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Drixxel

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  1. The first and only time I ran across a Jag being promoted & publicly demoed during its retail life was at an independent game store called Master Player, they had AVP running on a big projection TV. I thought it looked incredible, would've been '94, '95 in Kelowna, BC, Canada. On one other occasion a little later in the '90s, I saw some new Jag games on display at what I believe was an Electronics Boutique in a mall in Vancouver, there was at least a row of them on a wire floor rack and I remember having a good look at the box for Doom. Post-retail heyday at this point, but when I eventually bought a Jag in 2000, it was from a business in Eastern Canada called Dentec. They happened to also be selling a small selection of brand new Jag games, so I ended up ordering a NIB console and Tempest 2000 from 'em.
  2. Thanks! And yeah, not outlandish to imagine a repro cart getting sold or traded in as part of a larger collection and then its origins getting muddled. I think what DragonGrafx-16 was getting at is it would be a ludicrous for someone to be in the business of producing bootleg prototypes to be sold through a store for a couple bucks. The pawn shop I found this at probably just assumed it was a damaged copy of some worthless sports game based on the generic title alone, the rest of their stock was more in line with eBay pricing (case in point, I'd bought a cart only Mega Man X for my buddy at this place for $35 or thereabouts). BTW, for anyone interested, see attached for a better look at the label. Notice the water damage? Could be total coincidence, but it's awfully similar to the condition of the label on the cart in that archived post, both carts got wet at some point.
  3. Alright, so here's a look at the board. Pretty sure we can call this the genuine Nintendo-made article!
  4. Once I get or manage to fashion the proper security bit, absolutely going to.
  5. Hey, so the Satellaview version of this game is widely available online, but does anyone know if any prototypes of Special Tee Shot have ever been dumped? I've looked around and so far have come up empty, but there's a well-documented example of at least one prototype cart in existence as seen on this archived page from 2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20050507050458/http://www.er.uqam.ca/merlin/fd491499/specialteeshot/. I could be mistaken, but it doesn't appear that the individual here ever dumped the ROM, but their nicely thorough side-by-side with the 1996 Satellaview release highlights many of the differences they'd observed in the prototype. In the summer of 2015, I was doing a tour of local pawn shops and thrift stores with a buddy and found an unusual item. Mixed in with a bunch of loose SNES carts was one with an odd, hand-applied label bearing "Special Tee Shot" in black marker. I was well aware that Special Tee Shot ultimately became Kirby's Dream Course and was also made available digitally in Japan, but to the best of my knowledge, it never had a cartridge release. Special Tee Shot seemed like a totally obscure choice of game for someone to have made a repro of, but that's what this had to be, right? The pawn shop only wanted 2 bucks for it, so really, nothing to lose. Anyhow, of course I buy it, get it home, clean the contacts and plug it in. Yep, it's Special Tee Shot, alright, with a 1992 copyright on the title screen. Again, I assume it's just a repro cart of the Satellaview release and then proceed to forget about it for a few years. The game crossed my mind again recently, though, and I decided to do a little research, stumbling on this SNES Central article (https://snescentral.com/article.php?id=0037) which summarizes the more detailed write-up linked to earlier. I was kinda shocked to see that the cart I found at that pawn shop looks identical to the one shown there, that same weird label with black sharpie. Check out the attached image for a blurry shot of my cart. So yeah, has any Special Tee Shot prototype ever made it to the internet? Mechanically, this 1992 prototype has a number of differences from BS Special Tee Shot, not to mention what appear to be a unique set of courses. I'm guessing this, like the other cart from that archived 2005 page, were originally sent out as review copies or something. On that note, I'm curious to know if anyone's seen that same style of label on a SNES cart before, was it a Nintendo of America standard to slap one of those on copies going out to gaming mags?
