Silverfleet

Sort of a NecroBump, but has anyone else grabbed this yet? I picked it up for the Switch a couple days ago. I've only had a few minutes to play it, but it's decent. I'm playing it on the "Normal" difficulty, and it's what the kids call "Nintendo Hard". It's unforgiving but rewarding, just like many of the older titles. I would have liked them to stick with the 8-bit graphics and sound, but what they did here is still good. I still can't believe there are ELEVEN main-line Mega Man games. Feels like I just picked up Mega Man 2 yesterday!

I like all of the EA Sports NHL games on the Genesis, but NHLPA 93 and NHL 94 are my favorites. I like the gameplay of 93 better (you can make their heads bleed out with a big hit!), but 94 has more features and a slightly better roster. 94 on the Genesis is basically the "NES Tecmo Super Bowl" of hockey games, and receives yearly roster updates via rom hacks and also has a big tournament following to this day.

One of my only complaints about the Switch is the left JoyCon's D-Pad, or lack thereof. I mainly play in portable mode, and a lot of the games I play on this thing are old-school Metroidvania-style games. After playing through Owlboy with the regular left JoyCon, I decided enough was enough and looked for a solution. Enter the Hori D-Pad Controller (L). These come in two flavors: a black Zelda-themed one and the red Mario-themed one you see here. I got the Mario one for two reasons: One, it breaks up the color of the all-gray Switch that I have, and Two, it's the only one I could find this past weekend in stock anywhere. I don't have any pics of it mounted on the Switch (for shame!) but I can tell you that it's a drastic improvement over using the directional nubs or the analog stick. The analog stick and shoulder buttons work great, and the - button and screenshot button work fine but are kinda gummy and not clicky like the stock Left JoyCon ones. The controller itself does have a couple of drawbacks. There's no rumble feature, but the other side works well enough to compensate, so it's not a deal killer. Also, this controller only works in handheld mode. I do 99% of my Switch gaming in handheld mode, so it's not a problem for me, but it's something to keep in mind. I do have a charging controller handle kicking around somewhere that keeps the JoyCons charged when you play in docked mode, so I'll have to see if that works. If you mostly play in handheld mode and are sick of using the analog sticks or the directional buttons, give this thing a shot!

Picked these up over the long weekend. My wedding anniversary was yesterday, so the wife and I took a day and went to some of our favorite antique stores, and I hit up a few game stores as well. Records came from the antique store, the Switch stuff came from Gamestop, and the PS2/Xbox/SNES stuff came from a local shop I like.

This has been a tough summer for me. My wife has spent much of it in the hospital, and has been recovering at home for the past month from a major health issue. My Switch got A LOT of play time while I was staying with her in the hospital (and at home), and I picked up a few games to help pass the time. I finished one of them last night. Owlboy (Switch): I didn't take any pics of the end screens because I didn't want to give anything away. I must say though... This has been one of the best games I've had the pleasure of playing in a very long time. It's not revolutionary by any means, but the story, gameplay, awesome soundtrack, and beautiful pixel art graphics grabbed a hold of me and didn't let go until the end. It's like someone took a bunch of my favorite games and tossed them in a digital blender. It had the gameplay of a Metroidvania-style title with the feel of a classic Zelda game with a bit of 16-bit Square RPG sprinkled on top. It's one of those games that's so good that I am sad I finished it. Onto the next!

Very cool that Sony is getting in on the "classic" plug and play market! For me, I'm more interested in if the thing can be modded/hacked. I already have multiple ways to play PS1 games and a stash of great PS1 games, but I haven't dabbled in PS1 emulation yet.

I HATE taking the T. Driving in is a PITA. I know, excuses, excuses... It's probably better if I never go, because I know I'll drop stupid money buying crap I shouldn't be buying.

