Tendo City - Games Bought Thread 3

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Game Boy
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Rolan's Curse 2 - $12, cart only. If you look it up on ebay, you'd see that this was a good price for the game...

In other news, I've been playing through Super Paper Mario. It's easy, but quite fun; I'm on world 5 already. :)

Got these a couple of days ago, but forgot to post it. (Not getting anything now, we're buried under several feet of snow... :))

Dreamcast
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Unreal Tournament - $6, complete - Seems like a good port of the game. Well, it plays well anyway; it does have two major disappointments, but I knew about them (no Assault mode, and no female characters). At least it does have keyboard and mouse support... I think I need a DC mouse now, gamepad controls aren't the greatest.

Game Boy
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Prehistorik Man - $3, cart only. Very nice looking, but only okay-playing, game. Probably decent enough for $3. This isn't the same as the SNES game of the same name.

I also got a Performance Dual Impact Gamepad for the PS1 for $6. It's a pretty interesting gamepad -- for the most part it's just a decent Dual Shock clone, larger and not quite as well made as the real thing but quite comfortable to hold due to its size, but it's got two unique features: First there's a neGcon (wheel) mode, so the controller's left analog stick works with games that are neGcon but not Dual Analog compatible, such as Wipeout XL or Motor Toon Grand Prix. That's awesome, it makes Wipeout XL almost feel like a new game! Worth it for that alone. The controller's other unique function is that the analog sticks -- yes, both of them -- emulate the d-pad in digital controller mode. They aren't analog of course, but still, it's pretty interesting, and sometimes good, to be able to play dpad-only games with the stick... pretty unique feature, you see that on PC gamepads of course, but I've never seen it on any console gamepads... a few special console controllers can do that, such as the Sega Mission Stick for the Saturn and the Sega Sports Pad (trackball) for the Master System, but not gamepads... except for this one. Yeah, it's an interesting controller. I like it. (And yes, even if it clearly doesn't feel as well built as a first-party controller is, it's not too bad, and is comfortable to hold.)

First, I got a new PSP; mine was malfunctioning, with a failing disc drive or drive disc detector. Basically, the Playstation button screen popped up constantly while the system was trying to access discs, making playing many games difficult. I've been wanting to get it fixed, but wasn't sure how... so, while I was in the local game store today, I mentioned it, and he said that they have now marked down all PSPs to only $50... and they had a green PSP 3000, the color I'd really wanted! Plus, I got $10 tradein credit for my semi-working PSP, and another $10 off since I didn't want (or need) a power supply with it. So yeah, I got my malfunctioning black PSP 3000 switched for a working green PSP 3000 for just over $30. Not bad at all; repairs would surely have been more expensive.

Oh yeah, and it came with a 2GB memory card, too. Not bad. :) (That's smaller than the 4GB card I got with my first PSP, but still, more space is good!)

As for games...

Note that I got all the stuff below for $5 off overall (discount). I didn't factor that into the prices mentioned below.

Dreamcast
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Gunbird 2 - $19, disc in case (no manual, just a photocopy of the cover) - The price was a little below ebay average in part because of the cracked cover and missing manual. Regardless, it was pricey, but the US DC shmups aren't exactly common... fantastic find! I really like Psikyo games, even if I'm not that good at them. And this is a good Psikyo game for sure. Plus, tate support was left in!

NES
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Dungeon Magic - $6, cart only. Dungeon-crawling RPG.

PS1
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Tyco RC - Assault with a Battery - free, would be $5. Okay, simple licensed racing game.

Game Boy / GB Color (Dual Mode) - Games were $3 each, B2G1 free, so $6 for the three. All are cart only.
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Roadsters - Mediocre behind-the-car racing game reminiscent of Lamborghini American Challenge. It's playable but bland.
Rats! - Platform/puzzle game. It's alright, best of these three I think.
Looney Tunes: Carrot Crazy - Decent platformer starring Bugs and Lola Bunny. You can play as both; they're similar, but only Bugs can pull boxes and dig, and only Lola can float. This game isn't as good as GB Sunsoft Looney Tunes games, but it's way better than that other Infogrames Looney Tunes game I have for the GB/C...

I got (yet another) Gameshark for the N64. This time, though, the thing actually works! Yes, I finally have something that lets me copy save files from one memory card to another. I had given up on these things, because the other two N64 Gamesharks I had previously bought were both DOA, but this one actually works... that's great. Also, it is one of the v3.3 ones, the last revision, so it has the parallel port on the back. It was $10, but since it actually works, it was worth it I think.

Also, I got some older DD PC games. GOG.com - Apogee games sale. Apogee only has a handful of games up on GOG, but I bought the ones I don't have.

PC DD - GOG sale - $2.40 each (just under $10 total)
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Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold - Wolf 3D engine FPS. I wasn't going to get it, but there's an ingame map, so it's playable (unlike Wolf 3d... give me a map please...)
Blake Stone: Planet Strike - Like the first one, but with an on-screen minimap! Great addition there.
Duke Nukem 1 + 2 - I already have Duke 2, but never actually did get the original one, so I got this for that.
Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project - Early '00s 2.5d platformer they published. It's supposed to be okay, but not great, but I've always wanted to get it, if it was cheap...

With those N64 Gamesharks, 3.2 added the port on the back, and 3.3 taketh away. However, you could get a software upgrade to the 3.3 version on one with the port still on the back and get it all. That's what I did. I also ended up setting up a really old Laptop with a proper printer port setup and Windows 98 so I could actually run the software. I did the same for a PS1 Gameshark. I don't really use them to "cheat" so much as play around in unfinished code. Also, the N64 Gameshark is the only way to delete the eggs and ice key from Banjo Kazooie, and the totems from Jet Force Gemini.

I bought the same weekend sale of Apogee games, and tossed in Raptor Call of the Shadows to round off that deal. Raptor is an amazing game, but unfortunately the version on GOG can only be played in a letterboxed window, all scrunched up on top and bottom. Disappointing that it doesn't support other resolutions to avoid that as the DOS version can.

I wish they'd get more Apogee games on there though. I want Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, Commander Keen Episode 6, and a slew of other games I played as a kid in Shareware.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:With those N64 Gamesharks, 3.2 added the port on the back, and 3.3 taketh away. However, you could get a software upgrade to the 3.3 version on one with the port still on the back and get it all. That's what I did. I also ended up setting up a really old Laptop with a proper printer port setup and Windows 98 so I could actually run the software. I did the same for a PS1 Gameshark. I don't really use them to "cheat" so much as play around in unfinished code. Also, the N64 Gameshark is the only way to delete the eggs and ice key from Banjo Kazooie, and the totems from Jet Force Gemini.

I guess that one's an earlier model that someone upgraded to v 3.3, then. There's no version sticker on the back, but when booted up it says "3.3" in the menu.

I can't find one of my nonworking Gamesharks, but I did find the other one. It also has the parallel port on the back, and has a "v3.2" sticker on the back. Interestingly, the two look different -- the working one has a flat black plastic style, while the nonworking "3.2" one has a sparkly black finish. Also the nonworking one definitely has an LCD display in that bubble on the front -- it shows numbers in it sometimes. I don't know if the working one has the LCD or not, I haven't seen numbers there anyway. On the broken one, usually the LCD just displays an 8, but when I plugged in the working Gameshark on the bottom, the nonworking one in the middle, and a game on top, it counted down from 5 to 0, before the bottom one booted up as usual. I can't get the nonworking one to work on its own, though.

So uh, how exactly do you use the parallel port thing? I guess I should look it up online, or do you know... I do have a parallel port on my computer, but I'm not sure if I actually have a cable... but I assume I'll need some software online too, to actually read the thing.

Quote:I bought the same weekend sale of Apogee games, and tossed in Raptor Call of the Shadows to round off that deal. Raptor is an amazing game, but unfortunately the version on GOG can only be played in a letterboxed window, all scrunched up on top and bottom. Disappointing that it doesn't support other resolutions to avoid that as the DOS version can.

I bought the DOS version of Raptor back in the late '90s, so I don't need the Windows port they're selling there. It runs in a letterboxed window, really? How odd... but the description says that it supports several different resolutions. They all look like that? Tgat's annoying.

You can actually still buy the DOS version of Raptor on 3D Realms' own online (DD) store (they never stopped selling it), but it's not on GOG, probably because the Windows port is already there... though there are a lot of games in 3DR's store that they still haven't put on GOG yet, so who knows.

Quote:I wish they'd get more Apogee games on there though. I want Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, Commander Keen Episode 6, and a slew of other games I played as a kid in Shareware.

Cosmo is in 3DR's store, and a bunch of other games like Paganitzu, Math and Word Rescues, Crystal Caves and Secret Agent, etc.. Also remember that 3DR/Apogee made some of their games freeware -- Halloween Harry (aka Alien Carnage), Dark Ages (a favorite of mine), BioMenace, the Kroz series, Stargunner, Major Stryker, and several others are of course free on their website.

