Silverfleet

I may be in on one of these. At $30, it's worth a shot and a hell of a lot cheaper than the Mega SG.

Found a better picture of my Game Boy with all my original Game Boy games! There are a few gems in there, namely Samurai Showdown and Castlevania Legends. Two of my childhood games, Metroid II and Operation C, were lost years ago and I miss them dearly. My favorite, however, is Link's Awakening. That game is incredible! Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters is an underrated gem and probably the best game in the series.

Oh man, I feel so old now. I remember playing the Game Boy for the first time at a friend's house. He had just gotten it, and only had Tetris. I remember my dad came to pick me up and I didn't want to leave because I was "Tetrisized". I got my own Game Boy pretty early. I think I got mine in 1990 around my birthday in January. For a while, I only had Tetris, and that was perfectly fine. Right after picking it up, I remember bringing it to a birthday party for one of my cousins, and my hotshot lawyer uncle was there. He asked if he could give Tetris a try. On his "first try" he got about 150 lines! Turns out he had one too, which he brought with him on planes when he traveled. Other than one time catching my dad play Rad Racer on my NES in the middle of the night (that's another story altogether), this was probably the first time I saw an adult play a video game. I knew that this thing was different; it had universal appeal for all ages. I still have my original Game Boy. I actually repaired the screen last year, and it still works perfectly. And yes, I still use that sweet fanny pack to store my games! It came in a bundle from Boston area electronics retailer Lechmere along with F1 Race, Super RC Pro Am, and the link unit that allowed for multiplayer games.

The possibilities are truly endless!

Yesterday, I was out and about with the wife, and coming off the highway on the off-ramp, I saw something completely random and out of place, but I wasn't quite sure what it was until after we were past it. After we went to the store we were going to, I ended up having to get back on the highway, and I spotted the object again. This time I stopped super quick, hopped out, grabbed it. Yes, I'm nuts. Yeah, it was a Nintendo Power Pad! How the hell did this end up on the side of the highway? The cord is severed at the connector end, and I already have a good working one, so this will become wall art, a cape, or something else. Maybe I'll fly it like a flag on the back of my pickup truck like all the Truck Bros do with various flags. Maybe that's how it ended up on the side of the road in the first place.

I have been firmly in the "maintenance" phase of collecting, with buying large lots of games firmly behind me. But every once in a while, the games find me! I was over a buddy's place last night picking up something car related from him (I'm big time into the old car hobby, as are most of my friends), and he had asked if I had any interest in some games he had kicking around. He tossed out a price of "$25 and a loaded baked potato". While I gave him the $25, I gave him an I.O.U. on the potato. Here's the haul: Genesis Stuff: -Sega Genesis Model 1 non-High Definition Graphics, with power adapter -Sega 6-button controller -Performance 6-button controller -Mortal Kombat CIB -Barkley Shut Up And Jam 2 -NHL 95 -MLBPA Baseball -Sonic 2 "Not for resale" variant -Paperboy -California Games -Toy Story -Sonic The Hedgehog "Not for resale" variant -The Lion King -Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers -X Men -Sega 6-Pak -Aladdin -Spider Man & X-Men in Arcade's Revenge PS2 Stuff: -PS2 Slim CIB (manuals and everything) with two black controllers -Gravity Games Bike: Street-Dirt-Vert -MVP Baseball 2003 -ATV Offroad Fury 2 "Not for resale" variant -Star Ocean: Til The End Of Time -GTA: San Andreas -All Star Baseball 2003 -Airblade -World Series of Poker -Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 -Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain -Frogger (PS1) -Call of Duty 3 All in all, nothing crazy rare, but there were quite a few titles that I didn't have. My PS2 Slim has been on the fritz lately, so this one will probably take its place. All of the PS2 games were CIB, save for the two loosies at the bottom of the pic. I need to clean it all up (it was sitting in his garage for years), add what I didn't have to the collection, and probably use the rest for trade-in fodder at my local store. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! On the way there, I stopped by Walmart to pick up a fire extinguisher for my new-to-me 1979 Dodge Power Wagon, as it's leaking oil and I don't want it too self immolate. I nearly always find deals at this particular store, and scooped this up for $10: I missed out on Starfox 64 back when it was released, so this has been on my list since I got my 3DS. They had a bunch of other games on clearance, but I was in a hurry so I just grabbed this and left.

