Comments 280

Re: Interview: Industry Icons Roberta And Ken Williams On How Colossal Cave Led To A Life Of Adventure

JJtheTexan

I absolutely adore Ken and Roberta! They are legends, give great interviews, and they are by all accounts very nice people. They made some fantastic games, too!

@JackGYarwood if I may point out a minor yet significant typo: I believe the computer Ken is referring to when he talked about going to Japan was the NEC 9801, sometimes called the PC-98, not the "NES 9801." Lest someone confuse it with the Famicom xD

Re: Poll: So, What's Your Favourite Controller Of All Time?

JJtheTexan

Among "classic" retro controllers, I'd have to say the SNES controller is my favorite. My most-used of the last five years is definitely the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, which is excellent. But once I got a PS5 last year, I was blown away by the DualSense. I dislike all prior PlayStation controllers, but this one is just so darn great. It feels like what Nintendo should have done years ago.

Re: Best Neo Geo Games

JJtheTexan

Great list. Thanks to Hamster, I own most of these digitally, or else on one of my Neo Geo Mini cabinets. My absolute favorite is probably Neo Turf Masters, a.k.a. Big Tournament Golf (Augusta National Cease and Desist Order Edition).

Re: How A Plagiarised Review Turned 'Rule Of Rose' Into A PS2 "Video Game Nasty"

JJtheTexan

Great story! I already knew Rule of Rose is a "holy grail" among PS2 collectors, but I wasn't familiar with the backstory of its rarity.

It's hard to imagine something like this happening today. Not only is plagiarism exposed far more quickly and widely, making these kinds of false statements about a game and triggering political threats would probably result in a devastating lawsuit.

Re: John Carmack Has Resigned From Facebook Parent Meta

JJtheTexan

VR has a lot of great possibilities for entertainment, industry, medicine, and commerce. Meta's vision for VR - shoehorning in everyday activities that are easily done on a flat screen - is dead on arrival.

I wish Carmack all the success in the world, and I eagerly await Meta's demise.

Re: Interview: How Gamebox Systems Is Breathing New Life Into Old Hardware

JJtheTexan

I have mixed feelings about these products. I think it's great giving folks an option to play original handheld carts on modern TVs... but I am not comfortable with permanently destroying older handhelds in order to do it.

It's not worth "upcycling" irreplaceable vintage hardware for the sake of convenience. I realize they say they are using "old and broken" consoles, but I suspect most or all of them could be repaired and made usable again. If a Game Gear can't be repaired by replacing the capacitors, it probably can't be used in a consolizer, either.

As an aside, I deeply dislike how 3D printed things look. I understand they aren't operating at a scale to afford "real" plastic shells, but 3D printing has those awful seams and rough surfaces. It always appears sloppy to me.

Re: The Worst SNES Games Of All Time

JJtheTexan

No complaints with your list, though I'd add Jaleco pushed out a fair amount of D-tier dreck for the platform. Tuff E Nuff and Brawl Brothers come to mind.

The worst SNES game I can recall playing is The Ignition Factor, an unenjoyable and baffling attempt at a firefighting game from a top-down perspective.

Re: Ever Wondered Why Japan's Die Hard And Predator Video Games Were So Unusual?

JJtheTexan

Even as a kid in the late 1980s / early 1990s, I managed to steer clear of most movie-licensed games. The only ones I can recall actually owning were Rambo, The Karate Kid, and The Hunt for Red October, all for the NES. None is particularly good.

I can recall renting and playing Back to the Future, Part II & III for the NES, and finding it incomprehensible and bizarre.

Again, I absolutely love stories like John's reporting here, and they keep me coming back to Time Extension. Thank you for the great writing!

Re: Flashback: Unravelling The Confusing History Of Rambo On Japanese Computers

JJtheTexan

Items like this one are why Time Extension has quickly become one of my favorite gaming websites. Thank you!

