|
Hi retro gaming thread, long time no post. I've got a bunch of Genesis model 1s I'd like to unload on Ebay soon. Trouble is, I don't have AC adapters. Can anyone tell me if Megadrive adapters are compatible with American Genny units? Specifically I'm looking at these right here. Quality-wise I have no idea if they're any better than those trash "3-in-1" units, but I've had nothing but bad luck with those and the Genesis and thought I should some other cheap junk a shot.
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2016 14:53
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 08:51 |
|
|
Zonekeeper posted:Finally got my hands on a High Definition Graphics Genesis model 1 (VA6), and now I'm being bugged by how it overhangs my model 2 Sega CD. I check ebay and all the auctions for the extender and plate are more than I paid for the console. In the same boat. I'm toying with the idea of buying one with the extender plate and just selling off the console. 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 7, 2016 18:23
|
|
|
wa27 posted:Stopped at Goodwill today and they had a Master System for $50: I like to imagine that the SMS's "great" sports titles were intended sarcastically. "What games do you have for this thing?" "Well, there's football." "Great, football." 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 8, 2016 00:05
|
|
|
falz posted:There are a lot of good games there, many are $50+/ea like Castlevania, Truxton, Gunstar Heroes, maybe PSIV too. Just spotted Wings of Wor in there and while I'm not a huge shooter fan, that one is nifty and worth a play for the freaky visuals. 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 8, 2016 00:07
|
|
|
_____! posted:The dick boss in particular is gonk to the extreme. Great horizontal shooter. Looks like it. My copy has the same plain white label. Elliotw2 posted:The SMS model 1 comes with Snail Maze, Hang-On/Safari Hunt, or very late models have Alex Kidd. the SMS model 2's come with either Alex Kidd or Sonic the Hedgehog. They don't all have Hang-on/Safari Hunt though. When my original console with those died, the replacement I got only had Snail Maze.  Guess it's not such a huge deal since the Hang-on/Safari Hunt cart is super cheap though. I ended up with one somehow ( don't even remember buying it) and I don't think I've ever played it. I'm just really, really bad at racing games in general and at Hang-on in particular.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 8, 2016 04:16
|
|
|
I just played through McDonald's Treasureland Adventure and it's ... surprisingly good? There are only 4 levels but they're pretty long and varied. The game itself is still super short though and the bosses are easy. I picked it up for the first time tonight, set the difficulty to normal (it defaults to beginner) and still got through it in about 2 hours. This could easily have been made without the McDonald's license and I can only assume that money is the only reason why this is McDonald's Treasureland Adventure and not "Original Character's Treasureland Adventure." I'm actually kind of surprised to learn that it wasn't a port of another property, like Yo Noid! for the NES was. The use of the McDonald's characters is pretty minimal. A few of them will help in some way if you give them some jewels, although the "help" isn't really optional and you actually have to do this to proceed every time. Grimace's help, for instance, is moving his fat rear end out of the way of the next door you need to enter. Gee thanks. It's also not like Ronald McDonald has an arch-nemesis they could drop on or anything, so the enemies are your typical cutesy weird monster things but nothing that really calls on the license for help. The story is pretty generic. You have part of a treasure map. These three bad guys also have a part of the treasure map! Go! It's enough. Not like you need 40 pages of text to play a platformer. Long story short, I enjoyed this one a lot. It's colorful and the music is cheery. Definitely worth a quick play through if you haven't yet.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 13, 2016 04:59
|
|
|
Kid Fenris posted:Everyone knows the best Final Fantasy is The Spirits Within because Roger Ebert liked it better than most video games. I bought a bunch of broken Mario and Sonic action figures and lego (megablox?) figurines and cut their heads off to make ornaments for a Christmas tree in the basement. Iirc I still haven't discarded the bodies.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 19, 2016 10:31
|
|
|
I got one of these things in a lot of random gaming garbage ealier this year. Anyone ever used one? I don't have an import game to try and am on the fence as to whether or not I want to start to collecting imports anyway. I've always been under the impression that you can't play JP only stuff without modding your Saturn.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2016 02:56
|
|
|
Electric Lady posted:I found out today after testing it that the Model 2 Genesis I bought a couple weeks back does not have a functioning reset button. This isn't a complete loss, as I can still hard reset with no problem and the only game that I can't beat now is X-Men which I don't even have. Subterrania is great. I just wish I could get past the third stage.  Still its a super pretty game and the soundtrack is beautiful. It's like a more action oriented Solar Jetman, which is another game that is balls hard and apparently only I like. There are still new/sealed copies floating around for about $20 if you're into that sort of thing.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2016 10:19
|
|
|
RZA Encryption posted:This gonna be nerdy af and very specific, but does anyone have a youtube playlist of "christmasy"(or just wintery) sounding video game music? I'm listening to "White Land" on the F-Zero soundtrack and it's making me want to listen to some seasonally appropriate VGM. I listen to the Secret of Evermore soundtrack around Christmas every year. It has a lot of tinkly bells and feels appropriate imo.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2016 15:06
|
|
|
shyduck posted:These are always fun to look at when it comes to wondering how cheap games were: Funcoland circular from June 1999. (Big images, so right click and open in a new tab if you can't read them) I was laid up from back surgery for a couple of months that year and remember asking my parents to bring the NES up from the basement and hook it into the living room TV. I asked them to buy a few games from Funcoland to keep me occupied. 8 Eyes Flying Warriors Gargoyle's Quest 2 Gremlins 2 Guardian Legend Milon's Secret Castle Predator Shatterhand Whomp Em Grand total: $28.91 Fake edit: Possibly also P.O.W. at $2.99 I think maybe?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2016 03:53
|
|
|
Rollersnake posted:Light Crusader is definitely too short, but I really enjoy it and don't think it deserves its bad reputation at all. I'll even go as far as to say I prefer it over Landstalker, if only because it's not horrendously, spirit-breakingly difficult. Yeah, the game is super short and the perspective makes some puzzles a pain in the rear end but it's still a great game. I think it's still going for about $10 these days and is at least worth playing at that.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 24, 2016 15:55
|
|
|
Miles McCloud posted:I had one with a similar problem I fixed by reflowing the controller port's solder points. Same. Although it was one of the first soldering jobs I ever did on a console and I screwed up bad enough that left and right no longer worked. 
