Check that out! I have been searching for a long time to get Dracula X: Chi no Rondo (Castlevania: Rondo of Blood) on my Wii. It only saw a Japanese release when it first came out for the PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) in ’93. It was remade recently for the PSP, but who has one of those? I heard from a podcast that it was out on Virtual Console for the Wii, but yet again, only in Japan. I spent a long time scouring torrents looking for a rip of it, but it wasn’t until about 2 weeks ago that I found a link to it on some obscure forum. Then came the task of trying to get it onto my wii. I have installed WADs before, but that was many moons (and firmware releases) ago. I can happily say after hours of internet research that I now have Rondo of Blood running on my wii. To answer some sceptics questions I know I could have gotten a rom and emulator for pc with almost no problems, but the Virtual Console emulations are near perfection and I like playing older games on a TV. Feels more natural. In closing, hooray for perseverance and a dash heaping spoonful of obsession.
First let me start off by saying Happy 25 Tetris! It’s hard to believe video games are actually becoming fully functioning adults (to use the human ageing convention). Tetris bares mentioning because of it’s extreme worldwide penetration. You would be hard pressed to find a game that has found it’s home on so many devices; consoles, mobile phones, computers, graphing calculators, etc. It’s also hard to find a game as immediately addicting as Tetris. As soon as those tetraminoes start falling the outside world becomes inconsequential and the sole purpose for existing is clearing line after line.
I was informed, when doing a little anniversary research, of a documentary done in 2004 by the BBC entitles “Tetris: From Russia with Love.” It is the story of Tetris’s conception at the Soviet Academy of Sciences by creator Alexey Pajitnov. I knew a little history prior about how there were some legal battles over the rights to Tetris between Tengen (Atari Games) and Nintendo, but I had no idea the extent of it. After viewing (which I recommend) I was surprised by how much the story reflected the times. It was the 80’s and the Cold War was in full effect between Soviet Russia and the United States, which showed itself in how the dealings of Tetris were handled. It had some home videos taken by one of the people who came to obtain the license, and it was bleak. It’s hard to imagine anything looking so grey. Moscow looked very depressing, very 1984-esque. People can talk about it, but until you see something it’s head to actually imagine. I won’t go into too detail much because the documentary does a much better job than I could do here, but suffice it to say the dealings were very convoluted.
The one part that struck a chord with me was the demeanour of creator Alexey Pajitnov. If anyone deserves to hold a grudge it is this man. He got, to put it eloquently, royally boned. At the time when Alexey created Tetris he could claim nothing, but the admiration of people because it belonged to the Soviet government, everything did. When everything did get sorted out the people making money seemed to be everyone, but him. Even though this transpired before his eyes and he is very aware of it, he doesn’t seem to mind. He just seems like he is enjoying life and holds no ill-will. I really think more people need to emulate his attitude. I don’t want to get into too much of a philosophical debate due to this article being Tetris themed, but just the idea that he created something people enjoy and that he can live with that instead of having to be monetarily gratified is awesome.
While I was going through all this Tetris stuff I was getting the urge to discover it’s true roots. With all the versions and clones, I wanted to play the original one. Well, the original version was programmed in Pascal on an old Russian computer called the Elektronika 60. Due to the rare nature of that machine, I was unable to locate an emulator and subsequent Tetris software, which got me a little bummed. I will not abandon my search, but right now I am empty handed. I tried the next one up, the IBM-PC port. Truth be told, this is the one that got passed around the world and made the game as popular as it was. I mean who really had an Elektronika 60? T give credit where credit is due, Vadim Gerasimov was the man that actually ported the software and lead to it’s insane popularity. Thanks Vadmin! I did manage to find that program pretty easily and emulate it in DOSBox. It is surprisingly fast and accurate. I was expecting something clunkier and less responsive. I could play that one and be happy. Here is some screens of how it looks. Pretty standard DOS game.
Title ScreenGame Play
Overall, thanks Tetris. Here is to another 25! Kanpai!
I would like to preface this article by saying this is purely and exercise in creative writing. The opinions and views expressed in this fake article are not the ones I personally hold. It’s probably the polar opposite to my belief system. I though it was kind of an interesting concept though. What if all those crazy accusations made by the far-right came true? What would the future be like. So, I wrote a diary entry from the not-so-distant future outlining what America is like. It’s absurd and I doubt a single person outside of Rush Limbaugh actually believes that this is what will happen, but I have been surprised before. Anyway, enjoy.
