General Chaos's blog

As I've been navigating the site for the past few days I have noticed that the ad to the right blows up to full screen size even when I don't slide the cursor over it. Ah! it just got bigger again while I was typing!! Dang ad. Yep, those back to school fashions sure look great to me...cough cough..(sarcasm).

Sometimes it is important to talk about the ethics of some of the companies that actually produce and develop our beloved games. A good friend of mine, who used to work at a call center for Microsoft, told me a very sad and downright disturbing story about the business practices there.

I just had to let this idea be known because it sounds so great. Mega Man X and Master Chief are two awesome, futuristic game characters that should team up at some point. Of course, if it was an FPS Mega Man X would have to be made to fit that genre of game, and if it were a sidescroller or platformer Master Chief would sure need to downsize a little bit and play more like Samus, X, or Bill Rizer and Lance Bean.

While everyone else was focusing on the Iron Man of Gaming, I was playing some Rock Band for Wii with my wife and some friends. The only problem is that the extra wireless guitar has not been released yet and that's no good. The 360 and PS3 versions had the same problem because the extra guitar wasn't released until months later so one had to wait to have a lead and bass guitarist jamming at the same time. It's amazing how far interactive games have come since DDR about ten years ago and especially since Track and Field(NES) twenty years ago.

Hey everyone just wanted to do a follow-up to my "Sleeper Hits" blog entry and see which systems the G1s think did not receive enough recognition in their time. Personally I think Sega Saturn is one of those systems because it has some incredible console exclusives like the Panzer Dragoon series, Shining Force III(scenarios 1, 2, and 3 if you have a Japanese Saturn), Guardian Heroes and such.

In part 1 the General gave you soldiers tips on cleaning games. Now it's time for a lesson that is just as important: cleaning controllers. There are many different types of controllers out there, but most of them have outer plastic shells composed of two halves. Usually anywhere from 4-8 Phillips head screws hold the controller together. While the older controllers simply had plastic buttons and a D-pad, newer controllers have two analog joysticks, a D-pad, shoulder buttons, and buttons on the reverse side of the controller.

I have not written in a while and have not visited SA for almost a week, so it's time for some more information. Too bad I didn't even get to see the WTF pic of the month before the answer was revealed. Oh well, I would not have guessed correctly anyway, as I have only played Bionic Commando briefly in the past.

The General is going to be a little more serious today. After listening to the Sidescrollers from this week, I've thought a lot about what Stuttering Craig has said about Gametrailers.com and other sites bashing people indiscriminately, and it's quite saddening, but not at all surprising. Also, he made a good point about how you never know if a 13 year old or a 30 year old is commenting about something on the site. The maturity and age factors play a big role in that case, but unfortunately people do hide behind their computer screens.

Today I was playing a little Contra: Shattered Soldier for PS2 and-while sipping some fresh lemonade- I thought about which games of the series are best. Contra games are prime choices for the General since there are explosions, constant gunfire, enemies burning alive, awesome weapons, and bosses of epic proportions.

Now I have talked about efficient and cheap ways to collect video games, but this will help you soldiers when you need to clean or repair used games.

General Chaos: I'm gonna teach you slackers how to clean your old video games. Those nasty rental stickers, smudges, and permanent marker stains need to go.

Slob of a Soldier(slouching): But General Chaos, can't we just go find another copy of the game or keep blowing in the cartridge until the games work? Cleaning sounds like a waste of time and effort.