  6. Tons of great games listed here! Sticking with a slightly more contained definition of "shooter", here's my top 5: Galaxian Beamrider Pheonix Demons to Diamonds Fantastic Voyage
  7. Tetris 2 - Game Boy AD&D: Treasure of Tarmin - Intellivision ... Really impressed by this one! The first person dungeon crawling is remarkably well done for a game of this era, IMO. Pinball - Intellivision
  8. Happened across a car boot sale in its twilight moments last weekend where a fellow had a bunch of Inty stuff on display - an Intellivision I w/ Intellivoice ($50 CAD), an Intellivision II ($30 CAD), a stack of loose carts and a big bin of boxed games. I made it back to his spot just as he was packing up and asked if he'd take a cool 20 for the Intellivision II, the guy was all for it and said I could take my pick of any 4-5 boxed games on top of it. Quickly scanned through the contents of the bin and put aside a handful of choice titles, at which point the dude offered up the stack of loose carts free of charge. Ended up with the following games: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (cart only) Bump 'N' Jump (cart only) Burgertime (boxed w/ manual) Carnival (cart only) Mouse Trap (cart only) Mr. Basic Meets Bits 'N Bytes (cart only) NASL Soccer (cart only) Pitfall! (boxed) Royal Dealer (cart only) Swords & Serpents (boxed w/ manual + overlay) Tron Deadly Discs (boxed w/ manual) Vectron (boxed w/ manual) I've been hoping to run into an Intellivision lot in the wild for ages, and in hindsight, I wish I'd made the gentleman an offer for the whole set of games as there were a ton of good ones in that bin (Night Stalker, Snafu, Triple Action, Utopia, etc.). Still, was pretty pleased to snag a working Intellivision II and a dozen games (even if a couple of 'em aren't compatible) for twenty bucks!
  9. Oh man, fully agreed on both counts. A port of arcade Shinobi would have seemed a natural project to tackle for the JP launch of the Mega Drive in '88. Maybe Sega was content with the SMS port as far as home console Shinobi representation, and Revenge of Shinobi wasn't far off, but the lack of arcade Shinobi on Genesis is weird. As for Rastan, again, more than a little odd that the only home console it graced was the Master System when a Genesis version would have been such a natural fit. I mean, Taito gave the greenlight to porting Rastan Saga II to both the Genesis and PC-Engine, what's the deal with the original Rastan being left out? Was Rastan Saga II inexplicably more popular than the original in arcades?
  10. Oh sure, we're not talking a theoretical arcade perfect port of Gradius III to the Genesis here or anything, but like if Konami's Mega Drive team took the game on and arranged it to be better suited to the console. Even an approach sorta like what they did with Hyperstone Heist where it might be largely adapted from their work on the earlier SNES release. Regardless, I can easily imagine a version of Gradius III on Genesis that would perform better than what we got on SNES and embody good, clean Genesis values. You might be thinking of Starcraft, that one got an N64 port. Warcraft II ended up on Saturn and PlayStation, rented the PSX release back then and had some fun with it even with the hugely cumbersome d-pad cursor controls. Again, I'm not suggesting that Warcraft II could be done flawlessly on SNES hardware but adapted in a fun and faithful way. Anyone got some cool ideas for ports or spin-offs that ought to have been at least attempted on classic hardware?
  11. From time to time, I get to thinking about how cool it would have been had certain franchises received a special installment on old hardware, like a unique chopped-down port of something grandiose or a sequel / spin-off of a promising franchise tailored to a more modest platform. Paying heed to the technical feasibility of these dream games makes it all the more enjoyable to imagine, especially given that we have lots of examples of huge arcade games making the jump home that feature creative workarounds in hopes of preserving the overall experience despite massively scaling back on, well, scaling, and such. So keeping in mind the plausibility of it all, what are some dream ports or franchise entries you would have loved to see back in the day? Here are a handful that spring to mind to get things started: Gradius III for Genesis. A rad FM soundtrack with next-to-no slowdown and some of the rad graphical effects Konami pulled off in Rocket Knight Adventures and Contra: Hard Corps would have made Gradius III a total win. I love the SNES version but I wish Gradius III had gotten the 16-bit multiplatform treatment! Raiden for SMS. The Lynx version is kinda-sorta proof that the game could be recognizable when scaled back considerably and Power Strike suggests that a competent team could pull off a trimmed down Raiden. Had it retained 2-player coop, well dang, that there would have been a fantastic Master System shmup. Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness for SNES, with mouse support. It would have had to have been quite a late period SNES title but this just feels right to me, I really wish more games took advantage of the SNES mouse. As a pseudo-alternative to Warcraft II, a re-release of SimCity with SNES mouse compatibility would have ruled. Ristar's Pinball Galaxy for Game Gear, imagine it as something cut from the same cloth as Kirby's Pinball Land on GB. Ristar on Game Gear did the Genesis original justice and this would have been a wicked and, IMO, hugely appealing handheld spin-off. If only!
