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Improbable Lobster posted:I love Illbleed I came as fast as I could. Which is my usual response to Illbleed.  It's not totally reliable but I've noticed that the graphs for several systems on VG Pricecharting have seen a downturn over the past year and a half. The Saturn, Dreamcast and PS1 have all seen dips and even a lot of Nintendo's systems have level off. You're never going to get your Marios for fifty cents from little old grannies yard sales but I think that the climb is over. Seems like a lot of the common popular NES games have already seen a small decline in the same time. 2-3 years ago I was routinely seeing SMB2 for $20, Contra for $40, Zelda for $30, and all of those are about $5-$10 cheaper at this point.
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Oct 17, 2017 19:07
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I would blow Dane Cook posted:three years from now Super Baseball 2020 will be real. Then I cannot loving wait. "Now we set the crackers!"  Jokes on them though, the average baseball stadium is already full of crackers eyyyyyy. 
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Oct 21, 2017 15:05
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Sir Tonk posted:And ten years from that we get bill lambeer's combat basketball. I only regret that I will not live to see the Basewars of the 24th century. 
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Oct 21, 2017 17:57
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widespread posted:Ahhh, okay. I'm amused that that is the way it goes about "slowing" the game. IIRC it's also hilariously useless because you have to hope you've managed your button presses while the game wasn't paused.
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Oct 22, 2017 13:17
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Random Stranger posted:Those are good! Or at least they were the best 2600/C64 controllers available at the time. I just got one of those in a random lot of broken dirty stuff and sold it for $30.  It just needed a cleaning. I'm kind of stunned that anything remotely related to Atari is worth anything.
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Oct 22, 2017 14:46
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Ineffiable posted:Wow someone else actually mentioned Sanvein. Funny story. I have a sealed copy I picked up for about five bucks at a local game store. They had two more copies. There are still loads of copies on Ebay for less than $10 too.
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Oct 22, 2017 19:25
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One of these days alien archaeologist are going to be picking through the bones of our crumbled civilization. They'll find an NES and marvel that we built elaborate tombs for dead insects. I just want you to know that the heap I found was kind of like a miniature tumbleweed.
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Nov 12, 2017 05:04
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Metal Geir Skogul posted:This is a Sega Saturn promo tape. Uhh... I'm aroused and confused.  I've seen these before years ago and I think at the time it didn't bother me because it wasn't out of line with all the other weird poo poo Sega put out. That and I would've been a teenager who had poor taste in everything. Actually, the sphincter ad seemed really crappy. 
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Nov 16, 2017 03:18
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TeaJay posted:I just got myself a Dreamcast and I'd like to know some good games that are not on every top10 list! aka the non-obvious gamers' essential pickups. I'm a bot that solely exists to bring up illbleed when people ask this thread what they should be playing on the Dreamcast.
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Nov 27, 2017 21:16
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Uncle at Nintendo posted:OK this is hilarious because I just bought the mini arcade cabinet one yesterday while I was at Target because they had them for $8 there (looked like they were clearing them out). What's on those things anyway? I'm assuming it's a bunch of low quality 8-bit game clones. I need to drop by Target anyway, might give this a shot if they're around here for $8. Related; Christmas is coming and I need to finally get off my rear end and get my father some way to play NES games again. He's pretty much wheelchair bound now so I need something with wireless controllers and that he can switch games without getting up. Looks like the best bet is probably to get a modded Wii but there's a few things I'm not certain about. Is a specific model required to mod it for an NES emulator? How hard/easy is the process? My family has $50 budget for gifts for each other for Christmas. I'd like to keep it in the ballpark but I'm willing to go somewhat over for this (and just not tell him) since he's homebound and I want to give him something more to do.
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Dec 5, 2017 19:05
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Thanks for the input. Yeah, my dad is 67 and not super tech savvy. Wii is probably the best route. My folks have a 30-something inch Toshiba flat screen I got him for his birthday a few years ago and it has hdmi and composite outputs, though he's not a huge stickler on picture quality and probably won't care much however its hooked up. The Big drat Deal is mostly if he can turn it on and switch games from his chair. Like he expressed interest mostly in Dragon Warrior but I'm sure he'd also like Zelda and a bunch of other stuff. He used to mash the buttons when he played Dragon Warrior, because when I was a kid I thought that doing that when you attacked helped and since I knew more about Nintendo than he did, he ended up believing it too and never got out of the habit. It's been years since he's had a Nintendo in the house and I hope he's un-learned that by now.
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Dec 6, 2017 05:50
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Have you considered getting him a SNES Classic? He was never really into the SNES. The wired controllers would be a no-go too unless they're super long. Edit: I guess I didn't mention, where he sits in the living room I can't see an average wired controller reaching from where a system would be hooked up. Quiet Feet fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Dec 6, 2017 |
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Dec 6, 2017 14:14
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Random Stranger posted:Not even Spear of Destiny... Pffft, that's that rip-off of Dr. Mario, right? 
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Dec 9, 2017 02:54
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Ambitious Spider posted:I unironically love: Second. Kid Niki is a pretty cute and fun action platformer. Haven't checked but I'd swear that's still a sub-$10 game. It's not terribly difficult, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective.
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Dec 10, 2017 16:24
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I had two NESs that wouldn't power on and just desoldered the power supplies from those and soldered in ones from a pair that would power on but wouldn't read games. It was a massive pain in the rear end and I cannot recommend doing this. I'm sad I missed out on those 3Do games but my system broke a while ago so I'd have had no way to play them anyway.
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Dec 19, 2017 23:01
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I tried setting up a Wii with an NES emulator but it keeps crashing. Which is moot because I'm only noticing, now that I'm over my cold, that the cords that came with it smell like stinky cigars.  Fuuuuuck, I guess I'll get my dad something else for Christmas and come back to this project fpr his birthday in February. 
