Ratty

I would, but I don't think a battery holder would fit inside the tiny master system cart. If I'm remembering right most MS carts were "1 mega" or less, Phantasy Star was 4 so it's pretty tightly packed in there, as you can see in the pictures in that tutorial I linked. The guy doing the tutorial got the battery just a small fraction off the center the original battery was on and had to cut off a casing peg sleeve to get the case on again. Might do the battery holder technique for SNES and/or NES games in the future though. Also thanks for the advice about the soderer. I'll try to find a 25W

It's been another busy year for me especially for the last (and the next) few weeks. So my game playing in general and game-finishing in particular has been pretty bad. Maybe 6 or 7 games I beat for the first time this year, 2 or 3 of those just being short fighting games. Though I did find and beat some terrific new favorites this year like Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (PC) and Twilight Princess (GCN). Hm should we count repeated game beatings?

In my years of retrogaming I have so far been able to avoid soldering. But I feel the time has come. Recently I purchased a copy of Phantasy Star for the Master System (after years of only having 1 game for it I figured it was high time to beef up my collection) and am eager to play and preserve this important classic. But after having almost lost 60 hours of gameplay on my first playthrough of Final Fantasy 6, I think it's a good idea to replace the battery before starting an RPG or other lengthy game that one has just bought. I found this tutorial http://pineconeattac...er-system-cart/ online but it kind of stresses how scary soldering can be. I want to preserve and experience the history of games but a battery blowing up in my face is not conducive to that! Are there any tips for a first time solderer? What kind of solderer /solder sucker should I look for? (This http://www.aaroncake...nics/solder.htm seems to be very helpful to that end though I'm wondering if a 30W solderer is good for games?) I could just take Phantasy Star to the newly opened retrogame shop/computer repair place and ask if they can fix it but I feel going into the future soldering is probably going to be an increasingly useful skill for the retrogame hobbiest to know anyway. I have SNES and a few bootleg GBA carts I need to replace the batteries on as well so it might be a good time to invest in the equipment. Any advice is much appreciated!

Thanks for the warm welcomes (I forgot to say the first time ) and additional suggestions. Yeah, I hear you Ranthulfr, not only do I not have the money to collect everything I come across, space is another concern. When you have so much of something that it becomes clutter and you can't really enjoy it it's a problem. And Amstari I had been wondering about the harmony cart. That's something to think about for a possible future investment. Too bad about the live action Tick not lasting longer, but at least that show led to the actor doing the voice of Brock on the Venture Bros.

I loath Final Fantasy 7. The game was 50+ hours of bland, generic, simultaneously boring and convoluted torture. Most of the characters including Cloud were (to me) completely unlikable, the gameplay is mediocre at best and the storyline tries to pass of being angsty and convoluted as "deep". I can see why it was so successful at the time, from a technological and stylistic standpoint it must have seemed revolutionary to most players (especially western players) back in the day. Not only was it a full RPG in 3D (or what passed for 3D) but anime/"Japanimation" style was still largely a new, novel and exotic thing in N. America. I can understand how the game had an effect on younger gamers, combined with the "wow factor" it had on release, angsty heroes "trying to find their true selves" are a lot more appealing when you're say 11 then the age I was when I played it. And I totally respect that a lot of people still love it for nostalgia's sake. But IMO -as a game- it's a perfect example of something which was built to sell solely on graphics and style, both of which then aged terribly. Because of coming into the dedicated hobby of gaming relatively later in life (I'm in my twenties, but I played very few games in my childhood and teen years) and pesky real-life conflicts, I still haven't beaten some of my favorite games. Including classic standards like Secret of Mana, Castlevania 3 and Super Mario Bros.

Hmm it's difficult to narrow it down and "best of" lists usually vary by mood, but right now I'd have to say... SNES - Favorite = Final Fantasy 6 (aka FF3) what could I say about this game that hasn't been said? It does what it does so excellently. Just about the perfect turn-based 16bit RPG. Least Favorite = Populus what ever possessed me to buy this? Genesis - Favorite = Hard to pick just one but I'd probably have to go with The Lost Vikings for the extra levels, even though the SNES version has the best music. Least Favorite = Fighting Masters, one of the most godawful and laughably broken games I've ever played. One of those "I want my $2.00 back!" kind of purchases. Mark from Classic Game Room, who is usually fairly positive even about somewhat bad games, did it justice in his review. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP7jl1__KJY My favorite classic game series, since I don't think you could count Sly Cooper as classic yet (the first game in that series was released in 2002) is Castlevania. But while they're mostly excellent the Castlevania games on the SNES and Genesis aren't the best entries in the series.

