Category Archives: Metal Jesus Likes

Metal Jesus Likes

the tech inside your credit card, explained

Video Leave a comment

🕰️ It all started in the 1940s…

Legend has it, in 1949, a man named Frank McNamara went out to dinner in New York, realized he forgot his wallet, and did what any great innovator would do: got embarrassed and invented a financial revolution. Thus, the Diners Club Card was born — the first credit card. At first, it was basically just a “gentleman’s IOU,” used at fancy restaurants so you could pretend to be rich while actually being very much not.

💳 The 1950s-60s: Birth of Plastic Fantastic

By the late ‘50s, Bank of America decided IOUs were for amateurs and launched the BankAmericard (later known as Visa). It was sent to random Californians like a financial bomb — unsolicited, physical cards mailed with zero consent, just vibes. It was the original “you’ve been pre-approved,” except you didn’t ask, didn’t want it, and now you owe $500.

This was the era when banks realized, “Wait a second… what if we charged people… for borrowing their own future money?”

📈 The 1980s: Interest Rates and Wild Capitalism

Credit cards really took off during the age of big hair, big shoulder pads, and even bigger debt. The marketing was seductive: “Buy now, pay later… or never, as long as you’re okay with 22.99% APR.”

Consumers didn’t blink — they were too busy buying cassette tapes, microwaves, and other artifacts of modern living. The phrase “minimum payment” became financial code for “this problem is Future Me’s responsibility.”

📱 The 2000s and Beyond: Tap, Swipe, Cry

Enter the digital age. Cards got chips, then they got “contactless,” and now you can just wave your phone at a terminal like a financial wizard. Spending money has literally never been easier — or more terrifying.

Meanwhile, credit scores became the adult version of GPA, but with more existential dread: “Want a house? Better hope your teenage self didn’t miss that Hot Topic store card payment in 2008.”

💡 In conclusion:

Credit cards are humanity’s way of saying:

“I want it now, I’ll worry later, and please don’t show me the statement.”

They’re a magical portal to convenience, a slippery slope to debt, and an iconic symbol of modern life — like jeans, but with late fees.

Metal Jesus Likes

The Ultimate Imagic/Atari 2600 Tier List – ALL RELEASED GAMES RANKED

Video Leave a comment

Ah, iMagic — the game developer that sounds like a magician got lost on their way to an Apple Store.

This was a company forged in the golden, lava-lamp-lit age of the early 1980s, when every game idea was apparently greenlit with the question, “What if we made it… sparkly?” Founded by ex-Atari employees (read: rebels with a joystick), iMagic was part of the original console wars — back when pixels were a bragging point and “16 colors” was considered high-tech wizardry.

They cranked out titles for the Atari 2600 and Intellivision with names like Demon Attack, Atlantis, and Dragonfire, which all sound like heavy metal albums or energy drinks your mom warned you about. The games themselves were basically fever dreams: aliens swooping, dragons spitting fire, and cities blowing up with all the subtlety of a Saturday morning cartoon.

In the early ’80s, iMagic rocketed to fame faster than a kid mashing the fire button. Their games looked slightly better than Atari’s — a fact they clung to like a life raft on the pixelated sea of competition. But alas, the Video Game Crash of 1983 hit them harder than a poorly timed laser blast in Demon Attack, and iMagic vanished from the scene faster than your older cousin when it’s time to share the controller.

In short: iMagic was like the glam rock band of early game developers — flashy, bold, gone too soon, and still making retro gamers sigh dreamily into their CRT monitors.

Featured, System Reviews, Metal Jesus Likes

Amstrad GX4000 – Review & Overview

Video Leave a comment

Ah, the Amstrad GX4000 — the gaming console equivalent of bringing a water pistol to a laser tag fight. Released in 1990, just as Nintendo and Sega were busy high-fiving their way into history, Amstrad strutted into the scene with all the confidence of a dad at a rave. Clad in a futuristic white plastic shell that looked like a prop from Knight Rider’s deleted scenes, it promised to bring 8-bit magic to your living room — assuming, of course, you could find one of the ten games that actually worked on it. With a controller that felt like it was designed by someone who had only heard of video games, the GX4000 was less “console of the future” and more “forgotten VCR that someone put buttons on.”

