PSGCast Updates/Dog in a Cast Updates

In loving Memory of Preta's Mobility: Mid 2011-Late 2011

Shockingly, I am running a bit behind schedule.  However, as you can see in the picture above, I feel like I have a good excuse.  That’s Preta, a puppy our friends found that we offered to hold onto while we tried to track down her owners. A week into the process, her owners were nowhere to be found, and we had ourselves a new dog.  She is apparently a mixture of Chihuahua and Italian Greyhound, and while we were hoping she’d grow more on the Greyhound side of things, six months later I have come to accept that I own a very tiny dog.  Unfortunately, she doesn’t exactly think of herself as a very tiny animal, and will occasionally decide to jump out of my arms and at something she sees through a window, which is why she is in the giant phallic cast you see above.

But anyway, PSGCast Episode 2 is in the editing bay (and will be for a fair bit. There is roughly two and a half hours of audio to sort through for a good 90 minute podcast) and Episode 3 has a recording date.  Episode 3 is where we face the music and play three very mediocre games in a row, but that will at least mean a quick turn-around time. Expect a podcast and a RSS feed here in a few days.

Meanwhile, I finished writing about Hillsfar over on the sister website.  If you are interested in obscure cash-in mini-game collections, I can think of a thousand worse words to read.

Quick Update

(Crossposted on both blogs)

Both projects are moving along smoothly, they have just hit some snags due to hitting crunch time in both work and school. Hillsfar should be up on Chronomancy within the next week, and episode 2 of the PSGCast (A Thanksgiving sized feast of banter and snide opinions about the games of 1988) is set to record over the holiday break.

PSGCast Episode One – Ancient Weapons of Dubious Value

Click on the delightful Golden Axe cover art to listen!

While we are currently having some issues with figuring out the hosting/I am having issues figuring out how to make an iTunes feed, I feel like it’s time to finally give the people (well, person) what they want and post the first episode of the PSGCast! Brandon, Roscoe, Austin, and I spend approximately 75 minutes discussing the dubious merits of Sega’s last games for 1989 – Sword of Vermilion and Golden Axe. Since we are currently plagued by very minor technical difficulties, I am just posting this on my dropbox account until we have an RSS feed and everything set up like a real, professional endeavor. But first, a few show notes:

• There are, as expected, some audio issues. But for four people trying a podcast for the first time, I think it is actually a fair bit more entertaining than it has any right to be. We’re still narrowing down the programs we’ll use for the process, so expect episode 2 to be much smoother.
• We also immediately and without regrets blow past my original goal of finishing up in a half hour.  I really should have known better.
• The Golden Axe score system and one man’s battle to exploit it for dubious gain is explained here.
• Thanks for your patience, gentle reader/listener! I would like to have an RSS feed up for it before long, but right now that is out of my hands and I wanted to make sure people could listen to it before I headed out for the weekend. Future episodes will probably be once or twice a month, but the turn-around time won’t be this long.

 

PSGCast Update

Because I know you are all just dying to know, the first episode of PSGCast is currently in the editing bay. For a bunch of people who are barely familiar with the concept of talking to their fellow human beings, it’s surprisingly listenable!

In the meantime, why don’t you head over to Chronomancy and read about my suffering at the hands of Heroes of the Lance?

Plugs Within Plugs

The nectar of the ears that is the PSGcast is continuing to ferment, but in the mean time, might I humbly suggest my other hastily conceived project?
Chronomancy: D&D Games Through The Ages
I even made some random headers. That’s how you know I care.

Sales and Announcements of Note

Still working on setting up the PSGCast, but there are two particular sales of note that are of interest to readers of this site, coincidentally on the only two services I use for purchasing games:

1) Steam, a service which probably requires no introduction, is currently having a sale on almost all of their Sega products. This includes all the (non-Sonic, fittingly) Genesis games on the service for $7.49, an absolute steal if you haven’t already bought any of the console compilations.  And even if you have, those tend not to include Gunstar Heroes or Alien Soldier, two of Treasure’s absolute best games. The set also includes some of my favorite PSG friendly games, such as Gain Ground (source of the PSGCast theme song!) and Bonanza Bros. (a game that only I enjoy!). Also part of the sale is Alpha Protocol for two dollars, which is the right price for a game with writing that good and gameplay that bad.