FINALLY beat Thunderblight Ganon after getting the Master Sword and leveling up the Rubber Armor Set. Made things a lot easier! As an added bonus, I finished off all the Divine Beasts over the weekend. Still a lot more to do in the game, but I'm glad that's over!

I don't know if I trust the Konami we have today to put the games people want in that Castlevania Collection. The three they have announced already should definitely be there, and I think the other three should at least have Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night in the mix. We'll probably get the 1st Castlevania Adventure on the GB (NOT Rebirth), an even worse translated version of II on the NES, and emulation of the Tiger LCD handheld version of II.

You need at least 13 heart containers for the Master Sword, otherwise it kills you when you pull it from the ground. I have about 10 right now, so I'm still going around doing shrine quests along the way to finding the better armor. I just went near Hyrule Castle to cut through to Ridgeland Tower for the final piece of the Rubber Armor set. I was getting my butt kicked big time, but then I found a really complex shrine to save my game. There was also a bunch of loot in the shrine, like some high-grade weapons that should help until I get the Master Sword. Reminds me of playing the original game and going up on the top left part of the map where the 8th dungeon is, but with the normal sword, no rings, and little shield!

That's where I got stuck. I decided on backing off trying to beat him and decided to go get better stuff. There are so many other things to do in the game. Mainly, I'm going around and getting things that will help with the battle, like the Rubber Armor set (cuts lightning damage) and the Master Sword.

Working on getting all the bits for the rubber armor set right now. Got the helmet and the pants so far. That should help with Thunderblight Ganon as well! Since playing again, I've rarely been using horses. I am never in an area that seems to have them, and when I do find one, I forget to bring them to the stable, so I've been on foot 99% of the time.

I ended up just leaving to go explore some more. Going to do some armor upgrades and shrine finding so I can get more heart containers. I think I want the Master Sword for this.

I picked one up for around $35USD a few months back with the Target app exploit where they double-discounted them. I basically played it for a half hour and put it back in the box. I feel like it's more of a novelty/collector's item than a good game console. Some thoughts: -Presentation and packaging are top notch. They NAILED this aspect of it. It really looks like a small Playstation! -Controllers are not Dual Shock, but they are convincing replicas of the originals. And since they are USB, they work on other stuff. -Game selection is just OK, as many people have communicated. Some run slow because they are PAL releases. -I haven't hacked mine yet, but I will eventually since there are tons of options for this now. Before I bought this, I put Retropie on a 128GB SD card and loaded it with PS1 titles for my RPI 3. I used the same emulator that runs on the Classic, and it works very well, if not better than the Classic does.

Yeah, I can't even get that far. He zaps me with the lightning orbs which makes me drop my weapon. Then, I end up getting murdered while I fumble around for it. Sounds like I need to get better equipment and revisit this one.

Ha, revisiting this thread since I now have a hour long train ride to and from work every day since my job moved offices. I dug out the Xperia Play and I'm trying to make it better at playing games and worse at being a phone. I haven't used it in a few years, and it was running like crap, so I did a factory reset. I also just rooted it and now I'm looking at trying to install Android 4.0 on it to get better compatibility with emulators (it's running 2.3.3 right now). Man, Android devices have changed since 2011! It won't even let me sign into my Google account on it no matter what I do right now. I had to download a shady 3rd party "marketplace" app to get emulators back on the device. Hopefully I can get it working well enough to be a viable emulation machine.

There must be something in the water around here, because I also started playing BOTW again after taking nearly a year off. I am playing through the camel divine beast now. The boss keeps kicking my rear end. I ended up giving up and will go scrounge for more food/heart containers/better armor, because a single hit wipes my health out. It's still a great game.

I have plenty of sports games in my collection; always have and always will. There are the essentials, like the Tecmo Bowl/Super Bowl games, some NES classics like Ice Hockey and Punch Out, and the NHL series on the Genesis, and then there are the obscure "hidden gems" like the Baseball Simulator 1000 games, Super Baseball 2020, and MLB Power Pros. Hell, the first game I ever pre-ordered was NBA Showdown '94 on the Genesis, and I still have it after plunking down $49.99 for it at Software ETC all those years ago. I have gotten tired of the same Madden game coming out at $60 a pop every year, but there are plenty of fun games from the old days and even some new ones to keep me occupied. They are great for casual gaming, too!