Technically, it wasn’t terrible—it could do a decent side-scroller if you squinted and used your imagination. But in a world where Sonic was doing loops and Mario was breaking bricks with his head, the GX4000 was mostly known for porting games from Amstrad’s own CPC computers. Translation: your console games looked suspiciously like something your uncle was programming in BASIC in 1986. Still, there’s a kind of endearing charm to its plucky little heart. Like a Yorkshire Terrier barking at a T-Rex, it had no idea it was doomed — and bless it, it never stopped trying.

Featured, Metal Jesus Likes

Graphical tricks in classic video games – Your questions answered!

Video Leave a comment

Here’s a list of graphically impressive retro games—with a side of snark and nostalgia:

🎮 1. Donkey Kong Country (SNES, 1994)

“Rendered so hard, your SNES needed a juice box after.”
Rare flexed its silicon muscles with pre-rendered 3D sprites that looked like someone stuffed a Silicon Graphics workstation into a banana.

🕹 2. R-Type (Arcade, 1987)

“Scrolling left to right never looked so aggressively biomechanical.”
This game made you question whether Giger was moonlighting as a sprite artist. Also: lasers. So many lasers.

🦑 3. Ecco the Dolphin (Genesis, 1992)

“Because nothing says cutting-edge like an emotionally haunted dolphin.”
Wave effects, lighting, parallax scrolling—and existential dread? Ecco had it all.

🕯 4. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS1, 1997)

“Come for the vampire hunting, stay for the unnecessarily fancy capes.”
2D never looked so lush. Every hallway looked like Dracula’s interior decorator went to town with a velvet fetish.

🚀 5. Star Fox (SNES, 1993)

“Polygons so sharp they could cut your lunchables.”
The FX chip said “screw pixels” and gave us wireframe dreams rendered in what felt like 4 FPS, but we loved every choppy second.

🏙 6. Shadow of the Beast (Amiga, 1989)

“The graphics were so good, nobody noticed the game was impossible.”
16 layers of parallax scrolling because someone clearly had something to prove.

🌈 7. Chrono Trigger (SNES, 1995)

“Time travel, techy wizardry, and sprites with more expression than most actors.”
Akira Toriyama’s art came to life like a pixelated anime fever dream, and the backgrounds were works of art.

👾 8. Metal Slug (Neo Geo, 1996)

“Beautifully animated chaos. It’s like Looney Tunes joined the army.”
Every explosion was lovingly hand-drawn by someone who really wanted you to enjoy blowing stuff up.

💀 9. Doom (PC, 1993)

“Yes, it ran on a potato. Yes, it still slapped.”
Those pseudo-3D corridors and pixelated demons were revolutionary. Also, 90s kids’ first intro to heavy metal and Hell.

👁️‍🗨️ 10. Out of This World / Another World (Amiga/SNES, 1991)

“When minimalist polygons punched you right in the feels.”
Rotoscoped animation and cinematic presentation that made you think, “Am I playing a game, or watching a French art film about loneliness?”

Want a ranking based on how hard they flexed their consoles? Or ones Claude might enjoy watching with you in a few years (minus the demon hordes)?

Metal Jesus Likes

Kill the Chainsaw Sisters in 1 second | Resident Evil 4 Remake

Video Leave a comment

Defeat the Chainsaw Sisters in 1 second: Resident Evil 4 Remake. Pretty clever!

Resident Evil 4—the game that asked, “What if survival horror had an insane amount of roundhouse kicks?” and changed the industry forever.

You play as Leon S. Kennedy, a man whose hair is impossibly perfect for someone who spends most of his time dodging chainsaws and fighting cultists in a grimy Spanish village. His mission? Rescue the U.S. President’s daughter, Ashley Graham, who has mastered the fine art of getting kidnapped and yelling “LEEEON!” at the worst possible moments.

