RPG Cast – Episode 689: “Enthusiasm Crushed”

1. When I was a kid, I would pray for rain so I could play video games because otherwise I was kicked outside to read (or “run around”) before baseball games. I also spent a summer umpiring, and can still hear one team’s chanting from the bench in my head on occasion.

   Also, since I was travelling and didn’t get to hear 688 until after 689 was recorded: the “wrestling company with game characters” was called VGCW (Video Game Championship Wrestling) and it should still be on YouTube.

2. Looking back I guess I did spend a lot of time indoors either playing mostly PC games or d&d. But I mostly came here to say I’d like to hear more Tina Turner covers by Chris.

3. I played a lot of games fit around chores. It’s not RPG related, but one of my strongest summer game memories is playing Wing Commander 3. That was the first Wing Commander game that incorporated live-motion video and starred Mark Hamill. The cast was impressive, the graphics looked amazing and I was incredibly hyped to play it. Unfortunatly this was a cutting edge game in the time before graphics cards and my PC fell below all the minimum specs. Nevertheless, I was undaunted; I had to roll the dice and try to play the game. Amazingly, it ran but not without some significant compromises. The game is split between space combat and FMV stuff on the Carrier and whenever I started the game or swapped between the combat/FMV modes I got load times. The worst load times. Epic load times. 20-40 minute load times. My memory of the summer it came out was do the FMV stuff, swap to space combat and hit that 30 minute load time. Go and vacuum the house. Come back, do the ~10 minutes of combat, and then another 30 minute load time to get back to the FMV stuff. Go take out the trash. Rince and repeat. Thinking back it’s amazing that the game still worked when my hardware was so obviously not up to the task and it’s perhaps more stunning that I had the patience to put up with the load times that resulted.

4. With my Dad being Military, many of my summers were spent moving.

   Uhm lets see there was the summer of 86 moved from Rhode Island to Hawaii.

   Then there was the summer of 88 when I moved from Hawaii to Virginia Beach, we stayed with my Grandparents in New Mexico and ended up taking a trip to Disney Land around my Birthday.

   Then every year for my birthday, cause it falls at the end of summer, we would go to Bush Gardens Williamsberg. I remember one time, we road those one ride with giant waterfalls and my feet got so prunie that they hurt really bad.

   Then summer of 92, I moved from Virginia to New Mexico as well. THen, most of the summers I would spend either hanging out with at my Grandparents (they had a pool and only like a block away), playing Tennis, bike around around a really hilly area, or playing video games.

5. Besides playing video games and watching TV, I often went to a public pool to swim with family and friends. We would often go to the beach on weekends as well. There is a local amusement park called Adventureland that I often went to as a kid. There were many family vacations to places like Niagra Falls or to visit family as well.

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