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Dec 21, 2017 22:36
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PaletteSwappedNinja posted:Wii soft-modding is pretty straightforward, if you outline your process someone will probably be able to help you out. I bought a console that already had the HBC installed. I thought you could just install an emulator after that was in but I read something that said I need the Homebrew Browser to actually do that? Tried installing that but have had some problems with it. There are no images and it just crashes after a while. It's a little awkward to work on at the moment because I'm at my in-laws house and don't have a TV I can just leave it hooked up to. Edit: I tried working with this guide first and moved to another one when it didn't work. Unless I misread this it looks like you should just be able to play the emulator straight from the HBC screen after installing the emulator? Only I don't even have an option to do that, like it doesn't even recognize that it's there. Emulator is FCE Ultra GX and I used the version in the article, 3.3.4. Quiet Feet fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Dec 23, 2017 |
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Dec 23, 2017 00:17
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My father got me the original GC Windwaker for Christmas.  Playing through BotW right now and not sure if I want to do WW next or a playthrough of the original LoZ 2nd quest after.
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Dec 25, 2017 16:15
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Neddy Seagoon posted:But did he get you the version with Ocarina of Time and Master Quest on a second disk? My in-laws got that for me in 2009! I still haven't finished it. It was the same Christmas I finally got a Gamecube and was the first game I played for the system. I remember thinking that the Gamecube's graphics really sucked. Like what this looks like PS1 era graphics WTH Nintendo! 
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Dec 25, 2017 19:30
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I don't really set out with specific goals since I generally only collect what I can scrounge up. I have started pondering selling some stuff off with how my collection has grown, but I'm more likely to just throw some things into storage or move one or two consoles into another room. My collection is largely split between games I genuinely like and want to play and games that aren't worth the effort it would take to sell. And there is some more space in the den but I'll need to re-jigger the shelves. I'll probably get an N64 flash cart at some point because I'd like to check out the library but don't have any nostalgia for the system or space for yet another system's worth of games. More immediate goal: start tearing the plastic off of this Christmas's crop of new/sealed games. 
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Dec 29, 2017 21:59
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TVs Ian posted:Works on whiteboards if someone uses a permanent marker on it, I'd imagine it could work here too. I've had mixed results with it. Like everything from didn't do jack to wiping out 99% of the writing. Not a bad first option though. Mr. Clean magic erasers could wipe it out but that risks effectively scouring away the shell and leaving the texture smooth and weird.
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Dec 29, 2017 23:59
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It's a New Age Retro Christmas part 1: The Cheap Seats Greetings all!  It is that time of year again where I open up a bunch of new old stock to experience the wonders within. This is the third year I've done this. The first year had a lot of quality games, and the second year was more about quantity than quality. This year I hope to have a little of both. I've spent all year searching for deals on sealed games and have come away with a whopping 15.  But yeah, some of them are gonna be crap. On that note, let's move on to our first four entrants for the Sega Dreamcast!  NFL 2k1 World Series Baseball 2k1 NBA 2k1 Please don't leave yet. Please? There's one more behind these three that's actually decent. I got things to do, and so do you I'm sure, so I'm not spending a lot of time loving around with a handful of sports games. Say hello to Stanley.   These are the last of a 9-game lot I got last year, squirreling away half to make sure I had something to do in 2017. NBA 2K1 didn't come with anything extra but NFL 2K1 and WSB 2K1 have sweepstakes cards to win some arcade cab called Emergency Call Ambulance. Both games are also the Canadian versions, as noted by the extra french manuals.     So what more is there to say? WSB 2K1 has an interesting take on batting where you try to aim a target over the area you think the pitch is going. It's cool and I've never seen it before, but I either totally suck at this game or the batters swing so slowly as to render it moot. By the time I've moved the cursor where I think the ball is going, it's way too late to swing. Pitching is either a breeze or I'm a genius for striking out 2 batters in a row with nothing but fastballs. I liked fielding. Your players will reach out a glove to a nearby ball so you don't have to be absolutely perfect with your placement. NBA 2K1 has kinda slippery controls and it probably doesn't help that I don't care about basketball, but eh. NFL 2K1 plays similar to Madden but with a slightly more arcade-y feel. This is the first time I've ever picked up this game and I managed to knock the Cowboys (gently caress the Cowboys) into 4th and 26 no sweat, and scored a TD just 4 plays later. Music in these is nothing to write home about. Graphically the players are a bit blocky, but this was in the year 2000 and is about what you'd expect. They animate very smoothly though. Long story short: sports games, who cares. Moving on.  It's Space Channel 5! I've heard nothing but good things about this game, but it's a rhythm game, right? How good could it be?   Oh hey, that shape-shifting picture in the front isn't on the manual, it's a cardboard insert. There's a word for these and I cannot for the life of me remember it. Pretty cool though. Inside the case is one of those (kineto-something? Maybe?) picture cards with a bit if info about the game's protagonist, Ulala, the manual of course, another sweepstakes entry form for Emergency Call Ambulance and one disc in mint condition.  But anyway, I suck at rhythm games and have never been a fan. Lets' get this over with.  And 5 minutes later...  oh my god this is adorable!For what is basically a game of Simon, Space Channel 5 just oozes personality and at first blush is a great example of taking a simple concept and making it awesome. It's an apples to oranges comparison, but I opened up a copy of Zoop for this last year, which, while not a rhythm game, is also pretty simple at heart. It is also utterly devoid of any sort of charm. No story. Dull music. The same screen over and over again. Bland bland bland. Whereas how could anyone not fall in love with the retrofuture disco aesthetic that Space Channel 5 is rocking? And the strut Ulala and her rescued comrades do from scene to scene gives the whole thing a seriously groovy feel. I like what little I've heard of the soundtrack so far too. So that being said... I'm also bad at this. Maybe I should've just rode it out to the end, but I only do alright in the first stage up until the rooftop, where it seems like every button press must be a millisecond off or something. I would swear I'm getting them right, and input lag shouldn't be a problem since I'm playing this on a CRT, but past the first section everything starts to fall apart pretty quickly. it feels like either I'm missing something or the game starts to get brutally specific in short order. I end up stinking for several sequences in a row and then just reset. I wish there was a tutorial or a practice mode or something. Sadly, while the title screen actually has a "tutorial" option, this only brings up a list of commands and a controller diagram. I'll give it a few more whirls. I like quirky games and this one really fits the bill. Overall ratings NFL 2K1: Who cares WSB 2K1: Who cares NBA 2K1: Who cares Space Channel 5:  IIRC, these were all in the $5 range if I split the cost of the lot evenly. The sports titles weren't likely to impress but I figured I'd give them the chance to prove me wrong. Space Channel 5 typically runs in the $15 range for a new copy and I'd probably still drop that on it. Worth it for a fiver, though I'll be sad if I can't ever get past the first stage.