Gone are the slow, tank-controlled zombies of old—this time, the enemies are faster, smarter, and way too into agriculture (seriously, why does every enemy have a pitchfork?). The villagers, infected with Las Plagas, don’t just shuffle around groaning—they full-on sprint at you, throwing hatchets, chanting ominously, and occasionally sprouting tentacle-heads just to keep things interesting.

And let’s talk about the Merchant, the game’s true MVP. This gravel-voiced entrepreneur appears everywhere, somehow dragging his entire arsenal of guns and rocket launchers through haunted castles and underground labs just to say, “What’re ya buyin’?” Legend.

Resident Evil 4 also gave us the most action-movie moments ever crammed into a horror game—outrunning a giant mechanical statue, suplexing cultists, a knife fight on top of a table, and an entire section where Leon rides a jet ski because, at that point, why not?

It’s over-the-top, ridiculous, and absolutely one of the best games ever made. 10/10 would suplex a monk again.

Metal Jesus Likes

First Look at the NEW Phantasmagoria 2.1 version!

Leave a comment

Paul and Daniel will unveil the new and improved version of Daniel’s brilliant Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle Of Flesh fan game (currently titled Phantasmagoria 2.1). This game allows our fans to virtually join the Wyntech family and participate in its continued development.

Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of Flesh—the sequel that nobody really expected, and even fewer understood.

Where the original Phantasmagoria was a gothic horror story about a haunted mansion, the sequel decided, “Nah, let’s get weird.” Instead of ghosts, you get corporate conspiracy theories, BDSM hallucinations, psychosexual trauma, and a pet rat named Blob (who, let’s be real, is the real MVP of this game).

You play as Curtis Craig, an office worker who’s having a bit of a rough time—what with the terrifying visions, dead co-workers, and the nagging feeling that his employer might be up to some very unethical science experiments. The gameplay is classic ’90s FMV (full-motion video), meaning you’ll watch actors awkwardly deliver lines while clicking on random objects in the hope that something will advance the plot.

The tone is all over the place—one minute, it’s psychological horror, the next it’s workplace drama, then suddenly, boom, surprise dominatrix romance subplot. And let’s not forget the truly bizarre twist ending that makes you go, “Wait, what?”

Was it good? Debatable. Was it a ride? Absolutely. Phantasmagoria 2 is one of those games you don’t just play—you experience it, like a fever dream brought to you by late-’90s Sierra, back when they were just throwing money at FMV like it was going out of style.

Metal Jesus Likes

Ranking and Reviewing Mindscape NES games

Video Leave a comment

JohnRiggs – Mindscape published many games that people have heard of, some ported from computer, some ported from other companies. Heres a look at all 20 games from Mindscape for NES.

Mindscape—the gaming company that was like that one friend who almost made it big but kept tripping over their own shoelaces.

Founded in the early ’80s, Mindscape tried its hand at everything: educational games, adventure games, simulation games—basically, if there was a genre, they threw something at it to see if it would stick. Sometimes, they struck gold (The Chessmaster, Prince of Persia ports), and other times, well… let’s just say they had a talent for making games that made you wonder, “Who asked for this?”

By the ‘90s, they had their hands in everything from DOS classics to weird licensed tie-ins (The Terminator, Mario Teaches Typing—yes, that was them). But as the gaming industry grew into a high-stakes blockbuster business, Mindscape, bless their hearts, kept plugging away with a mix of hits, misses, and “Wait, they made that?”

In the 2000s, they did what many game companies do: get passed around like a hot potato in a series of acquisitions before fading into the gaming history books. Today, they live on in the memories of ‘90s kids who remember booting up Reader Rabbit or getting inexplicably frustrated at Madeline games.

RIP, Mindscape—you were weird, and we kind of loved you for it.

Metal Jesus Likes

Champ Games 2024 Homebrew GAME RANKINGS for the ATARI 2600!

