So the myth was true after all! Buried ET cartridges found. Illegal dumping of trash?
- Thread starter Cyan
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D
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The significance of the dumping was that it marked the big console game crash, after which computers reigned supreme for gaming for. A few years, anyway!
But a more complete documentary about the console game crash is more valuable and informing than just ET. It wasnt just ET the perpetrator. It was a swarm of crappy games.
D
Deleted member 11852
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Yeah there was a lot of dross on the 2600 back in the day, and carts in the UK were £30.
A documentary on the first console crash would be great but there probably isn't much left to document after 30 years. Even this significant thing was a borderline urban myth, so finding actual facts with figures and costs from back then seems unlikely.
Well, the legend say pretty cool things and it was a myth in its own way. So it's kinda sad to have it gone now as a myth.
But it's part of videogaming history in a very peculiar way, even the Angry Video Game Nerd made a movie around that plot, and there were people singing at that myth. :smile2:
I just think that retro games have a lot of charm, the sounds, the MIDI music, the graphics.., etc.
And people remember them fondly, sometimes just for nostalgic reasons and other times because certain games were actually so good that they are timeless.
I am currently watching videos on Youtube from a guy who completes Arcade games using a single credit,
without cheating nor loading save estates or anything like that. Classic games used to be very, very difficult.And let me tell you, it's much more entertaining watching one of those videos that anything you can watch on CoD and most modern games.
Those classic games were effin' bitches to deal with, and it's admirable to see how the game finishes those games.
For instance, in R-Type he memorised where certain enemies come from. Where to wait or hide, etc etc.
He knows the final bosses off pat, and knowing them by heart makes the game easier, and you can't lose a single life if you want to complete R-Type 1 and 2, if not you are done. The key of the game is memorising certain parts of the levels and keeping your power-ups all the way through -which means no dying (you can die in the first level or so and still complete the game, but without a fully powered ship you won't be able to complete the game afterwards).
In Art of Fighting 2 he learnt the AI routines, and how you can beat enemies if you know what to do when the AI uses certain parameters. Sometimes the AI changes behaviour mid game, and then you need to be patient or hope for it to revert to its previous behaviour. He plays with Jack in AoF2.
Mortal Kombat 1, 2, 3 and Ultimate MK can be finished with certain characters without losing a match (you can lose rounds at times, in fact it happened to him, but that's minor), each of them with a different character and tactics.
I was awestruck when watching his videos, and they last like 40 minutes, 20 minutes, 1 hour, or 10 minutes in some cases (Golden Axe). He has more than 100 videos and counting, I watched like 5 or 6, it's fascinating stuff!!
For instance, in Mortal Kombat 3 he uses Cyrax to have a chance to beat the game without expending 10 hours repeating fights in order to complete it. :smile:
Key here is that the game was programmed in such a way that when you use his cobweb, the CPU will try a low kick like 90% of the time, and that's one of the keys.
You have to be as smart as the original programmers and find where they left weak spots, or you are done.
In Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 he plays with Smoke. The game changed, so he changed his ways, too. That's the only way the game becomes doable without expending hours and hours fighting and not losing a continue.
He is playing more and more arcades as time goes on and he is very entertaining not only to watch but to listen to, 'cos he explains everything in great detail while he is playing an Arcade.
It's very captivating watching him playing each enemy and explaining what he is doing to beat Motaro, Shao Kahn, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Sonya, etc etc.
In Final Fight he uses techniques I had never seen before, and only dies once in the entire game, so he ends the game with a single credit, of course. : )
That's the premise, and he follows those guidelines to the letter. He says his wife has a lot of patience with him in a jokingly manner (he fails at times, those games are so complicated, and only upload the games where he completed the game without using a credit), but he is in his mid 30s and has the skills, plus he played those games as a kid, so....
Another examples is Golden Axe, things like going from the bottom of the screen to the top of it -or vice versa- in a straight line lets you move around untouched as enemies would try to whack you but they can't hit you when you are moving horizontally in a straight line, and this technique helps you to single enemies out. :smile:
When you see the tricks that you could use in those games and never knew of... As I said, incredibly fascinating stuff.
In the end, I think that classic and retro games are becoming more and more valued over time, and pretty likely will remain so forever.
Yes old arcade games were very hard, for obvious reasons. If you get 10minutes from one credit youre doing well
In fact I'ld go as far to say its the easiest arcade game Ive ever played, what say ye all?
funnily enuf, Golden Axe was one of the few exceptions IIRC I completed the game on my fourth go or something.