2) Good Old Games, a service with a business model handily explained in the name, is currently having a sale on all their Dungeons and Dragons products. “But CJ, this doesn’t include anything on the Sega Genesis!” you cry in now-standard agony. And I know! But with the Good Ship Pre-Sonic Genesis Institute of Semi-Academic Chronological Gaming (Merchant Navy Designation CRV PSGISACG) charting out a map into the brave new seas of New Media, I need a chronological essay project with a much shorter trajectory to occupy my idle need to write a lot of words. To that end, I realized there had not been that many semi-academic write-ups of the collected Dungeons and Dragons video games and well there we go.  I am sure I will link here when I finish prettying up the appropriate blog.

Both sales end sometime in the next 24 hours, so you might want to act soon!

Hiatus (Sort Of)

As you have probably noticed, things are pretty sleepy here at The Pre-Sonic Genesis Institute of Semi-Academic Chronological Gaming (PSGISACG).  In fact, one might think that the boilers have been turned off and the windows shuttered.  And one would not entirely be wrong.  It’s true that a real life that could be politely referred to as “punishing” has put a damper on writing a thousand words about any old Genesis game that might have seen release between 1989-1991, and I need to recharge my batteries. “But why?” you might be screaming, rending your clothing in distress. “Why would you give up on such a noble conquest?”  Well, here’s a handy list of other hypothetical questions explaining just that.

1) “I’ve noticed you take a different tack than other retro games websites. Is this a conscious decision on your part?”
Yes, absolutely.  My goal from day one was to not be unduly negative about the subject matter.  The fact that there is an endless cornucopia of people getting easy and questionable laughs out of pointing at a limping old game out there on the internet made me want to try something new. Coincidentally, those same videos and sites are where the unofficial PSG policy of “no cusses”  came from; here at the institute, we want to work for your laughs. However, this lead to a bigger problem – a lot of games are really quite bad! Trying to find a way to politely skirt around the fact that some games are just straight up dogs is pretty tiring.

2) “I’ve noticed there are a lot of very similar games out there! In fact, there’s a pretty solid overarching theme of ‘this game is fantastic except for one crippling flaw’ that pretty much defines Sega as a company to this day. Is this also tiring?”
Yes, thank you for noticing.

3) “But why give up? Are you ever going to finish a big project before you die?”
I never said I was going to give up, and just so you know, I have put together roughly a house and a half of IKEA furniture in my lifetime.

Yes, I am laying off the long-form review format. Possibly permanently! But this doesn’t mean the concept is dead.

Oh, if only.

You see, the wheels are already in motion to re-imagine Pre-Sonic Genesis as a panel show. Certain and rather big specifics, such as the panelists and medium, are still being hammered out at the moment.  But instead of reading a thousand turgid words, we are looking at you hearing and/or seeing (but probably hearing) several thousand words on two to four games an episode, intercut with music from the games in question.  I can’t reveal who is on board just yet, but I can promise that if you read this site, they are people you would enjoy hearing blather on. But I ask you, noble patron of The Pre-Sonic Genesis Institute of Semi-Academic Chronological Gaming (PSGISACG), if you have any suggestions about the format in question. For example, would you prefer an audio podcast, or an audio podcast with footage from the games in question posted to YouTube? What length is too long for grown men and women to talk about Golden Axe (I am actually drawing a hard line here at forty minutes)? Who would you like for me to reach out to for a sound ‘no thank you’ for the panel? Should I start from the beginning, or pick up where words alone faltered? Please let us know in the comments, and as always, thank you for patronizing your local The Pre-Sonic Genesis Institute of Semi-Academic Chronological Gaming (PSGISACG).