For me it's not that my games 'don't run' in Linux, it's that they run poorly or inconsistently. With WINE I can get 90% of the games I want to play to run, but when they do they tend to either have sound issues or wildly fluctuating framerates (I'm looking at you D3). Couple this with the fact that getting games to run is usually much more complex than it is in Windows and I just throw up my hands and go back to Win 7 installation. Thankfully I dual boot so this isn't as big of a hassle for me as it is for others, but I'd love to just have one Linux installation on my computer and be done with it.

I used to always say that there was no way Linux would ever become a serious gaming platform, but if Win 8 is the future of Microsoft then maybe it has a chance.

I just saw Goodfellas for the first time two nights ago. As I was reading the first sentence in the headline I was thinking to myself 'Hey just like in Goodfellas' . I have nothing else to add to the discussion (other than you'd think they'd have better security 40 years later), I just thought it was a really weird coincidence.

If my name is plugged into Google the first two or three pages show results for people who are a LOT more interesting than I am (one guy even has a really cool looking band). Last time I looked the top result was a vice president of some large chemical company. Thankfully my real self doesn't show up for a few pages and even then it's nothing I wouldn't want out there.

The main reason I'm not excited about the Wii U is because none of the launch titles interest me. Sure the new Super Mario Bros game is nice, but I'm not buying a whole new console just for that. I'm sure I'll get one eventually, but at the moment I have such a backlog of games for my current-gen systems that I don't need to run out and buy another. There's just not enough of a 'wow factor' to make me grab one on launch day.

Other than having the word 'Space' in their title, most of those games have nothing to do with each other and are very different. Still, it's silly to compare the Wii and 2600 library.

Nope, I try to avoid those as well (although I will admit that I played Diablo III for all of the 5 days it took me to beat it). When given a choice I try get the physical media over a download even if it costs more. I like to take my time with games and I like to go back and play games over again years later. I get sad when I realize that this may not be possible in the future with games that only exist as long as some server is up or I can connect to some network. Then again, I haven't seen many games lately that I actually want to play again. :)

This is exactly why I stopped playing Final Fantasy XI all those years ago. At first I really enjoyed it, I was young, unmarried, and had plenty of free time to do the endless grinding the game requires. However as time went on I discovered that it was beginning to interfere with my life. I was staying up to 2 or 3 at night in the hopes that I might be able to claim some unique spawn that I needed for some weapon or another (along with about 100 other people I might add), I was farming monsters over and over again for materials for my linkshell and not even getting to the enjoyable parts of the game anymore. I even changed my character from something I enjoyed to a very cookie cutter build that was boring as hell to play because that was the only way people would invite you into a party. Sure I was 'winning' the game, but I was having a miserable time doing it. The game was becoming a second job, I was running home from work just to log in and start accomplishing whatever tasks I needed to do that night in order to keep up with the game. When I dared do something else like watch a movie or play another game, I felt guilty because I was falling behind the rest of the linkshell and then I felt stressed out because I hard to work twice as hard to catch up/

One day while I was sitting for my second or third hour looking for a party, the heavens opened and everything in my brain just clicked. Here I was sitting around in real life watching my avatar sit around in a game (MMORPG Inception!), neither one of us enjoying ourselves. So I logged out the game and never returned. My Paladin may still be sitting around in Jeuno waiting for something, but I'm not.

I still play games (classic and modern), but I only play games that are fun and stay far far away from MMORPGs. I also balance gaming with a decently active (for a nerd anyway) social life and spending time with my non-gamer wife. When a game starts to become a second job it's time to sit back and question what you're doing. MMORPGs are insidious in this regard because they demand constant attention. If you put a MMORPG aside for a few weeks to do other things then you're several weeks behind and have to work twice as hard to catch up. With any other type of game you can wait months if not years to finish it and your game doesn't care, it's still there waiting for you and you're right where you were when you left.

Nope, Jr. Pac-Man is only 16K. It only looks like it should be 32K because of some amazing programming (GCC really knew their stuff).

The only Atari Baseball game that I can think of that used a 3D-ish perspective was Pete Rose Baseball by Absolute. That was also 16K.

Actually there was one. It was called Fatal Run (sort of a Road Blasters kind of game) but it was only released in Europe (http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/fatalrun/fatalrun.htm). There was even a 64K cartridge released in Brazil called MegaBoy but all the space was used by educational questions so it really wasn't a 'game'.

I used to follow the political cycle quite closely, but over the years as the attacks have gotten nastier and the facts less important, I've found myself completely turned off by the whole thing. I was getting upset enough that it was actually causing me to stress out, which was when I decided to just tune out completely. I still vote and I still try and get the most unbiased facts about each candidate (not an easy task), but I don't listen to any of the news about the election and I've found that I'm a much happier person for having done so. As Ford Prefect said "Let them have their fun", I'm not going to be a part of the 'teh political drama' anymore.

Also, the vice presidential candidate was vote Biggest Brown Noser in high school. Really? This is the best we can come up with? Unless he was voted 'Most likely to become a homicidal maniac' I don't see how this is important. Funny? Yes. Something to actually seriously consider? No. Aren't there bigger things for us to worry about?

I actually have a TRS-80 Model III (the one with the built in monitor) setup in my game room. The graphics aren't much (they're actually quite blocky), but they really did put a lot of love into those games. The TRS-80 version of Zaxxon is particularly impressive, and plays better than some of the versions on more capable systems (do a youtube search for it, it's worth checking out).

I found my TRS-80 on the side of the road in a garbage pile in the middle of nowhere Ohio while on a camping trip. I picked it up and took it home (over the wife's objections) and found that it still worked perfectly (initially it looked like it didn't work, but it turns out that the brightness dial had just been turned down all the way and was frozen in place). I guess my TRS-80 really IS a Trash-80.

I thought the same thing then I discovered that an old 32MB SIMM worked just great in my Amiga 1200 accelerator so you never know. Then again if you still have an Amiga 1200 sitting around you're probably one of the people the article is talking about. :)

Thank you, I try and keep my collection neat and organized. I like to keep as many systems as I can out so I can play around with then when the mood takes me. What computers and systems I keep out tends to be in a constant state of flux, but it's always organized. I do indeed know where everything is at all times.

I also don't keep extras of anything, just one of each. I simply don't have the room for backups and spares. Eventually my goal is to have everything setup like a museum of sorts.


>>Strangely, I don't imagine any chicks hanging around.

I think my wife would disagree with that statement. :)

I find it ironic that I'm reading this article using IE 6 (my company refuses to get rid of it!). Would this be called Necro-Browsing?