|
|
#
¿
Dec 24, 2016 15:56
|
|
|
Random Stranger posted:It occurred to me as I'm sitting here on a day where I have literally nothing to do but wait for people, that I haven't played a few of Treasure's games. So I'm going to fill in some gaps. Really? I got it a few months ago and I think I beat it in my first play through. Beautiful game and really fun to play, just kinda short/easy.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 25, 2016 18:23
|
|
|
Claytor posted:Bought myself a Dreamcast from a local game store as a birthday present. Anyone want to recommend good games for it? Especially looking for good four player party games. Illbleed. You'll thank me when you get to the part with the sentient talking blood cake. I love this game so loving much.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 30, 2016 18:45
|
|
|
Random Stranger posted:I know this isn't a big deal to many people here, but I had to share. I've finally gotten to actually tinkering with my own electronics and replaced batteries in my dead Game Boy games. I practiced first on copies of crappy NES games that nobody would miss. Anyone want a copy of Al Unser Jr. Turbo Racing with the battery on the wrong side? It still works. Anyway, It's a New Age Retro Christmas Recap!  I had a bunch of Amazon credit after Christmas of 2015 and decided that what I really wanted was to open up some brand new retro games for the first time. Decided to do it again this year and just wanted to reflect on what I got in 2015. Nothing really amazing; I was aiming for best bang for the buck. Sub-Terrania: Great game at around... I want to say $13-ish? Basically a more action-y Solar Jetman with digitized graphics and a nifty soundtrack. hard as balls though. Still can't get past the 3rd stage  but I do enjoy the first two. Think these are typically going for about $20 now.Light Crusader: This one cost about $25 and only took about 7 hours to complete. If you're the kind of sperg who's actually going to analyze hours spent playing vs  . The only one under the tree that I played completely through. Great buy if you can get it for that new. Used copies are going for $10-$15 now I think, and I'd recommend it at that.Sega Bass Fishing: A $6 game that I predicted I would dust off and kick around for 10-15 minutes at a stretch. Turns out I was right. No complaints. Really want to find a fishing controller now and I've sen them NiB for about $25-$30. Vegas Stakes: IIRC this one was about $10 and... yeah, I'd rather have the $10. Doesn't offer anything over any other casino video game. I guess the box looks nice and minty. Overlord:  Virgin made their own carts for this, and it shows. The top of the label is already starting to peel and the rear casing has gone sort of brownish yellow. Additionally, the board uses some kind of weirdly-tabbed CR2032 that I'm not sure I could replace if removed. Not that I'd want to play this game long enough to save my progress anyway. Almost impenetrable even with the thick manual and related paraphernalia a new (or complete) copy comes with and, even when you do start to get a grasp on it, really hard. Kind of a waste of $40 and I gave it an honest try but have barely touched it since. Impossible to play without assistance, just a chore to play with it.Mega Man Collection: It's Mega Man! Can't go wrong with that. I've pulled this out a few times. Others have said that there are better compilations out there. I don't doubt that but I don't have those and have no regrets at $15. Chrono Cross: Maybe I'll get back to this some day? I wasn't a huge fan of Square's PS1 catalog and beyond. I'm sure it's good, I just hate having to learn new systems for doing things every single drat time they release something new, and the intro was decent but I didn't find myself thinking about it afterwards. Think I spent somewhere between $10-$15 on this, so no real complaints, but it's probably going to sit there until I get fat and old and retire. ONE: Awwww, gently caress yeah. LIke Sub-Terrania, I still cannot get past the third goddamn stage of this, though for different reasons. ONE suffers from some issues typical of the early 3D era. Namely, it's a bitch trying to gauge where you are in relation to the ground and that can make jumping over pits problematic. Nonetheless, it is REALLY satisfying just blasting every goddamn thing to kingdom come. This was another one that couldn't have been more than $15 and was worth every penny. I've played it a few times and it's pretty easy to get back into. Protip: Keep shooting everything and everyone until they all die. Ignition Factor: An action (and puzzle, arguably) game where you play as a firefighter! Put out fires! Save stupid people who walk into them! This was the most expensive of the bunch, about $50 IIRC. It' and Overlord are the only two in the lot that were roughly what you might've paid for a brand new copy back in the day, but unlike Overlord, Ignition Factor is worth it. Takes a little practice and the first stage is kinda hard, so I can see why this might've been overlooked. Totally unique game and worth the price of admission. In any event, I had 9 sealed games to open last Christmas but I've got 12 this year (wooo). Are any of them any good? I... sure as hell hope so. I've only played two before and can confirm that of those, one is thoroughly godawful and possibly the worst sports game on the NES. I'll be opening these up and given them a go a few at a time here.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 4, 2017 03:20
|
|
|
RZA Encryption posted:Hey Vegas Stakes is a wonderful game! Super Caesar's Palace is what the cool kids play.  Rirse posted:Overlord is a game my dad played a ton of when we got a NES. It one of his favorite games and I still have no idea how he even plays it. I cannot even get past the first "stage" and have no idea how in the hell you're supposed to balance your resources. My people end up starving to death as the computer opponent grabs new planets twice as fast as I can. One theory I've pulled completely out of my rear end is that this game was playtested by only a handful of people (at most) who'd been involved the entire way through and couldn't see any issues with it as they'd completely absorbed its quirks and how to work with or around them. Given that it was a 1993 release it wouldn't be surprising if they just didn't want to spend a ton of time tweaking and balancing an NES game either. My mom was freakishly good at Dr. Mario, and my mother-in-law also shares the same talent, according to my wife. I'm just assuming at this point that it's the one game that all moms are good at. Like it's something genetic that gets triggered once you've produced offspring. Edit: Come to think of it, when my aunt gave me her old NES a few years ago, Dr. Mario was the only game she had for it too. 