I've been retrogaming for five or so years, and here's one question that seems to get about as many different answers as there are blades of grass in a field. Some swear by windex which is a terrible idea as most can see, still others use steel wool or something similar to rub away the dirty part of the contacts. Which isn't so much "cleaning" as it is gaming sacrilege and slow contact murder. Some claim to have a "magic bullet" super secret formula that they sell, probably along with deeds to various bridges. But when it comes to alcohol I had always heard that you should use the highest concentration you can find, but recently saw a suggestion of no more than 70% purity. So what has worked the best for you? Also do you open up the cartridges for cleaning? If so on what systems? EDIT: Should this have gone in the hardware section? Sorry if so, though there are other slightly technical topics here so not sure.

Thanks for the replies/suggestions! Yeah I'll keep my eye out for a new power supply if the video arcade works. And I've been considering picking up an Intellivison for a while, largely because of my interest in the game from your avatar AlvinKarpis, just there are so many great games to collect for all the systems I already own, and so little time and money to invest lol. So I'll probably hold off on that for a while.

Hello everyone, been lurking around for a while and I must say it's a very congenial community you've got here. I've been retrogaming for several years now but I've just bought my first Ataris, a wood grained 4 switch and an untested video arcade light sixer which came with a large lot of common games to get me started. And I was wondering- Are there any maintenance or collecting tips specific to the 2600 from the experts that a new owner should keep in mind? I own the consoles from and partially grew up in the era of the newer cartridge based systems like the NES and Genesis so I know the general things like to always thoroughly clean newly acquired cartridges and never leave your system plugged in when not in use, but of course every machine is at least a slightly different beast and any input is much appreciated. I have played 2600 games on various collections and am very much looking forward to actually using the paddle controllers with games like Breakout and Demons to Diamonds, which I suspect will infinitely increase my enjoyment of them. PS- can anyone recommend a good 3rd party power supply for the 2600 if there are any? The untested video arcade I got did not come with one and while I can just test it out with the power supply from the woody 2 switcher (pretty nice of Atari to keep the power source consistent from model to model like that) I dislike the idea of wearing out components of one system using them on another.

"Doctor Strange" Dormammu (or the villain could vary by difficulty) is trying to break into the human dimension! Help the sorcerer supreme deflect his fireball attacks and save the Universe! Ahh what could have been.

Takes place in the city? Maybe he's getting elements of Monster Party mixed up with King of the Monsters or another game similar to Rampage, along with the other games mentioned above like ZAMN.

I likely would have done that if I hadn't already gotten a copy of Rondo of Blood for the PC-Engine by the time the PSP collection came out. I might still get it if PSPs ever get sufficently cheap but prove durable on the used market. I got a DS basically just for the Castlevania games. And up until a few days ago the only Master System game I owned was Master of Darkness, Sega's 8bit take on the ClassicVania formula. The only real reason I bought a Dreamcast was for Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage You gotta get Golden Eye! I rocked that game sideways back in the day! B Yeah, I considered it. Even saw it in a store recently (cartridge only) for $4, but passed. I remember playing it a lot, but can't remember if we rented it or owned it. I've just never been much of a FPS player. But I do remember it as being pretty fun. I could recommend several great games for the N64 but if Mario64 is really the only one you want you might be best sticking with it. It's increasingly hard to find good controllers/joysticks for the system, so best not to wear out the ones you have on games you only sort of want to play.

What you want is the backloggery. http://backloggery.com/ a nice little site to keep track of all the games you own, categorized by platform. While the stated main purpose of the site, to help you keep track of which/how many games in your collection you still need to "beat", does not apply to most Atari 2600 games, it could still be very useful in organizing your collection. Particularly if you collect for a lot of different systems.