I dug out the old Atari 2600 this morning. Must of been the first time in about 3 years. What inspired me was the Atari Age forum. They have weekly competitions that they announce. Nothing like a little competition to light a fire under me. I found my old high scores from my teenage years… looks like I have some work to do to catch up to the elite players.

Some of the carts don’t work. I suspect it is dirty contacts. I couldn’t find my Nintendo cleaning kit. These cleaning kits use isopropyl alcohol, correct? Also the lever on the game reset was broken off. Anyone have a creative way of fixing this?

cnet just posted a few screenshots of the new Star Trek Xbox 360 game they are working on. looks pretty spiffy!
here they are

Hola,

So I was lucky enough to get a Wii thanks to an awesome co-worker and his wife who waited in line all night, got two and sold me the extra. I’ve had some time to check it out over the past week and thought I’d post a few of my thoughts. There has been a lot of press lately about the console so this might not be anything new if you’ve been reading up on it but here it is anyway…

First, the controllers are awesome. The Wii remote senses motion and acts as a laser pointer and it works great. Its a refreshing change and it makes gameplay new and interesting. This is probably my favorite thing about the new console. Also, the game that comes with the console (Wii Sports) is a blast and I’m happy to add it into my all-time-top-favorite-games-ever-ever-ever list. The console is super-small and seems well designed. It’s easy to set up and it fits in-between crap in the entertainment center. That’s a plus. You can leave it on all the time and it connected up to my wi-fi with no problems. The are a good selection of games available, too. At least, so far, I really like the games I have. Last, I think the Wii points thing is pretty sweet. They post a few new classic games every day or so and I find it’s surprisingly fun to play them even if I have the new fancy games.

I don’t have much bad to report, but I do have some criticisms. The Mii character thing is kinda cool but feels like it’s not fleshed out enough. Same goes for the “online” features of the Wii in general. It feels like it could be a ton cooler if there were just more options. Currently, I think the Mii characters are only useful if you play games at your friends house and want to keep your stats separate from theirs. I thought they should allow you to play over the net. Also, for a console that’s happy being online 24×7 there should be much more “community”. Currently you can only send email-ish messages and it’s hard to set up the communications with another console.

In any case, I don’t feel these are big problems as it’s something they can keep working on post-launch. We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed.

That’s about all I can think of for now. I hear that Nintendo isn’t being an ass about getting new consoles out on the market (Sony) so I would think it should soon get easier to buy one. The system is priced very reasonably, and it’s a blast to play so I highly recommend it. I think they’ve really done a great job and I would expect this console to perform much better than the GameCube did. It’s totally, totally worth it.

One of the nice things about getting married is that since my fiancé has a PS2, I now have one as well. The not nice part of this is that instead of working and helping plan the wedding I’m spending way too much time playing videogames. The one that’s had me hooked lately is the little known Smuggler’s Run.

The premise is simple. You’re in a car, you pick up contraband and deliver it while avoiding cops and other gangs. It’s not anymore complicated than that, but that’s a good thing. The repetitiveness and simplicity are strengths not weaknesses and help give Smuggler’s Run the feel of a classic arcade game only in a 3d format.

It’s getting to be a little dated and there are certainly more attractive titles out there. But for all of us who don’t have the cash for a Wii or PS3, this is a cheap and extremely fun option to keep you going until those new systems come down in price.