Jenni Lada

I’m Always Olimar in Nintendo Land

April 2, 2013 By Jenni Lada Leave a Comment

I just got a Wii U and a copy of Nintendo Land. As excited as I am, I have come to a realization: No one will ever want to play Nintendo Land with me, ever. I’ve gone through every minigame, figured out which roles I must always play and since I am a spoiled, only child, I will probably only play if I can get my way.

It’s mainly because of three attractions, Animal Crossing: Sweet Day, Pikmin Adventure, and Luigi’s Ghost Mansion. I’m old. *cough*30*cough* I’m set in my ways. I’ve discovered strategies and when my friends and I get together for Nintendo Land enjoyment, they’ll have to pry that Gamepad from my kung fu grip.

With Animal Crossing: Sweet Day, I have to always be the guardsmen because I know how to win. I know how to stake out the board’s hot spots so I can stealthily leap out and capture every candy-hoarding Mii. I’ll save them from themselves, preserving their teeth, because I know best. I know the best side-streets to sneak down. I’ve prepared pincer strategies to herd them into a corner. My skills are a thing of beauty and it’d be criminal to not make my friends better people by forcing them to try and out-think and out-run me.

In Luigi’s Ghost Mansion, I must always be the ghost because it’s at least 25% more fun. The ghost sees all and as long as there aren’t Cheating Mc Cheaterson Monitas filling in for extra players so there are four opponents, it’s good to be the ghost. I love sneaking up behind people, hearing them talk amongst themselves about how strong the controller vibrations are to try and determine my location and then swooping in for the scare. I especially like camping near the extra batteries. There’s nothing better than grabbing someone when they’re attempting to recharge.

Still, neither of those attractions compare to Pikmin Adventure. I’m sure there will be times when I will be willing to hand over the Gamepad to someone else so I can enjoy a brief turn as Luigi or Peanut, my favorite Animal Crossing character. That will never happen with Pikmin Adventure. I’ve seen the glory of being Captain Olimar and I can’t go back.

See, Nintendo Land’s Pikmin Adventure is very similar to the actual Pikmin games. The player with the Gamepad is Olimar and the Wii Remote holders are Pikmin. The goal is to go through various areas, attacking enemies, destroying blocks, sucking up nectar to level up and reaching the area’s exit. Being a Pikmin is okay. The costume’s cute, but the Olimar character is the ultimate winner because he or she gets a little army of Pikmin and the ability to toss the other player Pikmin at enemies. This means playing as a Pikmin makes it an action game, while playing as Olimar adds a bit of a strategic element back into it.

There’s nothing like having a slew of little Pikmin around my Olimar Mii, tossing them as I see fit. Even better is whistling to gather all Pikmin and finding I’m suddenly toting one of my friends around, with him or her at my whim until I decide to throw them away. It’s just so much fun and makes Pikmin Adventure even more entertaining.

So I’m sorry friends. I’m a terrible person and you will probably never oust me from my beloved Nintendo Land positions. Of course, I think I have that right. It’s my Wii U. I paid for the system and the game. If you want to be Captain Olimar, go get your own $350 bundle.

What I Saw of Mama Was Incredible

February 12, 2013 By Jenni Lada Leave a Comment

So, I saw Mama the other day! Have you all seen it? Guillermo del Toro has put together a showy, stylish horror movie that managed to be more than scary. We got to see a woman bond with two troubled children and become a respectable and loving mother figure for them, even though she initially didn’t want kids and others thought she may have been unfit. We got the tag team scares of freaky feral children and an extremely jealous ghost. We also got a really showy ending and a pretty awesome stupid-movie-doctor to mock.

And Mama herself… Man, she was scary; her voice, shrieks, and tendency to pop up at any time were terrifying. That’s exactly what you want from a horror movie monster.

Not that I’d know what she looks like. I never actually saw her. No, I misspoke. I saw her once. There’s a scene where Victoria has her glasses off and she looks at Mama reaching for her sister, Lilly. That doesn’t really count though, as Mama was all blurry.