In fact I'ld go as far to say its the easiest arcade game Ive ever played, what say ye all?
Cyan what is the username of that youtube guy you're talking about? Sounds like a good sub.
My arcade history wasn't that deep, but I liked skill based games. probably my favorite was this Capcom game called Avengers. I found it a Wal Mart I went to every week. The thing about it was you played for score, although it was an action game with levels and progression and bosses, but it was skill based, you could get better and better. I had a rivalry going with a guy on the high score table for weeks. He'd set the new high, I'd leapfrog him, he'd leapfrog me back...it went on for a while before we finally met at the machine. In the end he was better, but then again he was a lot older than me. That's classic stuff right there.
Again what I really liked was the clear progression. A lot of Arcade games were basically just designed to suck quarters with no real skill progression possible. Those were the bad kind.
I kept that game in the back of my head for years, but I forgot what it was called. I posted a few gameplay details I remembered on this GAF thread of forgotten games, and of course a couple guys gave me the name immediately.
I spent a TON on Streetfighter 2 later as well of course. That was my game.
My arcade history wasn't that deep, but I liked skill based games. probably my favorite was this Capcom game called Avengers. I found it a Wal Mart I went to every week. The thing about it was you played for score, although it was an action game with levels and progression and bosses, but it was skill based, you could get better and better. I had a rivalry going with a guy on the high score table for weeks. He'd set the new high, I'd leapfrog him, he'd leapfrog me back...it went on for a while before we finally met at the machine. In the end he was better, but then again he was a lot older than me. That's classic stuff right there.
Again what I really liked was the clear progression. A lot of Arcade games were basically just designed to suck quarters with no real skill progression possible. Those were the bad kind.
I kept that game in the back of my head for years, but I forgot what it was called. I posted a few gameplay details I remembered on this GAF thread of forgotten games, and of course a couple guys gave me the name immediately.
I spent a TON on Streetfighter 2 later as well of course. That was my game.
Well, the legend say pretty cool things and it was a myth in its own way. So it's kinda sad to have it gone now as a myth.
But it's part of videogaming history in a very peculiar way, even the Angry Video Game Nerd made a movie around that plot, and there were people singing at that myth. :smile2:
I just think that retro games have a lot of charm, the sounds, the MIDI music, the graphics.., etc.
And people remember them fondly, sometimes just for nostalgic reasons and other times because certain games were actually so good that they are timeless.
I am currently watching videos on Youtube from a guy who completes Arcade games using a single credit,
And let me tell you, it's much more entertaining watching one of those videos that anything you can watch on CoD and most modern games.
Those classic games were effin' bitches to deal with, and it's admirable to see how the game finishes those games.
For instance, in R-Type he memorised where certain enemies come from. Where to wait or hide, etc etc.
He knows the final bosses off pat, and knowing them by heart makes the game easier, and you can't lose a single life if you want to complete R-Type 1 and 2, if not you are done. The key of the game is memorising certain parts of the levels and keeping your power-ups all the way through -which means no dying (you can die in the first level or so and still complete the game, but without a fully powered ship you won't be able to complete the game afterwards).
In Art of Fighting 2 he learnt the AI routines, and how you can beat enemies if you know what to do when the AI uses certain parameters. Sometimes the AI changes behaviour mid game, and then you need to be patient or hope for it to revert to its previous behaviour. He plays with Jack in AoF2.
Mortal Kombat 1, 2, 3 and Ultimate MK can be finished with certain characters without losing a match (you can lose rounds at times, in fact it happened to him, but that's minor), each of them with a different character and tactics.
I was awestruck when watching his videos, and they last like 40 minutes, 20 minutes, 1 hour, or 10 minutes in some cases (Golden Axe). He has more than 100 videos and counting, I watched like 5 or 6, it's fascinating stuff!!
For instance, in Mortal Kombat 3 he uses Cyrax to have a chance to beat the game without expending 10 hours repeating fights in order to complete it. :smile:
Key here is that the game was programmed in such a way that when you use his cobweb, the CPU will try a low kick like 90% of the time, and that's one of the keys.
You have to be as smart as the original programmers and find where they left weak spots, or you are done.
In Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 he plays with Smoke. The game changed, so he changed his ways, too. That's the only way the game becomes doable without expending hours and hours fighting and not losing a continue.
He is playing more and more arcades as time goes on and he is very entertaining not only to watch but to listen to, 'cos he explains everything in great detail while he is playing an Arcade.