This has been on my list for a while now. I guess I'll just have to wait for the physical release at this point!

I've spent more time playing the Switch since I picked one up a little more than a year ago than playing any other console I have. 99.9% of the time, it's in portable mode too. It's great being able to sit on the couch while the wife watches whatever mindless reality show she's watching while I'm playing a modern game! Do yourself a favor and pick up a Hori D-Pad left JoyCon for all the 2D stuff you are going to be playing. One of the best things I ever did.

Congrats on the purchase of your new favorite console! You are gonna love it.

Over the weekend, my wife wanted to go to the Iraqi Antiquities Store... err... Hobby Lobby, and she knows full well that if we are going to this particular store, I'm hitting up a small retro shop I always score deals from. I consider it payback for making me listen to the church music. This time, I was actually hunting for records, and scored these: The Scorpions album was the most at $10, but it's an original pressing and flawless. The other two were similarly flawless and $3/ea. Still better than the prices I see at the local flea market by a mile. This store also sells comics, collectibles, and retro games, so I had to see what they had for games. They were stocked really well, but nothing jumped out at me on the shelves except for a $10 copy of Star Ship with a number label. I passed on that and went to the glass case. In there, they had Vectrex games! No one has Vectrex games in the wild around here, and when you see them, you buy them! They had a bunch of games I already had, but one I didn't, so I grabbed it. It was $16 with the overlay, which I felt was a good deal. As I'm checking out, I see a pile of games on the counter and asked the guy what was up with those. He recognized me from the last time I was in, and said "Oh yeah, you like the obscure stuff. Check this out." Then, he pushes forward a boxed Jaguar game hiding behind a stack of Genesis games. I have rarely seen loose Jaguar games, and this was the 1st time in the 15 years that I've owned a Jaguar that I've seen a boxed game. Another $10 later, it was mine! I'm not a big Jaguar collector, but this was one of the few titles I wanted for the system, so I was happy to snag it.

My NES came with R.O.B., Duck Hunt, and Gyromite and NOT SMB! Another weird one: I almost had a SNES with Stanley Cup Hockey and NCAA Basketball packed in. It was a Christmas present, but it had been opened and someone stole the Stanley Cup game. I returned it and they didn't have another, so I got a game-less Control Deck, Super Castlevania IV, and Samurai Showdown instead.

I won a Xbox and a bunch of games once! When I was in college, I worked at an auto parts store for a while. There was a sales promotion from Bosch for their spark plugs, and my store came in #1 in the region for sales somehow. As a reward, we could either choose a Bosch power tool kit or a Xbox bundle with the following items: -Xbox console -Xbox Live kit with headset, subscription, and Crimson Skies -Project Gotham Racing 2 -Rallisport Challenge 2 -extra "S" controller So yeah, I picked the Xbox. I immediately went out and bought a ton of games for it. I still have it, and I still play it all the time!

I haven't had much time to game so far this year, but I found myself sick on the couch recently, so I fired up the Switch and played through an old favorite: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES via the Switch): This was my first Zelda title back in the day. I went to the store to buy the first one and got confused and brought this home back around 1988 (I was 6 and easily confused, LOL). Beyond all comprehension, I beat the game back then! I have always loved this game, and it ranks among my favorite in the series, despite all the hate it gets. I like to run through it every few years. It's like comfort food.

First game ever played? That's a tough one, as my family got a Colecovision in Christmas of 1982 when I was 11 months old. I am sure I played something on it before I can actually remember, but the first game I distinctively remember playing was Cosmic Avenger. It was real early, because I remember it being in my family's old house, which we moved out of in early 1985. First arcade game was Moon Patrol at a long-demolished bowling alley in Hull, MA. I was small enough to need a step stool to play it! First game ever owned by me specifically? I got my NES for Christmas in 1987, and it was the bundle that came with R.O.B., and it came with both Gyromite and Duck Hunt, so it was a tie. Honorable Mention: First game ever purchased was Tiger Heli for the NES, shortly after I got my NES for Christmas. It was $29.99 at Service Merchandise, and I still have it!