See, I have a special method of watching horror movies. I never see one in a theater without a hoodie. In the case of Mama, I was wearing my absolutely awesome Rainbow Dash hoodie. I’ve included a link to an image of this thing so you can imagine how ridiculous I look at the theater. Whenever the music hints at even a slightly unsettling moment, down comes the hoodie! It’s pulled down over my face and my hands shoot to my ears in case Mama decides to make those horrible shrieky sounds again.

It’s really quite a foolproof method of horror movie viewing for sissies. I highly recommend it. Mock me if you like.

Here, watch the Mama trailer.

I bet the hoodie horror-movie-viewing method is looking pretty good now.

The thing is, with a movie like Mama, its effectiveness was almost called into question. Because Mama liked to appear anytime, it meant I watched half of the movie with the hood over my face. However, that made me realize something.

Mama is scary even if you aren’t watching the screen.

With my hood down during the frightening moments, Mama was transformed into an audio novel. Though there were no descriptions of what was happening, the sounds of movement, dialogue and even the emotion that came through the performances still managed to be haunting. The only time when I got nothing out of my keep-the-hood-down, I-don’t-need-nightmares-tonight technique was in the final moments. For the last fifteen minutes I had to woman up and actually face Mama.

Still, for most of the movie, when I did retreat into my fabric shell, I still managed to get as much enjoyment and scares out of Mama as I would have had I not been hiding whenever it seemed even remotely scary.

Good on you, Guillermo. Good on you.

How to Be the Most Obnoxious Civilization V Player Ever

January 21, 2013 By Jenni Lada Leave a Comment

I love Civilization V. I love to sit down, tell myself I’m only going to play for an hour, bring up some mod civilization that’s ridiculously awesome and overpowered, set the difficulty to easy, and reign like the queen I am. Yet, as I enjoyed these single-player endeavors, I couldn’t help but feel I was missing out on some primo butt-kicking experiences. I decided it was time to take it online.

In doing so, I learned something. Apparently, I’m somebody you really don’t want to play against. As in, if you see I’m you’re opponent, you’re going to groan and look for someone else to play against. I’m okay with that, because using my play style is fun. It’s so fun, in fact, that I’ve just got to share with you the tips that make me so awesome.

First, make it as easy as possible for you to win. Say you’ll create the game. Don’t allow any barbarians to show up, AI opponents or City-States. They’re distractions. Set the resource output to legendary. Make everything quick and choose an easy difficulty for yourself.

Once that’s all done, choose Ramesses. I don’t care if you like someone else or have something against Egypt. Part of my glorious strategy is building every possible wonder first and Ramesses builds Wonders 20% faster than anyone else. This means you get warm fuzzies whenever you build a Wonder one turn before someone else who had just spent 30 turns trying to complete it. Not to mention his temple replacing burial tombs make people really happy. All those Wonders and burial tombs means it’s really easy to expand while keeping everyone happy, and earn culture, which can be put towards social policies. You’ll easily complete Utopia Project by mastering five social policy trees and snag a cultural victory.

Before I continue, do you know the joy of completing a Wonder before anyone else? It’s such a satisfying feeling, and it gets better each time. I’m not sure which moment is better. It could be the first time it happens, because there’s that initial disappointment and there’s always something special about your first monument. On the other hand, there’s something glorious about that moment when you chump someone for the fifth time. There’s this sense of disbelief. They’ll be stunned you already have another Wonder completed, and they’ll be enraged if it was one they were hoping to acquire.

Anyways, moving on. Now that you’ve control, setting up the game the “right” way, you start expanding. I recommend focusing on three cities initially. Start with the Liberty path of Social Policies for the culture, production and happiness bonuses, not to mention the free settler and worker. Early on, you want a force of six to seven workers. Leave five automated and directly control remaining workers. Those extra workers are the ones who will be laying your roads after you acquire the wheel technology. You want every city connected to each other via road and ideally every resource connected to the city as well. Have your warrior explore the map, searching for ruins and other players.