Quiet Feet fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Jan 4, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Jan 4, 2017 05:51
|
|
|
The Kins posted:
"Son it's time we had the talk. You see, When a man loves a wall..." *Mom makes disappointed grinding noise and disappears sideways into rest of wall* "drat it Doris, the boy's going to have to learn about this sometime!"
|
|
#
¿
Jan 4, 2017 14:03
|
|
|
It's a New Age Retro Christmas: 2016 Edition!  My wife remains horrified that I'm doing this and apparently so are a good number of coworkers she's mentioned it to. Most aren't even retro gamers. Go figure. First stop, the Sega Dreamcast. These came from a lot of 9 sealed Dreamcast games I got off of Ebay for about $50. I’m saving four for next year, and one I sold off as it was a duplicate. It was Chu Chu Rocket, for the curious, and yeah, that was probably the best of the lot but I didn’t see a need to keep a sealed copy around. Apologies for the blurry pics because I'm a moron who takes close pictures and forgets about macro mode.  I really need to vacuum that rug. Anyway, here we sealed copies of NHL2K, Sega Marine Fishing, Coaster Works and Sega Tennis 2K2. My expectations for this lot are not high but the price was right. At about $4-5/game, there's gotta be something worth playing. Lets take a look. NHL 2K:  Coolest game ever, eh? I'll be the judge of that. This replaces my copy of NHL ’98 for the PS1 as the most recent hockey game I own, and frankly what’s the point since it doesn’t have the Whalers? I wouldn’t even have NHL ’98 if I hadn’t won a copy from a Mountain Dew contest and wouldn't have played it if create-a-player hadn't been a thing. I replaced the entire Dallas Stars roster with random edgy  characters because I was 17 at the time and dumb. After a while I was routinely able to 30 goals a game on normal, but only 10 or so on the hardest setting. I got my fun out of that, so this can;t be too bad. Rrrrrip!  Two manuals? Sweet! One was inside the wrap but not the jewel case itself. Also a product registration card and sweepstakes entry form for an arcade cab called Emergency Call: Ambulance.  This must’ve been the Canadian release. The extra manual is in French. I played a match as the North America All Stars ( I cheated thinking I would stink) vs the shitbag Carolina Hurricanes without reading the manual and was wondering how well I’d actually be able to play. Turns out, not too shabby. It doesn’t take too long to figure out how your imaginary hockey men move and react. That being said, I just don’t care about hockey. There’s a lot of back and forth and very little scoring and… I just get bored. I really can’t fault this one too much. It's competently put together, the sound is fine and player animations are smooth but it's not likely to see a lot of use. These seem to be going for about $10 last time I checked, and you’d pay about as much for any random loose NES game. Ice Hockey or Blades of Steel are probably cheaper and more fun though. Worth it?: At that price, yeah I guess. I'd say moreso if you're into hockey but if you are you probably already have something new than this so  Next up Sega Marine Fishing: Well, I picked up Sega Bass Fishing new last year and that was kinda fun, so this can’t be too bad, right?  Tear! Expose!  Contents: game disc, case, manual and hey, another chance to win an Emergency Call: Ambulance cab! Items confirmed to be shiny as all hell, as if new. This thing gets in your face right away with a  intro set to a rocking metal soundtrack, and I like it. Why is it so hard for most sports games to have a decent soundtrack? drat, son, play me something that gets me pumped. I catch my first giant Trevally and yup, metal blaring the whole time. You might think you’re just fishing but the music is more appropriate to Street Fighter. The extreme closeup on the fish struggling as as you’re reeling it in totally makes this. It’s way more action-y than a fishing game has any right to be. Like you'd half expect a sailfish to hadoken you in the face. It's a lot less laid back than Bass Fishing for sure. Controls are easy enough to figure out and the experience is very arcade-like. Not sure what else there is to say about this. It's fishing! Wooo fishing!Worth it?: Yeah, totally. These are still going for around $10 new and this is probably going to supplant SBF as my new "I wanna fish for like 20 minutes" game. Coaster Works: Hmmm, well, maybe it’ll be better than my experience with Theme Park for the Saturn? I got (and later sold) a copy of that back in the 90s and lost patience with it as there seemed to be a bug where the maintenance staff always clustered in the southwest corner of the park, leaving the rest of the place to rot.   Just the basics here. I still hold out hope that I'll find a fruit rollup in a Genesis game one day, but that is not this day.  First impression is not that great. It's not a theme park sim but a game where you build up a roller coaster piece by piece. The first stage is a tutorial and I’m already kinda tuning it out, but it doesn’t take too long to finish, and I make a nice fun roller coaster for the kids to go careening off of. My second one causes a lot of screaming and a little queasiness, but is enough to satisfy the requirements. It’s a little easier than expected and is actually starting to grow on me. The graphics are nothing special and what little music there is has an 80s sitcom feel and is less than thrilling, although it does contrast nicely with the sounds of people screaming on your coaster. The interface where you build your coaster is pretty simple and easy to use, though its a little cluttered visually. The computer informs me that the first stage was easy and anyone could do it. Gee, thanks. It definitely has a cheapy shovelware feel to it but I didn’t want to put it down. Second coaster only causes one person to barf. I think we can do better than that. It starts to get tricky when you get to the third one. I only put it down because I have one more game to unwrap tonight and a few other things to do. New copies of this are going for about $6 on Ebay and I'd recommend it at that price. Worth it?: There’s only five (maybe six?) stages apparently. It'll be short but I guess there's some replay in trying new twists and turns. This is my favorite so far, so yes, totally worth it. Tennis 2K2: I’m cautiously optimistic about this one as Dave from Gamesack said it was surprisingly enjoyable. Well, let’s give it a go.   The Willaims sisters have been around forever, haven't they? Everything you'd expect plus a little mini poster ad for all the other cool games I could be buying for my Dreamcast. Sorry but Sonic Adventure, it really was not that great and I'm not buying it Sega.  Finally, the chance to live my boyhood dream of being famed Russian tennis star Yevgeny Kafelnikov!  I am HORRIFICALLY bad at this. Even set on easy, the first match the computer scores the first time it this the ball on every serve. I also miss every time it serves the ball to me. I think I can see where Dave was going with this. If you’re within a few feet of the ball and press A, you will hit it. Even after a couple of matches I cannot for the life of me get near it fast enough to hit it though. Players animate in what I'm assuming are realistic ways. That is, the stroke they react with changes depending on the angle and distance of the ball, so it stays interesting to watch. Sound is nothing to write home about.Worth it?: Eh. It's hard to say that any of these feels like a waste of money, but I care even less about tennis than hockey. This is one is available at around $10-15 and maybe its worth it if you're a hardcore retro gamer/tennis enthusiast who has friends who are also hardcore retro gamer/tennis enthusiasts, but I'd skip it if you can't meet those criteria. Tomorrow: More Sega, less Dreamcast.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2017 04:04