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Dec 30, 2017 05:26
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Baron Snow posted:It's a lenticular print. Thank you! Dammit I used to know that. Christmas Duke was actually a gift from goon Zari Gani for the Retro Gaming thread's 2013 Secret Santa. It remains one of my favorite Christmas presents of all time. 
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Dec 30, 2017 06:15
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It's a New Age Retro Christmas 2017 Part 2: You're stupid and clumsy and slow so you're perfect for the job I've pretty much started with the cheapest games and worked my way up the last two years. I'm sick of that, let's go for something pricier this time. It's Magic Boy!  Magic Boy was a late-era SNES platformer released by JVC in August of 1996. There seemed to be a surplus of copies going around Ebay earlier this year, and it wouldn't be the first time a good game got overlooked because it got overshadowed by next-gen hardware. The artwork looks kinda... low effort MS-dos edutainment-esque, which is a small red flag. But it's not like it would be the first game to have lovely artwork. Ala-ka-RIP!   Contents of box include Super Nintendo consumer info booklet, mid-90s gross-style Nintendo Power advert with a boot squishing a bug, registration card, manual, and game cartridge in plastic baggie with cardboard tray.  Hoo boy. "You suck. You are a clumsy, forgetful moron who sucks. It's up to you to save the wizard." What the hell were they thinking with this? What kid wants to play a character with that description? They should have added at the end "also, you're fat." I mean look at him, Magic Boy is a pretty husky lad. Not the most inspiring hero for a video game. Well, nothing left to do but pop this sucker in and give it a whirl. You have four worlds to go through and 8 stages in each. or at least, 8 in the first world. The basic goal of every stage is to stun and capture the animals, and throw them into the cages that are "totally off screen, we swear." This is accomplished by blasting an animal with your wand to knock it out, then walking over it to pick it up. You can carry a stunned animal with you for a little while but I have yet to see a need for this. Best to just press "X" and immediately get rid of them. No matter the animal, they make a sound like a cat when you pick them up. Cat? Sounds like a cat. Bird? Like a cat. Blue dinosaur? Cat. Sound effects are otherwise pretty stock. The music isn't much better. There's only one song per world and I can say that neither of the first two are terribly memorable. The theme of Sand Land is this sort of calypso music that sticks with you because it also has a little bit of a circus quality that throws it off. Like if you splashed a little Jaegermeister into a margerita, the result would probably be a similar. Graphics are nothing to write home about. The animals/monsters are pretty stock but everything is bright and colorful. There's worse out there on the SNES. It plays alright. Hewlett moves pretty quickly and controls mostly fine. The jumps feel a little slow and like you're getting a hair less distance than you'd expect. There are power ups and bonus items scattered throughout exclamation blocks the levels. Some are useful, like the one that gives Hewlett's wand a triple shot instead of the normal single. Others... not so much. There are items that make it so that you can only fire in one direction, which can be temporarily useful when there's an enemy in a place where you can't safely reach them with a normal, but these situations are few and far between and it stinks having to wait for that power to expire to finish out a level. You're also effectively on a time limit as animals you've captured will eventually make their way out of their "cages" and pop back into existence wherever they started the level. This can also mean that you need to re-capture with your base wand an animal that you used a power up to get previously, which can be risky. Some stages are a little trickier than others, and you do have a limited ability to select the order in which you want to tackle them. The first four world in each will be unlocked and you'll need to go through them to unlock the next four. I'm probably making it sound worse than it is. It's alright, but its the kind of game that you might've rented only if your first, second and third choices were gone. The kind of game that only your grandma would get you because even your parents knew, no, our little Timmy would think this looks lame. it plays like an early SNES game and they really didn't help themselves making their main character out to be some lame fat kid. Oh yeah, check this out. Didn't even notice it until I was putting the contents of the box back and the manual hit something.  It came with a poster. Who would be proud enough of this game or this character to put up this poster? No wait, was JVC proud enough of Hewlett the forgetful moron that they thought people would be jumping at the chance to express their love and admiration? What I find stunning about this is that it's apparently a relatively rare game. There were a slew of cheap, sealed copies floating around in January of 2017. A quick Ebay search right now only turns up one loose NTSC copy going for about $20. In comparison, there are SIX sealed copies going from anywhere between $70 to $260, and four of those are VGA graded.  I paid $40 for this one. It's not that difficult and I'll probably kick it around some more before declaring myself done with it, but it's not going to win any awards. I wouldn't say it's disappointing, just underwhelming. Skip it for the price. Alternately, if the price keeps going up I have one to sell. Worth-it-ness: 
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Dec 31, 2017 06:16
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I'm playing through Super Mario Land 2 for the first time and just figured out what to do with the coins. 50-up, first try y'all. 
