Silverfleet

I started college in the fall of 2000, and like others, I commuted from home. I also maintained a part time job and was in a band too, but I still found time for gaming. I still had all my old game consoles, but I wanted the latest and greatest. As far as my "college console", I'd say it was the PS2. I would have bought one at launch, but they were sold out everywhere. I had to wait until March of 2001 to actually find one around here! First game I bought was TimeSplitters, and I also bought a multitap so I could play with the friends who were still around at the time (many had left for college themselves). It was all of the awesome. I also picked up a GameCube, Dreamcast, and Xbox, but the PS2 received most of my play time. It also did double duty as a DVD player, and was the sole DVD player in the house until we got a HDTV in 2006 with an upscaling DVD player to go with it. Still love the thing and play it all the time!

I remember the very first time playing the original SFII. It was at Star Land, a "family entertainment" place south of Boston in Hanover, MA that had mini golf, go-karts, and two arcades: one for video games and the other for redemption machines. The video arcade was always cutting edge, and had all the best, most recent games. When SFII showed up in the middle of the floor, everything else got ignored. I remember going one day with my older sister and her boyfriend, and he told me about the game and how it was "the next big thing" and we had to try it. While I had no idea what I was doing (I picked E. Honda my first time playing), I was hooked. After getting my butt kicked, I stood back and watched my sister's boyfriend play a few "new challengers" as Ken. That's when I learned about the special moves and all of that. I remember the hype of the SNES port; it was real. All the magazines were talking it up, and the playground chat was buzzing about how awesome it was going to be. Unfortunately, I had a Genesis at the time, and was disappointed that there was no version coming out for the Genesis, so I went and picked up other terrible fighting games like Fighting Masters and rented ones like Street Smart. It wasn't the same; they sucked! My friend had a SNES, and he got SFII the day it came out. Every time I went over there, we played it for hours on end. Back then, it was fantastic! We could now hone our skills in our living rooms for the "real" fights on the arcade floor. The graphics, sound, and gameplay were astonishing. And the SNES controller had enough buttons to do everything you could do in the arcade version! But now... I honestly haven't played the SNES version in a few years, but last time I played, the core mechanics of the game were still sound. I was as good as it got back then. Again, since I had a Genesis and not a SNES, I picked up both Special Championship Edition and Super SFII as soon as they were released. I felt at the time (and still do now!) that those versions played better than the SNES ones. Yes, the voice samples were horrible, but the gameplay was there, and the 6-button Genesis controller still is my favorite to play the game with. I still pop those in from time to time to play, even though I have various other ways to play the SFII games. The only Street Fighter game I have for the SNES today is Street Fighter Alpha 2, and I bought that out of the bargain bin at Gamestop years later. Side note: I haven't played the PC Engine game on original hardware, but it's an impressive port.

Spam post or not, here's my "Top 10": 1. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening 2. Metroid II 3. Tetris 4. Super Mario Land 5. Super Mario Land II 6. Samurai Showdown 7. TMNT: Fall of the Foot Clan 8. Super RC Pro Am 9. Operation C 10. Kirby's Dream Land

