a willingness to help craft guidelines and FAQs for this database, as currently there is no guidance on Romanization and the like. We'd really like to make our Japanese database significant and meaningful, and we highly encourage you to apply if interested in assisting with that goal.
- European Contributor: The European staff contributor helps to make the PAL database meaningful.
Title Additions, Page Edits, Screenshots, and Image Submissions would be a part of the things you would be doing for the European database. You may also be asked to help approve member submissions as well The PAL database is special in that it has the challenge of regional variations, and a European staff contributor would need to be able to deal with and effectively catalog the variations. The editor in charge of the PAL database is Speedy_NES. - Hardware Contributor: The hardware contributor helps to make the hardware database meaningful. Title Additions, Page Edits, and Image Submissions would be a part of the things you would be doing for the hardware database. The editor in charge of the Hardware database is AndyC.
- Features Contributor: This position is different from the other three in that a features contributor helps to do the weekly features. This generally entails writing an overview, review and other content for a games entry, finding an awesome collection, a neat photo, and featuring it on the front page. Additionally, a features contributor aims to add content to games and hardware pages that other people generally would not, such as Instructions, Overviews, Reviews, and the like. We have a lot of game and hardware pages, but many of those pages have only the minimum fields filed out. We'd like to remedy that. A features contributor should have an especially good grasp of the English Language, and someone with the English skills of a 9 year old should avoid applying for this position. The Features Editor is Mezmoron.
Those are the five positions we are currently looking to fill up. I should make special note that we are really, really looking for people who want to be a part of the Blog, Japanese, European and Hardware group. I should mention that since this operation is a labor of love for everyone involved any hire would be unpaid, since not even the directors of this site get paid, in fact, the directors spend money to keep this baby going, because we love the community we have here. If you are still interested in becoming a member of our staff then I encourage you to apply. How do you do that? Well, you would need to PM me. In that PM, I'd expect the following:
- A list of the positions of the you are applying for, ranked. Please note that you may not get your top choice,
- An explanation of why you should be brought on to staff in the position(s) specified. What would make you a great features writer, or European contributor? We'd like to know.
- A discussion of the RF Generation of community, and how you fit into that now and once you'd be on staff.
- A comment regarding how often you think you should be working on the site, if you are to be added to the staff.
- Anything else you feel we should know.
I'm not really expecting a novel from applicants (in fact, keep it concise and to the point), but more so something that says that you want to be on staff. So if you feel that you can do that in a concise manner than I encourage you to do so. If you have any questions you can direct them to me, TraderJake, the content director Tynstar, or one of the editors. No question is a dumb question. While we'll gladly accept applications whenever we need to review applications at some point; therefore, the deadline to submit an application for this round of hirings will be June 27, 2007. You are welcome to submit an application past that date, but we will be reviewing applications starting on that date. All applications will be reviewed by the Directors and Editors of the site, and applicants will be contacted via a PM or email should we decide to ask them to join our staff. Please note that a submitted application does not guarantee a spot on staff.
We hope that there are a few brave souls out in the world to help move the site forward, and look forward to all applications received.
Good Luck,
David Murnan
Site Director
I suppose I don't need an image in this post for you to figure out that something is different. Three months ago, a decision was made to begin the process of redesigning the site. This site would be cleaned up greatly and it would also be using Cascading Style Sheets, something that the previous site sorely needed. Today, June 8, is an important date. Three years ago today RF Generation went live, and today, June 8, 2007, we launch our new site design. Clearly, this may take some time for you to get used to if you really, really enjoyed the old design, but we feel that the new design is cleaner, more professional, and more structured than the old site. It also has some new features that the old site just didn't have. Let's look into those:
First, we have a new front page script. It's really complex, and I guess you could call it a blog. As with most blogs registered members of this site are able to comment to any posts made to the blog, via a comment box on the article's page. Additionally, if you would like to be able to keep track of news or any other topic on the blog you are able to subscribe to that tag and get a lovely RSS feed of that. This new front page design is the reason why we promoted Tan to Front Page Editor, and I know that he'll do a damn good job with the front page. Of course, a good front page editor needs a few good writers, so if you are interested in writing for the blog please let Tan or I know. We are grateful for Tan's willingness to shape the blog, and with his knowledge and leadership I am certain that the blog will flourish.
Secondly, we have some new sections. At the top, there is an about section, where you can find out about the site or its staff, and you can also get some cool promotional images. I should mention that if you are a registered member and you also have a collection you should probably check out the "Promote" page. We also have a home for our weekly features, which can be found in the "Features" section (big surprise there). Lastly, we have the tools section, which for right now are the collection tools. It is rather likely that some day way down the road there will be more tools on this site, stay tuned for that.
I'd like to make the point that during this redesign there has been no removal in functionality of the site, save for System Checklists, which will hopefully make its triumphant return in the not too distant future. Aside from checklists, you should be able to find everything still somewhere on the site.
This project would not have been possible without assistance from many other people, and I'd like to thank Eddie Herrmann (St0rmTK421), Dennis Gruchala (den68), Keith Brown (Tan), Ken Wozetek (Mezmoron), and Scott Williams (Tynstar) for their assistance in addition to the members who unknowingly helped test the commenting system. If I missed thanking you please know that while I missed mentioning your name I am ever grateful for your assistance.
As always stay tuned to RF Generation, there will always be more to follow when you keep it tuned to channel 3.
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