bombatomba

Wow, I forgot about the Amiga 32. I have separate memories for each: Jag: I had a know-it-all friend who tried to impress me by taking me into a friends store and "letting" me watch him play that Trevor Mcfurr game. I was really excited by the system until I saw that. CDi - I have an aunt who bought every game system at one time. I remember playing through the Zelda games and actually loosing my appetite once at Thanksgiving (true story). 3DO - For a time I worshiped this system. My friend and I would ride our bikes up to Bestbuy to play Crash and Burn and later, Road Rash. Not sure if you dudes remember, but the Road Rash on this system was one of the first games to contain a fully realized soundtrack, complete with watchable music videos (featuring cops and police dogs attacking rashers), as well as for some of the bands themselves (I seem to recall Soundgarden). This is probably the only system (outside of the Coleco and the Vectrex) that I have wanted but never gotten. Might be for the best, though. Can't imagine those games aged very well (except for Star Control 2!).

I really hope I come across a N64 in my travels soon, I've got Super Mario 64 and nothing to play it on :( Neo Turf Masters on NGPC (my bathroom favorite) and Final Fantasy on my NES. To me there is just something almost brutally pure about the original FF on NES. I'm currently doing a playthrough with all Blackbelts. I'm only at Elfland and it's veeery hard.

I skipped the "lost and worthless" generation (3DO, CDi, Jag, etc.), but I've yet to fully skip. If the price of consoles stays current then I might skip the next generation...

Lets see: NES (2: one for play and one for backup) SNES PSOne w/LCD screen attachment Odyssey2 (CIB, still smells like 1978) Atari VCS Genesis (Genesis 2 design) Sega CD (the front loader) Neo Geo Pocket Color (Neo Turf Masters is sooo much fun) Gameboy Color Gameboy Advance Dreamcast (the system is feel-good retro!) Sega Saturn (chipped with toggle switch) Turbografx 16 Turbo CD addon (not the cool one, mind you) Upright Arcade converted to MAME (will play more once I overhaul the wiring in the CP) 386x (for those great DOS games like TIE Fighter) I play the NGPC still, as well as my NES and Dreamcast. Most of the others I emulate on my DS (SNES, Gen, VCS, GB, GBC, Turbo) and the PSX on my PSP. The Odyssey2 doesn't see much action these days (overplayed the games in 2001), and the Saturn as well, but only because the only game I still own is Bug!. I'm just waiting for Sega CD and Saturn emulation on the PSP and I'll be in hog heaven.

It's always killed me that Sega never made the Dreamcast controller look more like the 3D Saturn controller. Imagine owning a DC controller with 6 face buttons as well those great triggers. That would have been my favorite controller of that generation.

I had been desperately looking for a certain copy of VG&CE for years. When I came across a Spelunker strategy that I had clipped from that magazine, I had a clue! I searched in Google and found a link, and that was it. Retromags didn't have the issue of VG&CE in question (which was JAN/FEB '89, I think), but I stayed anyways. Great site.

Wow, dude... wow. Kind of puts things into perspective for the rest of us, though. I mean, people die from infection brought on by a burst appendix. In fact, the stage you were at... Glad you're alright. Thought and prayers, and all that.

