Adventures in Electronics

Folks who come here often might notice I haven't been here lately.  I have been pretty busy since moving to Florida last year. And most of all, especially in regards to this blog, if I'm being honest, we have not hooked our game systems up yet. 

The PS3 is of course hooked up, as that is our portal to play DVDs and Blu-Rays as well as PS3 games, but that's it.  Other than the PS3, we have a variety of old school gaming systems, including the PlayStation2, the Atari 2600, the original Nintendo Entertainment System, and the SuperNES, not to mention our old Game Boy. 

Our friend Dave was over and we went to the mall.  One of our regular haunts there is the non-franchise gaming store with old games - because of course we have old game systems.  The Bride was enamored with a Dance Dance Revolution X game with mat for the PS2.  As the conversation turned to how our PS2 wasn't hooked up, Dave, nice guy that he is, volunteered to hook all our systems up.  Dave's a saint. 

An afternoon and a couple trips to Best Buy later, we had them all connected and working, a miracle.  And after I played Super Godzilla for the SNES for awhile, The Bride danced her heart out to DDRX for a bit.  We're happy, and the blog is back in business, thanks, Dave! 

Godzilla Vs. The Switch

Apparently Godzilla is keeping folks in Japan from pre-ordering the Nintendo Switch.  Read about it here.

Kaiju Combat Kickstarter

Details are here.

Taking Inventory

With the addition of the PlayStation 2, I felt it was time to take inventory of exactly how far down the rabbit hole The Non-Gamer has fallen since this started. The first problems were that Ray also gave me PS2 games with the PS2, then I bought a few myself. Damn you, GameStop, for liquidating your PS2 games at buy-two-get-one-free.

Of course I started this blog after the purchase of a PS3. So far we haven't purchased many PS3 games actually. I got one of the Ultimate Alliances because I really wanted to play it. I bought DC Universe Online as soon as I learned it was going to be free to play. The Bride bought Disney Universe and Sing It, and then there are all those games Ray lent us. There have been a few other games, but for the most part we have been downloading them.

The PlayStation Network provides an amazing, ever-changing selection of demos and trial versions of games. At last count, we had over eighty games in our system, including at least a dozen we have purchased. Pain is one of my favorites to this day. Whenever I open the PlayStation Network, I will end up playing it for at least a little while, good for a bit of stress relief.

Now even though I call myself The Non-Gamer, and this blog started with the purchase of the PlayStation 3, I do own other game systems. As I've mentioned I bought an Atari 2600 back in the 1980s. We have almost two of the old Atari game shelves full of the little cartridges

Once we got married, one of the big deal buys we made was an old Nintendo Entertainment System along with all the bells and whistles, not to mention about thirty different games. While I love stuff like the Mario games, there is always the problem of "turn waiting."

We also have a Super Nintendo as well, but only two games for that, Justice League Task Force and Super Godzilla. Yeah, it was a Christmas gift, and was feeding two of my peculiar obsessions. It did not get much play as no instructions came with the game system, or either of the two games.

I haven't even thought of the dozens of games on iPhone if they count.

Wow, I guess I'm not much of a Non-Gamer after all. Now, can someone please tell me how to turn off the PlayStation 2?

Level Up (or is that down?)

My buddy Ray, in order to give me some more range in what I write about here on The Non-Gamer's Gamer's Blog, and just because he's a great guy, and a helluva friend, lent me his PS2. He even came over to hook it up, and gave me a game.

Ray got me the Atari Anthology, yeah, baby, kicking it old school. I think it was also a left-handed way of saying I was inept at gaming, and just old, period. The implication is that these would be the only games I would be good at. I can't deny that, I guess. I was damned happy to play Yar's Revenge on my HD TV.

Now when Ray told me he was doing this last week, I knew what I had to do. I had to get a copy of Justice League Heroes. On one New Year's Eve several years ago, Jeff and I played this game for about, oh, I don't know, six or seven hours straight while our respective other halves chatted and eventually slept. I had a blast. Not only was it a reintroduction to videogames for me, but it was also a cool superhero game that also played with the continuity of the comics. This was a DC Universe of characters and situations I knew. I loved it.

Once I knew there was a PS2 coming, this was the game I wanted. Well, that and the Godzilla and Ultraman games for the PS2, but those have proven slightly elusive, if not impossible. Why wouldn't you make a game for the whole world to play? Grrr… don't get me started…

So after warming up with some Atari, looking bright and colorful in high definition, I moved over to Justice League Heroes and enjoyed smashing Brainiac's robot minions with Superman and Batman. Hmmm… I guess Brainiac is the default bad guy for DC Comics videogames…

I had a blast. I confess to having to call Ray to ask how to turn it off when I was done, but I'm learning. More reviews to come, especially from the PS2 now too. Thanks, Ray!

The Non-Gamer

The non-gamer - that's me. I'm old, horribly horribly old, almost fifty. Gosh, it hurts to even type that. Like I said, I'm old, and I'm not a gamer, at least not by today's standards. So if I'm not a gamer, why am I writing this blog? Good question.

My background in videogames is being around for the birth of Atari, specifically Pong. Yeah, you remember Pong, and if you don't, you probably saw pictures of it painted in animal blood on cave walls. Pong was the first of the Atari 2600 videogames, and the shot heard round the world that triggered an electronic revolution in the world of games and hobbies.

Pong was followed by fun stuff like Space Invaders and later personal favorites Starmaster, Adventure, and Yar's Revenge and even Donkey Kong. That last one was a keeper. It triggered the jump to the next generation of videogame, and also the point where I got lost. I had an Atari 2600, but I didn't get a Nintendo system until 1998, way beyond when it was cool or even cutting edge - and even then it wasn't my idea to get the system. I was dragged kicking and screaming into the videogame age.

A Super Nintendo system followed later, but only so I could play geek favorites of mine - Justice League Task Force and Super Godzilla, notably the only two games ever purchased for the system. Up until a few weeks ago, that was as cutting edge as I got. Then the PS3 came into the house.

This was a surprise, but apparently something The Bride had been thinking about for a while. I had initially asked for a Roku or a Blu-Ray player for Christmas but Santa was not accommodating. The Bride thought a PS3 would service both functions and have games so she got one. And here we are.

There's an old joke that the only thing that separates a full-time freelance writer from an unemployed bum is a videogame system. To keep that balance from claiming me, I'm starting this blog, recording my impressions as a decisive non-gamer into the gaming world of PlayStation. I'll try not to be too stupid or naïve, and maybe we'll all learn something. Welcome to my nightmare.