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DIY 32x-Gen Mixer Cable a Success!
Posted on May 15th, 2008 by JMT.
Categories: Articles.
Since I found another 32x cheap, but it was missing the 32x-gen adapter/mixer/pass-through cable, and it’s cheaper to just buy a complete system than the stand-alone cable (bizzare), I decided to try to make my own.
The do-it-yourself 32x cable:
I started with the genesis 1 to 32x adapter (just for convenience) since it has the same connections as the 32x and genesis 2 for plugging the adapter into.
I placed tape over the connector, and then poked holes with wire. Then I stripped the tips on 8 wires and then plugged in all 8 wires (only 8 of the 9 pins are used) into the holes. This ensures that the wires are at the correct spacing.
Then I took silicon and engulfed the end in about 1 inch of silicon, making sure to get it inbetween all the wires to securely hold them in place. The silicon will then form the mold to hold the pins in place, and by having them plugged in to the right connector, they will have the correct spacing/locations. It’s kind of like molding your own cable.
About 24 hours later, the silicon is dry, and I pull it out and take the tape off. I fiddle with the wires a bit to make sure they’re aligned right, and crimp the ends, etc. I also shaved the silicon so that it fits into the 32x hole (since the plug is recessed).
Then repeat for the other side. The tricky part is making sure you match the correct pins on each side. I just used a voltmeter to measure resistance across the pins to double-check. This one took 2 days to dry for some reason.
Then I plugged ‘er in, and it worked!
Click for full-sized images:
My Darius Collection
Posted on May 12th, 2008 by JMT.
Categories: Articles.
I thought I’d post my Darius collection. For one, I think it’s kind of cool. And I just got the Taito Legends which has Darius Gaiden and G Darius on it, so I’ll probably end up selling my existing copies, so I wanted to snap this picture while I still could.
There’s just something cool about Darius. It’s not that great of a shooter. I didn’t even have Sagaia on my list, but couldn’t resist picking up a complete in box copy at Halfprice for 5$. There’s just something cool about the giant mechanized fish theme. I like collecting themes. Like all the Sonics, and all the Marios, and all the Cottons, and all the Thunderforces, etc. And Darius is a nice collection.
Well, Darius is a good shooter. The weapons are cool, and the shield is cool. As long as you get the shield and a couple upgrades, it’s pretty fun and intense. The problem is if you don’t have the shield and/or only have basic fire, you tend to be screwed, even on the first level.
If you’re wonder why the Gaiking VHS is in there, I made a post about that a year or so ago. Basically, it’s a Japanese animation that pre-dates the first Darius arcade game, but the enemy is named “Davius” (could be mis-translation), and the enemy has a battlefleet of giant mechanized fish-shaped craft. It’s just too much to be a coincidence in my book.
Click to view full size image.
I Fixed a Broken Atari 2600
Posted on May 11th, 2008 by JMT.
Categories: Articles.
I found an atari 2600 at a flea market. Of course I got the “it worked the last time my kids played with it 300 years ago” response, which means chances of working are about 5%.
The unit would not turn on. So I cracked ‘er open.
The first thing I noticed was that the right-angle power plug was loose. In fact, it was so loose the soldered contacts weren’t connected anymore. The plug pins were kind of floating in the pcb holes. I tried holding it to the side to force contact, and it still wouldn’t turn on. So at first I thought that wasn’t it. I was also able to read +13v all through the unit.
Unable to find anything else to try, I figured I’d give that powerplug a try anyway. So I resoldered the 3 pins on. And lo and behold, now it works!
So if anyone has a non-functional 2600, check that power input connector.
But the story doesn’t end there. The On/off switch was very touchy. The system would reset itself constantly unless the switch was in just the right position. So I sprayed electrical contact cleaner inside the switch and played it back and forth a bunch. And viola, now the On/Off switch is as solid as the day it was born.
So if anyone has twitchy switches no their 2600, try spraying contact cleaner in them.
The contact cleaner also helps twitchy paddle-controllers, but only about 50% of the time. Also, the paddle controllers tend to need re-cleaning every so often, kind of like 5200 joysticks.
This 2600 I got came with 3 sets of paddle controllers. One was junked, one was twitchy, and the cleaner only fixed the player-2 paddle. However, the 3rd set of paddle controllers is as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Better than any of the sets I already had.
I Fixed a Broken 32X
Posted on May 11th, 2008 by JMT.
Categories: Articles.
I got a 32x in a box of junk at the flea market.
The 32x turns on and boots games, but the games didn’t play so well. Sometimes they wouldn’t boot easily, and when they did boot, they would freeze during intro screens.