This topic is more of a response to something Mister Zero said in the "I Hate Gamestop" thread. Mister Zero wrote: "Being a 'hardcore gamer' these days involves playing hour upon hour of WoW or FPS on your computer." That got me thinking. What does it mean to be hardcore player? I certainly consider myself a hardcore player, and over the past few weeks I've played at the most three or four hours of videogames. In fact, I've spent more time scanning magazines and planning new displays for my videogames then actually playing them. Never in a million years would I describe my gaming habits as casual. I firmly believe that the style of gamer you are completely relies on what games you like to play. Do you play only party games on Wii, or nothing but Rockband? Once you have mastered these games will you stop gaming altogether? These represent the gaming habits of a casual gamer, who will only generally only play games that are simple (I'm using simple very loosely, so don't flame please) to pick up and play, and also to put back down again. Once the challenge is gone, or once there is nothing left but an arbitrary thing such as score, a casual player will put the game down and not play it again until it is required in a social situation. However many casual gamers will play these games for hundreds of hours on end. I had an old work friend describe how he played Space Invaders on the Atari VCS for weeks at a time, but he never played anything else, and abandoned the game after the Crash of '83. Hardcore gamers, however, are different. While game companies and distributors will describe a gamer exclusively by the game they play and how frequently they purchase said games, I believe a hardcore gamer can be defined by not only the type of game they play, but also their habits in playing them. Did you play GTA to see for the story, or for the challenge of getting into impossible places the designers hadn't thought of? Did you play a FF game so much that you could finish the game with only one character? Did you write the FAQ on how to do this? Did you read the same FAQ so you could do the learn how that player did it? These are all habits of a hardcore gamer. However these aren't the limits. A hardcore gamer can be a person who plays anything, anytime, for any reason. The real difference between casual and hardcore is that a hardcore gamer will continue to game, regardless of social constraints placed upon them by those of the gaming industry and the media. A casual gamer will often stop gaming if it is considered uncool (which is what I believe really caused the Videogame Crash, that is, perception of games through the media and societal figures), or if they have "played the game out". So by utilizing what I have stated above, a casual gamer can be someone who plays WoW or an FPS for hundreds of hours, and a hardcore gamer can be someone who only plays games on their current Nintendo system. Confused? That's alright, if there was no confusion then there would be no discussion.

1. Retromags.com 2. 1up.com (for my crappy blog) 3. Giantbomb.com 4. YouTube.com (for movies I can watch on my PSP) 5. craigslist.org 6. www.x-entertainment.com (80's toys and such) 7. www.hfcc.edu (my current college, watching enrollment) 8. www.rfgeneration.com (I heart the Treasure Hunt Chronicles) 9. cheapassgamer.com 10. www.zophar.net (emulation news)

The Wizard just arrived today and I finished watching it about 20 minutes ago. My wife was even a little excited about it, saying she had seen it in the theater. She sat with me for about the first half, then wandered off to the laptop. There sure was a lot of family drama stuff I don't remember seeing, but then again that was about fifteen years ago. My favorite quote besides "He touched my breast!", was from Lucas, when he said to one of his toady friends: "Shut up, dork-nose, and go get me a cold drink." I think we can officially blame this flick for the glut of game to movie conversion that followed over the following twenty years. All because we wanted to see Super Mario Bros. 3 in motion. Tsk, tsk.

For 2D games I'm torn between the SNES and Japanese style Saturn controllers. The Saturn controller was excellent for KOF '96, but there was something about how the SNES one felt. I still have a boxed (but opened) SNES controller and I'm holding it now. Mmmm... For 3D my personal fav is the Xbox 360. I know, I know, the D pad stinks, but the mix of dual triggers and bumpers with the weird but cool off-set analog sticks makes for something magical. Plus, the 360 controller is the only one that fits comfortably in my gigantic, gorilla/sausage hands.

Wow. Hope you feel better, Thor. I think a lot of people think the way you do. For the longest time my wife wouldn't walk into a Gamestop with me because she detested the the way many of the employees talk. Not to say that all Gamestop employees are jerks, but there are quite a few that are certainly less than competent. But trust me on this one, you are much better off without that job. I worked at Funcoland for a couple years and can tell you that it was not fun. Gamestop has the same basic structure that Funcoland had, so that means that you have certain percentages to keep. At Funcoland we had to keep 25% cleaner sales, 10% subscription sales, and 5% miscellaneous, whcih could be anything. These were daily percentages that we had to hit, and if we didn't we were canned, and from what I understand, Gamestop is run more or less the same way. You are much better off. I will occasionally hit a random Gamestop (we have more than 15 around here, no joke) and check through their PSP games and movies, and every now and then I get the urge to go pick up a random PS2 game. For the most part though, I tend to stay away. The last time I really frequented those places was right before they absorbed EB Games. That was when EB carried used PC games. How about it, all? Gamestop: loath it or love it?