By the time your third city has been founded and has a couple buildings, you may start noticing a surplus of money. This is normal and you’re going to spend it only on the cities. Buy up extra buildings like crazy. Make your trio of cities big and strong for one or two hundred years. While you’re saving, have one or two cities produce scouts and send them looking for your opponent or opponents. In the meantime, also adopt the Tradition and Piety social policies. In case you’re curious, you’ll also eventually want Commerce and Freedom as well.

Now it’s time to have fun. If you’ve been playing like I said, you should be able to raise money really quickly. Take 100 years to raise funds. Don’t spend any extra money between turns and produce as normal. Play nice. Once those 100 years are over, start producing troops and buying troops. You’re not setting up a full-scale war, just enough to freak out the other players. Once you have about 10 units, send them all off to stand at the border of the neighbor you want to terrorize. Give him two turns to prepare, then dig in and attack. Raze resource tiles. Destroy his troops. Convert his workers and, if possible, settlers. Cause as much trouble as possible. Even try to take a city, if you think you have the might.

Make him spend waste as much money and production as possible.

You did that? Good. Now end the war. Ideally, the other person will cave first just to make you stop, but if you’d like you can offer a settlement that gets you some money, resources you don’t already have, and maybe another city.

From there, repeat that pattern. Every couple hundred years, if you notice you have a surplus of money, use it to wage a mock war. I especially recommend pulling this after completing the Manhattan Project and unleashing a nuke or two. When I recently played against my boyfriend, I was Ramesses and he was Nobunaga. During one of my skirmishes to throw him off his game, I decided to unleash a nukes on Nara and Nagoya. Five of his troops were destroyed and 1/3 of each city’s health was depleted. The next turn, I had a negotiation settlement that gave me Osaka, Nara and Nagoya, not to mention the nuclear wasteland surrounding them.

My response? In 3,619 years that is going to be prime real estate. Besides, mutants and ghouls are valuable members of my empire and they need a place to live too.

That’s another key part. Always be happy when playing Civilization V. That will frustrate your opponent to no end. Be cordial, be congenial, and feel free to remind the other players every few turns about the wonderful amenities, services, and hallmarks of your empire. As long as you stay happy, either losing gracefully or being a horribly happy winner, you’ll be the worst person to play Civ V against ever.

I was Forced to Read The Hobbit so Now I Hate It

December 20, 2012 By Jenni Lada Leave a Comment

I hated The Hobbit.

The year was 1990… something. I don’t know. I’m 30 now. I can see bits and pieces of my memory dying. I’m pretty sure I was in fourth or fifth grade though, if that helps.

I went to a parochial grade school and we always had a bit of an advanced curriculum. We were reading books and doing math that was at least one or two years ahead of regular schools. Our teachers weren’t always terribly bright about book selection (I ended up reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World when I was in sixth grade as an example), and seemed to be concerned with having us read the classics without seeing if the class would be interested, it was the right reading level, or if it was even the kind of thing kids at a religious school should be reading.

On one hand, it was refreshing. On the other, it meant forcing kids to read books like The Hobbit and Jane Eyre way before they were prepared for them. While I eventually learned to appreciate and even read Jane Eyre for fun thanks to becoming an English major in college and picking up Jane Slayre, I have never gotten over my hatred of The Hobbit.

I know it’s a good book. It’s a classic. The thing is, The Hobbit and I just met at the wrong times in our lives. It’s true that back then I was a bookish little girl who loved fantasy novels, especially books by Ray Bradbury, Jane Yolen, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Mercedes Lackey, and I was reading beyond my years. J.R.R. Tolkien and his novels should have been a welcome addition, but I found I couldn’t get though The Hobbit. I rebelled against it, and it’s only the second time in my life in which I couldn’t actually finish reading a book. (The other was Moby Dick.)

Of course, now that I’m older and wiser I realize why.

Part of it is because I liked to use fantasy novels as a means of escape when I was a child. For about half of my grade school life I was bullied. Not terribly — other people have far worse stories than mine — but I was still excluded, gossiped about, and had a generally miserable time for a while. Rather than fight it and try to force my way in, I gave up and turned to books. Most of the ones I read had a female heroine, even if she wasn’t the primary character, to identify with. The Hobbit had none. There was no character my 10-year-old self could pretend to be as I read and, if I daydreamed, there was no place where I could self-insert. I didn’t want to be a halfling or a dwarf — I’d rather have been a human, elf, or X-Men-esque mutant.

Another part is that The Hobbit seemed very lore-heavy to me at the time. Even though I was young, I got the impression as I went through the first few chapters that there was more going on than what I was seeing. It seemed as though I were missing out on important matters. Unfortunately, since the book didn’t pique my interest, I didn’t care enough to read more of Tolkien’s works to see what I was missing.

Instead, I gave up. It’s shameful, but true. Being forced to read The Hobbit at an early age effectively killed any desire I would ever have to read Tolkien’s books. And, judging from what I’m hearing from friends about the new movie, I doubt seeing that trilogy would change my mind.

I’m a Horrible Person for Cheating in FTL: Faster than Light

December 3, 2012 By Jenni Lada Leave a Comment

I’m a terrible person because I cheat to win in FTL: Faster than Light.

In case you haven’t heard of it, which is totally possible since this is an indie game, FTL is a darling space simulation roguelike adventure where players pilot a ship which has news that could make or break an intergalactic battle. (Whew! That’s a lot of genre-hopping!) The catch is said ship is small and practically powerless, and it must survive seven guaranteed deadly sectors of space to reach Earth, to provide the Federation fleet with the information that will allow them to survive the rebel attack.

It’s hard. Harder than old school Nintendo hard. Even if you are playing smart, thinking ahead, and making good decisions, there’s a 99.9999999% chance you won’t make it past the second sector during your first playthrough. Yeah, it’s like that. If you don’t check with an online walkthrough or wiki, it’s easy to miss the events one has to participate in to unlock new ships. It’s constantly testing you.

Which is why I cheated.

I admit it freely. I found a workaround. It’s a fan-made program called FTLedit and I love it for multiple reasons. For example, it allows you to have save games. Part of the challenge of FTL is that you can’t save at any time. You can do a quick save, if you need to step away from the computer, and that quits the game. You can reload that save only to immediately start playing again. FTLedit allows you to backup that quick save to reload whenever you’d like.

That’s not the part of the cheating that’s starting to gnaw away at me.

Let’s just add two 0′s behind that 4 in Scrap and we should be good to go!

The part that’s making me feel guilty about not condemning my FTL crews, which usually consist of virtual people named after my friends and family, is the main function of the FTLedit save editor. See, you can automatically restore the Hull to 100%, refuel and load up on Scrap, rockets and drones with the editor. You go from being a plucky little ship of dreams and can-do attitude to a hidden god. Did you ever see that SNL skit about the Cameleon XLE? The car looks like a hoopty on the outside, but is Cadillac-quality on the inside. Thanks to FTLedit, that was what my FTLships were like.

The defeat got to me. After exactly ten FTL playthroughs where I couldn’t even reach the halfway point, I caved. I succumbed to the golden future and glory FTLedit promised me. It was good too. I beat the game twice. I unlocked extra ships. I built awesome crews. I had enough of a safety net where I could be concerned about other (virtual) people, and not just the lives of my crew and the mission.

After my second success though, I couldn’t help but feel a little down. I didn’t really need to cheat the second time. I’d proved I could beat FTL with a little help already. Yet, I couldn’t resist the call the second time. I even started to do it again, with the a third Engi ship called the Schmoopie. My goal there was to use FTLedit strictly for save backups and an initial boost to starting funds.

I’ve never had issues with cheating in games before. I have an Action Replay for my DS, a Codebreaker for my PS2, GameShark for the PS1 and have accumulated numerous other cheat devices throughout the years. I don’t think I’ve ever had a Sims household where I didn’t just immediately rely on “motherlode” to build each family the house of its dreams. With FTL, it bothers me though.

I think it’s because FTL is about the incredible odds and the satisfaction that can come from actually beating them legitimately. The journey is still incredibly fun if you cheat, but it loses the intensity and satisfaction along the way.

So, next week I’m going straight again. I’m going to play an unadulterated FTL playthrough and I will chronicle my crew’s unfortunate journey next week on GeekParty. Stick around – it’ll probably be a hilarious bloodbath.

Now, for those of you who don’t have the same qualms as I, you can get Jacob Keane’s FTLedit here. Be forewarned – with great power comes the ability to carry like a million drones and loads of scrap in a ship the size of a shoebox.

The Vita Screenshot Feature is the Best Thing Ever

November 19, 2012 By Jenni Lada Leave a Comment

I think I’m enjoying the PlayStation Vita screenshot function a little too much.

For those of you who don’t own a Vita — I’m sure there are plenty of you — it gives us the ability to take screenshots of Vita games at any time. Just press and hold the Start and Home buttons at the same time at the exact moment something awesome is happening on screen and BOOM, instant memory.

For me, it’s gone from a “Isn’t that neat?” feature to “I’m taking pictures of everything incredible in Persona 4 Golden.” I have pictures of my Ragnarok Odyssey heroine, who I like to pretend is an undead assassin. I have screenshots of Dokuro and the Princess approaching the flower. I snapped a picture of the opening screen of SunFlowers to use as a background. Not to mention the image of Igor, Margaret, and Marie I’m using as my new lock screen.

It wasn’t just about saving a moment for myself. I’d share screenshots via Twitter. Sometimes I’d want to point out how cool something was. Other times, I’d want to mock what I was seeing. More often than not, it was about highlighting and sharing the joy I had at that moment.

I think the tipping point came when I received my review copy of Persona 4 Golden. (It’s a fantastic game, by the way, and you should all rush out and buy it the moment it is released on November 20, 2012.) My boyfriend, for whatever reason, is firmly in the anti-Persona camp. I can’t fathom why, since Persona is pretty the best thing ever. So, in an attempt to ~~wear him down~~ convince him of Persona 4 Golden‘s virtues, I took to taking screenshots of every funny/interesting/mockable moment. It was as I was sharing scenes during the game’s class trip segment that I realized how fantastic the screenshot feature is.

Combined with the Live Tweet app or even the Vita messenger app, the screenshot function becomes an invaluable means of connecting gamers and sharing the experience. I can show off my latest Persona 4 Golden persona acquisition. (I believe you are all familiar with Mara.) I can brag about my Persona 3 Portable Velvet Room lock screen. I can convince people Dokuro is worth buying by showing how charming the presentation is.

Especially awesome is a feature that appears if someone decides to swap images via the Vita messenger. The person receiving the photo can then tap a button after viewing the image to be taken to the PlayStation Store to buy the game they’re seeing.

It makes me wonder why it has taken so long for this kind of screenshot feature to be implemented into consoles and handhelds. Sure, a handful of PS3 games have a screenshot option, and some Xbox 360 and PS3 games allow video footage to be recorded, but there hasn’t been a universal means to take screenshots until the Vita. It’s both a blessing and revolutionary.

Granted, it isn’t going to be a unique perk for long. Video capturing capabilities are enabled in certain PS3 and Xbox 360 games and I’m certain the next generation of consoles will allow people to take screen-caps and videos at their leisure.

But for now, the screenshot function is something special for Vita owners, and we should all be using it.

Black Friday Is Harder on Video Game Journalists than It Is on You

November 12, 2012 By Jenni Lada 2 Comments

See all those little games? I have to double check the titles of every one when I write up the story saying they’ll be on sale. EVERY. ONE.

It’s Black Friday time.

Feel that chill? Yup, that’s an otherworldly cold shudder. It’s a scary time.

Though frankly, it’s even worse for some of us “game journalists,” because we have to report on them. See, sites like us thrive on traffic. At this time of year, Black Friday news means hits. Which means people who contribute news stories–like yours truly–have to sign up for the Black Friday website email mailing lists, check the leaks and get this stuff written up.

I hate the Black Friday ads.

I hate them.

I especially hate when a store has a lot of good deals, because that means more work for me. Check the ad. write down the sale items, make sure the titles and prices are right, format everything into neat, bullet-pointed lists and have it all up on the Internet for folks to check.

Tedium, thy name is Black Friday ad duty.

“Is that a good deal?” Yes, dammit. It’s a Black Friday ad. EVERYTHING is a good deal.

It also means being vaguely aware of general item prices and release dates, so that you can offer commentary on whether something is or isn’t a good deal.

Best Buy will have Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two and Darksiders II as $29.99 doorbusters! That is a good deal!
Old Navy will give you a $59.99 copy of New Super Mario Bros. U for free when you spend $40 on clothes and stuff! Another great deal!
Kmart is selling the 4GB Xbox 360 Kinect bundle for $199.99 as a Thanksgiving Day doorbuster!
You get the idea!

So how long does a Black Friday news story take to write? Well, that depend on the level of detail you want to put into it. I’m a purist. I feel it’s my duty to write up each deal a gamer might be interested in so he or she won’t have to pore over an internet ad, trying to figure out which version of Forza is on sale. Why have them screw up their eyes when I’m already walking into the suburbs of Blind City? A basic, “Hey, this ad scan is online and here are between five and ten of the best deals!” story would probably take 10 to 15 minutes to write, depending on if you have to do formatting and find/make an image. A “Let’s list every detail, with 99.9% accuracy, in alphabetical lists broken down into systems, accessories, games and miscellaneous” news story can take at least 45 minutes.

For example, I’ve written three Black Friday 2012 news stories for various websites so far this year, on the Old Navy Wii U stuff, the Kmart ad leak and the Best Buy ad preview. The Old Navy story took about 15 minutes. The Kmart ad was a bit more involved and was around 20 minutes. The Best Buy ad preview took me 50 minutes. That’s almost an hour of my life, gone. For you.

It’s a chore, but we do it. We do it every year. Why?

Because we get paid for it.

What, did you honestly think I did this out of love? Psh. It’s all about the traffic bonuses!

You Never Forget Nightmare

October 30, 2012 By Jenni Lada 3 Comments

If there’s one genre of board game that hasn’t aged well, it’s the VHS board game. It probably doesn’t help that they weren’t much respected or beloved even when they where they were the pinnacle of board game technology. Time, however, has just made its faults even more obvious. No game is a more stunning example of the genre’s failings than Nightmare. You Australians out there reading this (all 10 of you) probably know it better as Atmosfear, which is only slightly cooler due to the punny name.

Nightmare was a horror board game that was excruciating if played right and hilarious if played wrong. Players (up to six people can bond over this er…experience) write down their fear on the nightmare cards and place them in the center of the board. Players then go around the graveyard game board, landing on spaces and hopefully collecting keys while one of the “hosts” on the VHS you play during the game occasionally breaks things up to tell you what to do. If you get four keys, you can unlock the center cemetery and, if you don’t pick your nightmare, everyone gets to stop playing and go do something really scary, like grab a Ouija board or rob a graveyard.

Of course, grabbing keys is nearly impossible. Fortunately, the “host” imposes a one hour time limit, which means you aren’t trapped going around a board in circles for hours on end.

That is, if you were actually lucky enough to go around the board. A friend of mine actually owns Nightmare, and in our most recent “adventure”, I couldn’t move until I rolled a six. That took about 10 minutes. When I finally was able to roll, Baron Samedi (the “host”) said I had to miss four turns. At that point I gave up because there was no way I was going through that kind of hell.

The irony is, the “hosts” are often the best thing about Nightmare. The Gatekeeper, in particular, is a treasure. This dude, an actor by the name of Wenanty Nosul, is hilarious. I swear, I could just sit and watch the hour long tape of him and be satisfied. It’s like this is the only acting job he’s ever had in his life, but he’s totally committed to it.

Well, as committed as you can be to playing a cemetery attendant.

How’s that for scary?

I don’t know if it was the mood swings, the horrible make-up, or the fact that Nosul couldn’t decide on which accent he wanted to use, but it’s just magical.

Apparently, somebody thought he was doing a good job, because he was also cast as Baron Samedi, the “host” for Nightmare II. See, with a VHS game, you could go out and buy additional VHSes with extra cards and different characters to shake things up.

Of course, it would have been great if Nosul had put a bit more thought into his second roll. Baron Samedi the zombie is pretty much just Baron Samedi the Gatekeeper II, only with rock-and-roll references and more warts.

Surprisingly enough, Nosul actually has gotten other roles, but you know Nightmare has to be haunting him. He built up too much bad karma over the years as children/teenagers/young-at-heart adults subjected to Nightmare or Nightmare II cursed his name for being forced to sit through a 60 minute game trapped in the pit.

Here’s what you do this year. Play a “trick” on your friends. Invite them over, set up the Nightmare board game, and say you need to run out for a second to grab some beer or Rum Chata from your car. Lock them in the house. Come back an hour later. Best trick ever.

Marry Me, Galloping Ghost Arcade!

October 22, 2012 By Jenni Lada Leave a Comment

Don’t worry, it looks a little creepy but it’s 100% safe to go inside. Unless you’re on a machine I want to play RIGHT NOW.

I have just discovered the best place ever. Seriously, you guys, you have no idea.

Well, just discovered isn’t the right word, since I actually went there for the first time a few months ago. You know how things work. You want to have time-relevant stories to post on the Internet, you get distracted by fiendishly adorable games like SunFlowers, and the next thing you know, it’s Halloween. Which reminds you that you wanted to talk about how Galloping Ghost Arcade is your new favorite place to be.

I wish I could say I was cool enough to discover this place on my own, but I wasn’t. Some of my friends had heard about it first, so we planned to spend a rousing afternoon at Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield. I can’t remember what day exactly, because I’m about to turn 30 and am getting old. They assured me it was a great place, and the website was reassuring with its claims of 250+ games set to free play, but I was still wondering if agreeing to hang out an arcade from 3pm until at least 9pm was such a good idea.

It was the single best decision ever. If I hadn’t needed to go to work in the morning, I wouldn’t have left until it closed at 2am.

As I mentioned, Galloping Ghost is one of those elusive free play arcades. The proprietors have old school game cabinets (Burger Time is more difficult than I remember), import cabinets (I beat Ikaruga with my boyfriend), more modern games (I rediscovered my love of Rival Schools: United By Fate), custom cabinets (There are PS3s running with BlazBlue, Virtua Fighter 5, and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3) and games I didn’t even know existed (I heart you so much Tapper).

Many of the cabinets are rigged up in a way that allows between two and six games to run on the same one, with users flicking a switch or pushing a button to choose their pleasure. All you have to do is pay $15 and not make an ass of yourself, and you could literally spend all day there. They even have food! Not that I’ve tried it though – on each ensuing visit I’d walk across the street to the family-style restaurant there.

Alas, my arcade haven has only one flaw. Though I’ve been to Galloping Ghost three times since I’ve discovered it earlier this year, I’ve never happened upon it on a day when the pinball room is open. Yes, Galloping Ghosts has a pinball room. Of course, it probably isn’t as big a deal as I’m making it sound. It’s just a room with seven pinball machines that you can play as much as you want. Still, to me that’s pretty special.

I’m telling you, Timmy, there are video games as far as the eye could see, and I didn’t have to pop quarters into any of them.

Still, despite that failing, Galloping Ghost is still the pretty damn best arcade I’ve ever graced with my presence. It puts GameWorks, which is about 22 miles away, to shame. Each time I’ve been to Galloping Ghost, I’ve discovered something new. Then again, I can’t exactly claim each discovery is something new, because my own memory (what’s left of it) so often betrays me.

Me: “Mega Man Power Battle is here! How did I miss this? I’ve always wanted to play Mega Man Power Battle!
The Voice in my Head: “Really, Me? Really? Look at the cabinet. It is in the same cabinet as Dragon Ball Z. YOU SPENT 15 MINUTES PLAYING DRAGON BALL Z LAST TIME YOU WERE HERE.”
Me: “They must have just added it.”
The Voice in my Head: “I’m forgetting all of your email passwords.”

So yeah, Galloping Ghost Arcade is a great place to be. It’s just celebrated its second anniversary, and I’m hoping it sticks around for a while so I can savor and appreciate it, and doesn’t disappear now that I’ve discovered its glory. If you’re ever in the Chicago area, you should definitely check it out.