It's very captivating watching him playing each enemy and explaining what he is doing to beat Motaro, Shao Kahn, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Sonya, etc etc.
In Final Fight he uses techniques I had never seen before, and only dies once in the entire game, so he ends the game with a single credit, of course. : )
That's the premise, and he follows those guidelines to the letter. He says his wife has a lot of patience with him in a jokingly manner (he fails at times, those games are so complicated, and only upload the games where he completed the game without using a credit), but he is in his mid 30s and has the skills, plus he played those games as a kid, so....
Another examples is Golden Axe, things like going from the bottom of the screen to the top of it -or vice versa- in a straight line lets you move around untouched as enemies would try to whack you but they can't hit you when you are moving horizontally in a straight line, and this technique helps you to single enemies out. :smile:
When you see the tricks that you could use in those games and never knew of... As I said, incredibly fascinating stuff.
In the end, I think that classic and retro games are becoming more and more valued over time, and pretty likely will remain so forever.
That guy must be some gaming genious. Being able to spot the patterns for so many games and actually become so good at them that he can finish them all with one credit is a huge feat.
These games were often very unfair and way too hard. They purposely designed them in a way that if you made a "mistake" the game became impossible to finish without feeding the machine with too many credits and in some cases it was just IMPOSSIBLE to finish.
I wonder if he managed to finish also Ninja Gaiden. That was one unfair motherfucker
I very much agree with you that Golden Axe was a very easy game.
In fact, it was way too easy for an arcade game. I never played it on the Arcade machines but the X360 became the home of a like for like version of the original Arcade and I purchased this version.
The guy completed the game in 10 minutes, and the game lasted like 20 minutes to me. In addition, you had infinite continues on the X360 version.
What struck me the most of Golden Axe is how short the levels were. When I completed the first stage I was like; “Huh? Was that it?”.
I have a feeling that the shortness of the levels were due to some old machines only having 128Kb of RAM or so.
If a machine had 256Kb or 512Kb of RAM, levels could be way more vast, which was a good thing.
I have never heard of Avengers, but those who completed SF2 on Arcades without using an extra credit had to be admirable, just like those who were leapfrogging –like you- another competitor at Arcades in games like Tetris -those Tetris gamers had a very quick mind, actually.
Yes Rangers, not only good but also certainly a great sub.
Arcade perfect games are a rare gem. His channel can be fascinating and infinitely fun to watch.Thing is… he doesn’t speak English in his videos, which is a shame ‘cos people like that deserve to be known everywhere.
He is very talkative and explains everything in great detail, and that makes his channel even better, ‘cos you actually learn how to follow his tips and tricks.
The guy is Basque (great place, great people, the footballer Xabi Alonso is from there) so he speaks Spanish, which isn’t my mother’s tongue but I speak and understand it perfectly.
His channel is called “Con 5 duros” (“With a single quarter” – 5 duros = 25 Ptas = 1 quarter). And he defines himself as the “Arcade nerd”.
Here are the videos (some names will be familiar to you): :smile2:
https://www.youtube.com/user/con5duros/videos
A few examples (he usually begins talking briefly about the game, then he beats the game explaining what he is doing and sometimes he adds a so called Bonus Stage with extra info on the game or images of ports):
Mortal Kombat 3
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
Mortal Kombat 2
R-Type 2
Every era and generation has its own nostalgia. It happens to me with the Xbox and X360 for instance, and while there are some freaking bitches between those games, you can realistically complete them if you manage to outsmart the programmers or AI routines. -Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox comes to mind-
Especially if you do that using the so called "With a single quarter style", as the guy defines it.
Which is playing like a true little twerp. If the programmers are sobs, so you are.
Watching him playing those games (I've seen like 8 or so videos of him for now) makes you realise how finely tuned those machines were. They rewarded skilled players.
If you think about it, they had to. You were on the edge, playing with your money...on machines that required sharp senses.
They weren't impossible by any means (unlike most modern games which are easy as pie but are impossible to beat without losing a life a single time, they are made for you to lose a life no matter what, 'cos of infinite regeneration and continues) and the industry didn't suffer from overcrowding, so people could focus on the games that came out.
Some examples of how he beats the games...
With Art of Fighting 2 (according to him, and with good reason, the most difficult Art of Fighting game) it’s a matter of following the AI patterns. :smile2: Easier said than done, I guess, but still.