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Jan 1, 2018 05:12
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Well, I was all set to do a writeup on Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings but my stupid laptop can no longer read how much power the battery has just shuts the gently caress down with no warning. So I'm gonna half-rear end this and call it a night. Released in late November of 1995, Izzy's Quest was set to commemorate the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and starred its mascot. Somebody must've had high hopes for him because there was also a cartoon made which apparently aired exactly once in TNT. Izzy's ties to the Centennial Park bombing are considered coincidental and he is no longer considered a suspect.    Goodbye plastic. Hello cardboard box and manual with laminated color front and back. That's a little unusual for a game released when the Genesis had one foot plus three toes in the grave. I've only ever encountered black and white manuals for Genny games in cardboard.   I have no idea what the drat face on the wall thinks is so funny. Initial thoughts on the animation are that it's pretty good. The developers apparently thought so to as they included an animation test for Dizzy on the options menu, which is actually pretty cool. Everything kinda drops off in the game though. Enemies, power-ups and even parts of the background are all animated, which slows the game down a little. Music is pretty forgettable. Dizzy controls with momentum, meaning he's not at full speed right when you hit the d-pad, and you need to wait a half second to get going. Jumps are extra weird. Dizzy gains momentum at the top of his jump. This takes some getting used to and the first few times at least you'll feel like you're not going to make it wherever you were leaping. Dizzy gets various Olympic sports-based powers like a baseball bat, fencing foil and... rocket-powered hang glider? These are situational and are usually used to progress past a specific point in a level. Izzy collects medals similar to how Sonic collects rings. Get a few and you can take a hit but lose the medals you've collected. Speaking of levels, they're long. Developer U.S. Gold was actually a British company, funnily enough, and this has a lot of Euro platformer characteristics. There are checkpoints in each level but you'll find yourself wishing there were more as stages tend to go on for a while. The level design isn't great and enemies are mostly of the ho-hum, wander back and forth variety. All in all, not awful but it's not going to win some kind of award. If only there was an apt analogy for this! Woeth-it-ness:  Want to say this set me back $8. Genesis version can still be picked up sealed for about $10.
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Jan 2, 2018 05:36
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PaletteSwappedNinja posted:A quick search tells me Izzy was made by a company called Alexandria Inc that only ever put out a few games, but the lead designer was a guy named William Anderson who did a lot of level design for the Virgin Genesis platformers (Mick & Mack, Cool Spot, Jungle Book, Aladdin) and they all had that meandering level structure. Ah, suddenly it makes more sense. Cool Spot is the only one of those I've played to completion but yeah, can definitely see the resemblance. There's a lot of verticality and you find yourself going up or down or left as often as right.
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Jan 2, 2018 13:49
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It's a New Age Retro Christmas 2017 Part 4: Cartoon Network Double Feature It's Cartoon Network Speedway for the Gameboy Advance and Xiaolin Shodown for the Nintendo DS! And these are licensed shovelware I'm assuming, so lets just get right to naked time.   It is amazing how much empty space there is in a GBA box.  Cartoon Network Speedway comes with its manual, tiny, tiny cartridge in a plastic baggie, and another one of those useless consumer precaution booklets that nobody reads. I'll be playing this on the best GBA SP ever.  Looks like this is going to be a pretty standard kart racer. On booting up, I'm heartened to see a bonus menu that shows a slew of various characters and tracks to be unlocked. Turns out there's a catch.   Only 6 of the 12 racers are playable right off the bat. Only 3 of the game's 12 tracks are available from the beginning. That...kinda sucks. Alright, I guess I could accept only half the game's characters but come the gently caress on, only 1/4 of the tracks? It controls well enough but I think that may be because there really isn't a lot of speed to speak of. Racers have stats in grip, weight, and speed, but I raced with each of them and didn't notice a significant difference in any for handling. Of the initial 6 (Cow, Chicken, Sheep, Johnny Bravo, Courage, and Ed, Edd and Eddy) the lowest speed rating is Cow, who has 4/7. She's also the only one where I could expect someone to catch up with me if I was in the lead. The initial batch of characters is so evenly matched that you'll pretty much never take the lead or fall behind just on your racing skills. Each track has at least one turbo boost strip and at least one shortcut and you'll need these to get ahead of the other racers because just being a better driver isn't really possible. The three initial tracks don't have much interesting terrain to speak of. It looks nice enough. The graphics are suitably cartoony and the music is bouncy and upbeat, if not really memorable. Just a really generic game all around. And why can't I play as the Clome? It's better than a clone, it's a clome! And then there's Xiaolin Showdown  I forgot to take pictures of this one.  It's a pretty standard 3D beat-em-up in an isometric view. You play as one of four characters: Omi, Kimiko, Clay or Raimundo, and must progress through each level beating up a few types of henchmen. There are standard punch, block and kick buttons and also combinations to throw enemies or to use special moves, which you can select before each stage. These require "chi" to power up, which you get by beating on enemies. A lot of beat-em-ups would use something like this as an ultimate, get out of stunlock free card. but these moves have short buildup times that render them not really useful for that. Not a complaint, just an observation. I played as everyone but Raimundo, and the differences aren't huge but they are there as far as I can tell. I had trouble jumping over a couple of pits as Clay, whereas I'm sure Kimiko would've made them easily. You gain medallions which you can turn in at the end of each stage for points to buy new moves. It's a nifty idea though I'm sure it's been done elsewhere. Graphics have that cel-shaded cartoon-y look and get the job done. It's an alright game for what it is and if you're starving for a portable punchy game it's fine. Now where it gets tricky to rate either of these games is basing them on a dollar amount. These were not originally part of my holiday plans. I got these on Ebay in a random junk accessories lot and thought they were just random boxes, so imagine my surprise. The lot cost $40 and there were a grand total of 23 items in it, so if you want to pro-rate that down per-item that leaves you with 90-something cents a pop. I've since made a little over $80 selling off about half of that lot. I'm sure I could math this out right and proper but lets just round off all the edges and say I was paid $2/ea to play these. Worth-it-ness:  You'd probably pay about $10-$15 each for sealed copies of these. These aren't the top of my list but what am I gonna do, complain about free games? Hell yeah these were worth it.
