27th May 2011, 1:03 PM
(This post was last modified: 28th May 2011, 7:32 PM by Dark Jaguar.)
So I picked up a number of games recently.
Conker's Pocket Tales for Gameboy/Gameboy Color. This one's an odd duck. It's one of those mixed games with a black and white and color mode included. What's odd about it is that the black and white one is almost a different game. The levels are all mapped out differently. The problem is that the moment you plug it into the opposing mode, it erases all the save files. It can't save progress for both at once, even though it has 3 save files. It would be nice if it did, and simply had some warning like "this file can't be loaded on a Gameboy Color, play it on the original Gameboy or Super Gameboy", but as it is, you have to pick which mode to play and then kiss your progress goodbye when you play the other one. The only solution would be to buy two copies, but be sure to label them somehow so you don't accidentally plug them into the wrong system. As I said, it immediately erases the data on startup, no confirmation, no warning, nothing, just bam. Other than that, it's a fun Zelda-like game from a more innocent time before Conker's 18th Birthday, IE, the original "The Hangover".
Banjo Kazooie - Grunty's Revenge for GBA. This would be one of the last Rare-made games for Nintendo, produced not BY Nintendo but by THQ. It's a really good conversion of Banjo gameplay into 2D. Very nice, but not quite up to the level of the first two games, mainly because of how incredibly short it is.
Speaking of Banjo, I love the work done in porting the N64 games to the 360. Aside from a few minor gripes, they're better for it. What many don't realize is they actually fully instated Stop N Swop as it was originally intended! You "unlock" the 6 eggs and key in the first one through Nuts and Bolts (don't worry if you didn't like it, they get unlocked just by making a save file from it, and even the demo will do for that). Then, Tooie will check your Banjo Kazooie save data and if it finds the eggs and key in there, it'll import them. You hatch them all and get a number of new bonuses, including the old ones, and the key still gets the mega glowbo. As for the N64 cartridges hidden all over? They now have 3 new eggs, bronze, silver and gold. They're part of "Stop N Swop II". As they put it in the game "Oh no, not again!". Here's hoping that Rare is able to get their act together and deliver on a truly amazing Banjo Threeie: The Apology.
F-Zero for the SNES. I rented it a few times when it first came out, but never owned it until now. This one I'm especially proud of. Someone had a garage sale where they were clearing out, among other things, some left over stuff from a warehouse that got closed down. Among that left over stuff was a big case with 8 completely unopened copies of F-Zero. Not even kidding, he was letting them all go for $8 a piece. I love it when people don't realize what they have. Now, here's where I'm stupid. I bought one and left, when what I should have done was bought the whole set! I don't know how much a completely unopened copy of F-Zero goes for these days, but I bet it would be more than $8. Anyway, I actually didn't open for a few days, but eventually decided there's no point on just having it as a relic, I get these games to play them. So I opened it, new game smell and all, and everything there was simply mint, as to be expected. Plays perfectly, no save data on it, of course, and yeah, great find. I wonder if I'll ever stumble on something like that again....
Breath of Fire 2. I played this a long time ago, but never owned it. I actually had a copy of the manual sitting around for a long time, and picked this up pretty cheap to go along with it. Apparently it normally sells for about $50 but I snagged it for $15. It was actually covered in marks from a black marker of some sort and didn't start up, so that's probably why it was so cheap. After cleaning it up with Goo Gone (including some alcohol on the contacts and rigorously scrubbing off the corrosion), it looked good as new and played just fine.
Diddy Kong Racing. Yeah, I know that it is now out on the DS, but I never played the original, and I found a good deal. Someone had it for sale in one of those plastic cases from a rental store, manual, "controls" card, and all. Very good condition, and again about $15, so I got it. It had a sticker from Hollywood Video on the back, but that cleaned off pretty nice with the goo gone.
King's Quest 5 Floppy Version. I've had the CD version for some time, but never the floppy edition. I would have skipped out except it was a full set and was only $5. Every one of the floppy disks works perfectly after all this time, which is impressive. It was nice to have the full color manual as well as the "Hint Book". I'll never be lost in Mordack's dungeon again. There are a couple of notable things about this version. Firstly, it's all text with no voice, which is actually a bonus if you ask me considering the low quality of most of the voice acting. Cedric's really not that annoying in text form. It also has a weird kind of copy protection. Every now and then, a dialog pops up saying Graham is "too tired" or something similar and needing a spell to be cast to continue. Wow, actually using the wand for something other than the final battle? Anyway, you need to translate letters into weird characters using the manual to "cast the spell" and then you can keep going (if you don't do it right, the game simply leaves you stuck forever). It is an annoyance, sure, but not that bad. It only seems to happen a couple of times. There's also an odd easter egg if you use two very unlikely items together, a weird scene happens that kills Graham, but shows some dialog with some programmer dedicating this to someone out there. All in all, an interesting version of the game, though honestly KQ5 is one of the worst in the series. Along with it, I got the manual for KQ1 and KQ6, just tossed in with the box for some reason. The old manuals were very nicely made, on parchment style paper with nice illustrations along with a good back story for the game. My friend finally found the copy of the KQ4 manual I loaned over too, so all I'm missing at this point is the original manual for KQ2, another of the worst in the series, but it'd be nice to have the full set.
