My blog here on Gamespot is only of brief game-related things. My website's blog has more than 10 times the detail than here and it goes as far back as late October of 2004 and indirectly to the time where I was born.

• 1Mar 07

  New game - Final Fantasy Anthology - I'll be away

  I just got a game that I've been wanting for a while - Final Fantasy Anthology.  I had it in my wish list here and I just received it today.  This means I'll be away for quite a while, a few weeks even.  This doesn't mean just here, it means away from my computer, my site, and the internet in general (except for a few checks on E-mail, but that's about it).
  
  • Posted Mar 1, 2007 3:11 pm GMT
  • Category: Games
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• 21Feb 07

  My greatest gaming extremes

  It's not unusual for me to be playing a game for 200+ hours and some games pass 1000 hours. Outside extreme play times, I've done some other weird things as well. My greatest extremes are, well, quite extreme, especially with duration.
  
  Most played game of all - Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind. Estimates are from 3000 to 4500 hours' total time, with 4000 as the common value I use. Sure that's 0.456 of a year, but I've actively played the game almost ever since it came out. Follow-ups are Sonic 3 & Knuckles (≈1500 hours; mainly the use of debug and the fox's stupidity keep me at it), Jumping Flash (≈1200 hours; getting up extremely high on several levels keeps me at it, of which I have videos of), and the original Metroid (≈1000 hours). Mario 3 may be around 1000, but is more around 900.
  
  Most played video game music of all - The song "Out Where the Lake Is" as I call it (levels 10 through 12 in Bubsy) hovers around a million plays with "Desert Zone" as I call it (levels 7 through 9 after stopping the train), around a half million.
  
  Longest-lasting streak of playing games without sleep - 18 hours direct (with only 20 seconds to drink a 12-ounce can of lemonade in full and bathroom breaks), 40 hours indirect (as from renting a game and remaining hooked on it for so long and swapping with me at FF9 and my sister at something else which kept me awake for 53 hours, a record set around 2002. I ended up sleeping for 25 hours straight without waking up shortly after.
  
  Longest-lasting streak of playing games - about 30 to 50 days or so - during summer vacation when I was in school..
  
  Longest-lasting streak of listening to the same video game music - 46 days (Battle Zone, FF9's Battle Music at about 60% true speed) with 42 days (FF1's World Map music) as a close second.
  
  Worst-rated but most played game - Bubsy 3D. I'm hovering around 800 hours at it, where 3/5 of that spent on the second level and 1/3 on the first level with the rest on the other much-less-liked levels. There are tons of self-made challenges to accomplish and bugs to find that keep me at the game.
  
  Biggest accomplishment - Defeating Emerald Weapon in FF7 with more than 2/3 of the clock left.
  
  Biggest stunt - getting tossed up at 4000 mph without getting "fallout" and bouncing successfully to a complete stop in Super Monkey Ball 2 with the "Bead Screen" stage, (theme park version, not possible at all with space version).
  
  • Posted Feb 21, 2007 5:05 am GMT
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• 16Feb 07

  My first uploaded video - stunt in SMB2

  
  
  I've recorded several videos of stunts like this in Super Monkey Ball 2. I'm otherwise a master at the game as I know it's ins and outs very well (a perfect in bowling, 24,000 points in target, completing expert mode ending with the same number of lives I started with, etc.). For the highest speed and height with the greatest success rate, Advanced Stage 8 (Inch Worms) has this. Bead screen has the fastest possible speed and height, to 4000 mph and more than double the clipping range, but even getting 1000 mph has a small 5% success rate on a good run (normally around 2%).
  
  The next best after Inchworms is Organic Form which offers about 950 mph with a 20% success rate. Pendulums comes next with an even lower 15% success rate (increases to 70% with lots of practice), and only around 750 mph.
  
  Edit:  This was also the first time I worked with stereo.  The original stereo track's channels were exactly identical (even in a hex edittor).  I decided to make wise use of stereo and recording my voice to explain a few things.
  
  • Posted Feb 16, 2007 6:00 am GMT
  • Category: Games
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