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Jan 3, 2018 04:16
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It's a New Age Retro Christmas 2017 Part 5: Time for Plan Bee Taking down Christmas decorations is depressing, so instead let's play a little Pinobee and Puzzle Star Sweep!   I hate these stickers along the top. Good thing physical media is more or less dead!   Nothing here but minty fresh cases, discs and manuals. Ahhh. Lets start with Pinobee. So the story goes that Grandpa Bee, who everyone generally agrees is a pretty nice guy, set out to create a robotic bee as a champion to fight evil. Just as he was about to finish, Grandpa Bee was stolen away, leaving the robot, Pinobee, without a heart. Time passes and a good fairy activates Pinobee, who is tasked with rescuing Grandpa Bee and does it not out of the goodness of his heart, but because he has nothing better to do.  The game starts out with a story told in stills of rendered 3d graphics. At a guess, they might've been thinking of going with an animated intro and just cut it short, for whatever reason. One possible reason is that this particular PS1 2D platformer was released in...wait for it... 2003. So, a 2D platformer released on a console that hated 2D games and that had been obsoleted three years prior. By the way, is anyone picking up a pattern here? Anyway, Pinobee was published by Hudson and developed by a company by the name of Artoon. The company was mostly made of former Sega developers, many of whom had worked on Sonic the Hedgehog. And it shows. Pinobee's controls are dead simple and run almost entirely through the circle button. Pinobee himself can jump, dash, hover and climb. Defeating enemies is done by jumping on them a-la Sonic or dashing into them, a-la... well, Sonic again I guess. Enemies are primarily insects of different stripes and while you are timed (more on that in a minute), they're relatively large and have a lot to explore. You collect flowers and various power-ups throughout the levels. of the power-ups, some go into effect immediately and the rest are stowed away and activated through a weird "hive" system that, afaict, works a bit like bingo.  If I'm reading the manual correctly, getting four items in a row gives you the effect associated with that row. So if vertical row 1 increases your health bar, getting items 1,2,3 and 4 across that row gives that exact bonus. I've only played four stages so far and didn't manage to activate any of these yet. It's a weird system but adds some depth. Speaking of depth, there's a golden insect in each level. Defeat this and the enemy insects in the next level will be weakened. Pinobee will also make a not of this in his diary. You'll have various goals in each stage that he will comment on in these entries. If he writes that he failed at something, it means you have something more do to. You can go back and visit levels you've cleared and will need to do so to accomplish some goals. Pinobee starts only being able to dash once before needing to recharge. Recharging only takes a second but you need to be on the ground to do it, meaning that higher platforms are inaccessible at first. Pinobee needs flowers to function and you can collect these in each stage. There are a ton and it's not likely you'll run out unless you're double and triple checking every corner of the level. It's similar to how the timer in Adventure Island worked where you need to constantly feed Master Higgins. I have yet to run out of time on a stage. You start out with a good chunk and there are plenty to collect. Playing this game is a breeze and almost feels weird with a PS1/2 controller. Scheme-wise this could have easily been done on the NES. The graphics are nice, bright, colorful and animate smoothly. Note that while I say they're nice, they're not amazing for the Playstation 1 and definitely not for that time period. There were for sure better-looking games out by then, including 2D games, but there's nothing objectionable and it's downright pretty. The music is upbeat and cheerful too. Like you probably won't seek this out to listen to outside of the game but it definitely fits the atmosphere and is generally enjoyable. I'm pretty happy with Pinobee, but I've got one more game to talk about, and that's Puzzle Star Sweep According to the manual, here's the plot: star-eating pigs fell from the sky and, thankfully, began eating all the multicolored stardust that was making things look weird. Children realized that they could poke the pigs until they threw up, and that if two pieces of stardust touched each other at the brightest points, they would disappear! I'm paraphrasing a little here but that is seriously the jist of it.   Yep, it's a puzzle game alright. Your star pigs throws up blocks with a bit of stardust in them and your goal is to match the stars to their corresponding blocks on screen. It's not enough to have two or more blocks touch each other, each block's start must be adjacent to be cleared. It's a bit basic, but not a bad idea for a puzzle game. This was released as part of the Agetec/A1 Games low-budget, "seriously why are you still here, go buy a PS2" line in 2001 and if that doesn't drive home just how far past its time Pinobee was, I have no idea what does. It's cutesy, and the visuals and sound fit it right. Nothing to write home about but they get the job done. It's about what you'd think for such a *drum roll* late release. There's a story mode that honestly doesn't seem to have an actual story. You play as [girl character on cover] and roam around challenging other people to star pig duels after trading some banter that sort of seems like someone tried to build a conversation with two chatbots talking past each other. I couldn't detect any difference in difficulty for any of the characters and was able to beat them in 1-2 tries max. Except for the boss. He's a huge difficulty spike and I gave up after the 19th attempt. It's fun enough. Will I play it again? Yeeeeah, probably. Not before a bunch of other stuff though. "worth-it-ness" just doesn't seem like an appropriate rating system the more I think of it. So let's go with Go-back-to-it-iveness: Pinobee - 9/10. Heck yeah I'll play this again I was enjoying myself and had to stop to write this. <  >Puzzle Star Sweep: 5/10. It's not bad. I'd play it over Zoop or Loopz or any other puzzle game whose titles mostly consisted of the letters O, P and Z.