As for Keen 6 though, that one isn't available anywhere. I was fortunate enough to buy a boxed copy back in the '90s, but anyone who didn't pretty much has to either spend quite a bit to buy it on EBay (and just hope that those old floppies actually still work... stupid floppy disks, they just don't last at all), or pirate it. The problem is that the game has some rights issues; it was originally published by FormGen, who eventually ended up in, I think, Atari (Infogrames) and nobody has wanted to bother to pay for the rights, or something. The other FormGen-only release, Wolf 3D: Spear of Destiny, is now available on Steam, but Keen 6? I guess id doesn't care enough to want to figure the rights out so they can make that one availabel again. :(

Regardless, Keen 6 (and also Spear of Destiny) never were actually Apogee games.

Dreamcast
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Incoming - $5, complete. DC port of the PC game of the same name. I got the PC original as a pack-in with my Voodoo2 card when I bought it in November 1998, but I was interested enough in seeing how the DC port turned out to pick this up. It's the same game, all right. A little of the graphical flash may be missing, and of course the max resolution is lower (nothing you can do about that, then) but it still looks good. Of course though Incoming always was a graphics-over-gameplay title, with VERY flashy graphics but bland, repetitive, and extremely simplistic shooting action, and that's the same as ever, but at least it's decently fun.

Genesis
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Ex-Mutants - $5, complete - This is a sidescroller from Malibu and published by Sega. The game stars some comic book characters from a Malibu Comics series, I believe; I have no knowledge of the source material. As for the game though, you play as a male or female character, and have to beat the evil mutants and save your four kidnapped friends (two male and two female). As the title suggests, the six of you aren't mutants, you are ex-mutants, or rather mutants who were turned back into humans by a good doctor, since mutants in this future are apparently evil. The game is decently fun, with average graphics, sound, and gameplay, but the levels have plenty of secret areas to find, and there's a nice variety of weapons too. It's a bit frustrating, because if you die you lose ALL of your powerups, which sets you back SIGNIFICANTLY... and oh yeah, when you die, all powerups in the level respawn, too. Depending on how far you are (there are invisible checkpoints where you will spawn from if you die; game over doesn't send you back any, until you run out of continues and have to start the game over), you may or may not be able to go back and get them. The game has eight levels, and each one is only moderately long, but it's a tough game because by level 3 it gets hard, and there's no save system. At least there is an easy-to-use level select cheat... I think I'll use it. A game like this should have had saving anyway. But yeah, it's generic Western platormer stuff, but it's decently fun.

Also, I got something from ebay. For only $18.50, I got a Virtual Boy controller and VB AC Adapter Tap -- it was put up as buy it now at that price, which is below what VB AC adapter taps usually sell for. I was fortunate to find it, and bought it right away. It didn't come with a SNES power supply, so I have to use the one from my SNES (I'll need to get another SNES power brick, once I find one for cheap...), but that's the easy part to find. VB controllers, and especially AC adapter taps... those are the hard ones. And yes, it is an official AC adapter tap. I've tested it, and it, and the controller, work perfectly. It's just awesome, I've been wanting one of these (AC adapter tap) ever since I bought the VB back in '08, and it's fantastic to finally have it! And of course with how my VB controller has been acting up for the past 6-12 months, I hadn't used the system much at all for some time now, despite getting four games for it last year (3D Tetris, Mario Clash, Teleroboxer, Galactic Pinball; it doubled my collection from 4 games to 8). I'll have to use it more now, that's for sure. Seriously, the VB should have come with the AC adapter tap (plus AC adapter) in the box when you bought the system. It's just ludicrous that they forced you to buy it separately, and only included that awful battery box.

The gameshark does require special software. Mine still had the CD (and a silly little video tape of instructions done in a painfully 90's style). I went online and found some repositories for the newest version of the software, but it'll still require some doing. USB adapters don't seem to work with the program, so you need a native built in old school printer port. Once it is all set up, you just plug the device into your computer and start the program. The cheats are essentially stored in one huge file, so every time you make additions or changes, it has to reupload the whole block back onto the device. It is still more convenient than doing it manually through the device's own interface though. Keep in mind there's space limitations. Flash memory at that time was still very low, so there's not much space to work with at all. Oh, and the program can also update the device firmware.

You wanted a power adapter with your portable device? Hah! They didn't start doing that until rechargeable batteries became the norm, necessitating it. And of course the VB is portable! Why recall with fondness resting the legs of the VB on my own legs during long car trips. I could get in 5-10 minutes of very shaky hard to balance gameplay before my neck hurt and I went back to playing Gameboy!

Quote: You wanted a power adapter with your portable device? Hah! They didn't start doing that until rechargeable batteries became the norm, necessitating it. And of course the VB is portable! Why recall with fondness resting the legs of the VB on my own legs during long car trips. I could get in 5-10 minutes of very shaky hard to balance gameplay before my neck hurt and I went back to playing Gameboy!

Hah... I've never tried that, but that sounds about right. :)

Seriously, the VB was probably doomed to fail, but I do think that it'd have helped if Nintendo had not pretended that it was a handheld. Include the AC adapter with tap in the box; battery box optional (either don't include it and sell that separately, or include it but without batteries... doesn't matter, you shouldn't really be using that thing anyway). Also don't sell the thing as a full-scale console the equal of the GB or N64, but as an interesting piece of tech which can do some unique things that other systems can't, most notably 3d. Ie, scale down expectations. Also, don't give up on it after six months! Yeah, people didn't like it much, but that it was abandoned so quickly definitely did not help. For instance, I wanted a VB, but decided not to get one (during its actual life) because i'd heard that it was failing, and i didn't want to spend my, or our, money on a doomed system, no matter how awesome VB Wario Land looked, and it looked awesome. It would have sold more if they hadn't given up on it so quickly.

Or alternately they could have just cancelled it until full-color headsets were technically feasible, but by that point I don't know if they'd have wanted to release a 3d headset, and the VB is cool so it'd be too bad if it had never existed.

Quote: The gameshark does require special software. Mine still had the CD (and a silly little video tape of instructions done in a painfully 90's style). I went online and found some repositories for the newest version of the software, but it'll still require some doing. USB adapters don't seem to work with the program, so you need a native built in old school printer port. Once it is all set up, you just plug the device into your computer and start the program. The cheats are essentially stored in one huge file, so every time you make additions or changes, it has to reupload the whole block back onto the device. It is still more convenient than doing it manually through the device's own interface though. Keep in mind there's space limitations. Flash memory at that time was still very low, so there's not much space to work with at all. Oh, and the program can also update the device firmware.

Fortunately I do have a printer port, but yeah, not that software... I'll need to find it. And a printer cable. I think there might still be one lying around here...

Best Buy has a sale on right now... online most stuff is sold out, but you can still find the games in stores, and yes, they WILL ring up at the sale price -- none of these were marked in the store at the lower price, but at the register, they rung up as marked below. :) (List of titles on sale: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=525096 )

These games are new.

DS
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Kirby Mass Attack - $8 - Looks pretty good... I've been interested in this one. I've played the demo, it seems fun... The game isn't listed on Best Buy's website, but does indeed ring up at the sale price if they have a copy, as this store did.

Lego Battles Ninjago, as a part of the Lego Ninjago Brickmaster Lego set and game collection - $10 (140 piece Lego set and the game above, which is the second of the two Lego Battles Lego-themed DS RTS games) - I put together the first Lego set option. This Brickmaster line has a small lego set with book that lists five different groups of models you can build, with instructions for each one, plus of course the game came in the box too. It's a small lego set and mediocre game, but still, the price is decent, so why not.

Wii
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Pikmin 2 - $5 - Yes, I've never owned this game before. The Best Buy website claimed that they had no copies of the game, but in the actual store, there several copies were.

Used games (from other stores, of course, not Best Buy!)

PC
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Curling 2: Take-Out Weight - $1, complete in box, maybe unopened. Yes, it's a curling simulation. Why did I get it? Well... it was $1, complete. The entertainment value alone of actually having such a thing has to be worth a dollar... this game was probably only released in Canada, too (the box is dual French/English, with fold-out stuff on each side in each language), so I wonder how it ended up here...

Piranha - $2, disc in jewelcase. Cheap, obviously low-budget Asteroids knockoff I'd never heard of before. OGt it because it looked moderately interesting, and promised a techno soundtrack... and I'd never heard of it, and it was pretty cheap. Why not try it out?

Saturn
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NBA Jam T.E. - $4, complete - I have this for PC, SNES, and GB, but not PS1/Saturn... well, now I have one of those versions too. I do have the very similar College Slam for PS1, but not Jam TE.

Virtual Open Tennis - $2, complete - average looking Tennis game

Playstation
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Rage Racer -$3, complete

Game Boy Color
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Dragon Warrior III - $2, cart only - pretty good find I think!