I know this feel!!! I've been playing games ever since I got handed a Colecovision controller by my older sister back when I was 2 or 3 years old and figured out that it was actually not a telephone, but a thing that controlled what was happening on the TV sometimes. Since then, I grew up playing video games. They were a big part of my life. Like many of you, I grew up in a unique time where the games grew up with us. I got my NES for Christmas as a 5-year old kid in 1987, entered the 16 Bit Era with a Genesis in early 1992, jumped to the awkward teenage years with a Saturn in 1996. There was about a year-long window where I let my interest in gaming lapse right around when I bought the Saturn, but I got back into it soon after, when nostalgia drove me to pick up a N64 to play the then-new The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. And not soon after, I picked up a Playstation so I could play Final Fantasy VII and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Buying that Playstation was the moment I realized that I was a game collector. With new releases in long-storied franchises hitting the 32/64-bit consoles, I found myself looking back at the previous releases for the consoles I had packed away in the closet. I started filling holes with previous installments in my favorite franchises, picked up classic games I never had, and even started grabbing consoles I missed out on to play some of the games I didn't have as a young kid. Friends at the time who had gotten out of gaming also offered me their old stuff, which added to the collection. Once I hit college in the early 2000's, I really started collecting hardcore. I would buy in bulk, because everything was dirt cheap! One of my first big hauls was my first Atari 2600. I got it from a coworker who had a booth at a flea market. I got a big box full of 75+ games, instruction manuals, joysticks, paddles, and a woody 4-switch for $35. I raided yard sales, and snagged deal after deal on all sorts of stuff. I even had the foresight to target games that I thought would be rare in the future, and hit on some (Klonoa, Lunar 2, Einhander, Tomba!) and missed on others (a sealed Fantavision for PS2). And after college, when I had a little money from joining the cube farm workforce, I hit up the flea markets and used game stores and stocked up, again, filling holes in the collection. I spent a lot of money at the Play N Trade store that was dangerously close to the office, and scored deal after deal until the place closed thanks to a Gamestop sprouting up across the street. Soon after, I met my future wife, bought my own house, and got married. Then, adulting took over. I had less time and money to waste on game hunting and buying as priorities shifted, so I started to pick and choose what I wanted to buy when I had the time/money to hunt. I eventually moved the bulk of my collection into a small room in my house, and managing the collection has now taken precedent over buying more stuff. I'm solidly into the "Collection Management" phase of collecting. I've gone through and cataloged about 95% of it using PriceCharting's online tool (yeah I know there are probably better ones out there). I have traded in duplicates toward stuff I didn't have at local stores, and still have more to trade. I've sold off other stuff as well to make room for new items. I'm also looking into the best ways to utilize the little space I have, and have re-organized a number of times. What's next? I'm still on the lookout for deals on a few consoles I don't have (XEGS, Lynx, Turbografx CD, 32X) and some games I somehow don't have yet (Sonic 3, for instance). I just added a New 3DS XL and a Switch to the collection, so I want to play those. And I'm looking to upgrade the game room AV setup. I'm trying to convince the wife that we need a new living room TV so I can move our 42" Panasonic plasma in the game room and then replace the old 25" CRT with a smaller one for early and light gun gaming. We'll see what happens.

Two more I just remembered from way back (both pertain to the NES): -I remember a friend telling me he knew another kid who was saying that he had a game with "a hundred games on it", and that his dad got on a business trip to Hong Kong. No one believed him. Sounds like he wasn't lying, as his dad probably snagged him a pirated multicart on that business trip! This was pre-internet, so we didn't have a clue. - This Kotaku article reminded me of this one. Another was while hanging out with my older cousins and their friends. They would always try and convince me that one of their friends' dad "worked for Nintendo" and could get free/cheap games. They would always try to get me to give them whatever money I had and they would get me said cheap games, and turn around and go to the convenience store down the street and spend it on candy and soda. I never fell for it, although other kids in the neighborhood probably did. Apparently the "my dad/uncle/etc. worked for Nintendo" thing was nationwide. Some people's dads probably DID work for Nintendo, but not that kid's dad!

I've had that happen to me recently. I bought a WWF Superstars cart for the Game Boy. I got it home, popped it in the ol' gray brick, and... nothing. Took it out to clean it, and there was no board to clean! I called the store, and they took it back no problem.

I love the Genesis version of Shadow Dancer! It's a ton of fun, the music rules, and sending your dog/wolf to hold up enemies is a great play mechanic. I used to always confuse it with Shadow Blasters. They came out around the same time and had "shadow" in the name.

I'm more of a Nintendo fanboy than an Atari one. That said, I'm not the world's biggest fan of the N64. I've had one since Zelda: Ocarina of Time came out, but only have 15-20 carts for it. I actually bought it before getting a Playstation, and that was a mistake. My biggest gripes are that the controller was uncomfortable to use, and the foggy, blurry polygons in most of the games just didn't do it for me. The prices that N64 stuff goes for are nuts these days! I think it's a combination of the lack of reliable, easy emulation and the current retro craze that are driving prices up.

For me, it's probably my Jaguar. I've fired it up exactly once since I bought it. I only have two games for it: Cybermorph and Kasumi Ninja, both which are terrible. There are only a handful of games on it that I would even be interested buying (AvP, Raiden, and a couple others) and they all go for stupid money now. It's a conversation piece, and it's a curiosity, but it mostly sits in a bin and doesn't get used. (No, it's not for sale. )

