Some warm Saturn memories

    The temperature drops, snow covers the ground and you can see your breath as you talk to your friend outside. You talk about holiday plans, family you still need to shop for and the general busyness of the season. Warm nights spent inside with family by the fireplace’s gentle warmth enjoying time together. Sitting in bumper to bumper traffic listening to the same cheery song on the all Christmas station. This time of year is synonymous with all sorts of special moments and memories. Video games in particular can be the catalyst for deep long term memories and the seeds from which nostalgia grows. From a gift from a special someone, to the time spent enjoying quality time together. When it comes to myself and the Saturn this is around the time I came across a local ad for a Saturn game that would start  my collecting and help me eventually build deep and lasting memories with new friends and newish to me games.

    Burning Rangers was always a game I kind of knew about back in 1998 reading gaming magazines. The SEGA advertising with a fireman in a kiddy pool always stood out but I don’t think in the way SEGA intended. I was never sure what the game play was like due to lack of video at that time. Around this time last year I saw a local ad for Burning Rangers, I knew it was rare and expensive as one of the last US Saturn releases but it was in very good shape and cheaper than eBay. I took a small risk since I had no clue what it was like just that if I didn’t like it I could sell it or trade it. Built as a show piece as to say “Here is what Saturn can do in the right hands.” it’s little more than a glorified tech demo with some anime cut scenes. Luckily I love what’s here, I decided I wanted to share my new found joy with like minded people and I had recently joined the Junkyard by ways of the Dreamcast Junkyard in hopes to finally connect with people who like Saturn and want to talk about it.

 

 

    It was wonderful as I shared my new found love for Burning Rangers it turned out other people also shared their love of Burning Rangers and it turned into quite the phenomenon. A warm inviting atmosphere where people shared tips, memories and maybe have even started some small friendly competitions. It was then I knew yes this was worth joining this group. Talking with the admins and seeing the active role they play in the community is impressive. The way there is always an active member ready to share their Saturn experience. As I learned things about Saturn and played more games I returned the kindness and shared whatever I could, engage in whatever activities I could. Like in April when Sonic R stole the show and warmed our hearts with sunshine. I hadn’t a Saturn copy to join in the group time trials so I used my Game Cube copy in a pinch just to see what all the fuss was about. I’m glad I did because it opened my eyes to how good a game Sonic R is.

    It’s the passion and energy that you feel from Titancast, the YouTube team and the Facebook group that can make you look at a game in a new way that makes you revisit it with new perspective and that’s what’s so great about the Saturn Junkyard, people making games exciting even some of the lesser known US games like Casper or obscure Japanese exclusives like Cotton. The last year in ways has felt like it’s 1996 and I’m ten years old again talking about games on the schoolyard. Getting a boxed Saturn, getting Dragoon Saga and experiencing all the games I saw in magazines and more has been a mixture of surreal and childlike glee. Every Saturn game I buy is a new adventure, a new experience I can’t wait to share with friends and hopefully in 2019 we’ll continue to make more deep lasting memories around Saturn.

Back on tracks

Hi folks! How ya doin'? I surely missed you! Lately my life has been a bit crazy, with many things taking up my time, and sadly I ended up neglecting this place a bit. This is not to say I'm totally back, but I'll try to drop by more often.

First things first, the header picture was gone. Or at least in my browser it was. As a good Portuguese man, I did nothing and waited, hoping that it would eventually come back by itself. It didn't. So, thanks to the wonderful website that is the waybackmachine, I managed to track down the old header and put it back on. Hope you'll like it.

Second, I got myself a new rig! (that's slang for a computer). It's a fucking beast, a quadcore 2,50 GHz CPU, with 4Gb of RAM and a HD4890 graphics card. Guess what I'm playing? That's right, fucking Panzer Dragoon Saga!


Now, now, that's not to say recent games suck, I'm not that kind of retrogamer. In fact I love new games and that was partly why I bought the new pc (the other part was, my old one sucked!), and I'm also playing Crysis, and Call of Duty, and more recently Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. But this is a Saturn place, so it's convenient that I talk about my Saturn games, and after neglecting the game for a couple weeks (setting up a new pc is hard work, I had to install the OS myself and all that shit) I finally went back to it. Last night. At 2 am. Nice!

Third, recently I got a fellow pc gamer who used to have a Saturn when he was younger to get back to it thanks to the wonders of the SSF emulator. That's what was missing in his life and he's a happy man now. Emulation, turning grown men into little kids since 19xx...whatever...

And basically that's it, got nothing more to say, so goodbye all and make sure you take good care of this little shrine while I'm gone :)

Happy Second Birthday SJY!!!

Thanks to two computers packing up in my house recently (my laptop power lead snapped where you plug it in and my PC has just given up and died) I've been unable to do much in the blogosphere of late... Having finally wrestled my son's laptop off him for about half an hour and so much has happened since I last checked in.

The first, is the most welcome addition to the family of newest contributor Martin (see below.)

The second is that I've missed the announcement of the second birthday of the Saturn Junkyard! DOH! So even if it is a few days late, may I take the opportunity to thank all our contributors, commentors and readers for helping to keep the memory of one of the finest consoles of all time well and truly alive.

Things may not have been a tad slow round here for a while due to the reasons mentioned below by Nebacha, but rest assured that there will be plenty of Saturn love posted here before our third birthday in December 2009!