LazyGameReviews

LGR - The E3 Experience

Finally, the first video from E3 is complete!

And at 43 minutes long, this ended up being a bit more involved than planned. Basically I cobbled together a few of the ideas I had for separate videos and put chunks of them all into this one.

Still not sure what form the other, more experimental LGR E3 video will take or when it will even be finished. But this one ended up feeling closest to an episode of Thrifts than anything else, which seemed appropriate due to the breadth of subj...

LGR - Back From E3! ...now what

Wow what a week! Had a fantastic time in Los Angeles for E3, from attending the convention itself, to trying out unreleased games and hardware, to simply hanging out with colleagues, friends, and fans every moment in between everything else. Each day was absolutely packed from early morning to midnight, and while it was exhausting this was easily the best time I've had at this particular show so far.

Thank you on behalf myself and my brother Luke to each of you who made this such a memo...

LGR @ E3 2019! Plans and things.

Greetings folks! How goes things? Cuz for me it's an unusual whirlwind of activity, haha. I've mentioned it a few places already (including erm, the title of this post) that I'll be attending E3 2019 in Los Angeles. Woo!
While this is not my first time attending, it's certainly the first time that I'm attending with the central goal of grabbing LGR video content. It's also the first time I'll be there solely under the LGR banner as a "member of the media." And while I enjoyed attending wit...

LGR - DEC VT320 Terminal from 1987

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuZUPpmXfT0

Got a rather special little video for you! I mean, it's nothing terribly dense or mind-blowing I guess, but it's special to me personally anyway.

This is a Digital Equipment Corporation VT320-C2 computer terminal from the late 80s. Amber monochrome screen, 16K of RAM, Intel 8031 microcontroller, and total reliance on outside systems to do much of ...

LGR - Cities Skylines Campus Review

So I've been away on an unplanned trip for about a week, but I'm back home now and jumped right into working on this one. Got the review code before I left but yeah, life has been absolutely surreal lately, haha.

Probably gonna post this on Monday and then put something else together real quick before I leave yet again. Will be going to LA for E3 in June, more on that as it draws closer!

Star NX-2420 Part Deux: Color Dot Matrix Success!

After sourcing not one but TWO new old stock color ink ribbons, I've put together a lil follow-up video regarding the Star NX-2420 Rainbow! This'll go up next Monday as an extra video in between the normal scheduled Friday things.

And wow, 24-pin color dot matrix images and banners honestly look so much cooler than I even anticipated! The simple joys of retro computing continue to amuse. Had a lot of fun putting this one together, which I think is probably evident from some of the extr...

LGR Thrifts - Episode 42

Aw yeah, new Thrifts. Hope this one sparks joy!

LGR Oddware - DECtalk PC Speech Synthesizer

Another of those items I've always wanted to talk about, so here we go.

Gotta love old school speech synths and the fact that this one is contained on an ISA card for use with DOS PCs? Doubly enjoyable. Hooray for full-length ISA cards!

While the original DECtalk is pretty well-documented, this PC version has proven to be trickier to figure out. Took some time to track down the right software and I haven't found out how to completely customize the voices through a terminal, but ...

LGR - Star NX-2420 Color Dot Matrix Printer

YEAH DOS.

YEAH DOT MATRIX PRINTERS.

YEAH, I don't know why I made a half hour video about this. Can't say that was the initial runtime, haha.

But here we are. Turns out I have a lot to say about this thing. It's oddly fun tech to revisit and there's a bunch of fun stuff to try out. Hope you enjoy!

Unboxing a Color Dot Matrix Printer

EDIT: This has been updated to the full video now, but still includes the unboxing section!

This video is only the first part of an upcoming LGR episode, but due to some extenuating circumstances I'm not sure when I'll record and edit the remainder of what I have planned. Like, y'know, actually setting the thing up and demonstrating using it.

As a result this is literally just an unboxing of a Star Micronics NX-2420! The video as it is here won...