|
|
|
It's a New Age Retro Christmas Part 2: Portuguese Delicious Edition! Hmm, now what could we have in this strangely Brazilian-looking box?  I’ll tell you right off, it’s not two copies of Speedy Gonzales. That’s a good guess though. The seller shipped this in an original Tectoy shipping box. Tectoy is the company that sold and distributed the Master System in South America.  Why it looks like two games for the Sega Master System! The lot was around $55 and came with 3 games, but I've set one aside for next year. Supposedly there’s no region lock on Master System games? I’ve heard as much and I’m going to feel really stupid if that turns out not to be true. Here's hoping they're all worth it at around $18 each. They mean to win Wimbledon: Hrmm, another tennis game already? I’m starting off tonight with lowered expectations and if you’ve played any of the “Great” sports games for the Master System, you already know why. My first experience with a sports title on the Master System was Great Football, which I have to assume was planned, designed, developed and manufactured on opposite day on the cube planet that that hosed up version of Superman comes from. Well, lets open ‘er up. Is it still technically new and sealed if there's a rip in the plastic?   The outer plastic (not the shrink wrap) on the case itself is a different texture from the cases found in the US. It’s smoother and feels more heavy duty. The font on the cart is smaller too. This one comes with the manual, naturally, and a nice big two-sided poster for various Master System games and Aladdin for the same.    It’s weird top think how long the SMS lasted in South America. Mortal Kombat got a port to this system. Mortal Kombat. And that wasn’t anywhere near the end of its lifespan either. Wimbledon was a 1992 release fwiw. Anyway, moment of truth. Will it work?  Success! Wait… Wimbledon 2? Eh, whatever. I’m bad at this, but not quite as bad as I was with Sega Tennis 2K2. The ball certainly moves a lot slower, and if I set the difficulty to easy and pick one of the weakest players as my opponent, I actually don’t do half bad. You need to target the ball a little more carefully than 2K2, but like I said, the ball is much easier to connect with. The soundtrack is actually upbeat and catchy and keeps you interested. To my surprise I’m actually having fun with this even though I’m bad at it. The graphics are pretty good for the Master System and your player does a funny little angry jig when they lose. Worth-it-ness: I could actually see myself playing this again, which is way better than I thought, so I'll give a tentative yes even though I wouldn't otherwise have paid this much for it. Disney’s The Jungle Book: Not much to say here. I’m guessing this one will be a pretty bog-average platformer. Rip in peace  Game, manual, cool poster. Case is a little different from the standard graph paper look of most SMS games in the US. Wow, color.  Registration card and a little document listing all of the places I could get my Master System serviced if I ever time travel back to Brazil, 1993. There was a second registration card in the back of the manual for some reason.  Mortal Kombat!  And on the back, more games. Poster is different from the one that came with Wimbledon but a lot of the titles are the same.  Popping the cart in gives me an error screen at first, but I try again and it comes through. Whew. You play as a banana-hurling Mowgli trying to find 8 gems on every stage. It’s… okay. Mowgli moves a little slow and needs to build up some momentum to get any distance on his jumps. Most enemies take multiple hits with your bananas, which you have an infinite supply of. It can be kind of tough getting the 2-3 hits off without getting hit yourself though. Even with an enemy all the way across the screen, you move so sluggish it’s only just possible to dodge. Some enemies are placed where you either won’t see them until they pop up right in front of you or where you can’t avoid a projectile when you reach the only logical place to attack them from. The game controls okay and the sound is alright. It’s not bad but you won’t remember it after you shut off the system. The intro music has this odd sort of bubbly sound effect to it that Virgin and other Euro developers loving love for some reason, and which feels like a warning sign that something bad is about to happen to your video game system. There was a lot of flicker on the screen. Not that the sprites were disappearing like on the NES, more that random scraps of sprite kept popping up here and there. It’s a little distracting. Worth it?: Meh. This met my expectations and for the price I’d rather have a decent game on another system. Not that you’ll probably see this one around if you’re in the states, but I’d skip it. That third game in the lot better be good, but I guess I won't know until next year. Tomorrow: May as well go for the Sega hat trick. Edit: It dawns on me now that my rating system for this endeavor is entirely regret based.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2017 04:37
|
|
|
PaletteSwappedNinja posted:That technique was popularised on the Commodore 64 as a way to imply chords with a single voice - it's a little more convincing on C64 because you can filter the sound and add decay and other effects to mask the attack of the individual notes but it was always very conspicuous when used on other hardware, especially SMS. I don't lurk in this thread too much anymore (and post almost never) but what I like about it is that I can mention some minute aspect of a game offhand and somebody else knows exactly what I'm talking about and has its origin story ready. Random Stranger posted:Excuse me, but Bizarro comes from Earth. Bizarro World, also known as Htrae, was originally a round planet that the Bizarros were relocated to and which Superman then reshaped into a cube for them. So I suppose Great Football was made on the planet that Bizarros come from... (Huh, I could have sworn we had an obnoxious nerd smiley.) The normal Earth Superman should be called Orazzib where they come from. Or Bizarro should be called Namrepus. It's just silly otherwise.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2017 06:24
|
|
|
Uncle at Nintendo posted:oh God I just realized the Wii literally came out over a decade ago. I feel like the Dreamcast was a decade ago Same. I think what really screws with my perception of console generations is how long the PS2 lasted. I never got anything from the following gen, and they were still producing games for the ps2 for a long long time. I want to say the last game made for it came out in 2013? Basically Sony's second console feels modern and current to me. Everything after feels like newfangled future bullshit. I occasionally have trouble mentally sorting the Dreamcast, GameCube and og Xbox out of the 32-bit generation. They feel like they were part of a different era. 