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Jan 4, 2018 05:38
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Phantasium posted:The real hosed up bit about Pinobee is it's a PS1 port of a GBA game I can't unsee it now. But that makes a lot of sense. Enemies lack a lot of fine detail, and important stuff on a level tends to be super huge, like, well, it was made for a smaller screen. That would also explain why just about everywhere I looked only acknowledged the GBA Pinobee game. I thought for sure it had to be a sequel. Rollersnake posted:With Pinobee, I couldn't get over how badly it looked like a GBA to PS1 port, which I'm pretty sure it was. I'll have to give it another try sometime. I'm sure it looked back for the time. It's probably not so much of an issue for me because I never saw it when it first came out and 95% of what I play is retro stuff, so I'm used to my games looking out of date. I had Battle HUnter at one point and got rid of it because the randomness of the boards got on my nerves. Kinda wish I'd kept it because now I'm curious to take a closer look at the A1 series and it looks like it's jumped in price since then. 
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Jan 5, 2018 02:03
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It's a New Age Retro Christmas 2017 Part 6: Oil up the Middle and Watch Your Balls on the Edge It's Brunswick World Tournament Champions Bowling  This SNES game was a, you guessed it, late era release, and I feel like at this point I need to address the trend. It hasn't been my intention to aim solely for games that were released when their consoles were nearly dead. I'd started noticing the trend last Christmas but it wasn't until this year that it became so glaringly obvious. For every Little Samson or Hagane there are a handful of other, sometimes awful, sometimes adequate games that hit store shelves when the system they were on was largely forgotten. Frequently they come with a license that the publisher was able to acquire for cheap. Frogger, for instance, was the last official game to come out for the SNES and Sega Genesis in 1998. Anyway, nobody wanted these often niche titles then and presumably the publisher, in this case THQ, didn't give much of a poo poo how many copies were sold as long as they made a small return on an easy to make product. BWTC came out in August of 1997, one of the last dozen games released for the SNES. It's simultaneously low effort and high-functioning. I'll get around to that, just a sec...  Blurry riiiip!  Everything you need here for a balanced breakfast. Cartridge, box, cardboard insert, little plastic baggie, consumer info slip, registration card and manual.  Has the look of a late SNES cart. No back label and the front label looks and feels a little different from earlier games.  Holy poo poo, Mike Aulby! Really? THE PBA Hall of Famer Mike Aulby!?  I'm completely bowled over at just how much detail they included in the game. There is a roster of bowling champions, their earnings and their various championship wins. Every single one of these men looks like your best friend's dad, except for a couple who look like your deadbeat cousin who lives on your friend's dad's lawn in a Chevy Nova. Walter Ray Williams is the guy on the cover I believe. $641 for bowling in 1980. They actually included that. It's bizarrely fascinating. There's also a long list of other bowlers (I lost count but I'd swear it's over 100) who I suspect are real but aren't bowling big shots and don't get the detail treatment. You can also play as your own made-up character. Note that whoever you pick, you look like Bob Ross. Get used to the above screen. As for options, you can pick how you want the lane oiled, your brand and color/pattern of ball and how big your balls are. You ever wanted 16 pound balls? Live your fantasy here. The oil effects how your balls travel.   It’s easy to get into, and that might just be its downfall. There are no different lanes and there’s only one song. It is not what you would call catchy. Particularly not after playing for fifteen minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT3SldH1Xmg&t=31s And it should only take you about 15 minutes to master getting a strike, and there isn’t anywhere to go after that. Back-to-it-ive-ness: I’m not likely to play this ever again. It’s interesting in a weird, “okay… but why” sort of a way, and it’s not terrible, it’s just not much of a game unless you fantasize about being a weird dad in squeaky bowling shoes. I only paid $12, so 
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Jan 5, 2018 03:24
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It's a New Age Retro Christmas 2017 Part 7: Brevity is Wanted something quick so lets look at Desert Speedtrap starring Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote!  Opening.  Contents.     Box Game Manual Double-sided Mortal Kombat II and game catalog poster List of Brazilian Master System repairmen Registration card (fell out of manual) Cartridge comparison   Label is blue. Faceplate below and backplate have a sort of frame design. Label and plastic have slightly different texture. Game pics.   Levels are on a timer which is way too short. First two have Lots to explore but not enough time to do it in. Either get to the exit and see nothing or check everything out in 1-2 lives. Levels 3 and 4 are literally straightforward, dodging Coyote in a bus and just speeding through. These were fun. Level 5 is back to maze-y bullshit. Control is slippery. Yeah, alright, he's the Road Runner but come on. Meep Meep kinda sucks. Sounds alright otherwise. Some cool scrolling. Obviously not noticeable in pic but blue mountains, light blue mountains and sky all scroll at different speeds. Back-to-it-ive-ness: Eh. Probably won't play this again. Road Runner cartoons were my favorites of the original Looney Tunes but man, nobody knows how to make them into a drat game. Road Runner game ratings 1: Desert Demolition (Genesis) 2: Death Valley Ralley (SNES) 3: Desert Speedtrap (SMS) 4: Road Runner (NES)
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Jan 6, 2018 05:00
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Jimmy Smuts posted:I liked Bugs Bunny Rabbit Rampage Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday is the best Looney Tunes game for the SNES and probably overall. And not just for the acid trip that is the Alps level. I loving love that stage.
