Words On Wednesday

I finally picked up a Raspberry Pi to play emulated games on, and I am tremendously satisfied with the purchase. Making the Decision The interest has been there for a while. Especially around the release of the  NES Classic Edition and  SNES Classic Edition , I really considered getting a Raspberry Pi, but I just elected not to. At the end of the day, I had other platforms that I could play emulated games on. My phone, my PSP, and my laptop could all technically do the same thing. Around December 2020, I started playing Super Mario World with my kids. To get it on my living room TV (the only logical place that you play video games as a family), I loaded it onto the laptop I use for my Plex server and ran an HDMI cable to the TV. It worked, but it was tremendously cumbersome. The laptop sits behind the TV, and the lid stays closed, so I launched the game by using Chrome Remote Desktop on my phone to control the laptop and start the emulator software. I had to do this every tim...

“ Metroid ” is an action-adventure game released on the Japanese Famicom and North American NES in 1986. Spawning a series that now spans more than three decades, the game was certainly good enough to generate a sequel or 13. Does the original hold up to the test of time, or have sequels improved on the concept to the degree that the first game has lost its luster? Story - 7/10 The story of Metroid is shallow, but motivational nonetheless. Samus Aran is a bounty hunter sent to destroy the parasitic metroids before space pirates can use them for destruction. (S)he must explore the depths of the planet Zebes (which I’ve always pronounced like the city of Thebes, Greece ), gathering suit upgrades and weapons, and defeating powerful monsters. Ultimately, Samus destroys Mother Brain and (nearly) wipes out the metroid population. After the player manages to escape the exploding planet, it is revealed that -gasp- Samus is female. As the only real character with any sort of backg...

I spoke of how I had discovered StepMania back in November 2017 . I bought a PS2 to USB adapter online, and I had high hopes that it would allow me to play with my dance pad. Admittedly, I’m a little late on the followup, but I did finally try to use the USB adapter  with the game. Shipping from an obscure little company in China obviously takes a while, so I didn’t get in any hurry waiting for my package. It took a few weeks, but the adapter finally came in. I told myself I would try it out, but I sat it aside and didn’t get around to it for a while. And by “a while,” I mean about 5 months. Things came up, I forgot about the adapter, and I just never got back to it. Finally, in March 2018, a friend came up and asked if I had ever gotten to try it out. I obviously had not, but we decided to hook it up. I expected there would be some configuration, so I was prepared for some setup time. With a black belt in Google-fu, there are very few general tech issues that I can’t solve wit...