Much like my Racing Game Round-Up, I think I would like to make a monthly thing where I look for cool shit on the Internet Archive that is worth a look. Just as well, because some things have gone down in the world recently where you might need someone to point out where to find some files. Let’s start with that.

PS3 Games

Turns out that the rumor of Sony shutting down all storefronts for their pre-PS4 hardware is true, with the Playstation Store getting shut down like, today. It’s not too often that a major corporation comes out and straight up tells people to pirate their shit, but hey, their loss is our gain.

The Archive has multiple sources of downloadable PS3 games. I’ve been using this particular collection myself, but again, there are plenty of other places to look on there. It’s mostly a great collection, the downsides being that not every game is on there quite yet (I had to go digging through the cellars of the internet for a copy of Armored Core For Answer), and the Archive’s download speeds are incredibly slow; don’t go in expecting to get every Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto immediately.

Now to actually mod your PS3? Well, you know, I don’t want to be one of those people supporting piracy, and as such, I wouldn’t do something like tell you to click on this link here, link a YouTube video telling you how to install a bunch of legally ambiguous programs, or link another YouTube video that shows you how to transfer the games from your PC to your PS3. I also will not tell you that if you want to transfer a game larger than 4 GBs, you’ll want to use an FTP program like FileZilla, and have it connect to the IP address on your PS3 system itself (found in the PS3’s System Settings), then click and drag your games to the “PS3ISO” folder on the PS3. I won’t be doing that. Figure it out on your own, you filthy pirates!

Atomic TV

Atomic TV is/was a public access show from the late 90s-early 2000s that I’ve been checking a few episodes of. From what I’ve seen, it’s a show that takes clips from 1950’s exploitation films, propaganda, and fucked up PSA’s, interspersed with commentary segments and interviewing random people on the street about the theme of the episode. There have also been some episodes focused on music videos and bootleg concert footage of Japanese musicians like Cornelius and Pizzicato Five, which is honestly a pretty amazing service, given that even now, getting Japanese music into Western mediums is pretty difficult.

Cool stuff. I’ve really been getting into watching public access stuff as of late, mostly because here in Colorado, there isn’t much of a scene for it. The best we’ve gotten were:

• A one-episode “comedy” variety show starring the cast of a series of commercials for a used car dealership. As an aside, if any other Coloradans remember the weird Rocky’s Autos variety hour, please let me know in the comments, so I stop feeling like maybe I made up the whole thing in my head somehow.
• An extremely irritating series with what are essentially the mascots for a chain of porn shops. The Pleasures Dudes, two middle-aged men acting like Spicolli from Fast Times At Ridgemont High doing obnoxious interviews with porn stars, doing bad commentary over women’s pro wrestling matches, and generally annoying me.
• A half-hour…thing…by a b-movie actress named Jennifer Day, where her and a couple of strippers dance around in a hotel room in their underwear. This is to sell you on a series of videos where her and a couple of strippers dance around in a hotel room, only they’re naked now.

Incite Magazine

son of the beach!? holy shit…

Incite was a magazine that I read an awful lot as a teenager. Probably because they were constantly getting to interview pro wrestlers and had lots of photoshoots with models with freaking monster titties. Which, as a teen who didn’t have internet at the time, I appreciated.

jeez, who could ever accuse the games industry of being juvenile?

Reading the first issue for this post, and boy it is something. There’s this energy of a desperate, flailing plea to be taken seriously. For games to be taken seriously. It’s a surprise that the first sentence in the issue isn’t, “Video Games: they’re not, heh, for kids anymore!” Celebrity interviews, the aforementioned big titty models, “gadget” reviews, the Maxim-esque layout. Rather than letting the medium of games speak for themselves, Incite has this put-upon attempt at making games “cultured,” like you’re going to an expensive cocktail bar in your finest Versace to discuss the merits of Crazy Taxi. It’s the worst, most obnoxious kind of “lad magazine” bull shit. The kind of thing that led to The United States Armed Forces Presents: G4 TV, the one-sided feud of Gamers vs Roger Ebert, and the subsequent We Demand To Be Taken Seriously games “journalism” of today.

Games do not need that sort of pretentious, elitist validation. Despite everything in this incredibly shitty, toxic industry, the actual games it produces are more than capable of being appreciated on their own terms. Games are very much an artistic medium that can bring out emotions and feelings that other mediums can’t do, or can’t do the same way. Doesn’t matter if it’s Nier Automata or some Pac-Man bootleg you downloaded in a MAME ROMset, they are both important and appreciable on their own merits. And if you’re going to attach this garbage “Vodka on the rocks” aesthetic to games, at least actually play the fucking things, instead of using the same tired writing cliches of the vapid, flighty reviewers of the past.

shocking news: fighting games take time to be proficient at

do not call your pokemon article “yellow peril.”

Damn…this was supposed to be a post about cool things on the Archive. I guess my teenage memories didn’t hold up to my nearly 35-year old tastes. Let me see if I can’t salvage this and find something else that’s actually cool.

NG Namco Community Magazine

Namco Community Magazine was a Japan-only publication done by Namco themselves. If you are familiar with the Namco Museum Collection, you’re seen a few of these covers before. Being entirely in Japanese, I can’t exactly do much with these other than look at the pictures, and I imagine that this was similar to a Nintendo Power-like “buy our games because they are cool and the best and girls will suck your dick if you play” glorified advertisement. But fuck it, I’m a sucker for old Namco shit.

PC-ENGINE DRUAGA REMAKE!!

That’s it for now. I’ll be coming back to this subject again in April.