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Jan 6, 2018 18:18
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It's a New Age Retro New Years 2017 Part 8: It's not Christmas Any More It's Captain Skyhawk  Published by Milton Bradley in the beating heart of the NES's heyday, Captain Skyhawk went on to sell a billion copies and become the most beloved game of all time. Well, not really but they must've thought that that was going to happen because they made a shitton of them, and it's not impossible to find new copies for under $30 even now, if you're patient. But wait, something is wrong.  Hrm, no H-seam? Well, maybe MB did something unusual with their packaging? Wouldn't be the first time a company took some part of the process on themselves. Virgin made their own cartridges IIRC, notably with Overlord.  There is some damage on the box, which is not impossible with a sealed game, but the wear is minor and pretty evenly distributed. Usually if you see an issue it's a big one. The sealed copy of Ballz 3D I got last year had a big chip in one corner but was otherwise shiny and new. This seems just a little dinged up everywhere.  Alright, let's review what's wrong here. 1: No plastic baggie 2: No Nintendo power advert or registration card 3: Dust sleeve is on backwards 4: Manual is worn.  Well, I suppose this gives it away doesn't it?  It was bound to happen sooner or later. I dropped $15 on this, about as much as you might expect to pay for a CIB copy, so I'm not particularly upset. I'll be keeping the box for the loose copy of the game I already had and will just Ebay the cart and manual. Bought this months ago and had my suspicions after it arrived. I still cannot believe this game was made by Rare. I didn't initially remember that but it's pretty obvious from the graphics and sound effects, many of the latter of which are also found in Battletoads. Anyway, the book on Captain Skyhawks remains that it was a decent game that got overproduced. Could probably make a top 100 NES games list somewhere at the back. Moving on, since that was a bust lets discuss Mad Maestro!   Are you a bad enough dude to save your town's concert hall from being torn down? Well, slide this disc into your PS2 and find out. Bit of a change of pace as this was a 2002 release and thus not taking full advantage of what the PS2 had to offer. Not that they strictly had to for a game of this nature.  Standard fresh contents. The manual has a registration card attached and folded in at the back.  Moments after this message appeared I found a new and amusing way to electrocute myself.  This looks... complicated. So again, the premise here is that the fairy that resides in your town's concert hall has come alive and sought out you, Takt the conductor, to save the hall from being demolished. You do this by showing people how wonderful your music is. It's a pretty typical rhythm game as far as I know. Press the buttons on your control pad either softly, normally or hard with the rhythm to keep the music going, keeping aware of the tempo of the music and occasionally switching which part of the orchestra you're directing. You're graded on your performance at the end. Perform well and everyone's happy. Flowers bloom, the background dances and the sun shines. Perform poorly and people close their windows, the skies darken and you look like a jerk. There's a meter on your left that lets you know how well or how poorly you're doing. The nature of the game made it impossible to pause to take a picture, so instead have a youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pTCc_AuFlw I can't complain about the music: it's real classical music and sounds great. The game even advises you at one point to pump up the volume dawg. The graphics on this look like they could've just about been done on a PS1 and there's a jerky, almost stop-motion look to the animation. It's obvious in cut scenes but you'd be hard pressed to notice it during a performance when you'll need to keep up with the dancing dot. Unsurprisingly, I'm not good at this. I'm somehow better at it than Space Channel 5, which astounds me because Mad Maestro at least feels like a more complex game at its core. I managed a "C" grade on the first level with a lot of mistakes and I'll bet with a ton of practice I could move up to a "B". Back-to-it-ive-ness: Eh, I might check it out again at some point. The music is good, though these kinds of games are not my cuppa tea. Paid $8 for it and don't feel terribly let down at that price. Last game Quiet Feet fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Jan 8, 2018 |
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Jan 8, 2018 04:39
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It's a New Age Retro New Year 2017: Cold and Flu Season Did you think I was just going to scoop up some cheap copy of Dr. Mario? Nah, gently caress that it's The Mutant Virus  Mutant Virus: Crisis in a Computer World was released to a cold, indifferent world in April 1992. The computer that controls literally everything in the entire world has a virus, and it's up to you to clean it out, Ron. So put on your high tech shrinkydink suit, get into the miniaturizer and kick some computer virus rear end. The game was developed by a company called Rocket Science Productions, whose only other NES credits include Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure. I first played this via emulation ages ago.  Rip.  Now that looks more like a sealed NES game. Game in a plastic baggie, crisp manual, little leaflet that wants you to buy Nintendo Power, and a small sheet of paper to tell you that this will kill you if you have epilepsy. I want to insert some witty comment about having a fever for this game, or chilling with it or something, but I'm falling asleep here so lets get this done. Mutant Virus doesn't really have any close kin to compare it with, at least not on the NES. It shares a little something with Solar Jetman in that you've got a main character in a (sort of) spacesuit, and the control has a sort of physics to it. You zoom around from room to room in each level and attempt to disable the virus by blasting it with your "Vaccine Blaster." The gun has three kinds of shots: a long range shot that travels the length of the screen, a short range shot for when you have a ton of virus nearby, and an "auto" shot that detonates when it hits a virus particle. It's a little tricker than that and I'm a little bit foggy right now. This is one of those games where once you've fired off a certain number of shots, you can't fire off any more until they've hit something. As a result, the long range shot is frequently not that useful. Sure, you stay away from the virus, but your rate of fire is so low that it'll be swarming you in no time. Take a look at this.  