What have you bought lately?

[evildre]

Originally Posted by TheGeekRedneck

Even with Nintendo being your soft spot, I would definitely check out some Master System titles, as well as TG16 / PC Engine. Both systems had some really unique games, and actually the NEC TurboGrafx 16 is one of my favorite systems of all time. Probably in the top five anyway....

And really USB versions of NES and SNES controllers are cheap enough there's no reason not to have them around if that's what you feel most comfortable with with those games. TOMEE makes some pretty good ones for cheap...

That's why I've ordered two of each of those controllers and a 7-port USB hub so I can connect 'em all I'll have to check out the titles on those systems, as I honestly never did anything beyond the Game Gear on the Sega side, and I never touched TG16.

[TheGeekRedneck]

Sega Master System Must Plays:

Wonder Boy (nearly identical to 'Adventure Island' on the NES, but better bosses and better graphics)
Alex Kidd in Miracle World: It's SEGA's platformer and mascot before Sonic. Extremely good game, bright and colorful
Space Harrier - A port of the Arcade classic... extremely impressive for a console game
Outrun - Classic SEGA arcade racer
Fantasy Zone - A "Cute em up" before cute em ups were ever a thing. Badass graphics for an 8-bit game, and the bosses are fun as hell
Fantasy Zone II - More of the same!
R-Type - This one is available for most of the 16-bit systems so you could be forgiven for not playing it, but the SMS port is extremely good.
Wonder Boy in Monster Land
Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Curse
Zillion and Zillion II - These are hard to explain, and are even harder to play... but they're exceptionally good games.
Teddy Boy - This one is a personal favorite of mine and often gets overlooked. It's sort of this weird cross between platformer and puzzler. It's bright and colorful like most SMS games, and extremely easy to pick up and play without having to dedicate a whole lot of time to it. Addictive.

Although Nintendo will always be my number one, the Sega Master System has a special place in my heart. I honestly believe that it had much better graphics than the NES. Way more colorful, the sprites were often bigger with less flicker, and the games were mostly unique. The NES had superior sound, even though the SMS sound isn't terrible.

[TheGeekRedneck]

TG16:

Bonk's Adventure - Bonk is to NEC what Mario is to Nintendo and Sonic is to SEGA. Glorious platforming gameplay with LOADS of humor. It's a blast!
Bonk II: Bonk's Revenge
Bonk III: Bonk's Big Adventure
Alien Crush - Groundbreaking video pinball with a gory theme
Devil's Crush - Sequel to Alien Crush, smooth scrolling pinball with a badass satanic / occult theme. It's consistently rated one of the best video pinball games for any system - ever.
Galaga '90 - A near 100% faithful port of Galaga '88 which in itself was a revamped version of the original game we all know from the arcade. Extremely good sound, addictive gameplay. It plays very much like the original Galaga, just with better graphics and awesome stereo sound.
Neutopia - Zelda clone, very very good!
Neutopia II
Dungeon Explorer II - Exactly what it says, think Gauntlet. You explore dungeons and kill things.
Air Zonk - A super crazy shoot-em-up in the same vein of Gradius, Life-Force, and R-Type... but with a shit ton of humor thrown in.
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood - This game is consistently heralded as one of the best games in the franchise - EVER.
Blazing Lasers - Vertical shooter, hugely popular even here in the states and addictive as hell. It was actually a launch title for the system if my memory serves.


There are TONS more TG16 and PC Engine (The Japanese name for the TG16) - While it wasn't huge stateside in Japan it was phenomenal. The library of Japanese games is absolutely crazy, and most of them can be played without the need for translation. The TG16/PC Engine also has one of the biggest libraries of shoot-em-ups and cute-em-ups ever.

And that's not even getting into the huge liibrary of Turbo CD games - yup - the TG16 had a CD-ROM addon, in fact I believe it was the first system ever to have one. And there are plenty of CD images out there, and they all play very well.

[Sorce]

Look at all these future backlogs...

[evildre]

I uh ... bought some new shirts. Work shirts. So they're all polo or short sleeved button-down. I don't like having brand logos on my work shirts so it was a bit of a pain ... some of 'em were $4.98 though, gotta love combining 60% off with those JC Penney clearance prices

[TheGeekRedneck]

[TheGeekRedneck]

After using a Canon Powershot 110 HS for the last five years (at least!) as my primary camera for Youtube video production, I've been itching to find something newer for awhile now. Cue a post on Slickdeals the other day where Canon's online store had refurbished SX 710 HS units for $150 shipped. In addition you also got a matching Canon camera case... I jumped on it. Every camera I've ever bought refurbished from Canon has been in like new condition and functioned perfectly.

As I said this will be used mainly for Youtube video production on the cheap, just as the 110 HS was tasked with doing before hand. This one is a bit of an upgrade in that it will shoot 1080p at up to 60 frames per second, while the older 110 HS did 24 frames per second. While a lot of the time I rather like the look of 24fps video, there are some situations where I'd like the flexibility to shoot smooth video at 60fps. This one also has a long 30x optical zoom versus the 110 HS paltry 5x, pretty nice for a camera that still bills itself as a pocket shooter. The 710 HS also has built-in Wifi and NFC which, if I can get to work reliably, would be nice for uploading high quality pictures on the go from my phone.

About the only downside is that the 710 HS only goes back to 25mm when zoomed out fully, whereas the trusty 110 HS is 24mm. That's why the 110 HS still demands a pretty hefty price on the used market, that ultra wide angle makes it an excellent 'vlogging' camera for Youtubers - which is exactly why I've hung onto it for so long.

[TheGeekRedneck]

I bought a Vantec NextStar DX external 5.25" SATA to USB 3.0 enclosure to shove my old LG BD-R burner into so I can start archiving a shitload of video to blu-ray media. I haven't done it in like two years, so I have two years worth of videos sitting on my hard drives waiting to be backed up.

My Thermaltake Core v21, awesome sauce cube chassis that it is, doesn't have any external drive bays. And honestly, I use optical media so rarely that I don't really mind that. But this enclosure should come in handy the two or three times a year I need to.

[evildre]

Goggles, a pull float, and webbed water gloves. My shins & ankles are really angry with me right now, so I'm going to hit the pool instead and focus on my upper body now. Last time I got in the pool I wore regular ol' shorts, but this time I'm going to be using a pair of Voler tri shorts, as those reduce drag. Yeah, they're a little weird because they're for triathlons (they have padding in the nether regions to keep you comfy on your bike), but they're a hell of a lot better than the huge-ass shorts I usually wear to be beach.

I run the very real risk of blinding the others at the pool with my pasty whiteness (at least, the parts under my clothes), but I have no upper body, so this will be good.

[TheGeekRedneck]

A cheap-o microphone suspension boom arm for the livestreaming setup. This will be paired with the equally cheap-o Aukey MI-W1 studio mic that's currently sitting in it's tripod on my desktop.

I'm actually fairly impressed with the quality of the mic. It's no Blue Yeti or Snowball, but then again it costs about a tenth of what the Yeti costs. It's even XLR so if I decided to make it powered for increased gain and clarity I could. But based on the initial livestream I did Saturday morning it's really not bad at all. Certainly worlds better than either the mic built into my Logitech C922, or the one on my old Creative Fatalititty gaming headset.