C-C-C-Computer Games

Lots of stuff to report in this brief update! First, my new computer case arrived in the mail this morning, and I spent most of the day taking the guts out my yard sale PC and transferring them into it. I'm pleased to say that the operation was mostly a success... the Frankensteined system works like a charm, although I do have a few quibbles. First, I don't know what the hell to do with the USB 3.0 port, which this motherboard evidently doesn't support. Second, there are a couple of metal tabs that weren't properly tucked in when I inserted the motherboard, making it a little tougher than necessary to use the network port. Finally, the motherboard doesn't seem to natively support case fans, so I'll have to plunk down a few dollars for an adapter. Still, this is a very good start! I just need a graphics card and maybe some memory and this bad boy should be ready to rock.

There's surprising attention to
detail in this game, including these
grazing cows and the smoking
holes left by your bombs.
(image courtesy of chinese.cari.com.my)

Let's see, what else? After many years, Raiden II has finally been decrypted and is running in the latest build of the MAME arcade emulator. This was a tough nut to crack, with encryption that refused to be broken even after the CPS3 hardware and its frustrating suicide battery was foiled by hackers. While it's true that you could play a pretty accurate conversion of Raiden II in the early Playstation release The Raiden Project, players at long last have access to the real thing! Special thanks to Frank Cifaldi for breaking the news on his Tumblr page.

Okay, onto the next thing. Sony's currently selling a bunch of Playstation games from Capcom and Square-Enix Europe for reasonable prices, and upped the ante this weekend with a sale on various racing games. None of those titles were Burnout Legends or Dominator, unfortunately, but Need for Speed Most Wanted is available for both the PS3 and Vita for only five dollars. The game didn't hook me at first, but it's slowly winning me over with its emphasis on outwitting a small army of relentless police officers.

It's jury-rigged as all hell, but it works!

I'm sure there was something else... oh yeah! That Rhythm Heaven Fever controller I talked about making earlier is finished. After the buttons I ordered from Hong Kong arrived in the mail, I slapped 'em on the body of an eviscerated arcade joystick and connected them to my Wii light gun, using the cable from an old 2600 joystick. The end result is a perfectly ghastly, but perfectly functional controller designed for exactly one game. Bashing those big buttons makes the game more cathartic (and noisy!), but it hasn't made me any better at it. Oh well... as a friend astutely observed, I could always use it to play Dive Kick. Or maybe Track 'n Field...