For the benefit of those out there
who don't know you, why don't we start off with you telling us a bit about yourself,
including real name, what you do in Real Life, family, pets, interests, and whever other
details you think will help to fill folks in on who you are.
Well, my Real name is Matthew Elzer. Currently I do nothing in real life, I used
to run a cybercafe, but it closed, and I am currently jobless. I have an ASS in Computer
Science (Programming : Visual Basic, Turbo Pascal - RPG400, CL, COBOL) My family consists
of my wife, and 2 year old son. No pets, and no real interests. I am of course big into
Video Games and Computers. My favorite color is green, and I am a “cancer” -
astrological sign ;>
Like myself, you have started to
make a name for yourself by doing Interviews. Tell us a little about your site,
EliteGamer.Com and give us a quick list of some of the folks you have interviewed.
Well “elitegamer” was actually registered by one of my real life
friends, “ZeroT”. We originally intended for it to be an overall gaming site,
but he grew tired of working on it, and it laid dormant for a couple months. I was into
emulation at that time, and started working on a NeoRage FAQ. I was going to post it on
the site, but as I worked on it, I realized the FAQ sucked - So I started working on an
actual site. I posted a couple chat captures with people like chemical and apollo69. Well
when I noticed people really liked that, I decided I wanted to interview people… So I
started looking for who people found exciting… everyone said people like NAZ, DRAC
(Gekko), NeoRage Team, Sardu… well 3 down, 1 to go… I am looking for Sardu, I
doubt I will find him, but it is fun to try :>
I see that your site recently
underwent a major face lift. Care to tell us about the person who did it?
VNG… hangs out in #NeoGeo on EFNet a lot… Really good guy… We
posted a place for people to “APPLY” to elitegamer… we need people for GFX,
etc… and he “applied” and sent some work. I was so impressed, I found him
in chat and told him we wanted him to help out! There’s a couple other people out
there still doing some site renovation stuff for us, hopefully some of it will come in
soon, and we may use their stuff too.
Let's get into some interesting
stuff here which you may or may not know about. In refrence to your Interview with Anders
of the NeoRage team, I have a few questions. First off, you make mention of the NeoRage
hack. Can you explain briefly what the NeoRage hack is?
Basically the hack was the removal of CRC-checking… making it possible to test brand
new dumped games… personally I see this as an error in NeoRage’s part…
obviously if you have something like that, it is going to cause someone to
“hack” it, to remove it… just as bleem will not support CDR’s.. but
someone will hack it to do so. (I obviously agree with bleem’s decision to not
support CDR’s - because of legality - just using it as an example.) NeoRage had their
reasons of course, and the most important was they didn’t want people to be trading
games without giving them to the public.
And who, if you know, made the
NeoRage hack?
Heh Heh, I think I better leave this one alone.
Why, Do you fear retribution from
whomever it might have been?
Well technically more than one person hacked NeoRage… Some people/person did
it for a good reason (and I don’t feel they should be made a fool of)…. The
distributed “hack” was more than likely made by someone OTHER than the
people/person mentioned first… and I don’t know who they are… the
person/people I do know, didn’t distribute their hacked version.
What is your opinion on the NeoRage
hack situation?
Ehh.. I would be pissed if my program was hacked too… but as Anders
said… it wasn’t so much that it WAS hacked.. but WHO hacked it.
Has anything new happened in
regards to that situation?
Nah, CRC-Check has been removed (in NeoBeta) and now it’s a thing of that
past.
In that same interview with Anders,
he makes mention of the fact that the next release of NeoRage will be the last ever. Are
you aware if this is still the situation?
To my knowledge it is, I don’t talk with the Rage Team… I never see em
But I haven’t heard any different!
Moving on, what is your evaluation
of the Emulation scene in regards to NeoGeo, Psx, and Arcade Games?
Hah Hah! Babies…. The scene (as far as I am concerned) is degraded by the
fact that the majority of the people are leeching weasles… of course there are people
out there that aren’t that way. But you know the saying, One bad apple ruins the
bunch. I for one will be happy when the final NeoRage comes out, and CD Support, and Sound
are available, and KOF98 is dumped… I have a feeling that a lot of people will then
“drop out of the scene”… I just hope people like Apollo69, Chemical, Naz,
Org, and AraCorn keep dumping the remaining “unwanted” neogeo games. This jerk
accused me of stating I had the mame beta 6 (note: mame b6 doesn’t exist yet…
there is a mame.exe that has b6 as it’s version number, but since it hasn’t
“been released” it doesn’t “exist”) and he said some pretty
crappy thing about me… Personally I don’t care… but I never told him I had
b6. I’m not much in to Arcade Emulation, I played a lot of the games as I was growing
up, but there are just to many games to pick from Lastly, PSX, I am excited about it, I
have used PSEmu Pro a couple times, runs pretty slow for me. I am a beta tester for bleem,
and should be getting my copy of the beta on Monday the 26th, very excited about that!