I tried just packing it away, but I play with so much of my stuff (I do have a few backup consoles, and a few games that are never touched) that it turned out to be too inconvenient. When I had them packed away I would pull them out at least ten times a week for viewing and playing. Now I have them on display in my basement in a low-light room with a dehumidifier. Man, I really need to get to get to building a better shelving unit down here...

Just thinking about all those games give me the tingles. forever! We need a Powerglove emoticon for situations like this. Anybody?

I like the way you present your collection, DPsx7. Reminds me I need to go find Super Mario Land 2 while Gamestop still has GB games. I also like your Genesis storage tray. very cool. Do you have them your games on display? I have mine on a shelf, but I really want to build something custom, because my poor NES games are on one of those stupid CD holders, the ones that are just two poles. I hate those things.

MobileDB for palm is just pure database, but Game Collector links to their online database, so when you add a game it adds known game information as well as (usually) the box cover. I get extra images and screenshots from Google Images and The Video Game Museum. Everything else you add, such as where you bought it, how much it cost, what its worth, if you completed it, etc. There is a demo for Game Collector but it only has a 50 game limit. I haven't tried adding manuals, but you can add links, so if I can find online manuals I think it might work.

I've got this on my Netflix queue. Score!

I don't envy you this task. When I decided to install an arcade cabinet for general emulation, I went for renovating an existing cabinet. The main reason was cost, which was $75 (used cabinet) versus building one, which could be over $200 if you use MDF (which you should). I still ended up spending an extra $100 for extra parts, such as parts for the CP and tools. About blueprints, the best thing you can do is to just Google. Here is a page for cabinet examples , look around, you could find something. Also try this book , though it will only help if you want to build your own cabinet. This is a fun hobby, but the only reason it isn't more popular is the price of entry, which is high. If you have any more questions please PM me.

Do any of you catalog your video game collection? I had a friend whose game room looked like the Library of Congress (all the way to the ceiling), and he cataloged by scanning the game (whatever came with the game), and filing the pics away in a actual physical file cabinet along with a detailed summary of how he obtained the game, money paid, etc. I use a program called Game Collector in conjunction with a MobileDB on my Palm, that way I always know what I have. It doesn't look as cool as my friends, but it does look nice.

I've been scanning Game Informer #45. Before I continue I'd like to get opinions on quality and such, as well as seek instructions on what to do from Phillyman. As you can see from the image below, the cover is not in great condition, either is the inside or backside cover. However the rest of the mag is in great condition, and this issue is nice because the editor calls out Game Fan in the beginning of the mag.

Watermelon tapioca? Oh my god, I just barfed. And died a little bit inside, I think.

I should make a thread about the most bonehead mistakes made. Mine would be not grabbing a CDX for $10 when it was offered. I was working at Funcoland and had just bought some really great Sega CD games for $40 (both lunar games, Dark Wizard, Vay, about five others), when a guy tried to sell back a CDX. When he found out he couldn't (Funco didn't buy them), he just waved it around saying, "$10, come on, only $10." I think the CDX is the Vectrex of the nineties.

I think that retro is a completely relative term, meaning that a person may also consider the original Xbox to be retro if they were of a certain age when they played it. However, I think we should take a cue from this website and firmly place the December 31, 1999 as the cutoff date for a retro game.

I'm Nintendo generation. I first played the NES when I was 10 (in 1987) and haven't looked back since. But before that there were arcades, UFO! on Odyssey2, and Blueprint on Atari VCS. Plus, is there anyone else here about my age (31) and living (or lived) in Metro Detroit?

That would be wicked. Dr. Light would have been like, "Umm, what are you doing back so soon, Megaman?" Now they need to program one that has the bosses from two different Megamans in one.