June 27, 2010
I am writing this letter not for present, but future generations. The world as we once knew is simply a crinkled page in a history book. If they only had listened! I am getting ahead of myself, let me explain the whole terrible tale from the beginning.
The 2008 Presidential Election is what I would call the turning point. The liberal, left-wingers shot down every warning we sent. We tried to inform the American people that Obama has a streak of terrorist associations; that he was in fact a secret Muslim. We even uncovered the fact that he was not even an American citizen. Why people didn’t listen is beyond me. They are paying for it now, paying with their freedom and with their lives.
After winning the election, Obama tried to play coy, like he was just a normal guy. The veil of that came off around September of last year. He held a national press conference to inform America that we were pulling every last troop of ours out of Iraq. What a mistake that was, or perhaps from his perspective, the ideal move. Most of the country applauded his effort, but us skeptics knew this didn’t feel right. Without proper infrastructure in Iraq it was only a matter of time. The country soon feel to Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other extremist, terrorist groups. With anit-American sentiment growing in the Middle-East by magnitudes in only few short weeks another terrorist attack on US soil was immanent.
Remember Swine Flu, or H1N1 as we all refer to it now? Well, just as some suspected it was indeed an act of bio-terrorism. The first outbreak was just too small to work. Only a month after Iraq fell people began dropping like flies. The terrorist group responsible for the production of H1N1 have come forth and admitted the delivery method for the virus were indeed the Mexican immigrants coming over the border, illegally. Lou Dobbs saw this and tried to warn everyone to no avail. Half the US population is now dead thanks to H1N1, it has been likened to the black plague if the black plague had super powers.
The economy is almost non-existent here in America; the repercussions are far worse than any photograph you can find of the great depression. Socialism is the grandfather of all these horrible conditions. The nationalization of the free-market has been a horrible mistake that we can’t come back from. The banks were the first to fall thanks to sneaky wording in agreements with TARP funds. Then the car manufactures fell prey to the golden apple that was TARP as well. The government was becoming more socialist by the second and we were powerless to stop it. With the new taxes on big business and the rich the wealth was being spread around. Without large corporations to combat the growing government it soon took control over our lives.
Deviating slightly, I would like to say thanks to the current administration I can no longer marry out of love. We tried to protect the sanctity of marriage; man and woman, just like the Bible says. With Prop 8, changing one of the most liberal states over to outlawing same-sex marriages, I though we put the who mess to bed. I was wrong. Once Iowa voted to allow same-sex marriages many other states followed suit. Soon all fifty states allowed same-sex marriages with Texas being the last to give in. Now that the United States had become same-sex friendly, opposite-sex marriages were becoming frowned upon, especially since the divorce rate was so high. Soon states started outlawing true marriage in favor of a same-sex only system! With out last stand being yet again Texas we now stare at a bleak and same-sex only future.
Another dicey subject that was recently settled was the abortion issue. As we all know life begins at conception, but not to the newly elected government. In a strange turn, (even for the government) the newly appointed chief justice, Keith Olbermann, convinced all his peers to add an amendment allowing all forms of abortion. It’s maddening how crazy it’s become. This story informs the next.
Roughly three months ago Obama came out and openly admitted that he has been a practicing Muslim for years and everything he said about being a Christian was solely to become elected. On top of that “startling news” he admitted to not being born American, but moved here as a baby. The congress having a Democratic majority voted to allow him to continue in his current position. As the days past you saw the White House become more and more sympathetic to the Muslim plight and eventually almost every Democratic senator or congressman was praising the glory of Allah. Staring to piece things together we saw what the government had truly become. Islamic nationalists now held the highest seat in American Government. With the amendment declaring all forms of abortion legal they soon instated “random” mandatory abortions. They were targeted at pregnant Christian women, but with the whole government now Muslim controlled, opposition was stamped out almost immediately.
With the government owning many large corporations many of it’s profits have been secretly embezzled and funneled to help extremist nations in the Middle-East. It would appear that America’s glory days are behind her and America as we know it is gone. Our cries have gone ignored and now with millions dead and thousands more being killed every day we are finally given an ear. I’m afraid it might be too little too late though. There is one hope on the horizon though. A small militia is forming in the backwoods of Alaska. They are gaining numbers and manpower with every growing day; headed by our once rising star Sarah Palin. With her expertise with assault rifles, skills with hunting, and collection of snow machines she was able to outrun Obama’s “Muslim Missionary” forces. If you are reading this please join us and help us take our country back. We need to go back to the way things were, when we were the ones doing the oppressing.
