7a461bfe   
   From: bel@whipassgaming.com   
      
   > Have to break my response to your most recent post up in two parts,   
   > due to a lack of time. Twelve hour shifts, five of em' in a row :D   
      
   Oy, that sucks!   
      
   > While we're on the subject of rolling thunder, there's two points I   
   > want to make.   
   >   
   > Point #1 is that the game was even harder in the arcade because you're   
   > dealing with a leafswitch joystick. God bless 'em. These made the   
   > games much harder because you had to push so hard on them. The   
   > countless deaths I died on pac-man and frogger serve as my witness.   
   > Frogger is actually pretty easy with a normal console gamepad. I'm a   
   > purist though. I play the games with the right controller, or at least   
   > the closest I can get or build.   
      
   I know I sound like a broken record, but I just can't stand a stick   
   anymore. I've become so accustomed to controllers, with pads, that I   
   can't seem to do anything on a stick anymore.   
      
   > Point #2:  While at a flea market this past summer I came across an   
   > arcade machine, Rough Ranger.  It's a namco game. And it's a clone of   
   > Rolling Thunder. It's also REALLY hard. You can download it for MAME.   
   > You should check it out.   
      
   Hmmmmmm, interesting, I'll have to take a look. That's what I really   
   love about MAME: With over 7000 games, just clicking around in the list   
   you are bound to find something you've 1) never played before and B) is   
   just fucking excellent. I've run across so many gems in my time with   
   MAME, and I know I've still not even played more than 100 titles so far.   
      
   > Honestly, I have to blame the Dreamcast for this, yes, at the expense   
   > of upsetting some of the regulars in this group :D   
      
   Naw, this was the developer, for sure. Midway simply ported their arcade   
   comp. from the PSX and left it at that...they didn't even remotely take   
   advantage of the DC's GD-Rom standard.   
      
   > It just seems like the system always came up short.   
      
   Hmmmmm, how so?   
      
   > At some point you   
   > have to blame the system itself and stop  blaming the developers.   
      
   I agree....but really, are you trying to say that it was the Dreamcast   
   hardware's fault that Midway could only be bothered to put a paltry 5 or   
   6 games on their compilation? In that mode of thought, I could say that   
   the PS2 and Xbox hardware sucked ass because Midway Arcade Treasures,   
   Vol.1 only had 15 games on it. See? It just doesn't work.   
      
   > Even   
   > the N64 seems to have a better selection of arcade classics   
   > (excitebike, asteroids, space invaders, museum, midway hits, a good   
   > port of original DK, etc. And the n64 is hardly an epicenter of arcade   
   > classics. Perhaps if the system had gone on longer, there would have   
   > been more classics released for it. These seem to always come at the   
   > end of the system's life cycle.   
      
   Well, I guess I'm just missing it. I mean, if you didn't feel the DC was   
   a solid system, that's fine...but saying that the hardware sucks because   
   it came up short on arcade compilation software is just crazy. ;) I   
   mean, and again, by that mode of logic you *should* feel the PC is the   
   *ultimate* gaming platform(not one that you're abandoning) because it   
   offers every single arcade game every made. See what I'm saying? :)   
      
   Bel   
   --   
   Whip Ass Gaming: http://www.whipassgaming.com/   
      
   "We'll meet again...in Hell"   
     - Cobra, The Space Adventure   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)