Looking at the OQO Model 02: 2007's smallest Windows PC

Finally got this video put together! I've wanted to talk about it more in-depth ever since mentioning it in my Strangest Computers of the 2000s video.

Thanks to a helpful LGR viewer hooking me up with one that actually works (mostly) I am happy to present this look at the OQO Model 02. It runs the full version of Windows Vista, but no, it does not run Crysis.

LGR Edutainment Month - Castle of Dr. Brain

And thus ends another Edutainment Month. This month seriously flew by, good grief. Will be nice to get back to the usual LGR fare though.

Happy to finally have this game covered as well! Classic Sierra edutainment goodness. The Dr. Brain games have been requested for years, especially ever since I covered Dr. Quandary and confused a bunch of folks on accident, haha.

LGR Edutainment Month - Typing of the Dead

"I have made a creature to rule over mAnKINd!"

Okay, this game is debatably edutainment. The built-in teaching aspects can be completely ignored.

And yet its educational qualities rise straight to the top no matter how you play. Has there even been a more effective typing tutor program? Probably not!

Hope you enjoy this second entry into Edutainment Month 2019! Got one more title to go, not entirely decided on what it'll be yet. Lemme know if you have suggestions...

LGR Tech Tales - Ancient Computers of the IRS

https://youtu.be/qL5ut8o5pfs

Ever since the Tax Day outage last year, I've been wanting to cover this story on Tech Tales. And even though April is usually Edutainment Month on LGR, it's also tax season, so this feels like the ideal time!

So yeah, turns out the IRS is home to the oldest IT system in the United States government, around 60 years old at this point. And in 2018, there was a serious failure that ma...

LGR Edutainment Month - Rescue the Scientists

https://youtu.be/2yaLcnGDlvY

April means edutainment on LGR, and 2019 is no different!

Throughout the month I'll be covering two or three entertainingly educational software titles, with the first entry being this somewhat obscure one from 1994.

Rescue the Scientists was not only the final Redwood Games release (following in the footsteps of Pickle Wars, Math Rescue, and Word Rescue) but it was also the ...

LGR - Unboxing April 2019

https://youtu.be/qBT8t13Cdik

Haven't done one of these since last year, but here we go again!

Another round of goodies sent to the LGR mailbox. Thanks for all your support :)

LGR Woodgrain 486 Upgrade! Windows 3.1

Just in time for the 27th anniversary of the retail release of Windows 3.1!

Been a good number of months since I added 3.0 to the Woodgrain 486, but we're picking up right where we left off. So long 3.0: you were interesting, but not very useful. Now it's time for the 1992 Windows experience.

We're installing the operating environment, upgrading VESA video and Sound Blaster drivers and software, testing out some MIDI music and various applications, and of course a few classic Wi...

LGR - Restoring a 1999 Gateway Essential 450 PC

Got an early look at an upcoming video for ya!

But yeah, I've had this machine lounging in storage for years, but now it's finally time to give it some much-needed attention. This is a Gateway Essential 450 from 1999, a Pentium III-based Windows 98 PC that came with Gateway's own versions of the 3dfx Voodoo 3 and Sound Blaster 128.

Decided to get this one back up and running again so I can send it off to a friend of mine. His own machine finally crapped itself for the last time ...

LGR - Nick Click Digital Camera from 1999

"DO THE NICK CLICK!"

Whatever that means.

Yeah, it's another retro digicam video! And this one is easily the lowest-end one I've covered so far, both in terms of build quality and feature set. 160x120 resolution is... exactly as terrible as it sounds, haha. But endlessly amusing nonetheless.

Plus that software package! So many 90s Nicktoons to manipulate. Enjoy :)

LGR - Empire Earth Review

One of my favorite real time strategy games from the turn of the millennium. As a huge fan of Age of Empires, this was mind-blowingly fantastic back then.

Cavemen versus mechs! Ancient Greeks versus B-52 bombers! Yourself versus janky AI! Woo!

