PixlBit

My preferred method of beating Ridley was to simply jump into the lava pit underneath him and blast away at him with the Wave Beam, jumping to reduce energy loss from being in the lava. :)

I don't think either of us ever beat Metroid in a short enough time to get the ending where she strips down to a bikini, Another possible reference to the Alien movies, which loved showing Sigourney Weaver off in her undies or less, LOL.

Happy birthday buddy!

I've thought about going into game design, but using RPG Maker to make my own RPGs. Now If I could just stop being so lazy busy....

I loved the Gamecube. That it hosted my favorite Zelda games alone, plus Metroid Prime and cult gems like Tales of Symphonia, made it a keeper for me. I don't know if I would say it was better than PS2, which had a fantastic library, but I certainly thought it was better than the original Xbox.

Metroid was right behind Zelda on my list of NES favorites. The graphics and memorable music gave it an atmosphere that was unheard of in console games at the time. 

It's a bit rough to play these days, because Super Metroid (heck, even Metroid II) improved so greatly on the mechanics. I primarily play it as the unlockable in Metroid: Zero Mission. Ridley was also super-easy to beat in Metroid with just the Wave Beam, while Kraid was much harder.

On the Samus gender thing: My totally-in-denial best friend when I was that age argued that Samus was a male rock star like Keith Richards, I argued that she was female.

Fun fact: "Samus" is the feminine form of the common Irish name "Seamus". That would have settled the argument right there if Seamus/Samus were common names for Americans ("Seamus" is the Celtic version of "James"), but that was lost on us.

Congrats on the fun gig! I really hope you enjoy it. If I were in Oklahoma instead of Maryland right now I'd definitely drop by.

Don't have an X1, or I'd definitely be down for some gaming!

I never had an Apple II, but it was ubiquitous in schools and my aunt, a fourth grade teacher for the Gilbert (AZ) Unified School District, had one.

On the subject of the 5200, stay tuned for my next blog after the TI one...

There's plenty of Atari stuff that's obscure too, and a lot of it is better than the 2600 was. :)

Oh, I had one of those too....