You mention KOF 98, as you have
also done in some of your own interviews. What side of the fence do you stand on as to the
viewpoint that some people have that this game is "too new" and should be
considered warez?
Anything that causes a software company to lose money from pirated games, IS
warez… If I download kof98, it isn’t warez… I’m not going to buy the
game, therefore they don’t lose money. If some dude makes 300 copies of KOF98 and
sells them, that IS warez. So my official position is “none” I would rather not
see the dumpers dump KOF98, because I don’t think the majority of the people in the
scene deserve it…
If you are anything like myself and
a lot of other folks, you spend a good deal of time on IRC. Where on IRC do you hang out
regularly?
My “normal” chan’s are : #neogeo, #bleem, #cps2 (locked chan) and
sometimes in #psxdev or #psemu It depends where my friends are hanging out, but I am
almost ALWAYS in the first three chan’s.
Have you met most of the people
that you have interviewed via IRC? If not, where have you met them?
Most all in IRC. bleem was the first e-mail interview.
What type of preparation routine do
you go through when you are conducting an Interview?
I spend several days asking people in the chan what they want to know, but
don’t want to ask… that’s where I get 90% of my questions. Then I come up
with the rest by thinking of things that didn’t come up, and I wand to know. Lastly I
add extra questions in as the interview goes. I try to group the questions in categories,
that way if the interviewee says something related to another topic, I can ask a question
from that, without looking like I am jumping all around That’s about it…
If you would, can you discuss in
particular how it is you came to be aquatinted with the Author of BLEEM?
Basically, I looked at the validity of a PSX emu, and decided that bleem had a
damn good shot at being real… so I asked around to see if anyone had gotten an email
from them, someone game me the email address, and I mailed them. “bleem” was
very happy to fulfill my request for an interview. After that, I applied for best tester,
got on, sent several emails back and forth, until he trusted me enough to talk to me.
(Ahem) (cough)(cough) I,
uhhhh.....don't suppose you'd care to give me a world exclusive, and tell me the identity
of the Bleem Author?
Heh Heh.. I wish I could… basically all anyone will probably ever know is
the company “bleem” makes the ‘bleem” emulator…. I don’t
think he will ever tell people who he is, because he is just the programmer, not the whole
company, and he probably doesn’t want to answer questions all day.
You mentioned that the company
"Bleem" makes the "Bleem" emulator. Is this a public or private
company? What information can you share with us about this company?
The only info I have on “bleem” that I can share is… “bleem
llc” makes “bleem” emulator (PSX emulator) and they are in California.
There is one programmer, and several other (no telling how many) people helping
(Marketing/Sales who knows what else). This is my current “undestanding” of
bleem llc, if it is wrong, it’s wrong, but that’s what I “know to be
true”…
Let's discuss BLEEM for a bit. You
are pretty much on the record as believing that it is a REAL emulator. Discuss with me, if
you would, the things which have led you to form your opinion as it currently stands.
If I am not yet, we can go on record, Yes I do believe bleem is 100% real. It
would take me a couple days to tell you everything that allows me to believe it is real,
and some I can’t say but some of the main reasons… Screen Shots : to good to be
faked, especially those with the purple lines on them. The bleem author seems to know what
he is talking about… he answers questions in email VERY quickly. Why would anyone go
through SO MUCH trouble to prove something is real, and to fake an emu of this type, with
absolutely NO personal gain. As I said, this could go on for days… I’ll stop
there...
With respect to the issue of Beta
testing, I'm sure a lot of folks are asking themselves this question, which is: "I
wonder if his having interviewed the author or possibly even knowing him is what got him
onto the Beta test team or if he had to go through the application process just like any
of the rest of us?" Care to address that one?
I had to fill out the same form everyone else did… but I am sure the trust I built
with an interview made it easier to get on as a beta tester.