Some patterns are “good” for what he tries, others are tough (either that or some characters behave differently than others), so you have to be patient when the AI doesn’t behave as expected, and enters other patterns, when it gets back to certain patterns, he tricks the AI.
Final Fight has many tricks as well. When you are punching the riffraff, there is a punch which throws the baddies to the ground (usually the 3rd, iirc) and you shouldn’t use that ‘cos it’s better to have enemies standing still all the time when punching them.
So you punch them twice, quickly look the other way, and once you threw a 3rd punch nowhere in the air, swiftly turn around and look towards the baddie once again and punch him twice, rinse and repeat. He loses hit points easily that way.
R-Type 1 and R-Type 2 work in the same way, with a few differences (R-Type Leo is easier than those, according to him), but the idea is to keep all your upgrades all the way through or you are toast.
In R-Type 1 & 2, for instance, he just gets a “S” power-up, which gives you extra speed, but he never picks a second “S” for the rest of the game ‘cos the ship goes faster but it becomes almost impossible to control when you need the best control in tight places –one of the keys for some levels.
Additionally, for Ghosts’N Goblins, which he considers one of the most difficult games ever made, even more difficult than Ghouls’N Ghosts, he used a trick which consists of taking advantage of the game mechanics...
Without that trick you won’t go anywhere in the game. The thing is that you have to tap your stick quickly in the direction of your projectiles.
That’s to say, the game only lets you throw and have two spears on screen at once. And there is a relatively gap between each individual throw.
If you tap your gamepad’s stick quickly in the direction you will be throwing the spears at a much faster rate and the gap between each spear will tighten.
Still, you are limited to two spears at once but when one of them or both of them disappear you will be throwing another one immediately afterwards. So you can end up throwing a great amount of spears at a great pace.
In the end, you have to be very careful not only with enemies, but also some power-ups (like in R-Type) are actually to your disadvantage, :smile2: which is especially aggravating for an actually ghoulishly difficult game.
It’s the little things in the end.
But he managed to beat THIS with a single credit, lulz.
There are like 7 games he completed with the word Ninja in it, but no Ninja Gaiden for now.
Nestoracebo
Newcomer
Hi, this is my first post i am nestor the owner of the youtubr channel " con 5 duros"..first all sorry for my english, its not my first language, secondlly thans a lot to cyan for talking about my little nerd channel
But he managed to beat THIS with a single credit, lulz.
I've beat Ghost's N Goblins on two credits back in the day, I used to play that game all the time in the arcades as a kid. It's tough but not super tough. Games like Robotron were much tougher, I could only do about 1.5 million on that one in the early 80s but would watch in awe when some guys would get to wave 40 on that game.
Hi, this is my first post i am nestor the owner of the youtubr channel " con 5 duros"..first all sorry for my english, its not my first language, secondlly thans a lot to cyan for talking about my little nerd channel
Dude if its really you you are one hell of a gamer
:smile: Kaixo Nestor!! Zer moduz? Ondo? /toy pez en euskera/. Ikusi artee.Hi, this is my first post i am nestor the owner of the youtubr channel " con 5 duros"..first all sorry for my english, its not my first language, secondlly thans a lot to cyan for talking about my little nerd channel
Note: I wrote a few words in Euskera saying Hi and asking him about how he does feel. Euskera is the language of Euskadi (Basque Country), although I just know a few spare expressions and words.
That's pretty amazing, because well, if you into account that the game has two possible endings, and you can continue playing afterwards once you beat the game first, and knowing how difficult the game is, you could be the best customer of your local Arcade in that arcade cabinet at first, -lots of trial and error for you, I guess- and then when you knew how to play well, you were like the arcade's downfall, not needing much money to spend a good time there. :smile2:
It makes me wonder how much money a coin-op arcade cabinet needs to make every day to pay for the expenses, because in order for an arcade cabinet to pay for itself, with all the electricity
When I was a kid there was an arcade close to my school, with Street Fighter and the like and I remember that the owner had some arcade cabinets completely turned off and you had to ask him to switch them on. Back then I wondered why he did that...
How you maintain a machine like that is another question, but the cost had to be high, especially because electronics in the 90s were sooooo expensive.
Dude if its really you you are one hell of a gamer
You summed it up perfectly, and I gotta say nestoracebo is the real deal. In addition, In Nestor's channel he continues playing if the game has a different ending once it's been beaten previously, and stops playing those which let you continue playing a second time but have the same ending once you beat them twice.