In Doom, it was actually crash with a Bus parity error printed on the screen during the level select.
So that got me thinking, maybe there was a problem with the data busses.
So I cracked ‘er open, and I took out the two ribbon cables. I cleaned the contacts with an eraser, and then sprayed contact cleaner inside the connectors and plunged them a bit using the ribbon contacts.
Then I put it all back together, and viola, it works! No more crashes.
So, if anyone else has a crashing or non-working 32X, try cleaning the ribbon cable contacts.
Finding Fun in Maligned Games
Posted on April 6th, 2008 by JMT.
Categories: Articles.
I find I sometimes polarize a bit too far into the “awesomeness” of some games just to offset the more generally negative reviews.
I think it’s a mental state that makes you find the good in a game. I got the 32X when it first came out, and was completely awestruck by the 1st person 3D action of “Doom” (at the time my computer couldn’t play it, and I never owned a Jaguar). FuncoLand had a list a mile long of expected titles already priced on their inventory sheet (even though as it turns out, the titles I was most interested in - Alien Vs Predator and Virtual Hamster - never arrived, and I really started to hate the fact that Funco would list pricess for games that were never released, which kept you thinking that you could somehow find them somewhere, sometime. They even used to have Alien Vs Predator listed as a Genesis port as well).
Luckily I was one of those that noticed I had to make sure (my mom picked up for xmas) the correct version that had the Genesis model 1 cable. However, the 32x only came with an RCA composite mono output, and at the time, most of the TVs were still antenna-only. I had to bring the 32X down from my bedroom to the living room to play 32x games. Kind of an oddity, right off the start.
I got Doom, Star Wars, and Virtua Racing with the system. Doom was amazing, even if the screen was a bit small (it wasn’t until later I discovered they’d cut out some parts of levels, and actually only included 1.5 chapters from the PC version). Star Wars was actually the game I was most interested in, but it struck me as a big disappointment when I first played it. First, it was kind of odd that they didn’t have any music playing during that intro cinema, just 3D graphics. And I thought you would have full 360o freedom of flight in the X-wing, and it turned out you were only limited to a little bit of nose-up and a little bit of nose-down. And then your ship controls like a blimp. It’s impossible to dogfight those tie’s when you turn slower than molasses and they zip around like flies. It also makes it near impossible to navigate through those trenches on the death star levels. The ties can pass right through bulkheads without problems. But I was really annoyed at first when I’d end up bouncing back and forther against trench walls like a pinball game and die.
But it was Star Wars, and it was my 32X, and I forced myself to have fun. Eventually I figured out that I could plug in player 2 with auto-fire, so I’d have 2 cursors firing on the screen and one extra shield, and eventually managed to beat both original and arcade modes (I later picked up a new copy, and for some reason, the game always freezes on the last level of 32x mode now). And the voice over for admiral ackbar was pathetic! But it grew on your after a while. And I figured out how to beat those deathstar levels. Those towers would kill you, so you have to dive right away into the trenches, and then use that “stop timer” code, and just take your sweet time picking up your 35 ties in the tenches. There are some sections of trench that have no guns to worry about.
Oooh and that super star destroyer level. The fact that your x-wing controls like a blimp makes it sheer impossible to navigate through its belly. BUT I played it endlessly anyway, and now I’m a pro. First, you have to memorize where those proton torpedo launchers are going to be, and then blast them away from a distance before they start launching. And then take it carefully down the belly, but assume you’re going to bounce afew times, which is why you need to save at least 5 shields for that part. Plus it’s impossible to target the guns in the belly, since then you’ll fly into the wall. But I tell you, the first time I made it through i was like the biggest accomplishment of my life.
Ok, so where does this get to Motocross?
Well, some half a year later, and no more video games worth 50$ have come out for the 32X??? But I would not give up! It was my baby. All they came out with was some sports games (I don’t like sports games anyway, not since atari 2600 anyway), and ports of arcade games back from the 8-bit days (afterburner, space harrier), and ports of games already on the genesis (MKII, and the 32x-CD games). Compared to the depth of a game you got with doom, star wars, and virtua racer, I just didn’t want to spend 50$ on simple, narrow-concept games like afterburner, space harrier, motocross, etc.
Luckily, we found this place called Mario’s Video, and they actually rented a full selection of Sega CD and 32X games! Amazing! The only place I’ve ever known to have stocked those systems for rent. So finally, I had a chance to play all these games that I didn’t want to spend 50$ on. They were of course fun, but arcade fun, not expensive long-time fun. Except motocross. That was fun enough that I went to Planet Games and payed 20$ (an exceptable price) for a copy.