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2017 15:12
|
|
|
It's a New Age Retro Christmas Part 3: It's a Euphemism for Testicles. I first played Ballz 3d for the Super Nintendo many years ago and my recollection of it is vague. Video games seemed to be going through puberty around the same time I did. Video Games' voice was changing, it had terrible console wars, and extra buttons where there had been no buttons before. It also noticed the 3rd dimension. 16-bit Video Games and The Third Dimension went to the park, the ice cream social, the boat show, and various other wholesome activities. Then came the big day, 16-bit Video Games and 3D got married! Nine months later, video games gave birth to fourteen 3-dimensional video games! Eight  Am I the only one who finds this vaguely erotic? Anyway, naked time!  Look carefully in the background and you'll see evidence that I've somehow successfully convinced  a woman to produce offspring with me. I'm as baffled as you are.  gently caress, I missed out on the Ballz 3D t-shirt offer!   Figures that the first I've heard of this peripheral is that it's being cancelled. Y'okay.  This has got to be the first and probably only 3D fighter on the SNES and Genesis and, well, it plays like it. Characters aren't polygons of course, but a collection of sprites made up of rendered balls in a 3D environment. If there's more than one stage it's hard to tell. The colors of the floor and background change a bit but I'm about 90% sure that they're just palette-swapped. Each stage has movie boards showing PG-13 scens and taunts when you or your opponent lands a move. Movement is a somewhat awkward and at times it can be tough to keep facing your opponent. On the genesis you get a punch button, a kick button and a jump button. I do not for the life of me recall if the control scheme was much different on the SNES. It's tough to gauge where exactly you need to be to hit your opponent, and hit detection seems a little off anyway. Special moves are pretty easy to pull off but they're not all useful and a lot of them have a long windup animation that leaves you vulnerable. Personally, I just mash buttons. I took Kronk and Turbo through their paces with several matches each and couldn't get very far. We just weren't ready for 3D fighting games at the time, and it shows. The music is alright I suppose but it's not going to stick with you, and the sound effects are quirky. There is also a sort of taunt/beg for mercy mechanic which lets you regain health. Honestly your moves do so little damage and matches take so long it seems pointless to include this as it just prolongs what are already pretty tedious fights. Computer opponents use this ALL ThE drat TIME when their life gets below 1/3rd or so. If I can leave on a positive note, the animation is pretty smooth and this is a game that definitely was sold with its graphics in mind. It's an interesting side trip into non-polygonal 3D, and kind of interesting historically because I think it reflects what was at least perceived as the audience for games at the time (teenagers who liked fart jokes), but really nothing special today. And honestly who wants one if you can't get it with an AT&T Edge 16 and official Ballz 3D t-shirt? Worth it: Nope. Definitely a product of its age, and of mine at the time. This would've been money better spent elsewhere. You can find this for $5 loose or probably $10 CIB. Got this one from a seller on Ebay who has at least 8 NIB copies at about $25/pop, but I'd skip it. If you really have to, get a loose copy or emulate it just to give it a look see. Tomorrow: I was just going to get drunk and watch football but I realized I've got an appropriate game for that. I'll post it at halftime of Lions/Seahawks.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2017 05:04
|
|
|
Neddy Seagoon posted:Especially as you only just acquired Ballz. It should be biologically impossible! Oh god dammit that is way too appropriate a joke for that post and now I'm mad I didn't think about it.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2017 05:35
|
|
|
Rollersnake posted:Ballz 3D is one of those 16-bit era games that, due to a combination of marketing, presence in "game secrets" books, and general availability, seemed to have been a much bigger deal at the time than it actually was. My mental image of the SNES case at Target around 1995 has Ballz 3D alongside the likes of Brutal: Paws of Fury, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, and Zoop. This would imply that Tuff E Nuff is not a very good game, which is wrong. Seriously though it's not the best balanced fighting game in the world but I love the soundtrack and have to give it a ton of credit on style. The whole design concept seems to be "hey, wouldn't it be cool if..." and they pulled it off well enough.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2017 07:46
|
|
|
DalaranJ posted:Thanks. Eh, if you see a stack that says Jaleco Jaleco Jaleco somewhere it means Bases Loaded Bases Loaded Bases Loaded.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2017 21:58
|
|
|
What's the deal with Captain Skyhawk anyway? Compared to the other carts that every reselller has an infinite supply of (Bases Loaded, Play Action Football, etc) it doesn't actually seem that bad.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2017 22:02
|
|
|
Turbinosamente posted:I think I last saw Ballz when I watched Frankomatic do a quick LP of it and also today when I picked up and looked at the SNES cart in a game shop. I put it back and got King of the Monsters on genesis instead along with a bunch of other crap. I don't get it, why wouldn't you want Ballz? You had Ballz right in your hands! May as well just edit this in. It's a New Age Retro CHristmas Part 4: Football and Beer  Ugh. Let's get this poo poo over with. JOhn Elway's Quarterback is one of the worst sports games on the NES and has to be, hands down, the worst football game on ths system. Yes I've played 10-yard fight. I already owna loose copy of this game but got this one in a lot of 3 sealed games that presented me with a bit of a problem: It came with Golgo 13 (and another game I'll get to later), which is an issue as I loving love Golgo 13 on the NES, ut seeing as I already knwo plenty about the game, have played it in the not too distant past, and it was the most valuable game in the lot, I felt I had to sell it. Long story short, that [pro-rated Elway and the other game down to about $10/ea.  Realism my rear end. There's only 9 players on the field for each team. There are no player numbers and they all look alike. There are, I poo poo you not, only two possible colors for your team no mater who you pick. Dallas? Red or Blue (and gently caress you for wanting to be the Cowboys anyway). PHilly? red or blue. Denver? Red or blue. Whether you're red or blue depends on if you're the first or second player. There are no player lames listed anywhere in the game, not even Elway's. I should add that my Soemthing Aeful career mostly consists of shitposting in GDTs in TFF these days, and I've noticed that people there seem to hate on Elway for some reason. I don't, for the most part. Buit I wouldn't speak out against it ebcause gently caress this game.  