GOG is having a sale; it's been on for most of the week, but ends in 15 hours (so, when tomorrow comes). So yeah, get there if you want it... it's 80% off if you buy five games from a specific list. I ended up getting these:

PC DD (GOG sale)
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Puddle - $2 (liquid platformer, sort of like Fluidity) - not listed on IGN
Defender's Quest - $3 (TD) - not listed on IGN
Divinity 2 - $4 (3d action-rpg)
Capsized - $2 (platform/puzzle)
A New Beginning - $2 (adventure game) - not listed on IGN

"Indie" games sale on Steam. I got one a few days ago...

PC DD
--
Half Minute Hero - $3.40 - not listed on IGN

PC DD (Steam indie sale)
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Steel Storm - $3. Topdown shooter, looks decent.

The three GB/GBC games were $5 for the three. The four PS2/Xbox games were $10 for the four. So yeah, cheap games.

Game Boy
--
Tetris Attack - cart only

Game Boy/GB Color (dual mode)
--
Test Drive Off Road 3 - cart only (rumble cart game, came with a battery)
Moon Patrol / Spy Hunter - cart and manual

PS2
--
Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked - complete

Xbox - all games complete
--
Driv3r
Whiteout (snowmobile racing game)
Destroy All Humans (I've wanted to play this one)

Game Boy
--
Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters - $12, cart in case. I know the game's a little cheaper on ebay, but when I saw it I just couldn't resist... and it does seem like a good game in what I've played so far.

Also, I got a 3DO controller for $3. It's one of the Logitech-style ones. If/whenever I get a 3DO, this one was a lot cheaper than the controllers I see on ebay sell for.

I just made use of GOG's "stacking weekend promo". It was just crazy. Every game I added gave me a deeper discount, and I ended up with 5 new RPGs for about $10. It's still going on as of this post by the way.

So I ended up with Neverwinter Nights 2 complete and everything Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. I'll need to delve into those at some point.

Yeah, that's a great deal for people who don't own those games. The only games there that I don't have are NWN2: Mysteries of Westgate and Dragonshard, though, and Dragonshard doesn't look interesting at all and Mysteries of Westgate has to be bought with three game I've owned for years (NWN2 and its first two addons), and I don't quite want to spend $7 for just that...

I've heard Mysteries of Westgate just isn't that good. The main campaign and the first expansion are the only campaigns with teeth, I'm hearing. Fact is, I couldn't really stomach the storyline of the original Neverwinter. I played that game primarily for the custom campaigns others built. I really don't care one bit about a rampant kobold attack on a local village. I think kobolds are about the laziest monsters ever devised actually. I hate them. I don't even want to kill them, I hate them that much. I have NEVER read or played a single story involving kobolds that was in any way interesting. Just about any time a kobold den rears its ugly head in a storyline campaign, the whole story just grinds to a hault until I've put down the last dumb dog man, then I can finally get back to saving the kingdom or whatever.

It doesn't help that every single time someone has tried to get me into D&D on pen and paper, I end up fighting some camp of kobolds for an hour. I just don't CARE! Give me some character development, or something.

It would be another thing if the actual characters in the main campaign were in any way interesting, but they aren't. The main campaigns for Neverwinter Nights 1 are about as dry and "by the numbers" as it can possibly get, as though it was written entirely by check list. Fortunately, Bioware got better. It is also fortunate that Neverwinter 2 was made by Obsidian instead.

The original NWN2's story is just abysmal. Worst thing Obsidian's ever done, in my opinion. The gameplay's alright, way better than NWN1 because it is a party-based game (remember in NWN1 you could control one character only), but the story... it's bad, and has one of the stupidest endings in an RPG. The first expansion, Mask of the Betrayer, is great, though. Good story there for sure. The second expansion's alright too. It gets overlooked, but it's a fine classic-style campaign... it's more about gameplay than story though, so it's very different from the first addon. As for Mysteries of Westgate, as I said I don't have it, but yeah, it got mediocre reviews didn't it... I think I'll pass for now on it. Maybe if that pack was cheaper I'd consider it, but not for that price.

How weird, considering that Mask of the Betrayer is, in fact, a DIRECT followup to the events of the original story. I would imagine if there was not a single salvageable thing out of the original story, any expansion wouldn't be able to save it.

My experience with that campaign so far hasn't been as awful as you describe. Sure, a bit cliche with the "king of shadows" and all, but it is certainly not anything wretched, certainly it is at least interesting, which is a far cry from the storylines presented to us in Neverwinter Nights 1. I understand Mask turns the whole ending on its head and makes the king of shadows sympathetic, so knowing that in advance probably drives my interest a bit.

MotB happens after the original story, and you play as the same character (note: the second expansion, Storm of Zehir, is set in a different place with a new group of characters, not the same one again)... but the story is different, the location is different, the companions are different, etc. Your character is one of the only things tying the two games together.

But yeah, I got NWN2 as one of the earlier games I got after getting a new computer in early '07, so I got it sometime that year I believe, and I was moderately disappointed. The story wasn't good, the game ran poorly (seriously, that game requires a crazy powerful machine to run mediocrely), I disliked the free-moving 3d camera (static stuff like the Infinity Engine games is just better for this kind of game), I was disappointed that you only get four members in your party instead of 6 as you get in the IE games, etc. And as for the story most of it's just mediocre, though I hated how the burning-home-village section early in the game was handled; that was my first clue that this story wasn't exactly going to be great. It continued living up to that as I got farther, unfortunately. It's not all bad, sure, but... it's Obsidian! I expected better.

It was a good enough game to be worth getting, and was the best PC RPG I'd played since IWD2, but it wasn't anywhere near as good as any of the Infinity Engine titles.

On a related note, NWN2 vs. Dragon Age 1... I'm not sure. Both have their issues, but DA1 might be more fun... and the camera is a little better. MotB, though, really is good.

Everything was buy 2 get 1 free, so it was just over $50 total including tax.

Dreamcast
--
Armada - $15, complete - I've wanted this game, great thing to finally find...

Saturn
--
Loaded - $13, complete - I've wanted to try this one.
Contra: Legacy of War - free, would be $10, disc only - I know it's not liked, but eh, I'll give it a try.

Genesis
--
Viewpoint - $10, complete - Very cool find!

32X
--
RBI Baseball '95 - cart only, free, would be $2 - why not...

DS
--
Puzzle Quest Galaxtrix - free, would be $5, complete - I have this for PC, but it's good, and I'd like to play a handheld version too...

GB
--
Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt - $3, cart only - Addams Family license title.

GBA
--
Hot Wheels Stunt Track Challenge and Hot Wheels World Race (2 games on 1 cart package) - $3, cart only - Hopefully they're not both awful, but World Race is futuristic, so I should have it.

PS1
--
Grudge Warriors - $5, complete - third person tank action game

Wii - Gamestop is running a "50% off certain used games that are in the 50% off bin" deal right now, so I picked up a few Wii games that were half off (the prices below are what I paid). All four are complete.
--
Rhythm Heaven Fever - $6.75
De Blob - $2.25
Boom Blox - $3.15
Red Steel 2 - $5

And from other places...

SNES
--
Kawasaki Carribean Challenge - $4, cart only - topdown motorcycle and jetski racing game

PC
--
Spycraft: The Great Game - $2, jewelcase only - spy adventure game with some FMV and stuff
Unreal Tournament - $3, jewelcase only
GTA San Andreas - $3, disc in manual only (it's like a book, kind of neat)

PC
--
Star Wars: Empire at War - Jewelcase only, $1.25. It's an RTS, I believe... hopefully okay. From what I've read, it sounds like it's the middle of the three Star Wars RTSes... better than Force Commander, but probably not as good as Age of Empires II... um, I mean "Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds".

Xbox
--
Battlestar Galactica - $4, complete. Hopefully it's okay.

So... I got a console. Not anything recent, though. I got an Atari 7800, locally, fopr $55 (came with two 7800 controllers, power and RF cables, 2 7800 games, and 2 2600 games). Yeha, the price was okay, but not amazing. Still, I've had some 2600 games for like a year now, but no working system to play them on, so I was interested... and I'd much rather buy local than ebay. Much easier to check, and I'd have a recourse if it didn't work. (The other 2600 stuff I have was from when I got this batch of 2600 stuff locally, including ~15 games, 3 controllers, a pair of paddles, and a non-working system. I don't see any mention of the games on here, so I guess I should list those too now, even though they are not new.

Games are cart only unless noted.

7800
--
One On One - with manual (with system)
Pole Position II (with system)
Dig Dug - $3

2600
--
Combat (3 copies, 1 with system, 2 from that other lot)
Pac-Man (have 2 copies, 1 from lot, 1 with 7800)
Freeway - $1
Lock n Chase - $1 - Game is not listed on IGN.

Stuff from that lot from last year (for 2600)
--
Pac-Man
Combat (2 copies were in the lot)
Street Racer (3 copies were in the lot)
Robot Tank
Defender
Centipede (2 copies were in the lot)
Target Fun
Outlaw
Air-Sea Battle
Joust
Breakout
Vanguard
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Video Pinball
Missile Command
Joust
And one I forget the name of and has no name on the cart or in the start menu where two cars go in a maze, but you move at all times and can only switch paths at the intersections (on the four sides of the screen, top bottom left right) as you try to collect all the dots.