In the Ghost'N Goblins video I find it quite surprising how he evaded the final boss of the 3rd level (the key is that once the final boss music starts sounding, you have to turn around and go back some distance, and once you walk towards the end of the level again, the boss won't be there). :smile:
Also curious how he found the shield, and how he used a trick where he began to throw weapons at the bottom left of the screen which triggered a bug that cause two baddies to float and couldn't hurt Sir Arthur.
It's skill, knowledge, memory and those little details that make a big difference in the end. All those factors together make it the more admirable.
I have no real clue, but I remembered this
http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/6/5386788/when-was-the-most-expensive-time-to-be-a-gamer
Hi, this is my first post i am nestor the owner of the youtubr channel " con 5 duros"..first all sorry for my english, its not my first language, secondlly thans a lot to cyan for talking about my little nerd channel
Be welcome sir. classic gaming rockstar. Nice to have you.
20000 plays to pay for itself? I hope that Mark Cerny means the amount of plays an arcade game needed to start becoming profitable. That's to say 20000 plays around the world, which is much more feasible, rather than 20000 plays in your local arcade. That would mean a LOT of time spent playing a single machine.
But he seems to mean that the owner of the arcade would need 20000 plays from it to become profitable. So it looks like an arcade machine wasn't a good money maker.
2 minutes isn't much allotment of time, and I don't remember a machine where you only spent like 2 minutes playing before inserting another quarter.
Maybe the key was that some people didn't take advantage of the entire length of time, and others were so bad at the game.
Yup, he is a star. Not only an arcade star, but also like a shooting star.
-pun intended-I watched his Bubble Bobble video and was awestruck at how fast he completes it and uses certain tactics.
Also he completed Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior (the first SF2 ever) with Dhalsim!! :smile: without losing a single round!
What surprised me the most is how he tricked Ryu and Ken, as both follow exactly the same pattern against Dhalsim, they are easy as pie.
Also how he took advantage of the fact that Dhalsim can grab the opponents from a further distance than any other fighter --didn't know that.
In addition, it's also very curious what he mentions about the fact that you can get as close as you can against Balrog since he can't grab any opponent in the original SF2, while ALL the other fighters can.
The best part though is the fight agains Bison. :smile: You can make a perfect against him just using the medium kick all the time!!!
And he found that out in an arcade cabinet which only had two buttons back in the day, and one of them was the medium kick.
The feat in video here:
Yeah, a new arcade machine would cost roughly $5,000 US, depending on the game. If it's something fancy, even more.
http://www.primetimeamusements.com/arcadegame.php?id=201
$20,000 for that one. Even at $1 per game, that's still 20,000 games before you break even, not counting the cost of city and state tax stickers you have to put on it, and electricity costs.
That whopping 20000$ is about almost the cost of a decent car. I see... I thought they would cost as much as a fridge, and if anything maybe 500$-1000$ more expensive, but no more than that.
Most of the arcade cabinets I've seen when there was an arcade close to my school which was called "Jufin", basically had the flyer but the cabinet itself was quite an all-rounder with 3 buttons and the arcade stick.
At that price it's no wonder some arcades closed their doors when they realised they were underperforming, because it's not only about the amount of customers you can get and seeing the place packed with people, but then there is the routine maintenance and the electricity bills. --CRT displays use a lot of electricity compared to their LCD, LED counterparts...
Back into Nestor's channel... after watching some of his videos I gotta admit it is a very difficult channel to replicate, because the guy is really unique at that.
Not only he ends every game with a single credit but in addition to that he is very eloquent and has a way with words, he is likeable and some of his real life friends play some of the games with him --this is very valuable, 'cos it brings you back to the times when people actually hanged out together and played together in arcade cabinets, when we are in the internet era as of currently...
If you add to that that he has a truly heartfelt passion for arcades, to the point that he built his own arcade cabinet with several inputs for PS1 and SNES controls too, that he uses an actual arcade stick to play his games on his arcade cabinet, which in turn is running on Windows XP and MAME, plus he created a customized frontend using HTML to launch the games instead of using the MAME's interface... and so on and so forth... :smile2:
You can get the idea of why he has a very special style. And I think that for a person like him who love those machines and has a family, arcades are a great fit for someone with good memory and reflexes, plus fun/charming as hell.
It's kinda surprising that there aren't many people like him in the US, for instance, which is country where you can find about anything, and geeks like him in different hobbies such as pinball machines, classic consoles, etc. I've met a few of them already. :smile: