How to Replace a Sega Saturn Battery

Recently I went to play my Sega Saturn only to realize that the battery was dead. How do you know if you're battery is dead? Well if every time you start it you have to enter in your language and set the time, you have yourself a dead battery. What exactly does that mean? It means you can't save your games. You can still play them, but the instant you turn off your console all yous saves are erased. Luckily to replace your Sega Saturn battery is very easy and cheap fix. First thing you need to do is unplug your Sega Saturn and turn it around so you're looking at the backside of it.



So now you're looking at the back of the Saturn. There's a little panel that you can remove it says open and has a little arrow.



Now you open that up and you'll see a battery.



So now you need to remove this battery, it's actually pretty simple. Just pry it up with your fingernail and little bit of pressure. Now that you've popped the battery out you're ready to put in a new one. What you need is a 2032 3V battery. Don't worry, these aren't hard to find. Just hop on down to Target or Walmart and find their batteries in the electronics department. Buy something that looks like this, doesn't have to be this brand just as long as it's a 2032 3V battery:



I bought a two pack for $6 at Target. Take it home and replace the battery you took out and your Saturn should be as good as new. Simple and cheap fix.

Squid.

Myst - Sega Saturn

Originally I was going to play something on Sega Genesis but as it's currently out of commission I decided to plug in the ol' Sega Saturn.

Myst was a game that I think I got when I was too young, it didn't have explosions or fast pacing and I think I was just too young to appreciate it. I've played Myst before but never for any amount of time. I figure it's about time that I sit down and beat the game that was the best selling PC game for almost a decade before The Sims took it's throne. Follow me on twitter for more updates as I play through Myst.

Squid.

Mass Effect 2 - Review

Mass Effect 2. There's only two words I need to describe it: absolutely phenomenal.

I'm a huge, huge fan of the first Mass Effect. When I eventually get around to playing and writing a review for that I assume it's going to be one gushing love letter to the game. So when I say that I enjoyed Mass Effect 2 more than the original it's a big statement.

Everything that you may not have liked about the first Mass Effect? Gone or greatly changed. No more Mako, no more bloated item/selling screens, no more clunky gun and armor customization, no more long elevator rides. Remember those little QTEs that you had to do to open certain containers? They're now replaced with "mini-games" that feel a lot more natural in the game. Basically everything that you may have griped about in the first one will probably be completely different and almost always better in Mass Effect 2.

Sure, there were a few misses with the hits but they're few in far between. The new mineral scan mini-game can feel tedious at times, but overall I didn't have a huge problem with it. Occasionally the models (especially on Shepard and Miranda) can go a little wonky. Also the cover system would occasionally frustrate me, but for the most part I loved how natural it felt. Like any other BioWare game the characters dialogue trees occasionally wouldn't get anything new for quite some time, but even this is much better than it was in Mass Effect or even Dragon Age. Overall though the few gripes I have about this game are quite small and insignificant, especially when I compare those to the things that have been changed to make this game better.

Listen, I could go on for hours about how amazing this game is... but I'm guessing there's thousands of reviews out there that would be saying the exact same thing as mine: this game is amazing. I spent 64 hours beating it and loved every minute of it. It managed to keep the same feel that Mass Effect had, but at the same time changing so much and in the end making it even better.

If you haven't played Mass Effect do yourself the favor and spend the $20 and play it. If you have played Mass Effect before and some of the small stuff you didn't like is making you second guess whether you want to spend that $60 or not, trust me, it's worth it. It's a phenomenal game and an amazing gaming experience. Go out and buy it, you won't regret it.

Squid.

What I'm Up Against...

Before I started this project I decided to take some pictures of my collection. I'm not sure what I originally intended to use the pictures for but I figure I could upload them and let you have a look at all the games I intended on playing. Sadly even since taking these pictures my collection has grown, so there's a couple games missing.












That's a lot of games. Especially considering I'm only on game 2 of about 200.

Squid.

Mass Effect 2 - Xbox360

Mass Effect 2 will be the next game I play. I was hoping to get in a few more older games from the 8 bit/16 bit generation, but I've been wanting to play Mass Effect 2 since the day it came out. So far it's absolutely amazing. So check back in a couple days for a review, or follow my twitter for more of my thoughts on the game.

Squid.

Twitter

Tired of waiting for updates or just so bored with your own life that you want to see what I'm up to? Now you can! Follow me on Twitter to see what game I'm playing, what movies I'm watching, little mini reviews and other thoughts about this and my other blog.

Squid.

Iron Tank - Review

Having just finished Iron Tank I can tell you two things:

1) The game is actually called Iron Tank The Invasion of Normandy. I find this interesting only due to the fact that I've owned it for probably two decades and didn't know this.

2) This game is absolutely-infriggen-possibly difficult. Kind of.

I say kind of due to the fact that I actually beat it and because I did it in about an hour. You're probably saying "Wait, how could a game be impossibly difficult and yet you beat it in an hour?" Well I say that just because I'm pretty sure that if I had some sort of God mode this game would only be about 10 minutes long. Once you factor in the fact that you die every three goddamn seconds and have to replay the same three screens over and over the game all the sudden goes from 10 minutes to one pulling out your hair, yelling at the TV hour long.

Iron Tank is the story of a secret mission having to do with the invasion of Normandy... I guess. The intro scene is kind of vague and somewhat poorly translated. You start off landing the Allies only tank (from what I could tell) on the beach of... I guess Normandy. From there you have to fight your way through hundreds of other much better armed and better equipped enemy tanks so that you can blow up a giant tank at the end. This was the Allies big goddamn plan. Not "Hey, let's send one man in on foot where maybe he can sneak in and blow up enemy tanks and railways" or "Hey, we have these planes... they're pretty good at killing giant tanks" but "Hey, what's the least sneaky thing we have in all of our arsenal? A tank? Great, send that bad boy in and let him take out all the other tanks. I'm going to lunch." Apparently whoever thought up this secret mission was an idiot.

Basically what you do in Iron Tank is blow up other enemy tanks. Occasionally the game will throw you a train or a submarine or... okay those are the only other enemies I can think of. So basically what you do in Iron Tank is blow up other enemy tanks, trains and submarines. You keep doing that until you reach bosses that look like they were designed by six year old boys. Ever remember drawing pictures (most likely in crayon) of tanks that had like eight canons and four of them shot fire and then the others shot lasers and then there were canons on top of the canons that shot heat seeking rockets! Yeah, meet the end bosses in Iron Tank. Apparently the Allies didn't have that technology, either that or they sent me out in my one canon tank because they're dicks and thought it was funny.

So here you are in your one canon tank and you move from screen to screen trying not to get raped by every tank in Germany's army that's advanced on your position. Then you have an "Aha!" moment... all of the tanks seem to move in a set path! If you can just watch their paths and learn it, you can kill them. Which sometimes works out. Until a random tank comes out of nowhere, or two tanks randomly spawn behind you, or you realize that their tanks can shoot farther than yours or there's one path that's wide enough to move your tank down but not wide enough to move out of the way of the bullets the other tank is shooting at you... I could go on for quite some time. When it comes down to it, your tank is screwed. Just get used to starting over and over and hopefully making a little bit of headway each time. Oh, also? The controls are absolutely horrid, so enjoy that as well!

Iron Tank isn't all bad and the parts where I wasn't stuck playing the same part over and over again fifty goddamn times were generally good. I enjoyed that it had multiple paths to choose from, so I guess if once you got tired of being raped by tanks in one direction you could choose to get raped by a whole new set of tanks. The fact that regain health by running over enemy soldiers was also kind of funny in the same way an 8 bit Grand Theft Auto where you ran over hookers would also be kind of funny.

Overall the game wasn't bad when you weren't playing the same part over and over again, but those parts took up way to much game time for Iron Tank to be good. Maybe I've just become different as a gamer, at eight I probably didn't mind replaying the same part twenty time, but now that I'm older it's just aggravating. That being said, I still had some fun and I did enjoy parts of the game.

Squid.

Iron Tank - NES

I've decided on my first game for the 2010 video game challenge. Iron Tank for the NES. I chose this because it was one of the first games I owned. When I originally bought the NES it of course came with Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt, but my parents also bought my brother and me Contra and Iron Tank.

I oddly remember that day fairly well for how young I was. We bought our NES at Lionel Playworld when I was probably about eight or nine, maybe a little older. I remember getting those two games and coming home and playing Contra and being blown away by it. Up until that point all my video games had been on the Commodore 64, so this was a huge step up.

I have very fond memories of Iron Tank, I don't remember playing it tons or playing it over and over but I do remember having a very good time playing it. Being a two player game I remember playing it a lot with my brother. I guess we'll find out if it holds up to the test of time.

Squid.

The List

I've finally compiled the list of all the games I plan on playing. I may have missed one or two here or there, but if I notice a game not on the list I'll add it later. This is going to be long, but here we go.

Microsoft Xbox:
Amped, Cel Damage, Chase Hollywood Stunt Driver, Conflict: Desert Storm, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2,Fable, Futurama, Fuzion Frenzy, Halo, Jade Empire, Kingdom Under Fire, Medal of Honor Frontline, Megaman Anniversary Collection, Mercenaries, Midway Arcade Treasures, MLB Slugfest 2004, NBA Live 2002, NFL Fever 2002, Oddworld Munch's Oddysee, Pirates - The Legend of Black Kat, Serious Sam, Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The Thing, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x, True Crime Streets of LA.

Nintendo Gamecube
Darkened Skye, Eternal Darkness Sanity's Requiem ,Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Metroid Prime, Outlaw Golf, Star Wars Rogue Squadron III Rebel Strike, Tales of Symphonia, The Legend of Zelda Collection, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

Sega Saturn
Astal, Black Fire, Blazing Dragons, Bug, Clockwork Knight, Earthworm Jim 2, Last Bronx, Madden '97, Magic Carpet, Myst, Mystaria The Realms of Lore, NBA Action, Nights Into Dreams, Panzer Dragoon II Zwei, Robotica, Scud: The Disposable Assassin, Sega Worldwide Soccer '97, Shining Wisdom, Sim City 2000, The Horde, The Legend of Oasis, Theme Park, Three Dirty Dwarves, Virtua Cop, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Fighter 2, WingArms, Worldwide Soccer.

Sega Genesis
Abrams Battle Tank, Altered Beast, Columns, Fifa International Soccer, General Chaos, Golden Axe, Hard Drivin', James Pond II Codename Robocodm, Jurrassic Park, NHL '96, Revenge of Shinobi, Road Rash II, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Starflight, Streets of Rage, Super Hang-On, The Ren & Stimpy Show Presents: Stimpy's Invention, Wacky Worlds Creativity Studio, WrestleMania The Arcade Game.

Nintendo 64
007 Goldeneye, Pokemon Stadium, Pokemon Stadium 2, Quake, The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time.

Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Big Sky Trooper, Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country, FaceBall 2000, Final Fantasy III, Illusion of Gaia, Killer Instinct, Kirby's Dream Course, Lufia & The Fortress of Doom, Mechwarrior, Mega Man X, MTV's Beavis and Butthead, NBA Live '96, Paladin's Quest, Paperboy 2, Populous, StarFox, Street Fighter II, Super Mario All-Stars, Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World, Super Return of the Jedi, Tecmo Super Bowl II, The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past, Total Carnage, Uniracers, Wanderes From Ys III, Yoshi's Island, Zombies Ate My Neighbors.

Nintendo Entertainment System
Adventure Island, Blaster Master, Bubble Bobble, Castlevania, Castlevania II Simon's Quest, Conquest of the Crystal Palace, Contra, Crystalis, Double Dragon, Dragon Warrior, Duck Hunt, Excitebike, Faxanadu, Hogan's Alley, Iron Tank, Karnov, Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Crusade, Megaman 2, Metroid, North and South, Pirates!, Rampage, Star Trek 25th Anniversary, StarTropics, Star Wars, Super Mario Brothers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Arcade Game, The Adventure of Link, The Legend of Zelda.

Microsoft Xbox 360
Amped 3, Assassins Creed, BioShock, Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, Call of Duty World at War, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Condemned 2: Bloodshot, Dead Rising, Devil May Cry 4, Dragon Age Origins, F.E.A.R, F.E.A.R 2 Project Origins, F.E.A.R Files, Fallout 3 (Plus Add-On Pack). Farcry 2, Forza 2, Fracture, Fuzion Frenzy 2, Gears of War, Gears of War 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, Guitar Hero Aerosmith, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero III Legends of Rock, Kung Fu Panda, Lego Indiana Jones The Orginal Adventures, Lost Planet Extreme Conditions Colonies Edition, Madden '07, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Mercenaries 2 World in Flames, Modern Warfare 2, RockBand, Silent Hill Homecoming, Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection, Star Ocean The Last Hope, Star Wars The Force Unleashed, Tales of Vesperia, The Chronicles of Riddick Assualt on Dark Athena, The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion GOTYE, Time Shift, X-Men Origins Wolverine.

Nintendo Wii
Harvey Birdman Attorney At Law, The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent, Wii Play.

Sony Playstation 3
Resistance Fall of Man and Godfather II.

PC
Alien Vs Predator, Beyond Good and Evil, Mount and Blade, Psychonauts, Saints Row 2, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, The Witcher.

So that's the list, there's all of my games. I noticed I own a couple of video game collection packs. That should add quite a few more games to this list. I'm still trying to figure out which game to play first, so hopefully in the next day or two I'll figure that out and get it started.

Squid.

Tell Me More

How many video games are we talking about here? About 185 give or take. Though with new games I purchase, Gamefly games, and a select few Steam games I haven't played I'm guessing the end total will be somewhere between 200 to 230 games total across ten console systems.