This is an interesting question. And for me, it's complicated. Let me explain: -Count me in the "not sure if I was ever part of the scene" group. The "scene" when I started gaming was my classmates talking about games on the playground in elementary school. We got our info from reading Nintendo Power, Gamepro, and EGM, from watching Video Power on TV, and from word-of-mouth accounts from talking about games with friends. That was basically my "scene" until the Social Media Era (minus the playground part). I started collecting around 2000-01, and a few friends were also into it, and we would go out "hunting" sometimes. I didn't even find this place until around 2008, when I started digging around the boxes of Atari carts I picked up years prior looking to see what I really had. -I've never been to a convention. We have PAX East here in Boston, but it's a pain to get in and out of the host venue, and I never find out about it until it's sold out, so I haven't been there. -I am a collector, sorta. I have a large collection, and I still like the thrill of the hunt, but I've largely stopped amassing more stuff. Not only has the well dried up around here, but the cost is prohibitive. -I don't own any homebrews. I do appreciate the homebrew scene, but I haven't seen anything so amazing that I need to have it. -I like emulation. That's a loaded subject these days, so I'll leave it at that. -I casually play games on my phone. There's a decent baseball title I tend to play to pass the time when I don't have a portable console handy. That said, touch controls are the devil, so I limit what I do on there. My "scene" now is basically making comments here, helping my buddy (YouTuber SmashJT) with his new blog, chronicling my collection via my Instagram page, and going game hunting once in a blue moon. I like playing and collecting, and I don't see my interest waning, although my patience for dealing with some aspects of it has lessened over the years. I try to avoid the poop slinging and drama that happens sometimes when interacting with other gamers. It's also not my only hobby; I also write about cars, work on cars, play music, collect vinyl, and fix up old musical instruments. If anything, I'm the one drifting further away from the scene, especially the collecting aspect. I have no desire to 100% an entire library for any specific console. I like playing the games I like to play, and trying new ones. I don't need physical releases of every game ever made, and rarely will I pre-order anything anymore, although I used to in the past. I don't typically buy sucky "rares" just to have a copy in the collection. Take Stadium Events on the NES: I have zero desire to have that game in the collection. If I found a copy dirt cheap somewhere, I'd toss it up for sale. It's World Class Track Meet with a different title screen, which I already have in a standalone cart and the 3-in-1. And it's not great.

The Switch is a great console/handheld hybrid, and I love mine! It's totally worth picking one up. While Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey were what sold me on it (and they are both great!), I wasn't prepared for how hooked I became on some of the eShop titles. Yes, you can get a lot of them on other consoles, but having them all on one device you can both bring with you AND play on a TV is really great. Some standouts include Blaster Master Zero, Cave Story +, Golf Story, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, Saturday Morning RPG, Sonic Mania Plus, and more. Lately, I've been hooked on Owlboy. Man, this is a great game.

Over the weekend, I picked up Owlboy. It was on sale at Best Buy for $24.99, and since I've heard good things, I figured I'd give it a shot. It's good. REAL good. Yes, it's another Metroidvania title for the Switch, which is already flooded with Metroidvania titles. This one, however, has me completely hooked. Even though I love the game, it does have it's ups and downs. The Good: -This game has some of the best pixel art I have ever seen. It is just beautiful to behold. Seriously, look at this: -Gameplay mechanics are really cool. One thing: there's no need for double jump shoes or anything like that because you can fly from the very beginning. The main character Otus doesn't provide offense outside of some dashes and spins, so he relies on his friends, which he carries around. Each ally has a different attribute. and you can switch them out on the fly. So far, I have a guy who shoots a short distance pea shooter, and another guy with a flame throwing shotgun that can also burn vegetation, which opens up new areas once you obtain his services. As the game progresses, you'll find more friends who have other special abilities. It's a cool way to expand the story and open up new areas in the game at the same time. -The story is solid. Some of it is cliched, but the way it's presented is great and makes up for it. You'll want to keep playing through to find out what happens next. Strange to say, but I get a total Legend of Zelda vibe from this game, and I mean that in the very best way possible. Lots of ancient ruins, temples, and lost technology to be had here, with a bit of steampunk aesthetic in some areas. The Bad: -Y U NO INCLUDE MAP??? That's right: there are no maps in a Metroidvania-style game. Not a deal killer, but it can be annoying in some of the dungeons. That part of the game is a definite throwback to the NES days. -When playing on the go, the JoyCons can be cumbersome at times. I've never used my Switch on a TV, but this game makes me want to actually set up the dock and get a pro controller. This can be said about a number of games, but yeah... For $25, this game is a no-brainer. Even at full price, it's worth every penny. Go buy it!

Picked up a couple of Switch games: Sonic Mania Plus and Owlboy have been on my list for a while now, and Owlboy was on sale this week at Best Buy, so I snagged both of them. Sonic Mania Plus is the first Sonic game I've played since the original Genesis titles that gets Sonic right. It's really, really good. It takes bits from all the 16 bit Sonic titles and builds upon them, making for a great game. And then there's Owlboy. I LOVE THIS GAME. It's a Metroidvania-style game with the best pixel art graphics you can imagine. It has a lot of charm, and the play mechanics are interesting. Strangely, I get a Zelda-esque vibe from this one, and that's a good thing. HIGHLY recommended.