Contents include game, manual, Nintendo Power ad/subscription card, registration card, little plsatic baggie, dust sleeve, poster and a partridge in a pear tree.  poo poo, Seawhawks/Lions is already back from the half? Oh heay, the poster is for Super Off Road. Well, that's a plus.  [timg]http://i.imgur.com/ijcGXuU.jpg[/itmg] Game shiny. but it's poo poo. YOu can drop most sports games into either one of two categories; simulation or arcade. JE's QB doesn't do either well. There's no NFL license, no stats, no names, only a handful of plays. As metnioned above, there aren't even the standard number of players on the field. The players that are there move slow. The sound effects are dull and muted. The music is non-existent except for a horn that blares a cavalry charge tone at random. The players look and move like soulless robots. Ever play MULE? Know what a Flapper is? Imagine a football game starrring those. Worth it?: Not even at $10. That other game better be good. Tomorrow: the other game. Quiet Feet fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Jan 8, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Jan 8, 2017 02:34
|
|
|
Jaleco's bread and butter was Bases Loaded and a bunch of playable but forgettable games. We can at least thank them for publishing Whomp Em, Totally Rad and Shatterhand. I have a soft spot for them because they produced some imaginative stuff, even if it wasn't all spectacular.  Turbinosamente posted:Oh me oh my Quiet Feet, perhaps you need a snack or a glass of water to absorb some of that beer? Good thing I couldn't come up with with a witty retort about Ballz anyways it probably would have been something about not being able to handle it. I eventually switched to whiskey! For the last few years I've been meaning to do a write-up on all the NES football games I've played. Not much interesting to say other than I think that if the Tecmo Bowl games did not exist, SNK's Touchdown Fever would be the fun, arcade-style football game everyone remembered playing. Not because it's as fun or well executed as TSB but it hits a lot of the same notes by being fast paced and focusing more on action than realism. Anyway It's a New Age Retro Christmas Part 5: Some Football, no Beer   In today's episode, we discuss Cybernoid! A few months ago I won an auction for a lot that contained Golgo 13, Cybernoid and John Elway's Quarterback, all sealed. Golgo 13 would've been my favorite of the three had I kept it. I had two issues with this, which I think I've said but I'll reiterate. First, I already own a CIB copy and play it on occasion, so it's not like it'd be new to me and that's kind of defeating the point of this excercise. Second, I'm a stay-at-home dad and can't be too loose with my hobby money. So Golgo had to go go.  Stupid Giants, you were the only team I was confident could beat the Cowboys.  Game in baggie, manual, poster that wants to sell me stuff, registration card and ubiquitous Nintendo Power ad.  Acclaim liked to advertise on the backs of their manuals. I got one of these sets a year or two ago in a parts/repair lot and found that one of the controllers worked. It was a pretty underwhelming experience. You had to be close to the receiver and pointing the controller at it in a very specific way for it to function reliably.  Fabio! I knew that JE's QB was trash but it was cheap. Cybernoid? I remember reading a review/guide in a gaming magazine I got way back in the day. It looked kinda neat. Nowadays I know it has a bad reputation (if people think of it at all) but I've never played it, so here we go!  Yeaaargh most of these games are not good. This does not bode well.  If I'm not back in 5 minutes, tell Gradius III I love it. I'd always assumed this was a shooter and I guess you could call it that. You move from screen to screen, sometimes shooting enemies and sometimes trying to figure out how to move past hazards. It gets hard and a little bullshitty very quickly. From the first screen, you drop down into the second and should immediately veer left, and hug the wall and land on a ledge undearneath, because while you will have to continue down this shaft to progress to the next screen, there are enemies constantly moving up it. They mostly move straight up but if you get within a couple of inches they will veer suddenly and crash into you. Thing is, you descend very slowly and your shots only fire in the direction you're facing. Take a look at this. At this point, I have to be fair and say that posting that video motivated me to bother reading the manual because I didn't even know there was music--it's off by default to allow the full range of sound effects, and you can turn it on by pausing and pressing A--and it made me wonder what else I'd missed. Apparently pressing select cycles through a selection of various special weapons you're equipped with and can activate by pressing B. Alright, that's helpful. Right off it makes getting past the pistons on screen 8 a hell of a lot more doable if I use the shield. There are still some issues. Sometimes if I fire at the big green blobs (this is their name in the manual by the way) with the normal blaster they will explode. Sometimes they don't and bombs are needed. Why? I have no idea. Sometimes turrets on the ground can be destroyed by gunfire. Sometimes they can't There are no sound effects or any other indications that your shots are having an effect on anything. Did I mention you're also on a timer? Two timers, in fact. There's a big timer in the northeast corner of the screen which I've yet to live to see the end of, and a 100-second timer on each screen that is not displayed. If you don't get past a screen in 100 seconds, tough, you're dead. It seems pointless when you're already on the clock. They knew they were being assholes when they made this one. It starts you with NINE lives. Really. Cybernoid plays a little more like a puzzle game than a shooter. You're trying to find the best path to the next room more often than trying to blast waves of enemies. I guess I could see this being clever but the execution was sub-par. I feel a little guilty that I was ready to call this one terrible when really it's just sorta average. Cybernoid, you okay.  And then you go and do something like that. Geez, don't have to rub it in. Worth it? At about $10, sure. I'll try this again, though I admit I don't know how much patience I'll have with it. The games I went with were cheaper this year, partly because I had less money to do this with and partly because I was able to snag some lots and sell off one or two pieces to make some money back. Anyway, it definitely feels like the quality of titles isn't as good either. I'm still holding out some hope but nothing has really given me a tremendous amount of warm fuzzies yet. There's been stuff that's good for the price, but nothing I'd qualify as just flat out good. I did get some other nice used games though, so I can't complain. The Gradius III cart, for instance, was $6. Tomorrow: I'm playing an animated scarecrow in a Ravenloft game online, but I'll drop a cheapy SNES title on y'all if I have time.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 9, 2017 03:04