While 200 games may not seem like a lot keep in mind that if they all take an average of seven hours if I played video game for twenty-four hours straight, seven days a week it would take me close to two months to complete them all.

So are their rules? I've thought about this and I'm just not sure about it. Originally I was going to do it with no cheat codes, no Gamesharks just good old fashioned playing. Then I decided that I value my sanity way too much for that. Ever play the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle game for NES? I have. I would rather get a root canal than try to beat that without at least a little help. With that being said I'm going to do my damnedest to beat most of these games without external help. I figure first I'm going to give it a couple shots without codes, Gamesharks, etc. and if I just can't do it I'll give in and use them... but it will always be a last resort.

I also own a lot of sports games(I don't really enjoy them, I'm not really sure why I own so many) and I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to considered them finished. I'm thinking that with sports games that playing a season of whatever sport will constitute me finishing it.

Other than those two things I haven't really set anything else in stone. There's no time limit to this, I'm just seeing how long this will take and maybe discover a few unforgotten gems in my collection as well as replaying games I used to love.

Hopefully in a little bit I'll have an entire list up here of all of my video games and then we can get this underway.

Squid.

The 2010 Video Game Challenge

I've been wanting to write a video game blog from some time now, but could never figure out what to write about.

I considered writing video game reviews but I rarely play anything brand new and how many other video game review blogs are there? A search on Google for "video game review blog" reveals about one hundred and eleven million results... didn't really want to throw my hat in that ring.

Then I considered writing articles on various video game subjects, the only problem being is while I had several ideas I didn't know if I had enough of them to flesh out an entire blog.

So I was back at square one, wanting to write a video game blog but having no idea what to write about. I kept it on the back burner for about three months and hoped that something would pop into my head, an "aha!" moment.

About three weeks ago I was talking to my brother about video games, mostly about all of the video games we had played over the course of our lives. Which ones were good, which ones were bad... just kind of general video game talk. The subject went to older video games and some of the awesome ones that we had played as kids, and I noticed that while we’re talking about them I kept finding myself saying "Yeah, I still have that in a box downstairs." See, I never really got rid of any of my video games. I don't know why, it's been years since I've played anything on my Saturn or my SNES, but I think it's the thought that if I ever really want to play those games I have the ability to.

I didn't think much about the conversation, until a few days later. I was sitting at work when I thought to myself "I should really break out the old systems and play them, I own a lot of really awesome games that I haven't played in a long time." So with that I had decided to go back to my roots, to play some of my long lost forgotten games. Then another thought popped into my head... "I wonder how long it would take me to play and beat every video game I own?" I thought about it for a second, and then kind of tried to tally up a rough guess of how many video games I owned, but I still couldn't think up a number of how long it would take. For every Final Fantasy III that could take sixty plus hours there's probably four platformers that would take me four hours. I IM'd my brother and asked him the question "How long do you think it would take me to beat all the video games I owned?" His helpful answer? "A long time.

Over the next few days the question kind of rolled through my head, it had intrigued me. I've often wondered how long it would take me to sit down and want every single movie I own, but I had never done it. Could I do this? I mean, I love video games but this could take a long time... do I have the fortitude to complete something like this? It's a pretty big undertaking; I mean this is something that could easily take a year or more. Then another question popped into my head "Why the hell would you want to?" It was a good question, and one I probably get asked if I actually told someone I was going to do it. I didn't have an answer. The best I could think of was that I really enjoy video games, I haven't played some of these in a decade or more, and curiosity.

Also pretty much until the last two or so years I almost never beat any video games. Most times some other game would catch my attention and I could start playing that, leaving the other game unfinished. Crystalis for the NES if easily my favorite NES RPG and probably in the top ten of my favorite RPGs of all time... and yet I've never beaten it. I swear that I've probably played 75% of that game at least five or six times, and yet never beaten it. I would say that 85% of all the video games I own I've never finished… and now, I kind of want to. I'd like to see what happens at the end of Crystalis, I'd like to say that I've beaten The Legend of Zelda. There's so many games that I have that I've probably never played more than an hour or two. I want to play them now.

Then I put two and two together. What if I made a blog about that? What if I finished every game I owned and blogged about it? I could still write reviews, I could still write about games, and it might be interesting enough to catch and keep people’s attention. I mean how many reviews are there out there for Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Crusade? (329 according to Google). But this will also allow me a forum to do some of the other things I wanted to do.

So what happens once I've beaten every game I own? Good question. Maybe I'll come up with a new project. Though I'm guessing that won’t happen for a while, and since I just got two new games in the mail. I'm thinking that it's now going to take me even longer than I expected.

-Squid.