Nice catch.

The 7800 is an odd situation. Atari got big flack for the 5200 not being backwards compatible with the 2600 (also, their numbering system seems almost intentionally designed to confuse, like they just felt they needed to toss random numbers in there to make it seem more futuristic). The 7800 actually added BACK 2600 compatibility and just didn't even bother with the middle system's compatibility. Weird stuff.

I have a 2600 system, but no Atari systems after that. I've been very nervous about even trying to find a working Jaguar, simply due to the reported failures of those systems. I may end up looking up some repair guides. I understand some people have managed to set up repair guides that improve on the original setup so it is far less likely to fail.

The 2600 itself? You're talking about the source of the "game crash" and the first true home console, that is, in the sense of a home system that can play multiple unique games. Before that, the best one could hope for was systems that still had set rules, but certain "game chips" could slightly alter those rules to create different games (but couldn't code anything truly unique). It has some games that can kill hours and hours of time among friends to this day. Heck, Outlaw alone is crazy fun, and that's just two stick figures shooting at each other on a single screen. Then you have games like Raiders of the Lost Ark, and other terrible trash.

I was reading some forums where younger gamers thought the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" was idiotic, that "anyone with a printer can circumvent that copyright protection". They didn't get that the "seal of quality" had nothing at all to do with copyright protection and everything to do with keeping NOA in control of what games got released on the NES. Sure, anyone could "print" the seal and sell a bootlegged cart, no problem. However, a major publisher couldn't legally get away with sticking that seal on a major release without Nintendo shutting them down, and THAT was the point.

While the NES had less garbage utterly flooding out the good stuff, let us not forget that a HUGE amount of NES games still were terrible, it just wasn't such a deluge that no one could even see the good games out there.

Yeah, it is too bad that there's no 5200 module or something for the 7800. Apparently one was in Atari's long list of cancelled hardware, so they were thinking about it, but it didn't happen. Too bad, I'd probably want one now. Ah well.

Quote: I was reading some forums where younger gamers thought the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" was idiotic, that "anyone with a printer can circumvent that copyright protection". They didn't get that the "seal of quality" had nothing at all to do with copyright protection and everything to do with keeping NOA in control of what games got released on the NES. Sure, anyone could "print" the seal and sell a bootlegged cart, no problem. However, a major publisher couldn't legally get away with sticking that seal on a major release without Nintendo shutting them down, and THAT was the point.

The seal of quality mostly just meant that games wouldn't be buggy and would actually work, not that they had any actual quality standards... but I'm sure you know that. It certainly was a very good marketing thing, though, pushing the "seal of quality". And I will admit, making it so that games actually work and don't fail and stuff is worthwhile, Atari games certainly didn't always do that, third party stuff particularly.

And yeah, Nintendo's use of the licensing model really was one of the key things behind the NES/Famicom's success, I agree.

Quote: The 2600 itself? You're talking about the source of the "game crash" and the first true home console, that is, in the sense of a home system that can play multiple unique games. Before that, the best one could hope for was systems that still had set rules, but certain "game chips" could slightly alter those rules to create different games (but couldn't code anything truly unique). It has some games that can kill hours and hours of time among friends to this day. Heck, Outlaw alone is crazy fun, and that's just two stick figures shooting at each other on a single screen. Then you have games like Raiders of the Lost Ark, and other terrible trash.

That's true, but while it is true that the 2600 was key to the crash, it had a full generation's life before that happened... I mean, the 2600 released in 1976, and the crash was 1983. It wasn't until into the next generation that the crash happened, in part because of the giant glut of bad games for all of the systems that caused customers to just give up, part because nobody had a licensing system like Nintendo later would so first parties didn't make any money off of third party games for their platform (hurts profits quite a bit!), and partially because companies like Warner, who owned Atari in the early '80s, completely messed up the generation transition by trying to keep the 2600 going for longer than it should have been.

I mean, look at the 5200's library... it's mostly 2600 ports. The games that actually showed what that system could do were few and far between. Why buy a system which mostly just has better looking versions of the (literally) same games? Or, why buy any consoles at all... yeah, I think that had Warner and other first parties managed the generation transition better, the crash might not have been as bad. And I know, the industry was young, so that Warner didn't understand why people wanted a new system only 5 years after they got their last one was understandable, so maybe the crash was partially unavoidable... but that lesson had to be learned.

And yeah, there are many people who say that one problem with the current generation was that it went on too long...

(Oh, and yes, I know that major sites like Gamefaqs and Wikipedia, for some insane reason, put the 5200 and Colecovision in the same generation as the 2600. That is wrong and ridiculous. The systems of 1982 were new systems starting a new, third generation of consoles. Just because they all failed and died within a few years doesn't mean that they should be retroactively tossed back a generation! I'd put them in the same generation as the NES and the other 3rd-gen systems like the 7800 and Master System, myself. And yes, that means that I'd say that Sega and Atari both had two 3rd gen consoles. Maybe "early 3rd" versus "late 3rd", or something, to separate the two batches... but they aren't different generations. I mean, the Famicom released in 1983 in Japan, the Colecovision and 5200 1982 in the US. One year is not enough for a generational leap. I think it's particularly absurd that the Sega SG-1000 is listed as "second gen", when it actually released the SAME DAY that the Famicom did in Japan... so, on the same exact day, one 2nd gen console and one 3rd gen console both released? THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS! Lol

)

... Anyway though. So, I went to another store that has some 2600 games, and got some stuff. They had a few 7800 games mixed in, so I got a few of those too. Games are cart only.

7800
--
Centipede - $5 - Graphics are better than the 2600 version, but gameplay is similar. It's too bad that Atari brought Centipede to the 7800, but not Millipede like the NES had... though at least this is full screen, unlike that game (NES Millipede).
Galaga - $5 - Solid port of this good shmup. It's got three difficulty levels, each faster than the last...
Choplifter - $3 - It's the Apple II game, so it only has one level and is like 6 minutes long, but it's fun enough that I ended up getting it anyway.

2600 - All games were $1 each.
--
Demon Attack - Simple Space Invaders knockoff. Good but simple.
Atlantis - Fun game. Use three turrets to shoot the attacking ships.
Berzerk - This game is okay, but I like the games it inspired better than the original...
Night Driver - paddle game - Early racing game. Could be better, controls take getting used to.
Demons to Diamonds - paddle game - Okay, simple shooting game. Nothing amazing,
Warlords - paddle game. A classic! And yes, it's great, and has a 1 player mode.
Enduro - Fun little racing game with a straight track where you dodge cars (into-the-screen racing)
River Raid - Simple shooter. Popular classic, and it is some fun, but it's not the best.
Kangaroo - single-screen platformer. Pretty good! I like this game.
Air Raiders - flight combat game.
Yar's Revenge - popular shooting game. I can see why people liked it.

On that note, I tested the pair of paddles I had that had come with that broken 2600 system and games lot. Fortunately, they work fine, which is great... the paddle controller is pretty awesome. I like it a lot!

Otherwise, all of the games work, except for Robot Tank, which has issues... the picture skips upwards. No vertical hold. Bah. Is it a 7800 issue? I don't know. Otherwise, though, everything works. Not bad, given their age.

That does seem rather silly. To this day though, I have a hard time seeing things like stand alone Pong and The Odyssey as the "first generation" of home consoles. They really seem like their own separate entities, a whole different beast from the generalized consoles that came later. That's just me though. I had Tiger Electronics handhelds, but have a hard time considering them the "first generation" portables too.

Well, the Odyssey 1 is a "console" of sorts, thanks to those cards... but yeah, the home Pongs and home Pong clones, calling those consoles... it is a bit iffy. If those are consoles, why aren't those Tiger (and others) LCD games handheld videogame systems? And those Jakks Pacific and other joysticks-with-games-built-in things are consoles too, right?

But no, normally those other things are not counted as videogame systems, because they do not have any games other than the ones built in, while the Home Pongs generally are, probably because there were no consoles really, during that time, and it set the groundwork for the console industry, so they're listed as "consoles" even though they really aren't.

And of course, as you've said, even the Odyssey is only sort of a console, considering that the cards don't have full separate games on them, but only modify the circuitry. The only Home Pong which is a legitimate, full console is the Coleco Telstar Arcade, a very short-lived thing which has like 3-5 cartridges, but DOES use cartridges. It apparently launched in 1977, so after the first real console (1976's Fairchild Channel F), but it kind of looks more like a home pong than a full console -- it's got paddles for Pong-style games, a lightgun for shooting games, and a wheel for driving games, but no joystick. So is it first-gen or second? Probably second, I guess, even though it's usually included with the home pongs, and not consoles.

