aderack's New Writeups

VMU (thing)

2000-01-21T19:28:57Z

Visual Memory Unit (also known as a VMS in japan) -- Sega's most recent contribution to the art of gaming.

The VMU is essentially a memory card for the Dreamcast console, though with an LCD screen and buttons attatched. They can be used as portable extensions to console games. When inserted into slots in the Dreamcast controller, they act as a secret window which only that player can see.

Quite a nifty innovation. Sony's attempt to copy it, the PocketStation, has flopped.

Video Girl Ai (idea)

2000-01-21T19:28:02Z

A well-orchestrated OVA series (with a terribly rushed, ill-conceived ending that strongly deviates from the source manga), wherein the lonely Youta, in a moment of woe, stumbles upon a mysterious video store and rents a "video girl" tape starring a girl named Amano Ai. One broken VCR later, a malfunctioning Ai comes out of the television, determined to complicate Youta's life as much as mortally possible.

Shucks (idea)

2000-01-21T19:16:34Z

"Consarn it!"
"Darn!"
"Aw, heck!"

Yes, another entry into 1920s-1950s "childhood slang." As with most other examples, little more than a euphemistic replacement for slightly stronger verbiage (in this case, obviously fecal in nature).

Doki Doki Panic (thing)

2000-01-21T19:16:01Z

The original Famicom Disk System game which was raped and turned into the American Super Mario Bros. 2. All that was really changed were the intro, the swapping of DDP's middle-eastern characters for their very similar-looking Mario Universe counterparts, and the addition of a "run" button. The "real" SMB2 was only released in a couple of compilations in the U.S., as the "lost levels" and so forth.

Why Nintendo did all of this is beyond me... Beside the fact they're Nintendo.

D-pad (idea)

2000-01-21T19:15:37Z

The common means of directional control on home console-based gamepads, the D-pad is usually shaped as a plus sign (with each point connotating a direction of movement) or some variation thereof, and is usually positioned toward the left side of a controller.

The concept of the D-pad was originally conceived by Gunpei Yokoi for the NES controller, and then was adopted nearly universally.

start button (idea)

2000-01-21T19:15:35Z

A standard on arcade machines for years, yet, in 1985, an innovation for home consoles. Gunpei Yokoi's clever NES controller design contained, among other odd characteristics, a small, auxiliary (non-"action") button labeled "start." This button, in most games, served both to begin play from the title screen and to pause within the game. Quite a neat idea; the SMS had to rely on a "pause" button stuck on the console itself, reulting in bruises as one dove across the room to hit the thing.