|
|
|
It's a New Age Retro Christmas Part the Second to Last: May Not Actually Grant Wishes It's Zoop I guess.    This was a completely playable puzzle game, right? I know I rented it once and don't remember having an unfavorable opinion of it. Which isn't the same thing as being good, but...  Ka-rip  Pretty much what you'd expect at this point. That manual is super thin, so it must be really simple and easy to get into. And on trying it, it is. You control a cursor on a grid of 16 squares. Your goal is to eliminate the colored shapes that are marching towards your the grid. Face the cursor in a direction and press one of the X, Y, B or A buttons to fire. Your cursor can only remove pieces of the same color. So if its red, only red shapes will be destroyed. If you hit a differently colored shape, the cursor takes on that color. So if the cursor is red and you fire it at a line of 4 red shapes, boom, they're all destroyed. Fire it at a line of one red shape with a blue shape underneath it, the cursor will destroy the red shape, send its widow a corsage, and then turn blue as it hits the blue shape. There are various power ups that will destroy an entire line regardless of color, or bomb a small patch of shapes or eliminate an entire color from one side of the screen. But overall, it's simultaneously dull while being exhausting to look at. The design is incredibly minimalist, with usually a monochrome background covered in dots. At the same time, the screen gets really busy when shapes start piling up, and its hard to be effective at the game when there's so much on screen. I have the attention span of a potted plant though, so maybe it's just me. With so much going on it becomes impossible to form a coherent strategy pretty quickly. The cursor is also rather slippery and feels like it doesn't want to stop exactly where you want it to go. the action doesn't change much from level to level and it feels tedious pretty quickly. If there's one positive about this game it's that the soundtrack is pretty peppy. I wouldn't want to listen to it forever but I'm not likely to hear it for more than 5-10 minutes at a stretch. Overall it's just aggressively mediocre. Not bad, just feels very low effort and dull. Disappointment level: Middling. Worth it? Eh. $4 of fun in a $13 fun tank when I had to go 120 fun miles. There are sports games I'd play before it. Round 2! Aladdin on the NES?   It's the Aladdin Deck Enhancer* by Camerica! *Warning: If deck remains enhanced for more than 4 hours please consult a physician. A quick quote form Wikipedia is leaving me pessimistic. quote:Camerica never recovered from the release and shortly was forced to close down.  The Aladdin was released for the NES in late 1992, right in the system's twilight and not really an ideal situation. Only seven games were ever released for it, some of which had already been (or eventually would be) released on more relatively normal but still unlicensed cartridges.  Deck enhancer and Dizzy mini-cart.  The manual is part of this poster.   Instructions.  I plug it in. It doesn't work. I re-situate the deck enhancer cartridge. It doesn't work. I take the ADE out of the NES, which is difficult to do with a mini-cart inside as there's nowhere to grip, but only slightly awkward without it. I re-sit the mini cartridge. It doesn't work. I try it in a different console. It doesn't work. I try everything I've previously tried on the second console including giving it a cleaning, which theoretically it shouldn't need. It doesn't work. Checking the instructions and I poo poo you not, it actually says to just keep hitting the reset button until it works. Without exaggeration, I tried this about 50-60 times across both consoles to get it to boot ONCE. Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy turns out to be okay but I'm not so interested in it that I'm going through all of this again. Disappointment level: high Worth it? At $30, no. There are a couple of sellers on Ebay who have tens of copies of this still NiB at about $30-$40 but all of the games on it are available on easier to use carts closer to the standard NES-style as far as I can tell. Bleah. Tomorrow: Oh god you're worth almost all of these combined please be worth it.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2017 05:12
|
|
|
Elliotw2 posted:So would it work 100% in a toploader or a cut 10-NES system, or not work at all? Both of the toaster consoles I tried it in have had their lockout chips clipped and I've played Tengen and Camerica games without issue before. I just assumed this would work automatically but I guess not. If it's basically trying to defibrillate my NES every single time I start it, I don't think I'm going to be using this much at all. Not that there were any immediate plans to.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2017 14:58
|
|
|
It's a New Age Retro Christmas Part Last: Everyone Shut up and Talk About Wario's Woods Yup, it's Wario's Woods!   At $60, this is the only game that came anything close to expensive, depending on your definition. It's also the only one that still costs about the same new in 2016 as it did when it was released in December of 1994. It's the last official game ever released for the NES, the only one with an ESRB rating and the only title on the system to feature Wario. It's another puzzle game and I figure it can't be any worse than Zoop.  Nice. The dust sleeve is a super fancypants sparkly version of the regular Nintendo red-letter ones. On closer inspection, the label is coming apart from the cartridge on top. This is not the first time I've seen this and it seems kinda common in later titles. The sealed copy of Overlord I opened last year had the same problem, and that came out in 1993. Makes you think that there must have been some manufacturing changes at the time, which wouldn't be surprising as the NES was well on its way to wrapping up.  The games on this poster were old when the poster was new. Makes u think. I'm scared. It's pretty rare I drop this amount of money on a game, let alone a new one. Let alone an old new one.  