Sega Saturn Me Up!

October 15, 2012 By Jenni Lada Leave a Comment

So, I own a Sega Saturn now. It happened in the most roundabout, unexpected manner possible. Really, it’s a pretty interesting tale of luck and happenstance, and I figure I may as well share my good fortune with all of you.

It all started last Saturday, when I was heading up to Northern Wisconsin on vacation. I went to a flea market and came upon the most unusual of gaming discoveries: Some person was selling what was pretty much a full Sega Saturn game library, with the games priced between $1-3. I’ve never been interested in the Sega Saturn before, but there was something that caught my eye.

It was Dragon Force. I knew nothing about it, but as a JRPG fan I know one of its ilk when I see it, and the Dragon Force box art was setting off all my internal sirens. I picked it up and looked it over, wondering if I was really considering spending $3 on a game for a system I don’t even own, and had never really wanted to own.

Then I saw it was a Working Designs game.

Of course I bought it, along with four other games that looked promising. There were more there, but I figured five games for a system I didn’t even own was ridiculous enough. The others seemed common enough, so I decided to leave them behind.

All this goodness only cost me $11. How crazy is that?

It’s times like these when I curse my decision to shun the smartphone movement. One of the first things I did when I got home was Google the games I had acquired, to see what they’re like and whether or not I got a good deal. It turns out, they all were quite great deals for $1-3 each, and that the games I had left behind, which included Doom and Hexen, were also quite good games. I then also started checking around about the actual Sega Saturn system.

Did you know Sega Saturns can actually be pretty expensive? I didn’t! Then you have to factor in a memory card as well, which will probably be $30.

When Friday rolled around, I headed back to Rice Lake, Wisconsin, the place of destiny where I encountered my previous purchases. As expected, the remaining Sega Saturn games were still at the flea market and I scooped them up in one fell swoop. I was still at a loss though. What would I do with Saturn discs, but no games?

I did the most logical thing. I saw there was a store in a mini-mall across the street called Toyriffic, and figured I’d stop in and see what they had. Sure, they had a Dreamcast and a Genesis, but no Saturn. The guy behind the counter said they hadn’t had one for weeks and that it’d be around $40 for a system with one controller if they did have one. Not to mention they didn’t even have any games.

At this point I was ready to give up. Since I like searching thrift and Goodwill stores though, I decided to visit St. Vincent’s Thrift Shop before making the trip back up to my family’s cabin. I figured I’d look around, maybe find a cheap board game to play with friends and help out that church’s mission while I’m at it.

That’s where I saw another set of about five Sega Saturn games, among them the ridiculous Street Fighter: The Movie.

I swear, I was ready to check for cameras. In my years of living outside Chicago, with numerous small game stores, resale shops and Goodwills, I can’t remember ever seeing a Sega Saturn. I stop by a small town in Northern Wisconsin, and suddenly I’ve hit the nostalgia mother lode.

New games in hand, I was determined. I had a purpose. While the people at the church thrift shop probably won’t know who donated these games, maybe the people at the other flea market would. I was on a mission. I was going to try and find the original owner and see if he or she had given the system itself away as well.

Cory (as I’ve decided to call him) is the new hotness.

That’s when I passed the locked glass case. There, on a shelf perched next to a used PS2, there was a perfectly beautiful, pristine Sega Saturn with two controllers. I stood there in shock, staring at it in all its glory. How was it there? Why was it there? Was this some kind of mirage?

I must have been pretty obvious (weird), because one of the workers approached me to ask if I needed assistance. Yes, of course I did! The system that I had been chasing after for a whole week was staring at me from a locked case, demanding its freedom! $40 later, I was the proud owners of the system and a few more games.

I suppose there’s a lesson to be learned in all this. Never discount flea markets or thrift stores in small towns. You could end up finding the best video game finds ever!

Also, if that Rice Lake, WI gamer who gave away the Sega Saturn is reading, thank you! Your system has a happy new home where it will be cherished for many years. By the way, did you happen to also donate/give away the memory cartridge?