Myself, I have to wonder, what
could possibly be gained by someone attempting a fakeout of this size and magnitude. What
do you suppose will be the fallout behind this emulator on either side of that coin? I
mean if it's a fake, what do you think will be the reprocussions? And if it's real,
well...A few people are gonna be having Crow for supper. Your thoughts?
I hope people like crow I don’t see any reason to discuss this, things that
have been said to me by “bleem” have been recorded the whole step of the
way… through emails and such, for them to turn around, and say it was fake, would
surely mean that people would be hassling this guy for quite a long time. That’s not
something he wants. I don’t see him seeking “fame” no one even knows who he
is… It’s just WAY to much to put into a fake emu.
But surely since he has gone out of
his way to maintain his anonymity, should this prove to be fake, he would be pretty much
shrouded from any hassle, so in that respect, he stands to lose very little?
He has gone out of his way to stay “unknown”… but I can assure
you, if it is fake, I will make sure everyone knows who he is -- however, I don’t
need to worry about that, since it’s real.
In regards to the BLEEM Challenge,
tell us quickly what it is, and have you had any response so far?
Basically, he asked anyone to make screen shots such as his, in 2 days time, (he
did his in 10 minutes)… Everyone said they were fake, and he asked them to duplicate
the “fake screenshots”… as far as people trying None, Zilch, Nadda, Zero,
etc ;>
Take me through what the logic is
behind BLEEM not allowing CDR's to work with it's final release? I mean, if it's allowed
to play them in the Beta but not in the Final, what's the diff.?
The beta is for testing, lets say 30 -> 40 get that, it won’t be fully
functional, but it will support CDR’s… Main reason to allow CDR’s in this
release? So that the testers can test as many games as possible… the reason for
blocking it later? If they allow CDR’s to be played on it, basically they could be
sued for making it so easy to pirate games, or that they failed to stop something they
could have easily avoided.
But don't you think that someone
will certainly attempt a hack to remove this CDR protection scheme?
Somebody DEFINITLY will… but that isn’t the point… you can’t
expect Sony to sue bleem because some 14 year old kid cracked his CDR routines… As
long as bleem stays on the legal side of the tracks, then I believe they will be ok.
Anything else you wanna say in
regards to the whole BLEEM deal?
nah, it’s coming soon enough… enjoy the wait! ;>
Now that we got the tough stuff
outta the way, let's get down to the real deal. What Emulator do you play with the most
and also what games do you play on it?
To tell you the truth, I don’t play Emulators that much :> Currently I
have been playing no$gb the most, with neorage coming in second. Pokemon on GB and I was
playing Panic Bomber on NeoRage, but I beat it… so I need to find a new puzzle to
play (I HATE most Fighters).
In order, list your top 5 favorite
games of all time.
I can’t say them in order, and it’s not all “single” games...
but my favorites are probably Zelda Series, Mario Series, Final Fantasy Series, Both Tron
Arcades, TMek.
Ok, here's one of your own
questions right back at ya. If you were a tree, what kind of tree would ya wanna be and
why? :)
Heh heh… I dunno.. I just like silly questions and seeing how people
re-act… I guess I would be a Pine Tree… cause they aren’t so ugly in the
winter :>
As long as we're on the silly
stuff, how do you get that crazy Y thingie in the second part of yer nickname?
¥? Hold the ALT key, and type 157 on the keypad (to the RIGHT, not the row
numbers) - let go of alt, and presto!
Well, that's about all I have for
now. Any final thoughts you'd like to get out to the public?
I would ask people to read more, and talk less… the interviews people like
us do are a GREAT resource for finding good information.. there isn’t one this in the
world I hate more, (besides spiders and needles) than a person who comes in to a chan and
asks a question I answered in an interview 2 days ago :>
Thanks for yer time D.Y. and keep
up those fantastic Interviews! :)
Yup Yup, Hopefully, if people allow me to continue, what really makes the
interviews good, is the people that allow me to do it, and answer the questions without
saying “I can’t tell” a lot And of course all the great people that help me
with the questions! I would like to say a HUGE HI! To all the peeps in #neogeo on
EFNet… The're my “internet family” and without most of them, I
wouldn’t even have the want/drive to get information out to the public.
Hey, you said "I can't
tell" about the BLEEM authors identity! C'mon, what's up with that?! ;)
Heh Heh.. If I could I would, but I would hate to think how much the project
would be pushed back if he was being bothered by people all day long… and I
wouldn’t get anymore secret info ;>