  12. The Lynx definitely has a bunch of awesome quick-to-play titles, but personally, I find a GBA SP to be the ultimate bathroom companion. The abundance of puzzle games and arcade compilations makes it hard to beat when you've only got a few minutes and want to play something fun. Tron arcade (available through Tron 2.0) is a great commode pick, burning through one or two minigames is enough to get a satisfying shot of gaming in. Klax has really grown on me, the version on the Marble Madness / Klax compilation cart is perfect when there's only a minutes to spare. Pac-Attack, like Klax, is one I've really warmed up to recently. There isn't a tremendous amount of depth for prolonged interest, but that makes it all the better suited for this specific application. The highlight of Pac-Man Collection, IMO. Columns Crown is a rad version of Columns, really love this one on GBA. I heartily second Jin's recommendation of NES Classic Series Xevious, perfect pick-up-and-play shmup in a pinch (oh ho ho).
  13. Okay, so this is a heavily contrived "best of"-type list thing, but I often find myself trying to group, classify and rank games by the year of their release and it would be cool to see how the fine folks of AtariAge distill things down to one title by annum. Go as far back or up to current as you'd like, just offer up one (1) released game that you consider your favourite of any given year. Maybe even offer a blurb about why it's a special game, and feel free to get all loosey goosey with release dates beyond the region you call home if you find a way that works something in to a neighbouring year to make room for something else (Mario 3 in '88 or '89, etc.). I'd like to go way further back, but I've just been playing Wizards & Warriors on NES and this seems like a natural year era to start. 1987 - Metroid, NES ... Still remains one of my most want-to-play games. Perfectly stylized nonlinear platform adventure, love the stilted control and everything. 1988 - ??? 1989 - R-Type, TG16 ... There needed to be a horizontal shooter on this list, and R-Type on TurboGrafx is a rad one. The raddest? Maybe. 1990 - Devil's Crush, TG16 ... The most infinitely replayable and entertaining game there is. 1991 - Actraiser, SNES ... I would play something that was entirely God Sim half, the platforming stages are practically icing. 1992 - Splatterhouse 2, Genesis ... The horror theme and repulsive interaction was revelatory. 1993 - Secret of Mana, SNES ... Such a standout in imagination and colour. 3-player of this remains a top memory. 1994 - Tempest 2000, Jag ... I got a Jag years later, but this game grabbed me. 1995 - Jumping Flash!, PSX ... First person platform shooting with such a unique feel, to boot; comical low poly FPS platformer with wild mechanics. 1996 - Super Mario 64, N64 ... Remains some of the most fun a person can have in a 3D environment. And just for giggles: Favourite Maze Game - Mouse Trap, 2600
  14. Lots of cool selections in this thread, it's great to see the Game Gear library get some love! A few months ago I did a pass of the GG catalog and tried to give everything a bit of play, definitely found a number of new favourites. The following five really grabbed my attention: Alien Syndrome - The best home version, IMO, and completely different from the rather mediocre SMS port. Since discovering how good this version is, it's become my go-to Game Gear title. Baku Baku - As much as I love Columns, I find the takes of it on Game Gear to be kinda crummy. Baku Baku has got to be the Game Gear's premier falling block puzzler. Fatal Fury Special - A very impressive effort and the most enjoyable portable 1-on-1 fighting game outside the Neo Geo Pocket Color. Samurai Shodown on GG is also top quality! Galaga '91 - Hard not to have an instant affinity for this one as a big fan of Galaga '88 / '90, this is quite a lovely version of souped-up Galaga. Psychic World - A surprisingly engaging platformer and a little different than the SMS version.
  15. A few days ago, my studio unveiled a new project we've been cooking up for the past 6 months, a party-style platform game with a serious 16-bit JRPG flavour. Equal parts Final Fantasy and classic PC freeware deathmatch Jump 'n Bump, we've appropriately christened it Fantasy Bump and you can have a play of the demo in any Unity Webplayer-supported browser if you feel so inclined! The fancy trailer below kind of does a better job of describing everything. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjXLul_uR20 There's a lot more we intend to cram into this game before release, but if you have a friend or five on hand, we'd be thrilled if you wanted to take the late alpha local multiplayer demo for a spin: http://www.fantasybump.ca. Cheers for having a look! All questions, comments and feedback absolutely welcome.
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