It's charming right off. The intro screen shows a little vignette with Toad blowing up a few monsters and surreptitiously demonstrating how to play the game. In some ways it's a pretty typical puzzler: colored objects fall from the sky, you line them up, vertically, horizontally or diagonally, and make them go boom. This is accomplished by moving Toad around the screen and picking up and moving the various monsters or bombs that drop from above. But there are a few things that are a little unexpected from an NES game. First, among the different modes is a "lesson" mode where you can learn how to play, and this is handy because Toad has a pretty good variety of moves available. You can not only pick up stacks of monsters/bombs but can kick them, or drop a stack and shoot to the top if you get stuck beneath it. You can also run up or down a stack and pull a monster or bomb out of the middle. Kicking a stack pushes the bottom object out, be it a monster or bomb, and drops the rest of the stack down a square. There are multiple modes to play through. The meat of Wario's Woods is the Round Game. Basically moving from round to round and clearing the screen of the monsters that inhabit it. It's a little like Dr. Mario in that regard, although Wario can come along and add more monsters later on if you don't finish the round fast enough. Round Game type A progresses pretty much like a normal puzzle game. Type B, however, makes it more interesting by including boss battles.  Now that right there is a really cool feature and while it's probably been done at least one mroe time since 1994, I'm not a huge puzzle game guy and I definitely can't recall seeing it in anything up to that point on the NES. You collect coins after each round and earn a continue after you get 30 (iirc), with the amount dropped dependent on how quickly you beat the round. The music is cheerful and reminds me just a little bit of Kirby's Adventure. Graphics are what you'd expect out of the late era NES. It's 8-bit, but 8-bit where they knew their poo poo.Did I mention this game has a battery backup and saves your progress in round play? Did not expect that. Above all what makes this enjoyable and sets it apart from something bland like Zoop is that the parts aren't just parts. Zoops marching multicolored blobs are just useless bits of garbage filling the screen. The enemies in Wario's woods have little animations and even names like Fuzz and Spud. Zoop's transition to a new round is to have the screen iris out and then back in. Wario's Woods has Toad. Zoop has a cursor. Wario's Woods has a goddamn story. And if I can complain a little further about Zoop now, that's the problem. They took no opportunity to skin the moving parts as anything other than what they were. Why not say that your cursor is the experimental XJ-35 starfighter and the approaching shapes are an alien plague? Draw a solar system in the background and call it the Garglaxanon. Gimme something. Nintendo got it right because they not only made a game with enjoyable mechanics but they dressed them up as something cute and whimsical. It's the difference between a dancing singing mouse at Chuck E Cheese and a writhing metal carcass that wants you to have fun on your birthday. Disappointment level: none Worth it? This one alone scratched the new/sealed game itch I had better than the rest combined and there's something funny about the cost being more or less the same as it was when it came out over 20 years ago. It's pretty easy to find copies of Wario's Woods for $60-ish. Hell, I just did a quick Ebay search after writing this and it's actually easier to find sealed copies than used CIB ones, of which the only ones I saw were $52 and $90. I've seen auctions end as low as $40 for NiB. If you're considering buying one and you're the kind of person who has to have everything complete, seriously just buy it new. Aftermath From this  to this  I went with quantity over quality this year and it definitely shows. Not only did I open up 3 more games this year than last year, there are actually still 5 more I decided to save for next Christmas. Basically I could've opened nearly twice what I did the first year I set out to do this, and that with only about 60% of the budget. Thing is, while I don't feel too much buyer's remorse over any of these, it's primarily because I got them so cheap. While there's plenty that's playable, the only two games I really had to pull myself away from were Wario's Woods and Coaster Works, and the latter I suspect does not have a hell of a lot of content. Xmas 2015 saw a few games that I knew I hadn't played in at least a decade but definitely had warm fuzzies for (Light Cursader, Mega Man Collection, ONE) or were a sequel to something I enjoyed ( Chrono Cross), and that was a pretty good, solid core. This year was more "oh, yeah, what the hell I can afford that." I'll be doing this again next Christmas and so forth until it becomes unfeasible. Might also do more peripherals, controllers and the like but I definitely want to shift focus further form the bargain bin titles and more on games I've forgotten about over the years. In conclusion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6s1FbBMcNw&t=17s
|
|
#
¿
Jan 12, 2017 05:21
|
|
|
Rollersnake posted:This was also the case with my sealed copy of Wario's Woods, which I bought several years ago. Good to know this is a common issue. I liked it better than any of the other Nintendo puzzle games but have to admit its been a while since I've played Yoshi or Yoshi's Cookie. Isn't Spot just Othello? I had a cart for a little while but honestly got bored with it pretty quickly.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 12, 2017 13:32
|
|
|
Caitlin posted:I also like Ranma 1/2 Hard Battle. It's not great, but it's not terrible.  I had a copy many years ago and liked it, even if it wasn't a top-tier fighting game. Didn't learn about the anime until a long while later. It's sure as hell miles ahead of Street Combat in any case.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2017 00:10
|
|
|
Random Stranger posted:
Oh snap, Qix had a sequel? What platform/s is it on?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2017 00:32
|
|
|
Random Stranger posted:A sequel? Let me introduce you to the extended Qix mythos! Jesus.  I only recently discovered Qix after grabbing a handful of bargain bin GB carts at a flea market last year. Ended up playing the hell out of it on my GBA when I was recovering from hernia surgery in October and I'm super happy to hear there's more.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2017 01:06
|
|
|
Light Gun Man posted:Look up the expose genre in MAME yo Why do I have the feeling that this was one of those things that didn't catch on in most places but was super big in Japan?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2017 01:11
|
|
|
Metal Geir Skogul posted:Return to Dinosaur Land should have been an official sequel. It's very, very good. Had an etsy guy make a "reproduction" for me. New Year's Day, 2:30 AM after a few beers I drunkbid on what I thought was Ducktales 1 and 2 on the NES both CIB. On further inspection in the morning, it was Ducktales 1 and 2 with custom cases ( ) and fridge magnets about the size of an NES manual with the cover art on them. Looking on the bright side, at least DT2 was a legit copy.That was a $200 mistake but will be rectified as soon as I beat Ducktales 2.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2017 00:18
|
|
|
No mention of the NES pro wrestling game Pro Wrestling?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2017 17:26
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 08:51 |
|
|
Random Stranger posted:Don't forget M.U.S.C.L.E. Please can we?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 18, 2017 05:52
|
|