My only Rambo game experience is with the NES version, which I received as a gift when I was around 8 or 9 years old. I loved (and still enjoy) the music, but that's about it. I never got very far in the game.

I kind of want a full-size framed poster of the Super Rambo Special cover. It's so delightfully weird.

Re: Top Hat Gaming Man, Lady Decade And A Photo Of Ray Harryhausen

JJtheTexan

In a former job, I was responsible for media licensing - making sure videos, photos, music, and other creative products were properly licensed before distribution to clients or use in television broadcasts and online videos. So yeah, I cringe a lot when I see the rampant abuse of copyright that many content creators engage in every day, and generally get away with.

I imagine some of my favorite YouTube channels are one lawsuit away from being shut down forever. I stopped watching Lady Decade after the "crying video" mentioned above, because I could tell that she and THGM had made a mistake but were refusing to accept accountability.

Bottom line: artists, photographers, videographers, musicians, and other creators are entitled to be paid for the use of their content. "Fair use" is a doctrine, not a legal defense.

Re: Flashback: What If Sega And Sony Joined Forces To Battle Nintendo In The '90s? Well, They Nearly Did

JJtheTexan

Great story. I think Americans and Brits tend to overstate how successful SEGA was in the hardware business, because of the strong performance of the Mega Drive / Genesis in both territories.

In reality, as Soto said, SEGA was never really a particularly strong competitor from a global perspective. The MD was a distant third to the Super Famicom and PC Engine in Japan, for example, and no SEGA console apart from the Genesis / MD sold exceptionally well anywhere. (Besides the Master System in Brazil, I suppose.)

My takeaway from the article is that Sony never really took SEGA seriously because it (correctly) viewed SEGA as an also-ran in the console business that was doomed to exit the market.

Re: Intellivision Is Allowing Amico Exclusives To Release On Other Systems

JJtheTexan

If I had to guess, developers pressured Intellivision to let them out of the exclusivity agreement or risk not getting any games at all, since it's now clear to everyone involved that no party will make a dime on the console or its software.

I do think there will be a "release" of the Amico, in that at least some (but probably not all) crowdfunding backers will get theirs. But we'll never see these stupid things on store shelves or available for mass-market purchase online.

In a world with Apple Arcade, smartphones, tablets, and Nintendo Switch, the Amico concept failed to answer the questions "Who is this for?" and "What makes this better than existing alternatives?". Too bad for anyone who invested money in this project.

Re: Poll: How Do You Play Your Retro Games?

JJtheTexan

Modern consoles when available, original hardware otherwise. I just really enjoy the convenience of HD ports, even though they're almost always emulation, especially considering the headaches I have to deal with involving my old consoles + upscaler + UHDTV. The input lag is often very problematic. (I don't have a CRT nor the space to keep one.)

Re: Poll: What's The Best Ridge Racer?

JJtheTexan

I can't say whether it's the best, but 3D is my favorite and the one I played the most. However, a lot of that is because there weren't many 3DS games available for a while after launch, and it was the best racing game on the console until Mario Kart 7 came along.

Re: Here's How UK Magazines Covered The "Great" Video Game Crash

JJtheTexan

I was very young at the time, so I was unaware of the crash at all, even though I'm an American. I got my first console, an NES, in 1988, and by then the market had fully recovered.

I have noticed that in recent years, video producers and writers have done a much better job of correctly framing the event as the "North American Video Game Crash" and not simply the crash, as it was clearly limited to the U.S. and Canada. The home console market was absolutely booming in Japan at the time, and Europe was an entirely different story. Of course, creators who grew up in the USA view everything through that lens, and forget that there are other places where things went very differently.

Re: Did The Stamper Brothers Really Work On Gyruss?

JJtheTexan

Is it possible that both responses could be true? In other words, what if the Stamper Brothers did in fact work on the Commodore 64 port of Gyruss, or another version?

I love these historical gaming research pieces you're doing, and I would be delighted if you could get in touch with the Stampers and ask them for their take.