I just wanted texture mapping! Doom whet my appetite, but nothing else delivered. But those textured tracks on Motorcross were just what I was looking for.
And then there was Metalhead. It was amazing to get a fully textured 3D environment. Even though the frame rate went down to .5fps when you ran and fired at the same time. Unfortunately, once I’d get to the last level (which didn’t take too long, there were only like 5 or 6), I could never figure out how to win. So I felt I’d done it all. It missed some polish.
Well, Saturn came out, and I was pissed. 32X was supposed to be the 32-bit platform. Why wouldn’t they just start making GOOD games for the 32X-CD platform, instead of throwing out something new. The 32X-CD combo was capable of as much as the Saturn. But the idiots just kept porting bad FMV games to it.
Finally, Virtua Fighter came out and we 32x lovers thought we were saved. Expecially since the 32X version was better than the Saturn version. I thought that meant or sure a longer life.
The last few games trickled out, I got Primal Rage and T-Mek for my birthday (’96?). T-Mek too again was a disappointment. I was expecting texture mapped terrain and polygon hovercraft. Instead. the entire game was sprites. The shooting action wasn’t very intense. Too slow of firing rate. Though again I forced myself to have fun. I played it all the way through to the end a couple times. There were some neat parts. The cave level and the fire level were fun. But the action was very repetative.
And then it died. All 32X systems were being clearanced for 20$. Games were dumped in the clearance bin.
Sega pissed me off. They had the perfect console made, and many of us bought it - the Genesis+CD+32X system. It was perfect because it was backwardds compatible with all prior systems. You never had to give up your old games to get the new power. The Saturn meant giving up your old games. The 32X-CD had so much potential, but they never used it.
While I still clung on to hope that more games would keep being released for my favorite systems (CD and 32X), the few games I had were all I had. I made the most of them. I found the good parts, and learned how to work around the bad parts.
That’s how it used to work. I’d get a game, and I’d try to play the most of it, because I didn’t know any better. I can’t believe how many times I actually tried getting through Empire Strikes Back for the NES. Futile. I actually spent hours playing ST-TNG for Genesis. It was star trek, it had to be fun, right? Not.
Now, I have the entire past library of a dozen systems at my disposal. I can purchase the games for less than 5$, and I can resell them at the MGC for even more. I have hundreds of games in my collection I haven’t even played yet. So now I just play the first level, and if it ain’t turning me on, it goes in the sale bin. No time to waste on mediocre titles, when I’ve got a hundred other games I haven’t even played yet burning a hole in my shelf.
So, that’s the difference in mental state. One state is needing to find fun in a game, or needing to find any fun game from a limited library. The other state is needing to find the most fun games from a large library.
Forgotten Worlds Controller Bug
Posted on April 6th, 2008 by JMT.
Categories: Articles.
Just an FYI for everyone out there. Forgotten Worlds for the Genesis has a known bug where it just simply won’t work right with certain controllers. I find that as soon as you start a game, right after the intro cinema, it jumps straight to the game over screen, instead of actually entering the game. This is not a 6-button versus 3-button issue (the Mode button doesn’t help any, though I seem to have more luck with 3-button controllers). Rather, it just doens’t work right with some controllers, but works with others. So if it doesn’t work for you, just try a different controller until it does.
Motocross 32X - don’t trust the bad reviews
Posted on April 6th, 2008 by JMT.
Categories: Articles.
I think it’s sad that Motorcross 32X gets universally poor reviews. I think the problem is that nobody took the time to learn the controls. Because once you have the riding controls down, this game is both easy and incredibly fun.
First, I want to make a correction to many of the reviews. There ARE stunts. You perform the “step off” by tapping A and then holding A while airborne, and this gets you 100$. And you perform the “power salute” by tapping UP and then holding UP while airborne, and this gets you 200$.
So back to gameplay. The driving controls have good depth to them. For the time, this was more than other systems had. By pressing UP, you lean forward, and can go faster. BUT if you lean forward when landing off a jump, you’ll nose dive and crash. By pressing DOWN, you pull up on the handlebars, and it helps you clear jumps. Also, you need to hold DOWN to get through those molehills at a decent speed.
Turning is precise. The only problem is if you take too much air right before a turn and don’t land in time to turn, but that’s part of the challenge. Otherwise, your rider turns very easily, which allows you to keep your speed pretty well through the game. And later levels let you take tons of air, and it’s extremely satisfying to go flying off a big jump and remain airborne for a long time, and try to get a stunt or two in.