And now, it's finally time for a retrospective. No particular reason why I'm doing so right this moment, there's no big notable anniversary I'm aware of. I simply FELT LIKE IT. YEAH  🤘 

LGR - The Sims 4 StrangerVille

Say hello to the TWENTY-SEVENTH pack for this game. And it's a strange one.

LGR - Unboxing An Unused IBM PC Convertible

Always been rather captivated by this machine. Not only was it IBM's first laptop PC and their first with a 3.5" floppy drive, but its industrial design and convertible nature is downright awesome. And that dot matrix printer around the back! Ahh, I love it.

Planning to cover it more in depth in the future, but until then it's a more relaxing event. Unboxing an unused machine, accessories, and documentation, then setting it up and checking out its basic functions. And BASIC function, t...

LGR - The FOR-A VP-380 Video Pointer

Grabbed this little device a while back after haphazardly browsing some medical surplus auctions. I was immediately amused by the whole idea of a thousand dollar piece of equipment from the 80s that does nothing other than generate arrows and plop them on top of composite video signals, so here we are. It isn't very well known, but it existed and it makes me happy that it did.

Pretty straightforward video, put most of it together while I was still recovering from sickness over the past...

LGR - My First Keyboard (It's Peanut Butter-Proof!)

It's peanut butter proof! And syrup proof. And milk proof too, kinda.

Yes it's the Kidtech My First Keyboard, hitting the market in 1994 after a toddler named Troy ruined his family's computer by banging on the keyboard, apparently.

Sure it's just a colorful membrane keyboard with a bunch of missing keys and some basic input lockout features. But whatever man, it's PEANUT BUTTER-PROOF.

LGR Early Look - Elastic Reality: How They Made Animorphs Covers

UPDATE: The final version is now posted. Dropped in some footage of the books themselves, fixed some of my dialogue, added a section showing my own "Animorphs cover" coming together like you see in the thumbnail, and generally tweaked a number of segments.

Anyway yeah, lemme know what you think! I've wanted to talk about morphing software for years, and once I found out how it was used for making Animorphs cover art the rest of the video idea came nat...

LGR - SimCity 30 Years Later

So the original SimCity is about to turn thirty years old. Good grief.

Still have such intense memories of playing it at seven years old. And looking back on it, the impact it had on me was at least as intense.

No way I was going to let this anniversary pass by without a retrospective. And I took the opportunity to explore some new lighting and a slightly different format/scripting style than my previous game reviews. Felt fitting here.

Hope you enjoy this one!

LGR - Kodak DisplayMaker Video Graphics System

EDIT: I've added a new logo intro that I've been experimenting with. May not keep it, but oh well, trying things out! Also added more footage from Computer Chronicles, tweaked and augmented the script here and there, and a few other assorted things.

Got quite a few requests to cover this when I received it in a donations video last year! The DisplayMaker is a fascinating thing and apparently quite obscure.

Released in 1988, it's a PC-like desktop presentation creation s...

LGR Oddware - Spacetec SpaceOrb 360

Heh, ahhh now this is something that's fun to finally have covered. Had requests to do an Oddware episode on it for years and it's taken just as many years to find one complete like this.

But here we are, the Spacetec IMC SpaceOrb 360 RealLife 3D game controller! It's as real as your own life... maybe even more, somehow? I dunno man, their marketing was absurd. The product itself is slightly less absurd, but only a little. It's a re-imagining of the Spaceball products used in CAD/CAM w...

LGR - Building a Lego NES Console (now with full build video)

EDIT: Got a bunch of requests to upload the full-length build video. So here ya go! There's no commentary or music or anything, just slow methodical brick assembly.

Haven't done a Lego build in quite a while! Received this one in the most recent donations unboxing and decided to give it a go. Ended up a little larger than anticipated but still, it's neat that it has a working door and houses a Raspbe...

LGR - 2018 Retrospective

Dude. It's been a year.