Glad to see I'm not the only one with fond memories of this game. I also played/had Zelda II before the first one! Right around age 6 (in 1988), I remember seeing a shiny gold cartridge at my older cousins' house, and wanted to know more about it. They told me that it was special and I couldn't play it, and it was called The Legend of Zelda. They let me watch, but I couldn't play it. Man, I wanted this one BAD. A few weeks later, I convinced my parents to let me buy another NES game to add to my fledgling collection. I went straight to the glass case at Child World and saw a gold box with the gold cart peeking through. Jackpot! Yeah, it was Zelda II. It didn't matter; I loved that game and still do. With the help of a borrowed Nintendo Power, it was also the first Zelda game I ever finished. My original copy doesn't want to play anymore these days (corrosion on the connectors), but I have a million other ways to play it now.

I've been playing a lot of old arcade games via MAME lately. So. Many. Monkeys. Someone mentioned Zoo Keeper. I LOVE THIS GAME. It's a great game with some of the most insane sounds ever to come out of an arcade cabinet's speakers. Amidar is another previously mentioned game; I suck at it but like it at the same time. The home ports are hot garbage though. Did anyone mention Son Son? That's another one based on the Journey to the West and stars a monkey kid. Fun game too!

Do I play old arcade games for nostalgic purposes? Yes. Do I play old arcade games because they are good, fun games? Also yes. As someone said before, I fire up MAME and pretend like I'm in an old arcade, wandering around with a cup full of tokens. I play random games, but I always come back to my old favorites. What could be considered a "mini-game" within a big budget title today were THE games back then! That's all we had, and we liked it. They were designed to be played in short bursts, otherwise arcade operators weren't going to make money! Just because they are simple doesn't mean they aren't any more fun than modern games! Over the weekend, I've been playing the crap out of Dig Dug. As simple as the concept is of digging in dirt and inflating two types of enemies until they pop, I've been trying to perfect my methods to get a higher score. I spent well over an hour playing that one, simple game. I started with a high score around 12,000, and after playing for a while, I doubled that plus a few thousand more. Not going to break any world records, but that's not the point. I did spend a lot of time fighting the controller, otherwise I could do better. It's a different experience than playing through a modern big budget title, but still a blast.

I was lucky to have kept about 95% of the stuff I had back in the day. That said, I still have plenty of regrets! I'd change the following: -Like everyone else, I would have kept the boxes, especially for my NES games. I figured this out after I got my Genesis, since the boxes were mostly hardshell cases. But man, I really should have kept the NES boxes! -I had a rare Sega Sports black Dreamcast that I picked up for $20 at Gamestop just to keep at my old band's practice space. Some thugs stole it. We found out who it was, and when my guitar player confronted said thugs, he almost got shot. Wish I never brought that there, as my guitar player could have been killed, and I'd still have that rare Dreamcast. Dumb move. -Before there were websites and YouTube personalities that told everyone what was rare, I had to rely on my own experiences of what my friends and I saw in the wild. If it looked unusual, I'd snag it. Sometimes, I'd hit (like $9 for Demon's Crest, $12 for a mint copy of Einhander, and $5 for a complete Power Strike for the SMS) and sometimes I'd miss (overpaying for Mystery Quest on the NES and passing up a $5 Little Samson because I thought it was a lame religious game). I wish I knew what I know now! -One of my biggest regrets was not buying more Sega Saturn games. When I got mine from a friend in late 1995, it came with 6 games. I was content with those, and I also stopped playing games for about a year to focus on other stuff in my life. During that time, I could have snagged a ton of Saturn stuff for pennies on the dollar in the clearance bins! By the time I realized this, it was gone from stores and I had to resort to eBay. -I wish I never tossed out my old Gateway 2000 Pentium MMX machine. That was the only computer I ever outfitted for gaming. I special ordered the thing and convinced my parents that it needed a good sound card and upgraded everything. Playing stuff on that machine was amazing for the time. I tossed it out about 10 years ago, thinking that no one would want an old tower PC like that.

Doom (and Wolfenstein 3D) RULED back in the day! I remember installing the shareware version of Wolfenstein 3D on the 386 machines in our school's computer lab in secret so we could play it during class. Doom though... Doom was AWESOME. That was a game-changer. I first had the shareware version, passed on from a buddy. After completing that, I picked up some combo pack that had Doom, Doom II, and a disc with a ton of new maps on it which kept me busy for a while. I recently played through the first episode of Doom via Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil's bonus content on the Xbox. It's still a ton of fun!