And on that note, the home Pongs are counted as "first-gen consoles", even though many weren't released until after the Fairchild. Yeah, it was a somewhat messy, early time, but should those really be counted as consoles? I agree with you, it's a somewhat questionable case. But the Odyssey... that I, at least, think probably should count.

Anyway though, the 5200, Colecovision, and Vectrex were definitely starting a new generation, and it should be the "third", the same as the NES -- as I said, one year difference is not a generational leap. The Intellivision is tougher, as it released about halfway in between the 2nd and 3rd gen consoles, but as it did test-market in 1979, I think I'd count it as a late second-gen system, not an early third-gen one. There were, after all, a good 2 2/3rds years between the Intellivision's test market and the Colecovision and 5200 releases.

The game I couldn't find the name of is Dodge 'em. So yeah, I have that.

PC DD - from several days ago, GOG sale.
--
Fahrenheit - $2.40
Dangerous Dave Pack - $2.40

Atari 2600
--
Video Olympics - $2 (it's basically a bunch of Pong variants on a cart.)

Video Olympics was actually released both under that name and under the name "Pong Sports". It basically is a collection with all the Atari Pong home console variations in one cart, and established to the consumers that the Atari 2600 was capable of everything the "single game" consoles could do and more.

I've got a copy of it myself. It's got some fun modes in there, like "Quadra Pong". Mine's the "Pong Sports" label of the game, but it is otherwise identical.

Huh, Video Olympics is also known as Pong Sports? I didn't know that, but that name does make a lot more sense, I think... "Video Olympics" is kind of an odd name for a game that is entirely Pong.

It is pretty cool that the game has 50 variants of Pong, including some pretty decent 4-player ones, but it is too bad that there is no AI option; all modes are one player only. Unfortunate. It'd be nice to be able to play the game with one person as well. Warlords has AI, why not Video Olympics?

Atari 2600 - $3 each. Cart only.
--
Megamania - I've played this one in emulation before. Good game! I played the 5200 version more, in emulation, and it's better (you can actually tell what the objects you're shooting are, for instance...), but still, I like this game, as I was expecting. I'm happy to find it soon after getting the system. As for the game, it's a shooter, just with weird objects to shoot at. Also you have a timer for each stage, and your point bonus depends on how long you take. And the ... things ... you're shooting move around on and off the screen, so it's not just "they move back and forth or dive at you". And the stuff is strange, too. The story is that it's a dream or something...

Dragonfire - Game from Imagic. It's a two-screen game, where first you go across a screen, sidescroller-style, dodging fireballs, and then run around a topdown area collecting all the items, while dodging the dragon shooting fireballs at you. Yeah, you can't fight back, and you can't win either of course; you just play unitl you lose. The game's really simplistic, but the platformer screen actually can be tough sometimes (when a slow lower fireball comes first, then a fast upper one second), and the waves of fireballs on the second screen take concentration to dodge, for sure. I wasn't expecting much, but I guess I can see why 2600 fans like this one... though I'd rather see something with an ending and stuff. Ah well, 2nd gen games were often like this.

Crystal Castles - This one's a Pac-Man style game, but isometric. In the arcades apparently it had much better graphics and trackball control, but on 2600... yeah, it's limited. The graphics are awful, and actually getting the pickups is kind of tricky -- it's easy to walk past them. This is a game which didn't quite work on 2600. It's still okay, but really, this needs a system with better graphics and a trackball. On that note, it's too bad that they didn't make a 5200 version of this... apparently there is a homebrew version (Atari 8-bit conversion), which looks probably better than this one. Interesting effort here though.

Atari 7800 - from ebay, about $6.25 for both including shipping, both cart only
--
Asteroids - $1 plus shipping - Good version of this classic. As usual for the 7800, it's another port of a badly dated arcade game... but at least it's a good port. I like the "asteroid-like" graphics, and the two player modes (co-op and versus) are pretty cool. Centipede and Asteroids both have 2-player co-op and versus on 7800. Gives some value to these otherwise rehashed titles.

Desert Falcon - $2.25 plus shipping - It's a Zaxxon knockoff where you play as a falcon. Yeah. The game's pretty basic, as all you do is fly along your isometric 3d path, Zaxxon style, while you shoot at the handful of types of baddies (7800, as always with minimal cartridge sizes...), but it's fun. The game's tough, as you die if you touch anything, but it does have some nice touches, such as that the falcon can land and walk on the ground, but on ground you have to press forward to move, while in the air you'll fly forwards automatically. Also back makes you go up, and forward down. Oh, and in water you have to press forward to move, but it's got a "floating" look, which is nice. :) No bobbing up and down, unlike the walk. At the end of each level, you fight a sphinx. The one unique element, other than the theme, are the powerups; instead of having powerups to collect, you collect Egyptian hieroglyphs, and once you get three, you get the powerup that those three give you put into storage. the right button uses your current power, the left button shoots (you can just hold it down, thankfully). It's easy to die, and there are no continues of course in a score-focused game like this, but it's alright. It's not a great game, and probably isn't as good as Zaxxon (I wish it had more variety, for instance...), but it's alright, and definitely was worth getting; this is one I wanted for 7800 (there aren't many games starring falcons! And also, I like Zaxxon.), and I'm happy to have it.

Atari 2600 (purchased locally)
--
Amidar - $3, cart only. This is a Konami game, and it's maybe the first one of those "walk around every side of all paths in the game in order to move on to the next stage" games. Or if it isn't first, it's certainly one of the first. The concept is obviously inspired by Pac-Man, but it's somewhat different in that you must pass over every surface. Amadar has a unique weapon, too -- you can press the button at any time to make the enemies turn into harmless shadows for a few seconds. And yes, you seem to be able to use this as much as you want. However, they can move faster than you, and you can't be using that all of the time (and it's easy to lose track of where they are while it's active!), so it's still tough. There seems to be only one screen layout, unfortunately, but it changes colors and enemy types after you beat a screen, so there's something at least. This is a good game, but overall, I think I like later games that use this same basic concept, such as Amazing Penguin for Game Boy or maybe also Zoom! for Genesis, more. Still, this is a good game and I like it, even if the graphics are pretty bad.

Super Nintendo
--
Super Nova - $11, cart only. I know, it's a couple of dollars cheaper on ebay, but it's worth it to get it locally... and this isn't something I'd probably have bought on ebay, I think. Anyway, Super Nova is also known in Japan as Darius Force. It's the second SNES Darius game, and like the first one (Darius Twin), it's a SNES exclusive. I wasn't sure whether I'd like this one, because Darius Twin is a bit boring and Force cuts out one of that games' better features, the two player co-op mode (yeah, Force is 1p only. Too bad.), but... this game is decent! The game's quite challenging, and I'm dying CONSTANTLY, but still, it's good. Darius games all have a similar feel, and it's not my favorite kind of shmup around (I prefer Gradius by far...), but for a Darius game, this is good. As usual, you're off to fight the evil legions of space fish, as you try to save your planet. I expect more crazy endings, like the ones in Darius Twin... :)

One odd thing is that the SNES got two exclusive Darius games, while the arcade games (Darius 1 and 2) were on other platforms -- the first to TG16/CD (Japan only), and TG Super CD (Japan only) and Genesis for the second one (called "Sagaia" on consoles in the West, but it's Darius 2. What did Taito have against titling Darius games "Darius" here?)). Eh, it works.

Anyway though, Super Nova is still a Darius game, but it's better than I was expecting. Nice graphics, good music. Too bad for the removal of two player, though. Otherwise, this is good.

Atari 2600 - all cart only
--
Riddle of the Sphinx - $2. From Imagic. I'll need to look up something online for how to play this one... seems okay though, maybe.
Cosmic Ark - $1. Another Imagic game, this is the sequel to Atlantis. The gameplay's completely different, though. One part is twitch-reaction direction pressing, the other moving around and abducting people without getting hit. The default game goes on a long time, you can get hit a lot before you finally lose. First impression is that it's okay, but Atlantis is definitely better.
Turmoil - $1. Fun, frantic shooting game.

Atari 2600 - all cart only.
--
Commando Raid - $1. It's sort of like Missile Command, except you shoot paratroopers. I remember a PC game from the '90s called Night Raid, it played a lot like this... decent game. I like the very colorful backdrop, too!
Towering Inferno - $3. You go around shooting water at flames and then rescue white blocks which are "people". Seems alright, I guess, but pretty bland... I don't know.
Astroblast - $1. Mattel game, based on the Intellivision game Astrosmash. I got this because I read that it has a paddle-controller mode, and the paddle controller is completely awesome. I tried it and... yeah, this is good! The game is an okay game. Really, really simple -- you move left and right and shoot up at rocks coming down at the ground -- but it's fast-paced and fun. With the regular controller it's not nearly as good, but with paddles... great fun! You lose points for rocks that hit the ground, and get like 10 lives, but it's hard anyway because of how fast the rocks are, and you want to shoot them to not lose points.
Grand Prix - $1. Overly simplistic "drive to the right for a minute and try to dodge the cars" game. It's okay, I guess, but it needs more substance... like, say, you find in Activision's much better later title Enduro. Or even Speedway! for the O2; it's just as short, but is a bit more fun while it lasts. The cars in this game look good, but you can't see very far so dodging them is tough.