This is a pic of a room in the second level. The green tiles with black dots in them are not only infected but have an active virus. These will damage you if you travel over them. The empty green ones were infected but free of the virus. Light blue squares, with or without the black virus particles, are those you've vaccinated, and you can do this to ordinary tiles or those with virus in them. The weird-looking pink areas are the walls. The player's avatar in this is the white blob slightly north of the exact center of the screen. There's a lot going on in any individual room, and if you get frustrated with one you can always back out of it and come back later. This will probably happen more than once. The first level isn't all that hard and gives you an opportunity to familiarize yourself with the controls, which are kind of odd. "B" sets you in motion while you can rotate yourself with left and right on the d-pad. Up on the d-pad boosts your speed significantly and down slams on the brakes, and that is where it gets weird. You need to be holding "B" while pressing down to brake. Imagine if you had to have your foot on the gas in order to work the brakes in your car. It's odd, and there's also no way to just slam yourself into reverse. Meaning if you traveled into a patch of virus and need to turn around, you need to rotate first. Figuring all this out in the first few rooms isn't that tough; the virus moves relatively slowly here and some areas have choke points where you can vaccinate to halt the spread. But Mutant Virus's gets tough as balls pretty quickly. Room designs in the second level are already much less conducive to containment, and the virus spreads faster. It gets frustrating when you spend 5 minutes blasting at the same patch and seemingly getting nowhere, or when you've got a room 99% done but one tiny little panel just will not die off. Thing is, I'm not sure exactly how the virus spreads and why it seems to pop up again in some spots and then in others, and the manual doesn't offer any hints to this, leaving you guessing as to why in any given room one area was easy to knock out but another is crawling back faster than you can blast it. Beyond challenging, it begins as action-packed and tense but can start to feel futile after a while. There's beeps and boops in lieu of music, so the sound is nothing to write home about. The graphics are pretty typical early 90s NES, meaning the developers obviously knew how to get some mileage out of the system's then decade-old hardware. It is kind of fascinating to watch the virus move and progress. Cut scenes between levels progress the story but it's a pretty generic tale. In the end, it's a really weird game with serious difficulty, and another of the slew I've opened that were developed and released when a particular system's successor was out. There are usually 4 or 5 NiB copies on Ebay at any given time, often in the $100 range. I managed to snag this one for $55. Back-to-it-ive-ness: Yeah, I'll play this again. I certainly won't be beating it any time soon. The spike in difficulty makes me wonder if there's something I missed somewhere or if my strategy needs refinement. I usually select the short shot and blast away as quickly as possible, keeping an eye on choke points. Which seems solid but Some Thoughts on This Pet Project This has been my third year opening up new old stock, and some of the shine is, admittedly off the apple. Opening up a sealed game for the first time is a pretty "wow" experience. The 35th time? Eh, not so much. Unless it turns out to be a really good game, then it's drat good. From this point forward I'll be focusing on quality over quantity. I was already doing this to an extent this year: the Dreamcast games and Desert Speedtrap were all 2016 leftovers, and Cartoon Network Speedway and Xiaolin Shodown were just two games I sort of feel bass ackwards into. Which leaves me with Magic Boy, Izzy's Quest, Pinobee, Puzzle Star Sweep, Brunswick Bowling, Mad Maestro and Mutant Virus. No AAA titles here but not the worst slate overall. I'd like to refine that further. My intent has always been to open up games that looked fun or that I hadn't played in a couple of decades and remembered as being fun. Maybe one lovely game just for the hell of it, but that's it. I'll be nixing sports games unless I find something both truly unique, entertaining and unfamiliar, which is a tall order. Likewise, a compilation of 10 varieties of Pong isn't going to find its way into my home no matter how many old Kaybee stickers it has on it. Alright, I may go for some cheap stuff if its for a system I don't have much experience with. Things I know going forward 1: The PS1/PS2 era is cheap as poo poo right now. Especially for those systems. Less so for the Gamecube and Saturn, and the Dreamcast varies widely. 2: Sports games cost about the same new as just complete for most generations, but who cares? 3: There are still a bunch of decent Genesis titles available at $50 and below. 4: The SNES library is mostly unreachable unless you get lucky on an auction. 5: Atari Lynx: Oh poo poo, is everything here under $10? Alright, I may go for some cheap stuff if its for a system I don't have much experience with. 6: DS and GBA games are cheap but dear god just try sorting through the shovelware. 7: Quirky stuff can fly under the radar. 8: While you have your Little Samsons and Panic Restaurants and so forth, a lot of stuff that was released for dying consoles is still relatively common NiB and can be had for somewhat close to release price. I already have one game for next year. 
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Jan 10, 2018 05:44
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To me, the port of Double Dragon is the most surprising game on the Atari 2600. Not that it's any good as far as I know.
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Jan 12, 2018 17:10
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Are cheap machines like this or maybe even this at all worth a drat for repairing scratched discs? I've tried those manual ones a few times ages ago and know well enough that those are garbage. I gambled on a lot of scratched up discs and basically ended up paying regular price for copies of Star Gladiator, Dino Crisis and Spider-man for the PS1, and a handful of other games that don't work. Also made me remember that I've got a really scratched up copy of Blazing Heroes that I'd like to try again some day.
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Jan 25, 2018 04:46
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Turbinosamente posted:I've got nothing to substantiate it but I've heard its the several thousand dollar professional resurfacing machine or bust when it comes to scratched discs. Is there no library or game shop that bothered to get one in your area? Huh, didn't even occur to me to check the library. Is this something Gamestop does? Otherwise there aren't any dedicated game stores near me. ^^^ I did try toothpaste with a disc that was semi-working and it didn't seem to have any effect.
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Jan 25, 2018 13:53
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Legaia is grindy as poo poo and it's made twice as bad by how long battles take. Putting in Street Fighter-esque special moves sounds fun at first but when you have to do them a billion times...
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Jan 27, 2018 17:36
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 15:17 |
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Thousand Arms is an okay-ish game that I'd probably feel like a creep if I ever played it again. The whole teenage dating sim angle kind of loses its luster in your mid-30s.
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Jan 28, 2018 16:48
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