I've wanted a Switch since the thing got announced, and I finally got my hands on one the week of Christmas via an online purchase. The site was having a 20% off everything deal, including the Switch, so I jumped at the chance to buy it! Since Nintendo stuff rarely goes on sale or has console price cuts, I figured this was my only chance to get a deal on a Switch. So far, I love it. I absolutely love it! I only have two games right now: Zelda and Blaster Master Zero. Both are keeping me busy, and are great games. Zelda has really blown away my expectations and in short order has become one of my favorite games ever. Blaster Master Zero is a nice, thoughtful update to the NES classic, and stands alone as a solid Metroidvania-style game. I'm finding myself playing more and more retro-style games lately, like Shovel Knight, Shantae, Axiom Verge, etc, and the Switch seems to cater to that crowd. What I like about it is that it's a real home console that you can bring anywhere as either a handheld or as a standalone console using the screen as a TV. Although some recent handhelds, like the New 3DS XL and the Vita have come close power-wise, the Switch feels like it has more horsepower under the hood and you can never have enough of that. The only drawbacks I have are the following: Storage: 32gb is just not enough. Yes, I can always toss a high capacity Micro SD in it, but it sucks that you have to resort to that. The same can be said about all the other consoles, though. The left Joy Con's D-Pad: I wish it had a classic D-Pad, but I get why they didn't do that (because detatchable controllers that are symmetrical). At least there are other solutions, like the 8bitdo pads and Nintendo's Pro controller. I'm looking forward to see how the Switch does in the coming years.

Yeah, I've heard that too. A few years back, I bought some NOS 2600 games from a US seller on eBay for dirt cheap. They were all Silver Label games, too. Some of them snuck out into private hands.

I think Atari has the most due to the longevity of the 2600/VCS. I mean, how many "runs" did that thing have? There was the original run, which went from 1977-82ish, then they sorta rebranded as a value line when the "silver label" games debuted, then another push when the Jr. came out with the "red label" titles, and then there was the backwards compatibility of the 7800 on top of that... it just kept going and going. And when a lot of the old 80's retailers fell, all of those cases of games stretching back to the early 80's went to the highest bidder. Even though the crash happened and they did a massive inventory dump at one point in a certain desert landfill, I bet there are still warehouses full of late 2600 games out there. PC stuff is sort of a mystery to me, but I'm thinking that as systems became quickly obsolete, no one wanted the games anymore. The big PC boom of the 80's came when people were starting to see them as "replacements" to game consoles, so games were probably manufactured in large quantities for just about every system you can think of. When they got replaced, retailers were stuck with the old stock. Sony/Microsoft stuff was widespread and sold in all sorts of retailers, and a lot of those retailers fell in recent years. I bet a lot of the stock that's out there could have been in those retailers' warehouses collecting dust and rediscovered recently. I still see PS2 games on shelves in some retailers like Walmart and Best Buy. Also, the "all sorts of retailers" extend to random stores you wouldn't normally see selling games. I've seen games at grocery stores, discount retailers like Family Dollar and Dollar General, and in other completely random places. Sega? I remember when the Genesis and Game Gear were on their way out, the games went on MEGA clearance. I'm guessing people bought them all up then. I also remember when some of the discount retailers around here fell, like Caldor, Bradlees, and Ames, and they had stacks upon stacks of NOS Game Gear games. They couldn't give them away at the time! Sadly, I bet most of them got tossed. I still see some here and there popping up at game shops and flea market with the Ames stickers on them. I didn't have a Game Gear at the time otherwise I'd probably have a complete library after seeing all the stuff that was out there at the time. And Nintendo... They just know how to control inventory. They stay on the lean side of things, hence why there's always a rush during the holidays for their stuff. Hell, I'm just seeing Switch stuff being stocked regularly NOW, and that was released nearly a year ago. Same thing happened with the 3DS, Wii U, Wii, DS, etc... Another thing is Nintendo's newer policy of never discounting things unless it's on the "classic hits" line or whatever they call it. Last time I saw sealed new NES games in a store was actually in the late 1990's. BJ's Wholesale Club somehow stumbled on some cases of games, and I scored Mega Man 2, Mega Man 5 (!!!), Strider, and a few others at $19.99 a pop. These days, I'm still seeing Wii games for nearly full price years after their release. Just yesterday, I saw Metroid: Other M in the Walmart clearance bin. It was on clearance for $30. I passed.