2600
--
Phoenix - $1.50, cart only - similar to Demon Attack, but it has a shield, boss rounds, but no music (and the enemies have wings you can shoot off, instead of splitting into two). Actually this game came first, and Atari sued apparently... and the other guys settled.

Dreamcast
--
Vigilante 8: The 2nd Offense - $1, complete. I have the first game for N64, but not the second. This kind of car-combat game isn't my favorite thing, but it's worth a dollar at least for sure.

2600
--
Buck Rogers in: Planet of Zoom - cart only, $6.50. Yeah, it's not cheap, but it's an interesting game from Sega, and was below ebay buy-it-now prices. The game is a port of Sega's very first scaler-style arcade game, which is pretty cool. Of course on 2600 it doesn't exactly match the arcade game, but it's actually decent, probably because they made it flat (no height in this version, unlike the other ones, you just move left and right).

Wii
--
TMNT: Smash-up - $10, complete

PS2 (the PS2 and Xbox games were buy 3 get 2 free)
--
DT Racer - free, would be $6, complete. This is an extremely bland and generic car racing game. It's bland and not all that fun, and with the driving assists off I find it nearly impossible. However, it does have an awesome soundtrack from DJ Tiesto. Nothing else good here though.
Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain - $6, complete. The PS2 Syphon Filter game.

Xbox
--
Corvette - $6, complete. Another racing game.
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy - $6, complete. FPS from Midway.
Destroy All Humans 2 - free, would be $5.

And a couple other things I might mention later.

Oh, and I got that Amazon sale stuff of course, several days back... still haven't listed it out here. I'll have to do that.

I got a bunch of DS games recently. Bad news? The right "hinge" on my DS Lite busted tonight. I do say, the DS Lite is the most fragile handheld Nintendo's ever made. I've been treating it well just as I have all my other handhelds, and this is the first time it's happened. Further, this sort of breakage has been reported for this particular model for years now. In my case, it was the part where the lights shine through and used as a hinge for the entire clamshell operation (it doesn't house the lights, fortunately, so it's just plastic I can super glue back on). My GBA SP however has survived admirably, with no failing mechanisms at all. (The surface is scruffed up a bit, but apparently that's an issue with the sort of metallic paint they used on the SPs). Now fortunately, as I mentioned, the right hinge housed no electronics, the cable to the speakers and top screen coming through the left hinge instead. So, I could keep playing until I could save in the game I was playing when the hinge snapped off. I plan on repairing the system, but I also wonder about picking up a DSi now that I see the price on the things starting to drop. Yes, I have a 3DS, but the native screen resolution presents a bit of a problem there. At "full" view, the resolution of the DS is not a multiple of the 3DS resolution, so the image is blurry. At "native" view, the image shrinks down to a divisible matching point, so there is no jagginess, no blurriness, but the image is physically very small. It makes targetting things on the touch screen rather difficult. As a result, I would be satisfied perhaps if I were using the 3DS XL, but I'm not willing to spend that much on a size increase alone, so instead I've considered a new DS (I can still use this DS in very limited capacity as a "transfer" between those various GBA and DS games which have connection features between them, such as Aria of Sorrow (GBA) and Dawn of Sorrow (DS)). I'll be in a better position to decide when I attempt to repair the joint with super glue. If it works out well, I'll just keep on going as is. What I'm saying is this. ABF may have been on to something sticking with an original model DS. I think those were more robustly built (although my brother managed to utterly destroy his a few years back). As for my own original DS, well, I managed to get Best Buy to replace my original DS with a Lite model by waiting until the very end of Best Buy's warranty when they had JUST sold out of all their original model DSs, thus making sure they could ONLY replace my unit with the new model. As such, my old model is long gone. (I had to transfer my wireless data settings to another DS temporarily before the trade-in, then transfer those settings back into the new system, and that's how I kept my friend's lists. There you go, A FLAWLESS TESTIMONY!) I don't regret it, as the Lite DS served me well for many years until tonight.

So anyway, yeah, here's the DS games that stress tested my Lite recently:

Picross DS - Amazing game, and going online I can actually download all the puzzles from Mario's Picross. Unfortunately, there is not enough storage space on the DS cart for ALL the downloadable challenges. When Nintendo turns out the lights on the online support for DS games, whatever I've got on the cart, that's it, for good. This is an annoyance with the modern DLC era, and is really Nintendo's fault for releasing more content than can be stored in the free space made available on the cart itself. Perhaps it could be fixed with a packet sniffing and inserting downloadable program on the PC that intercepted "Nintendo Wifi" network requests?

Picross 3D - This is an amazing next step for the series. It certainly is better than just releasing new challenges for the exact same game over and over. You're right ABF, this game is incredible and very fun. I also love the MAGICAL PERSONALITY this whole game drips with. Too many puzzle games on the DS seem to have taken the Apple aesthetic too far and stripped away ALL their personality. Magnetica is one example! The game is fun, and I'd say the game is better designed than Zuma, the Popcap game that was "inspired" by this series, but wow, they stripped out all the charm from the arcade version with the DS release. The game design is solid enough, but everything feels so... sterile...

Planet Puzzle League - This is a game in a series I had completely avoided because Nintendo has no idea what to DO with this series in America. In point of fact, I had no idea I WAS avoiding it.

The first game was called Tetris Attack, and starred Yoshi and friends. It had nothing to do with Tetris (aside from being a block puzzle game), and in fact someone working for The Tetris Company said they regretted ever letting Nintendo use that name for the game, namely because the game was good enough to stand on its own. In Japan, it was Panel de Pon, known mainly in the US for that annoying flower in Smash Bros. Japan had adorable cutesy fairy princesses saving the universe as the theme, which was deemed unmarketable in the US of the 90's, so they went with adorable cutesy Yoshi and pals. (Huh? Well, at least it's adorable and cutesy in a boyish way I guess? Yay 90's NOA, stay classy. Today I imagine the fairy princess theme would be very popular to the "bronie" crowd.) Anyway, I avoided it then because I had my fill of Tetris and just thought it was a slight variation on that game. Then came Pokemon Puzzle League. I actually remember some peeps in the T-digs (that's Tendo City) saying how incredible the game was, but at the time I had sort of sworn off buying additional pokemon spinoff titles, saving my money for other things (I already had Snap after all). I didn't realize it was actually a pokemon skin on the ol' Tetris Attack. A GBA game had Puzzle League and Dr. Mario in it, but I skipped out on that because I HAD Dr. Mario, and didn't really see many good reviews for that GBA game. A Gamecube game also came out in Japan, but well, Japan only. So that brings us to the DS game. Guess what? They stripped it of all those skins and put a sort of Lumines inspired "look" over the game. However, it isn't pulled off nearly as well as Lumines managed, so while things change up enough to prevent boredom, I sorta wish it had kepts at least one of the various "outfits" the game has had over the years. THAT SAID, THIS GAME IS AMAZING! Where has it BEEN all my life?! Oh right, I just said where it's been all my life, but I didn't know, I DIDN'T KNOW! The game can be played either vertically or horizontally, which gave me two ways to stress out the hinge on my DS Lite! Horizontally, the blocks are much smaller to fit them all in on the screen space allotted, but I find the system easier to hold that way so I've stuck with that. (The blocks are still large enough to easily hit with my stylus).

I also got Phoenix Wright. Wow... Basically its A Few Good Men the game. Just as in A Few Good Men, the way courts ACTUALLY work doesn't apply here. Hiding evidence from the other team? Surprise witnesses? Why not!? Anything goes when the law is just what murderers have to worry about! The game painfully tries to claim it is set in America in this translation, even though at every turn it's as Japanese as it gets. Also, for some reason, there's ghosts in this game. It sort of prevents me from thinking realistically in solving these cases when I know as a FACT that ghosts exist. (For a while during one case, I was seriously considering that the Loch Ness Monster killed one of the victims (Gourdy instead of Nessy in the game world), as it was a possibility I could NOT rule out out of hand so long as I was in a world with spirit mediums and frickin' GHOSTS. Seriously Capcom, don't undermine your own premise! This isn't late 80's-early 90's cop drama television here! Let's ditch Maya in future games, 'kay?) Anyway, aside from Phoenix Wright's complete ignorance of court proceedings, the game is incredibly fun and well written (fortunately, the judge and prosecution don't seem to understand legal proceedings either). The important thing isn't the legal technicalities, it's figuring out whodunit using the available clues. Think Perry Mason, the game. Yeah, I'm sure everyone here knew how amazing this game was for years now, but I only just now got into it.