Video Leave a comment

The Atari 2600 was the OG console, the granddaddy of gaming, and the reason your parents thought “video games” meant Pong. Released in 1977, it was basically a wood-paneled time machine that transported families straight into pixelated bliss—or chaos, depending on who got stuck with the unresponsive joystick. With its faux-wood trim, the 2600 looked less like a gaming console and more like it belonged in your dad’s rec room next to the shag carpet and avocado-green sofa. But don’t let the retro aesthetics fool you—this machine was a beast in disguise, packing 4 whole kilobytes of memory. That’s barely enough to save a Word document today, but back then? Pure wizardry.

The games were simple yet maddeningly addictive. Who needs a cinematic cutscene when you have a square pretending to be a tank in Combat or a rectangle heroically rescuing princesses in Adventure? And let’s not forget the iconic controllers: single-button joysticks that felt indestructible until you got mad during a Pitfall! session and threw one against the wall. Atari 2600 games had something for everyone, whether it was dodging missiles in Missile Command or, uh, experiencing the infamously terrible E.T., which taught us all an important lesson: even classics can have their flops. It was crude, charming, and occasionally frustrating, but the Atari 2600 was the spark that ignited the gaming industry. Without it, your PS5 would just be a really expensive Blu-ray player.

Featured, Metal Jesus Likes

Sega Neptune Project – a Sega Genesis and 32X onto a single board

Video Leave a comment

The Neptune Project: ► Project Github: https://github.com/Board-Folk/Neptune ► Follow COSAM: https://x.com/cosam_the_great?lang=en

The Sega Neptune, the Bigfoot of gaming consoles—some say it existed in prototype form, others claim it was just a fever dream brought on by Sega’s caffeine-fueled brainstorming sessions in the ‘90s. Either way, this mythical beast was supposed to be a Sega Genesis and 32X hybrid, combining two things that Sega fans already had separately into one convenient package…

Why Was It Special?

  • It would have saved gamers the hassle of duct-taping their Genesis and 32X together like a Frankenstein creation.

  • No need for extra cables! (A big deal in the era where Sega consoles needed more wires than a ‘90s home office.)

  • It had a cool name! Seriously, “Neptune” made it sound like it could survive in deep space… unlike the Saturn, which actually launched and promptly sank like a gas giant in quicksand.

Why Did It Never Come Out?

By the time Sega was maybe, possibly, sort of ready to release it, the Sega Saturn was already on the horizon. Sega realized that selling a console that was technically two years outdated was probably not the best strategy—although, let’s be honest, that never stopped them before.

Thus, the Neptune was unceremoniously abandoned, joining the ranks of lost Sega hardware like the Sega Pluto and the Dreamcast’s dignity post-2001. Today, it remains a legend, whispered about in retro gaming circles—the console that could have been, but probably would have been a bad idea anyway.

Featured, Metal Jesus Likes

The Rise and Fall of the SSX game series. 😢

Video Leave a comment

The SSX series is what happens when someone says, “What if we made snowboarding… but completely unhinged?” and then followed through with maximum chaos. Short for Snowboard Supercross, SSX first launched in 2000 and instantly turned the slopes into a gravity-defying playground. Forget realistic snowboarding — in SSX, you could launch yourself 300 feet into the air, pull off a triple backflip while grabbing your board with one pinky, and still have time to wink at the camera before landing perfectly. The game didn’t care about physics; it cared about style.

Every SSX game had the same core philosophy: snowboard like you have a death wish, rack up points, and look cool doing it. The characters were all basically extreme sports superheroes — like Mac, the lovable goofball who treated snowboarding like a rock concert, or Elise, who probably did double backflips just to grab a sandwich. The courses were pure chaos, ranging from death-defying mountain peaks to neon-lit night runs, and the soundtrack? Absolute fire. (Jurassic 5 while shredding a glacier? Yes, please.) By the time SSX Tricky came out, the series had achieved cult status, teaching players that if you’re not pulling off a mid-air worm while flying over a bottomless ravine, are you even snowboarding?