Saturday, August 12, 2017

August Update

We're now more than halfway through
what has been a rather hot summer
here in the U.S.
Hello! It's been a while since I wrote something outside of ad and YouTube posts as I wrote the June and July updates fairly close to one another and then spent a lot of time trying to make my first YouTube videos. I think they are alright but there is already so much content online that it's likely most of what I upload won't be new to the Internet. There is one item I haven't looked up online but I think it will be new to most people when I get a video made of it which I expect to do around November. It's an educational electronic toy that I haven't even checked to see if it still works. If it doesn't work I guess I might not make a video of it but I'll definitely post about it because it's the add-on content that involves a big property that I want to highlight. If you like comic books you should enjoy it.

I did upload a short video of Wild Guns Reloaded (update to a SNES game) gameplay this week though I didn't post about it. For gameplay videos like that it's best to subscribe to the YouTube channel if you want to be kept up to date on when a new video is available. I'll definitely be providing videos of older games but I'm still getting that in order. I've got an old Dazzle device that I can run consoles through though I don't love the quality so I'm looking into purchasing something newer. This week I did order an S-video cable for the Commodore 64 that should allow me to run that computer on modern displays.

The past few weeks I've been flipping though comic books in search of more non-gaming Sonic the Hedgehog ads for the Sonic coverage that kicks off tomorrow. Unfortunately, I only found one more item for Sonic, however I'll keep searching today and I have been getting some other cool ads during the process. While I keep trying to not got sidetracked, I have scanned some other items that I didn't want to pass up right now (I'll get to everything one day!). Comic book ads vary in quality as the paper can be terrible if the ads are in the middle rather than the backside of the cover. For example, here is a two-pager that doesn't look amazing but it's G.I. Joe so I had to grab it and did my best to clean it up:

This is Cobra Strike from Parker Brothers which I wrote
a little about on the blog back in March.

Comic book ads are also a little elongated so the dimensions of most will look a bit off compared to magazine ads. As far as the Sonic coverage, that will consist of six posts, one of which should be an unboxing of Sonic Mania. I know that can already be found online from Sega, and Game Informer got their copy yesterday and posted a bunch of photos. It's Sega's game and the big press outlets will always have games before bloggers but I think it should still be fun to do a video of. I had also planned on doing a Game Gear video next week as the only physical 2D Sonic game I actually own is Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on Game Gear. However, I turned it on and the sound no longer works. Failing sound is very common on Game Gears because Sega used poor sound capacitors when it made the handheld. Even if you find a brand new Game Gear the sound might not work as they can fail even when not in use depending on where they are stored. It's tough to record the Game Gear screen too which makes the sound even more important when trying to demo it. I do plan on attempting to fix it with some help (I've never soldered anything), it just won't be ready for a bit (if the repair even works) and my other plans will probably end up pushing the Game Gear video into next year.

You'll see this again whenever I get the Game Gear video made.

A video that should be coming soon will be for Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap. Lizardcube remastered the original Sega Master System game and DotEmu published it on Steam a couple months ago. I've secured a copy of the collector's edition that Limited Run Games released on August 4th. It wasn't cheap but I thought it would be a good one to get and make an unboxing video of since the original is one of my favorite games. This was my first attempt purchasing a game from Limited Run and wasn't sure I'd be able to get one because the games are limited as the publisher's name indicates. The company takes previously released digital games and sells physical versions of them, usually printing 3,000-5,000 copies. It then sells them in two batches on the same day that typically sell out fast, though it depends on the popularity of the game. Wonder Boy's collector's edition sold out in 90 seconds when the 10 AM batch went on sale and that's when I made my purchase. It's a small company though so it takes them a while to ship things; maybe I'll receive it next week.

Omega Supreme's battle with Trypticon didn't end well.
I'll admit, the toy coverage has been more difficult than I expected. When I made the first Transformers video I wasn't sure what exactly to do. I talked a little bit about how they came to be and then transformed them which I'm sure isn't the most exciting thing to watch. That's why electronic toys are the best; they can perform sounds and/or actions and do at least some of the entertaining for you. My first attempt at a Transformers video was going to be Omega Supreme but he's not working; the light turns on but he doesn't move. I took him apart and am not sure what's wrong, and unfortunately attempting to open the area below the head knocked all the gears loose and that's a major pain to get back in order. There's also a piece that I can't figure out where to put; it must have fallen out when I was handling him but I didn't notice from where.

I'm thinking of occasionally posting a random ad on Facebook and Twitter once in a while rather than just the "here is the latest blog entry" posts. That would probably be more fun and get some more followers. I'd skip around and highlight some game ads from companies I'm not going to get to on Flickr for a while, plus toy ads and anything from before the year 2000. Maybe I'll do some random toy photos too as I do want to take the kinds of photos others do with putting toys into real world backgrounds or setting up unique scenes. Thanks for reading and following the blog, and YouTube/Facebook/Twitter.

-Jonathan

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