If there's one gameplay issue I have with it, it's the limited interface for interacting with things during the "exploration" phase of the cases. In court rooms, you're locked in place in a way that makes sense, but out in the world? It kinda sucks that I'm just a large character sprite layed over a big static background. I don't really get the impression that I'm moving around the game. Also, talking to people with that sort of system just feels... odd. Like, we're both talking in front of a blue screen effect or something, and also they sort of fade in and out and scroll about the screen to make room for others. The big advantage to this otherwise awkward style is that the character are massive and have a huge range of hand drawn expressions and movements. It brings them to life very well. It's just a shame I can't actually directly control my character and move about the environments, directly clicking items against things and attempting to "use" them like a normal adventure game. In that sense, it is limited. Fortunately, getting back into the court room the game shines through like a beacon. At that point, the lack of exploration stops being a problem and it is just you, the clues, and pure inductive reasoning.

Original DSes are better built than the DS Lite, but their hinges break too. They break when you drop the system. I have had this happen -- the hinge on the side will snap off. Sure, the system will work after that, but unless you can manage to glue on the parts again somehow, it'll eventually pull the video cable of the upper screen out... that was why I finally replaced my original DS, after the upper screen went white. Sure, it could surely be repaired, but all the other things wrong with that system got me to replace it instead (the badly scratched screen, mostly nonfunctional shoulder buttons, etc.).

My current DS, which is also the original model, also has a hinge issue. Its upper screen is okay though, and the system is otherwise in very good condition, so I'm hoping maybe to figure out some way to hold it together... I have the little piece that snapped off. It's a small space though... but yeah, at least even after this happens you can still use the system -- the way it usually seems to crack, the screen will mostly hold in place once you click it all the way out (it's the upper half of one of the small right-side hinges that snaps off). So it's not as bad as what I've heard about happening to DS Lites, with them falling apart and stuff.

As for other systems... yeah, I'd love to get a 3DS XL as well, but ... not right now. Maybe I will get a cheap DSi if I can find one... it'd be unfortunate to give up rumble/GBA support, but I have GBAs for the GBA (and yes, as with you, my GBA SP has no issues), but I can still use the DS fine, so it'd be fine for the handful of games which actually support rumble. It'd have to be a cheap DSi though, because it's hard to justify actually buying one of those when the 3DS exists and can play all of its games.

On the note of rumble though, of the couple of games I have that support it, Magnetica actually is the only one which actually makes it manage to feel decent. In the other few it's really pretty pathetic (for instance, in Super Princess Peach), but Magnetica... I think it actually helps the game. It's unfortunate that handheld rumble has been completely abandoned, it shouldn't have been.

Also, I want some 2d Picross games, but haven't gotten any yet... I'm thinking of Picross DS (DS) and Picture Puzzle (NGPC). I'll probably get them before too too long. I don't think I like 2d Picross quite as much as I LOVED Picross 3D (yes, I completed every one of the built-in puzzles, and then went back and did most of them without any mistakes too), but it does look fun.

Also, you hadn't played the Tetris Attack/Puzzle League games before? Yeah, they're really awesome. I very, very highly recommend Pokemon Puzzle League for the N64; it's probably the most feature-rich game in the franchise. I love it, and I don't even care for Pokemon too much. Planet Puzzle League is great too, but it's a lot easier on the touchscreen, and it was kind of disappointing that it has no characters... it's all just graphics (it's that "apple-esque" aesthetic that you complain about). Also it's missing stuff like the arcade/story mode; disappointing.

Finally, as I said in my last post I should list that Amazon stuff, from that sale last week.

PC DD
--
Silverfall - $2 - action-RPG.
Silverfall: Earth Awakening - $2 - its addon/sequel. (not listed on IGN)
Post Apocalyptic Mayhem - $2.50 - futuristic combat racing.
Tomb Raider: Guardian of Light Challenge Packs 1 and 3 - $1 each. For some reason Amazon doesn't have the second one. Huh. I haven't actually played this game yet, but it looks decent, so I thought I'd get these while they were cheap. (DLCs aren't separately listed on IGN)

Sega Fun Pack - $10 - contains: Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit (plus Pimp My Rabbit and Virtual Rabbit Missions DLCs), Renegade Ops (plus Coldstrike Campaign and Reinforcement Pack DLCs), The Cave, NiGHTS into dreams... (HD remake), Jet Set Radio (HD remake). I have not yet redeemed the JSR or NiGHTS keys, because I'm not sure if I want those games considering that I have the Saturn and Dreamcast originals. I haven't decided whether I want to keep these or give them away or something. (again, no DLCs listed on IGN)

Sonic Action Pack - $10 - Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (the first game), Sonic Generations (plus Casino Night DLC; no IGN listing of course), Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II, Sonic Adventure DX, and a bunch of Genesis and Sega CD rom ports that I have not redeemed the keys for since I own the original games, and don't think I need any of these: Sonic CD, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic Spinball, Sonic 3D Blast, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles. These I'm willing to give away if anyone actually wants the codes. (for some reason the PC version of Sonic 4 Episode I is not listed on IGN.)

Handheld rumble hasn't been completely abandoned. The most popular handheld in this generation has rumble all over the place. That handheld being smart phones. They all have "haptic feedback" which is the modern trendy way to say "rumble". The claim is "haptic feedback" is a good replacement for being able to feel where your fingers are by what they are touching. It isn't, because the feedback is delayed until after you actually send input, meaning it's a bit late to know what the heck you just pressed.

At any rate, it's not that mobile gaming lacks rumble, it's that Nintendo specifically has abandoned it (Sony never saw the point to begin with, though their XPeria line of phones have rumble, if that counts). Nintendo seems more than ready to abandon their old innovations all the time though. Remember pressure sensitive shoulder buttons? Well, okay Sega innovated those, but Nintendo did well with the Gamecube's pressure sensitive buttons. Nintendo actually did put pressure sensitive buttons on the Classic Controller for the Wii, but in a very bold and rather annoying move, they actually removed an existing controller feature already on that controller from a revised model, because the Classic Controller Pro had no pressure sensitivity. Rather annoying. Though, I don't believe any Wii games up to that point had bothered using the pressure sensitivity, so not a huge loss of much other than potential. On the Wii U, they added buttons to the analog sticks like both Sony and Microsoft's controllers have (adding two extra buttons), but they didn't put in analog switches for two of the shoulder buttons as just about everyone expects of a controller these days. It's a very odd move, especially considering those Wii U pads are rather expensive to replace, so "updating" one isn't very economical. Nintendo themselves know just how useful pressure sensitive controls can be. While the new Luigi's Mansion does an admirable job working around that deficit on the 3DS, I suspect a HD port of the original Luigi's Mansion or Super Mario Sunshine to Wii U would suffer for want of such fine control. It has been a while since I played Wind Waker, but did that game make use of the pressure sensitivity in any way? I don't recall that it did, so that game's HD port should go well enough at least.

Yes, I missed out on the previous Panel de Pon games. I just had no idea what I was missing out on. Nintendo picked some very strange ways to market the game in America that simply didn't appeal to me (and remember, I AM into pokemon, though not as much as I was back then). I'm sure I'd have picked up at least one before now had I realized there even was a series. As it was, I didn't even realize that Pokemon Puzzle League WAS Tetris Attack in a new skin.

As you say, Planet Puzzle League has an all too generic look and feel to it. It isn't as bad as Magnetica, in that the pieces music and background do change as the game goes on, but it does a rather sad impression of Lumines. Meteos is a good example of a game with a running theme, and it does a great job of having personality. Tetris and Dr. Mario also had solid personalities. (Everyone associates Tetris with russian folk music, even though for some stupid reason almost every release after the first ones has purposefully attempted to use weird techno tracks instead of what worked. Well, Tetris DS used classic Nintendo themes, and Tetris Axis does have some proper Russian music put into the mix, which is nice.) If you haven't played a Lumines game, I highly recommend it. That game puts the backgrounds, music, and alternate block colors and shapes to work in a way I've never seen before, and while other games attempted to duplicate the look, none ever really "got" it. The time and pacing of block falling and line clearing sync up with the music itself (matched blocks only disappear when a musical bar scrolls across them on the screen, so different tunes are going to "feel" very different in terms of gameplay). Lumines 2 is great, but the US version used a lot of... questionable music (Like "Hollaback Girl"), although the main theme is very addictive, at least I liked it. Lumines 1 is no slouch either though. The only problem is you'll need get a PSP to play it. I'm sure you can find an early model rather cheap these days, as well as a UMD of Lumines.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:Handheld rumble hasn't been completely abandoned. The most popular handheld in this generation has rumble all over the place. That handheld being smart phones. They all have "haptic feedback" which is the modern trendy way to say "rumble". The claim is "haptic feedback" is a good replacement for being able to feel where your fingers are by what they are touching. It isn't, because the feedback is delayed until after you actually send input, meaning it's a bit late to know what the heck you just pressed.