I should rephrase what I said. If you like open world games and the exploration aspects of them, Skyrim is a great one and I highly recommend it. Story-wise, it's just ok. I'm playing BotW right now, and it's fantastic. I am not too far in, and I'm already considering it to be one of my favorite games of all time. The one thing Nintendo nailed was keeping the story relevant while allowing for the player to also go off from time to time doing whatever they want. As a player, you WANT to go back to the story. That's extremely hard to pull off in a game like this. Like I said in my previous post, I found myself going off in Skyrim for hours upon hours just messing with sidequests (see what I said about Winterhold). I had no desire to go back to the main story other than to get more shouts and abilities. Things are so open-ended that the gameplay itself becomes just that. It's both good and bad. In Zelda, I want to find out what happens next in the story. A big part of this is being indoctrinated in Zelda lore, though. While the Elder Scrolls games do have a good amount of backstory, the Zelda games are on another level entirely. There are so many things to see and do, and you'll want to compare the way things are in BotW to how things were in previous games.

I'd finish Zelda first, but when you are done, try Skyrim. I have a few hours into Zelda, and it's heavily influenced by Skyrim. The exploration, cooking, foraging for materials, lost ancient technology, and other elements are very similar to what you find Skyrim. I had over 100 hours into a Skyrim save on my 360 before a hard drive crash took it, but those were some of the most entertaining hours of gameplay I've experienced. The map may be smaller, but there's so much to do! You can follow the main story, roam the countryside looking for dragons to take down, explore caves and grottos for loot (just like the shrines, but with more fighting), get involved in helping out townsfolk, and much more. For example, I found myself in a town called Winterhold and got sucked into a side quest that turned into hours and hours of gameplay. There's a mage school there, and I wanted to learn some new spells. That turned into me ending up as the dean of the whole school and hours of content! I cannot speak to Xenosaga, but I know that if you like the BotW, you'll probably like Skyrim nearly as much.

Those Apple II games are bringing back memories I forgot I even had, especially that Bop N Wrestle one! I think someone brought that into elementary school once to play in our school's computer lab. Wow... And how do you leave a $4.99 NES CLASSIC?????

Rakuten had a 20% off everything on the site promotion going on, so I bought a Switch! So far, I've only used it as a handheld, and I'm loving it. Zelda: BoTW is one of the best games I've played. I'm also digging the amount of retro-inspired games and remakes already on the thing. Next purchase is likely going to be the Blaster Master remake.

The "playground" rumors about Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II were the most ridiculous that I can remember. There used to be this kid at school who would sell Mortal Kombat cheats scrawled out on notebook paper to other kids at recess. Among the codes he would sell were the "Blood Code" (this was real on the Genesis, but he claimed to have it for the SNES too), the "Swear Code" (obviously fake) that would get Scorpion to yell "Get The F*** Over Here!" when he threw the spear, and the "Nudity Code" (also fake) that removed Sonya Blade's clothes and made her fight naked. This kid sold these for about a month for $5 a code, until he got exposed as a fraud. I think he got beat up as a bonus. Then, there was the Street Fighter II rumors. Some of these were rooted in truth, as rom hacks of the game made for some weird stuff in early builds of the game, like air hadokens and stuff like that. The ones I remember being fake were unlocking Sheng Long (a hoax via EGM or another magazine for April Fools) and Guile's handcuffs and gun. The "handcuffs" were sorta real, as early games had a glitch where pulling off a Flash Kick at a certain time would result in the other character sprite getting dragged around in the "dizzy" stance. But the gun... total BS.

So, my mom has been complaining this holiday season that the CD player in her 1988-vintage Fisher "rack stereo system" doesn't work anymore, and she can't listen to her Bing Crosby CD. So, the good son that I am, I hit up Savers looking for a replacement. I ended up walking out with these: The top one is an early 90's Sony CDP-C315, and the bottom is a Denon DCM-280 from around 2003. They were $9.99 each and were "as-is" so I snagged them both hoping one would work. Luckily, they both do. I cleaned them both up and gave my mom the Sony and kept the Denon. I surprised her with it on Christmas Eve, and she was ecstatic! Mom is now happy, and my dad longs for deafness, as she has been blasting White Christmas over, and over, and over... Both work great, but the Denon has MP3 CD playback and my mom has no idea what an MP3 is, so I hooked it up in my game room to the rest of my setup. Man, it sounds amazing. I forgot how great a CD can sound out of a decent setup. Even the MP3's sound great! Side note: this Savers store has been hit or miss with gaming items over the years. This store was where I found a $3 N64 and a $5 GBA SP AGS-101. This time, they had a few things, like two DS Lites at $20 each, two GBA SP AGS-001's at $15 each, and a blue Gamecube bare for $29.99. I passed on all of them.

