New Poll

I've put up a new poll, this one concerns runs of series games like Mario, Megaman, Sonic, etc.

There should be a new run up this weekend or the next.

SNES Super James Pond

Playlist Link

or

Watch Part 1
Watch Part 2
Watch Part 3
Watch Part 4
Watch Part 5
Watch Part 6


Bonus Christmas Update!

Did the name of this video fool you into thinking it was James Bond? I know it fooled me all those years ago. When I first got this game, I thought it was based on the cartoon "James Bond Jr" and I naturally assumed it would be bad. Thankfully for me, it turned out to be the sequel to an obscure game from the Amiga and it's actually pretty decent.

This is a Christmas-themed game, so this was the natural time for me to do a run of it. As you would expect, it's very colourful and has a lot of diverse locales. It's also crammed full of more secrets than any other game I can think of (eat your heart out Castlevania).

Anyway, this is my Christmas gift to all of you. If you don't like it, remember, it's the thought that counts (or you can watch my Sonic 2 run instead). Merry Christmas internet land.

GEN Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Playlist Link

or

Watch Part 1
Watch Part 2
Watch Part 3
Watch Part 4

It's finally my 25th video! Sorry to keep you waiting so long.

I re-recorded this because the original video featured a pretty lame battle against the final boss. It's much more polished now, which is fitting for my favourite Genesis game.

So Close

Well, I almost had my next run tonight, but I blew it on the final boss. How aggrivating.

Also, I have a headache and both my arms are tired (it's quite an intense game), so I think it's time for a break. I work hard for your entertainment.

Of course, by break, I mean I'll probably play an RPG or something light. I never really stop gaming.

How I Record My Videos

I've had a couple of questions about this, so I thought I'd share how I record my videos.

Edit:

I have a capture card now, so I use that to record most of my videos now. Emulators do still have a couple advantages, for example it's easier to blank your save data in some cases, but for the most part the card is always better. I'll leave up the emulator information for the curious, though.


NES:

I use VirtuaNES for NES videos. VirtuaNES is a dream to work with, its video recording is extremely stable and it doesn't have many game-related issues. The only problem is that some NES games have minor display issues, and while you can correct these through the emulator options, these settings are not preserved when it creates the video.


SNES:

I use ZSNES and SNES9x. ZSNES has to be at least version 1.5 to record videos. ZSNES works pretty well for games that it will run, but unfortunately version 1.5 has tons of compatibility issues that aren't present in older versions. If a game won't run on ZSNES, I use SNES9x. SNES9x's video recording is extremely unreliable (I've tried numerous versions and they all have desync issues, either in video or audio), so when using SNES9x I record my videos using direct screen capture (see below).


Genesis:

I use a modified version of Gens called Gens Video. Although it renders videos a bit slow, so far I haven't had any trouble with it.


N64:

I use Project64 for N64 videos. Though there seem to be some video recording options in some of the plugins, I just use screen capture for these.


PSX:

I use ePSXe for PSX videos. A couple plugins allow you to create videos, but I haven't gotten good results out of them, so I just use screen capture for these.


Screen Capture:

The screen capture program I use is called "CamStudio", it's a freeware program that captures part of the screen and any audio output. It produces a very good quality video, though it has some minor audio desync problems (it tends to get about a second off per hour). I haven't actually tried any other screen capture programs yet, maybe I should give them a try at some point.


Codec:

All of my videos are encoded using XVid. XVid provides good compression while still maintaining video quality, and it works well with Google Video. I encode audio using Lame MP3.


I'll add more to this post if I start recording videos for a new system.

Nothing new this week

Between being sick and having a ton of people over, there wasn't a ton of time for (console) gaming this week. I did put in a solid amount of hours with my PSP (I think I recharged it every day), but I only had a little time to practice for my next run (which is something difficult, it's going to take a little while).

I did get a fair bit of cleaning done, I'm proud to say I now have very few games left sitting on the floor. I've uploaded a handful of new pictures to that post about my gaming collection, which you can visit by clicking here or locating it using the knob on the right. In case you haven't noticed, Channel 4 is now active, it contains a listing of non-game run posts that I've made, except for pointless little filler posts like this one.

This leaves only Channel 7 unused at this point, I'm not sure what I plan to do with that one.