At any rate, it's not that mobile gaming lacks rumble, it's that Nintendo specifically has abandoned it (Sony never saw the point to begin with, though their XPeria line of phones have rumble, if that counts). Nintendo seems more than ready to abandon their old innovations all the time though. Remember pressure sensitive shoulder buttons? Well, okay Sega innovated those, but Nintendo did well with the Gamecube's pressure sensitive buttons. Nintendo actually did put pressure sensitive buttons on the Classic Controller for the Wii, but in a very bold and rather annoying move, they actually removed an existing controller feature already on that controller from a revised model, because the Classic Controller Pro had no pressure sensitivity. Rather annoying. Though, I don't believe any Wii games up to that point had bothered using the pressure sensitivity, so not a huge loss of much other than potential. On the Wii U, they added buttons to the analog sticks like both Sony and Microsoft's controllers have (adding two extra buttons), but they didn't put in analog switches for two of the shoulder buttons as just about everyone expects of a controller these days. It's a very odd move, especially considering those Wii U pads are rather expensive to replace, so "updating" one isn't very economical. Nintendo themselves know just how useful pressure sensitive controls can be. While the new Luigi's Mansion does an admirable job working around that deficit on the 3DS, I suspect a HD port of the original Luigi's Mansion or Super Mario Sunshine to Wii U would suffer for want of such fine control. It has been a while since I played Wind Waker, but did that game make use of the pressure sensitivity in any way? I don't recall that it did, so that game's HD port should go well enough at least.

Yes, I missed out on the previous Panel de Pon games. I just had no idea what I was missing out on. Nintendo picked some very strange ways to market the game in America that simply didn't appeal to me (and remember, I AM into pokemon, though not as much as I was back then). I'm sure I'd have picked up at least one before now had I realized there even was a series. As it was, I didn't even realize that Pokemon Puzzle League WAS Tetris Attack in a new skin.

As you say, Planet Puzzle League has an all too generic look and feel to it. It isn't as bad as Magnetica, in that the pieces music and background do change as the game goes on, but it does a rather sad impression of Lumines. Meteos is a good example of a game with a running theme, and it does a great job of having personality. Tetris and Dr. Mario also had solid personalities. (Everyone associates Tetris with russian folk music, even though for some stupid reason almost every release after the first ones has purposefully attempted to use weird techno tracks instead of what worked. Well, Tetris DS used classic Nintendo themes, and Tetris Axis does have some proper Russian music put into the mix, which is nice.) If you haven't played a Lumines game, I highly recommend it. That game puts the backgrounds, music, and alternate block colors and shapes to work in a way I've never seen before, and while other games attempted to duplicate the look, none ever really "got" it. The time and pacing of block falling and line clearing sync up with the music itself (matched blocks only disappear when a musical bar scrolls across them on the screen, so different tunes are going to "feel" very different in terms of gameplay). Lumines 2 is great, but the US version used a lot of... questionable music (Like "Hollaback Girl"), although the main theme is very addictive, at least I liked it. Lumines 1 is no slouch either though. The only problem is you'll need get a PSP to play it. I'm sure you can find an early model rather cheap these days, as well as a UMD of Lumines.

This thread makes me poo deamon blood. And crap dead babies. Database sucking babies.

etoven Wrote:This thread makes me poo deamon blood. And crap dead babies. Database sucking babies.

How about posting more, and worrying about the database size less. :)

On that note... first, I ordered Sturmwind, the new homebrew Dreamcast game, about a month ago. Well, it finally arrived! The game has good graphics and good gameplay; it was well worth picking up. I recommend getting it if you like 16-bit-style Euro-shooters at all; get it before they sell out. I also got some stuff from the local game store.

Dreamcast
--
Sturmwind - $45, new.

Used stuff below. The total price was $50, but they have a buyer's card system, and I was at 100 points, so I used the points to get $15 off. So everything below all together was only $35 plus tax. Pretty nice. The prices I list below do not include the $15 discount. Also as always everything (used) there is B2G1.

NES - all cart only
--
Kabuki Quantum Fighter - $5
Archon - $5
Clash at Demonhead - free, would be $15

Genesis
--
Bubba & Stix - cart only, free, would be $5
Ultimate Qix - cart in case (no manual), $15

N64
--
Xena: Talismans of Fate - $5, cart only

SNES
--
Cutthroat Island - free, would be $5, cart only

Wii
--
NBA Jam - $15, complete

I was forced to replace my DS Lite. Well, not "forced" exactly. However, super glue just didn't do the trick. The hinge is now attached slightly off from where it was, and as a result the R button no longer works. I found a very cheap replacement (the red and black model) and it was in incredible condition. It was covered in my little pony stickers, but fortunately they were easy to remove and appear to have protected the casing very well. The system's serial number hadn't even been registered yet, so that was a free chunk of Nintendo Club coins (plus protection, in case I ever get my DS Lite stolen I can prove it is mine using the serial number). The screen is scratch-free, and there are NO cracks along the connecting edge, anywhere to be seen. The hinge flows nice and smooth with no "shakiness" from side to side. I transferred my wireless settings to my 3DS for safe keeping so they're all restored at this point. I'll need to be extremely careful with this replacement, as there are only so many DS Lites in the world to replace these things with. I intend to very gently open the lid from this point forward, and never bend it "further back" than that top "click" position. That should preserve it pretty well. It is a shame the hinge wasn't built to the standards of the GBA SP's hinge, but fortunately Nintendo learned their lesson with the hinge design on the 3DS, as it seems very robust in comparison.

My "brick boy" is still in flawless condition, in the ol' black and white. Well, black and... anything ranging from pale yellow to green, depending on the contrast setting, but generally we all just thought of it as black and white, and it became just that on the Gameboy Pocket.

(Games are cart only)

Atari 2600
--
Maze Craze - $1
Space Jockey - $1

NES
--
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - $5

N64
--
Tigger's Honey Hunt - $6.50. It's actually a simple 2.5d platformer.

Also for $8 I got a Dreamcast VMU. I need another one.

$1 each, cart only.

Atari 2600
--
Midnight Magic - Pinball game. Nice graphics, okay physics, best 2nd gen pinball game I've played, but still, it's hard to go back to compared to even 3rd gen ones... there isn't that much to do.

Warplock - Single-screen shooter which uses the paddles. You move back and forth by rotating, fire with the button. The slightly unique element is that enemies go behind your ship if you miss, and change pattern and numbers while behind you (and you can only shoot upwards). It makes the game a bit more interesting. Also you seem to have only one life, as in Odyssey 2 games. Tough. This isn't a great game, but it's alright.

This first one's from ebay. It's my first actual game for the system! (Before I've only played emulated stuff.)

TurboGrafx-CD
--
Splash Lake - $12.50, complete. Yeah, pretty decent price there! Fun game too. It's a puzzle-action game.

The rest I got locally.buy 3 get 1 for the first four. All are complete.

PS1
--
XS Junior League Dodgeball - Released in Japan in 1998 as "Dodge de Ball", this game was released five years later by XS with all of the character names and such changed to try to pretend that this anime-style game is actually Western. Pretty silly stuff. The gameplay, though, is quite similar to Super Dodgeball and such. I hadn't heard of this game before getting it, but it looked interesting, whether or not it's good.

PS2
--
Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier - Originally for PSP, this is the last of the PS2 Jak games, this one's also on PSP. I now have all of the PS2 and PSP Jak/Daxter games. I don't know why this game got a PS2 port while the probably better Daxter stayed PSP only, but eh, I have it. (And anyway, Daxter is pretty good on PSP... I was just wishing that it was on a system with a better analog stick. Ah well.)

Xbox
--
Whacked - arena fighting 'party' game. The player character are a bunch of violent cartoon creatures and a mostly-naked woman (covered with censor bars). Combat seems okay but bland. This would surely be more fun in multiplayer.

Voodoo Vince - 3d platformer. Haven't tried it yet.

These next four were $5 for two. All are cart only.

Atari 2600
--
Moonsweeper - From Imagic. Interesting isometric shooter, move left and right and move at stuff coming towards you. You can stay in space or go down to planets to try to rescue people, and shoot comets, enemies, and such along the way. Nice graphics, and the gameplay seems solid. It's too bad that my copy has no art on the label (just text), but otherwise, seems like a good find.

Haunted House - adventure game.

Genesis
--
Summer Challenge - I have the PC version of this Accolade game, but not the Genesis port. Accolade's early '90s sports games were fantastic!

Nintendo 64
--
V-Rally '99 Edition - One of the very few N64 racing games that I don't have, and I finally found it cheap... very nice find! This game isn't exactly great, and has bland graphics, but it is at least a bit better looking than the original PS1 version. The problem is that it was a late, barely-enhanced port, and that by the time this was out the second game was almost out on PS1, and it's got a lot more content. Sadly that game didn't have an N64 port, though I do have the quite nice Dreamcast version of the second game (Test Drive V-Rally for DC; it's a port of V-Rally 2 for PS1). Anyway though, this is a decent game, and it was very nice to find it. Not many left, just a few imports like Airboarder 64, the two NASCAR games, and a couple more...

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