So that's a lot of old games... Only new game I got was Plants vs Zombies in Steam. I do intend on picking up LA Noire pretty soon. That game looks amazing.
Conker's Pocket Tales for Gameboy/Gameboy Color. This one's an odd duck. It's one of those mixed games with a black and white and color mode included. What's odd about it is that the black and white one is almost a different game. The levels are all mapped out differently. The problem is that the moment you plug it into the opposing mode, it erases all the save files. It can't save progress for both at once, even though it has 3 save files. It would be nice if it did, and simply had some warning like "this file can't be loaded on a Gameboy Color, play it on the original Gameboy or Super Gameboy", but as it is, you have to pick which mode to play and then kiss your progress goodbye when you play the other one. The only solution would be to buy two copies, but be sure to label them somehow so you don't accidentally plug them into the wrong system. As I said, it immediately erases the data on startup, no confirmation, no warning, nothing, just bam. Other than that, it's a fun Zelda-like game from a more innocent time before Conker's 18th Birthday, IE, the original "The Hangover".
Banjo Kazooie - Grunty's Revenge for GBA. This would be one of the last Rare-made games for Nintendo, produced not BY Nintendo but by THQ. It's a really good conversion of Banjo gameplay into 2D. Very nice, but not quite up to the level of the first two games, mainly because of how incredibly short it is.
Speaking of Banjo, I love the work done in porting the N64 games to the 360. Aside from a few minor gripes, they're better for it. What many don't realize is they actually fully instated Stop N Swop as it was originally intended! You "unlock" the 6 eggs and key in the first one through Nuts and Bolts (don't worry if you didn't like it, they get unlocked just by making a save file from it, and even the demo will do for that). Then, Tooie will check your Banjo Kazooie save data and if it finds the eggs and key in there, it'll import them. You hatch them all and get a number of new bonuses, including the old ones, and the key still gets the mega glowbo. As for the N64 cartridges hidden all over? They now have 3 new eggs, bronze, silver and gold. They're part of "Stop N Swop II". As they put it in the game "Oh no, not again!". Here's hoping that Rare is able to get their act together and deliver on a truly amazing Banjo Threeie: The Apology.
F-Zero for the SNES. I rented it a few times when it first came out, but never owned it until now. This one I'm especially proud of. Someone had a garage sale where they were clearing out, among other things, some left over stuff from a warehouse that got closed down. Among that left over stuff was a big case with 8 completely unopened copies of F-Zero. Not even kidding, he was letting them all go for $8 a piece. I love it when people don't realize what they have. Now, here's where I'm stupid. I bought one and left, when what I should have done was bought the whole set! I don't know how much a completely unopened copy of F-Zero goes for these days, but I bet it would be more than $8. Anyway, I actually didn't open for a few days, but eventually decided there's no point on just having it as a relic, I get these games to play them. So I opened it, new game smell and all, and everything there was simply mint, as to be expected. Plays perfectly, no save data on it, of course, and yeah, great find. I wonder if I'll ever stumble on something like that again....
Breath of Fire 2. I played this a long time ago, but never owned it. I actually had a copy of the manual sitting around for a long time, and picked this up pretty cheap to go along with it. Apparently it normally sells for about $50 but I snagged it for $15. It was actually covered in marks from a black marker of some sort and didn't start up, so that's probably why it was so cheap. After cleaning it up with Goo Gone (including some alcohol on the contacts and rigorously scrubbing off the corrosion), it looked good as new and played just fine.
Diddy Kong Racing. Yeah, I know that it is now out on the DS, but I never played the original, and I found a good deal. Someone had it for sale in one of those plastic cases from a rental store, manual, "controls" card, and all. Very good condition, and again about $15, so I got it. It had a sticker from Hollywood Video on the back, but that cleaned off pretty nice with the goo gone.
King's Quest 5 Floppy Version. I've had the CD version for some time, but never the floppy edition. I would have skipped out except it was a full set and was only $5. Every one of the floppy disks works perfectly after all this time, which is impressive. It was nice to have the full color manual as well as the "Hint Book". I'll never be lost in Mordack's dungeon again. There are a couple of notable things about this version. Firstly, it's all text with no voice, which is actually a bonus if you ask me considering the low quality of most of the voice acting. Cedric's really not that annoying in text form. It also has a weird kind of copy protection. Every now and then, a dialog pops up saying Graham is "too tired" or something similar and needing a spell to be cast to continue. Wow, actually using the wand for something other than the final battle? Anyway, you need to translate letters into weird characters using the manual to "cast the spell" and then you can keep going (if you don't do it right, the game simply leaves you stuck forever). It is an annoyance, sure, but not that bad. It only seems to happen a couple of times. There's also an odd easter egg if you use two very unlikely items together, a weird scene happens that kills Graham, but shows some dialog with some programmer dedicating this to someone out there. All in all, an interesting version of the game, though honestly KQ5 is one of the worst in the series. Along with it, I got the manual for KQ1 and KQ6, just tossed in with the box for some reason. The old manuals were very nicely made, on parchment style paper with nice illustrations along with a good back story for the game. My friend finally found the copy of the KQ4 manual I loaned over too, so all I'm missing at this point is the original manual for KQ2, another of the worst in the series, but it'd be nice to have the full set.
So that's a lot of old games... Only new game I got was Plants vs Zombies in Steam. I do intend on picking up LA Noire pretty soon. That game looks amazing.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)