Is the Saturn memory cart just a memory cart, or is it a RAM cart/import player like the Action Replay?

Here are some of the stand-out games I played for the 1st time in 2017: Dragonfire: Atari 2600 I saw an episode of Classic Gamer Room where Mark was playing it, and I knew I had to pick up a copy. I had heard about this game for years, but never had a copy or got around to playing it until this year. For a few weeks, I was addicted! It's a great arcade-style game that I'm happy to have in the collection. Axiom Verge: Xbox One I had heard mixed reviews on this retro-style MetroidVania game for a while, and snagged it on Xbox Live when it was on sale. I dig it! The weapons and abilities are cool, especially the "glitch gun" which seemingly allows you to "mess up the game code" to access new areas and change how enemies behave. The music is also awesome. The Legend of Zelda - A Link Between Worlds: 3DS I bought a 3DS just to play this game. It was worth it. I'm still making my way through, but it's a great callback to A Link to the Past while adding new innovations. Looks great in 3D, plays great, IS great. Shantae and the Pirates' Curse: 3DS A few weeks after picking up the above mentioned 3DS, I spotted this one on clearance at GameStop. Knowing that it would be hard to find someday, I snagged it for the collection. The shocker? This much hyped up game DELIVERED. It quickly became one of my favorite titles on the system, and I recently completed it and now want to 100% the game. I feel like I should have played more new games instead of the same old ones I keep playing over and over.

On a roll lately! Gunstar Heroes: Genesis I've beaten this one before, but not for years, and I've never done it without dying like I did this time! I bought this game way back out of the bargain bin at KB Toys for $19.99. I didn't know anything about the game, but the screenshots on the back of the box looked cool so I took a chance. It was obviously the right choice! It's one of the best run and gun games ever made, and one of my all-time favorites. Now I need to dig up my copy of the GBA sequel...

Thinking about this more, this is the way I would go at this point. They are cheap now, and multiple companies are making them. I find it more of a curiosity that the converters came in US carts, and finding them is cool, but aren't Famicom carts hard to take apart without breaking them?

It's always fun finding these. My original copy of Gyromite that came with my R.O.B. set doesn't have one, but my copy of Wild Gunman does!

Another thing I just thought of: When I was a kid, my dad had a wooden gun rack mounted on the living room wall, right near where my NES and Colecovision were hooked up. He had two rifles and a 12 gauge shotgun on the rack. The guns were never loaded, and the bullets/shells were kept elsewhere. If I asked my dad, he would show them to me, but we knew not to touch them. Both my parents explained to us how dangerous they could be, and that we would possibly hurt ourselves if we messed with them. My friends also knew that they were off limits, and never once asked to see them, even if we were alone. It was just the way things were; we understood the difference between the video game guns and the real ones. It wasn't hard. Also, back then, you could go to a toy store and buy water guns that looked fairly real. I had a M-16 and an UZI, and they looked fairly legit. They sucked as water guns though, especially after the Super Soakers came out. But for playing "Contra" in the back yard with the neighborhood kids, they kicked ass! These days, my dad's guns are under lock and key somewhere in their house and have been since my two younger nephews were born. The world is different now. But when I was a kid, trust kept things honest. Again, as an adult, I'm not a gun owner or have any desire to own one.

I'm not into guns now, but I sure played a ton of games with light guns back in the day! It was just part of the experience, and it was fun. It still is, and one of the only reasons I keep a CRT around. When I was a kid, I had the NES and the Zapper, and my cousin had the SMS with the Light Phaser. I played my fair share of Safari Hunt with that thing, but I liked Duck Hunt (and the Skeet Shooting mode) better. Later on, I played with my buddy's Sega Menacer and my other friend's Super Scope 6, and I spent a lot of time with the Virtua Cop games on the Saturn. When I hit the arcades with friends, it was all Operation Wolf, T2, Beast Busters, and Revolution X. I appreciate the mechanical aspects of guns, but I have zero desire to own one now, despite how much light gun gaming I did back in the day. Side note: my high school Spanish teacher was insane. When he got mad at the class, his bald 5' 5" frame would turn bright red and he would go into the classroom closet and fish out "La Pistola" and pretend to shoot it in the air. No, "La Pistola" wasn't something dirty... it was a Sega Light Phaser with the cord cut off!!! How he obtained that, no one knows. Did I mention he was freaking INSANE????