In fact, I thought it was the coolest thing when I finally hit a huge jump at top speed and flew high enough to see the edge of the horizen come up. Maybe it was a bug, but seeing it makes me feel like I’ve achieved a huge jump.
Now, back to the beginning. It’s true, the only flaw in the game is at the start, when all the riders collide into a mess. However, this also makes the game very easy to get into the top standing right off the bat. All you have to do is NOT hit the gas at the start. Wait a second for all the other riders to collide, and then hit the gas and zip past them. There will be 4 or 5 top riders who miss the collision, and then these will be the top riders you fight against for 1st place.
It didn’t take me more than a few days of playing and nailing down the solid controls, and I could complete the whole season mode. But even after completing it, it’s still total fun to play. I’ve never played a motocross game before or since that is just so much fun. The feeling of air you get from the jumps is second to none, and the tight controls on turning give it that good “Arcade” feel that lacks from some of the later too-realistic titles.
Also, this game should never be compared to road rash. That’s like trying to compare AH-3 Thunderstrike to Desert Strike. They’re just different games. The punching/kicking is mostly useless in this game. Every once in a while you’ll get a good punch in. But it’s a bit confusing because you have to hold the direction pad in the direction you want to punch. Just forget about the punching, and concentrate on the awesome air.
Also, the animation of the ground (which is texture mapped, BTW, it’s not scan-lined like the road rash games, this couldn’t have been done on the Genesis or the SNES) is perfectly smooth, and enables the high speed flying.
I think it’s sad that this game always gets such bad reviews. It prevents more people from being able to see the fun in this simple arcade motocross game.
And the fact that there’s 12 different tracks (each with more and bigger jumps), and 3 different bikes (faster to catch even more air) means you can never run out of fun with this game.
Sonic Not Just About Speed
Posted on March 24th, 2008 by JMT.
Categories: Articles.
It seems that all post-generation expansion of the Sonic the Hedgehog enterprise only focus on his speed. But the original sonic wasn’t all about speed. For every part where you’d whip around loops at top speed, there were other areas where you could take time and find some secret areas. The video looks to me like it’s entirely a fast paced on-rails 2.5D platformer. It might still be hella-fun, but I just can’t tell if it has other elements to balance it out yet.
I think it’s important for a platformer to have a good balance between the two. Sonic Adventure kind of accomplished it by splitting the two into different gameplay areas.
Even Mario had the balance. There was good old jumping and fireballing action, plus there were little secrets, like the hidden blocks, subterranean bonus levels, and warp zones.
And even Doom, with it’s good balance of chainsaw massacre and finding secret areas.
Gradius III & IV - no digital audio output, and odd control flaw
Posted on March 16th, 2008 by JMT.
Categories: Articles.
I just picked up Gradius III and IV for the PS2.
At first I thought something was wrong with the system. There was audio playing during the opening CG cinema, but it all went silent when it launched into the games.
Eventually I figured out that when the game is in the arcade emulation mode, audio is only output via the analog audio. There is no audio coming out of the digital optical output.
How is this even possible? I thought that that was a system feature, I didn’t think that a game itself could enable or disable the analog/digital audio output independently.
Also, the games seem to have some control flaw. Once you gain a couple of points of speed, the motion feels just too quantizes. When you tap UP, even lightly, the ship jumps up too far (jump distance is of course proportional to speed). Also, the diagonal motion feels awkward, like it’s jumping into a diagonal position instead of smoothly flying.
Scrolling shooters, even when you’re at faster speeds, should have solid ship motion. Holding down a direction may go faster, but you should be able to tap lightly to get a shorter motion. And the diagonal motion should be more proportional, and not feel like such a jump.
In comparison, the SNES version of Gradius III doesn’t have these control problems. but the SNES version is a modified game, and not the original.
Does anyone know if the original arcade had these control flaws too? (In which case, the PS2 is just correctly emulating the original arcade flaws).
Can’t copy Sonic Team VMU files
Posted on March 15th, 2008 by JMT.
Categories: Articles.
I was trying to consolidated my saved files from my VMUs so I could sell some of them. But now I’m stuck, because my Chu Chu Rocket and Sonic Adventure save files won’t allow me to copy them. The copy choice is disabled in the pop-up menu. What’s up with that? Both are Sonic Team games, so I assume it’s some kind of security they’ve decided to put into their save files. Probably so you can’t give someone else your save game. But why should they care if someone else gets to have all the stages unlocked for free? At least they still have to own the game first. And when I want to use a different VMU, now I’m prevented from moving the files.