State of The Site - March 2006
-David, webmaster DVGI

It's been a long time since I wrote my last editorial and even longer since my last review.  Additionally I've gotten some e-mails about the lack of real updates to the site lately as well as why everything here is written by me and me alone.  After some time I've decided to sit down and explain the past year or so of the site as well as answer the frequent questions concerning its future.

To begin, there are a number of reasons why there haven't been many reviews as of late, many of those I feel don't need to be discussed in a public forum.  However there are some reasons that I feel should be expressed.  First I honestly haven't had the drive to play many games lately.  I recently got over an illness that had me down for a couple weeks not to mention the winter olympics were taking place which causes me to typically kill any other plans.  Seriously, if you want to catch the live curling coverage at 3am and then the later games at 2pm, and not miss the speed skating at 11pm that night and the biathlon at 1am following, then you really don't have time for much else - not to mention sleeping in between and so forth.  So I was sick, then the two weeks or so of the winter games meant that for nearly a month I was busy with other things for the most part.  Additionally I was doing real world employment stuff during what daytime hours have been available since.

Next up, I've been spending a lot of time finalizing the hard restoration on my vintage pachinko machine.  I say "hard" restoration as in internal and operational stuff.  Soft restoration has also been progressing, things like painting the outer frame and so forth.  Working on the machine usually takes up the better part of a day or into the night.  Sometimes I don't figure something out until two or three o'clock in the morning and work begins then, spilling over into the next day.  Nearly a full day can be taken up while working on modifying some video game systems for sale as well.  Namely I've been performing full US/JPN mods to some Sega Genesis 2 units.  The mod switch installation doesn't take all that long, however widening the cartridge slot and testing, taking pictures and so forth takes time.  Before then the holidays were taking place which were rather full as is understandable.

Aside from that I really haven't been playing very many video games, no reason in particular.  Perhaps the current face of the industry is just boring.  Maybe it's because we're on the horizon of a new hardware cycle.  Could be because I don't have vast disposable income as I did years previously.  What ever it is, it's going to change starting next week.  I've figured out a daily schedule and if I can keep to that then I'll have more than enough time to write, at minimum, one review per week.  I've continued to contribute to Retrogaming Times Monthly as well as the Digital Press forums.  Actually now that I think about it, the Digital Press forums take a couple hours a day to keep up on - and that's really just Classic Gaming, the Technical and Restoration Society, and the Buying & Selling threads.  That's something that won't be changing however, I enjoy the community (especially the Technical and Restoration Society) and have both learned and contributed quite a bit to the daily issues that come up there.

Next up of course, is the question I get asked every now and then, why does everything on the site have me listed as writing it?  Well, that is because I'm the only person at this time that has written anything directly for this incarnation of the site.  Although people have come and gone as part of the Insane Team, I am the only person who has directly contributed site features.  However saying that I'm responsible for all the content here isn't true.  Yes, the actual content is 100% written by me but in some cases there's more to it than that.

For example Ian has played through some rather difficult games which have expanded my understanding of key parts of popular genres and franchises.  We have teamed up to complete a number of games without using any cheat codes or special features.  Among these are Grand Theft Auto III on the PS2 and the Legend of Zelda Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages games on the Gameboy Color.  When I say the Zelda Oracle games on the Gameboy Color, that includes the insanely difficult and nearly impossible combined quest.

Now for many years, if she knows it or not, Susan has been essential when I need Japanese text translated.  She has translated random Japanese for me when ever I ask, for no reason other than being a good friend.  This stretches from emulation developments I've done to game information, some translation guides that I am working on and even stuff with the pachinko machine.  I really don't know what I'm going to do without her and she's been a great asset to me both personally and professionally for a long time now.

Chris helps me with technical issues through other sources such as a blog we both post on.  So as anyone can see, while the Insane Team may not directly write content here, they are important and do contribute just the same.  Yet I'm always looking for more people that would like to directly write reviews and editorials - it would help the site to greatly expand.

Other than that there have been a number of technical fixes put into place this week.  Those have to deal with pages that are artifacts from earlier versions being cleaned up, updated, or removed.  Additionally I've put in a number of accessibility fixes to the site, namely putting a main index reroute link at the bottom of pages that cannot be traced back independently.  That helps people that reach specific pages through external links or search engines get back out to the main page and view the site as intended - with the navigation frame on the left.

Well that should do it.  This year has been even more of a random mess so far than the last one but that's changing now.  As always if you have any questions, comments or would like to contribute to DVGI, I encourage you to send me an e-mail using the link below.  Thanks again for visiting ClassicPlastic.net and David's Video Game Insanity.
 

Written on 03-03-06 by David, insanedavid@classicplastic.net

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