I was messing around with some arcade titles on the Retropie, and whaddayaknow, I beat another one. Robocop: Arcade I remember playing this one in the arcades back in the day, and could barely get past the 1st level. The difficulty rams up to the point of insanity starting with the 2nd level, and you only get one life. Put it this way: If I was spending real quarters in the arcade, I'd be broke! Still, it's a serviceable run and gun, and ties into the movie well. The digitized voices every once in a while really brought me back. "Your move, creep."

I've been following the progress on these as well, and they seem pretty cool, especially for the money! The SFII and Final Fight cabs look sweet! Actually, they ALL do! I wish I had the room for one. I still don't really have the room for my Galaxian/Galaga cocktail machine which hangs out in my basement. That reminds me, I have a Galaxian/Galaga cocktail machine in my basement I should probably fix up.

I have that same Nintendo game holder! I've had mine since new. I use it to house all my "black label" and 1st party titles. Cool find!

To clarify: Most people who drive classic cars don't drive them as their daily mode of transportation. They drive them for recreation and occasional use. There are people with these cars who are purists and don't want to modify anything, and there are people who want to modify EVERYTHING bolted to the car, from the tires to the engine management system. The people who modify their cars typically use the latest in technology to improve/change the experience. These modifications make it easier for these cars to exist in the current environment. Most people who run CRT's don't use them as their daily television. They use them for recreation and occasional use. Like car people, there are purists who want the original experience, and those who want a newer, more modern setup that can mostly do it all with some modifications. The people who modify their gaming setups with modern HDTV's and their supporting mods are using the latest in technology to improve/change the experience.These modifications make it easier for the older consoles to exist in the current environment. Aside from the hyperbole of cars ceasing to exist (I've read the same garbage in some of the publications here as well), the analogy I provided does work. Again, I have nothing against CRT's. They are great for what they are meant to do. I may even put a smaller one back in the game room next to the HDTV!

As you may remember from my recently doomed thread that turned into a poop-slinging contest, I just changed from a 25" CRT to a 42" 1080P plasma in my game room. The CRT still works fine, and I still have it, but I don't think it's going back in that room anytime soon. You see, as time marches on, so does technology. I've wanted to play my 2000's-era disc based systems (PS2/PS3/Xbox/360/etc.) in that game room, and they look like hot garbage on my composite input CRT. I did run into some small snafus with the older stuff and the HDTV, but I'm currently sorting that out. Until I do, I have emulation to keep me playing the older games. My modded Wii and Retropie look great on this TV. That said, the older stuff is still 100% playable on the older consoles, and I'm just being a perfectionist. I have nothing against CRT's. CRT's are great at some things, but so are HDTV's. They are not making CRT's anymore, and likely never will again. That is the reality of things, and there's no need to get bent out of shape over it and shake our fists to the sky. We will learn and adapt, like we always have. And the whole "electric car is replacing gas cars" argument is bad at best. While I'm not playing video games, I'm a freelance auto journalist. Since the inception of the automobile, there have been electric cars. They have been around for over 100 years now. They have, and currently are, a niche market. They are nowhere near replacing internal combustion engine-powered cars, and I don't see them fully replacing them ever. In contrast, TV's have changed completely from CRT's to flat-panel displays. There's no "niche market" there. They HAVE replaced CRT's. A better analogy would be cars running a carburetor vs. cars running electronic fuel injection. Older cars, like my own 1979 Trans Am, came with a carburetor from the factory. It relies on mechanical parts to work. At the time, the tech was there to produce an EFI car, but it was expensive and not quite as proven yet. Later EFI cars do the same job of mixing air and fuel, but are electronically computer controlled to be more efficient. You'll find purists who run carbs because that's the tech they like, and you'll find guys who have retrofitted modern EFI to their classic rides. When you do that, you have to change some things to make it work, like the wiring harness, fuel pump, and more. The result is a classic car that acts like a modern one. It has all the looks and driveability of the classic, with the performance of a new one. Sure, there are a few concessions, but many believe the end result is worth it. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

I had to drop off some donations at Savers yesterday, and they gave me a 30% off coupon for doing so. Naturally, I popped inside to see if they had anything worth buying. They had a bunch of 360 games, all crap though. The "expensive stuff" glass case up front had a bunch of kids DS and GBA games, nothing worth taking home. They had two completely stripped launch 360's (no faceplates, hard drives, or cables) for $17.99 each. Hard pass. Then, I saw something I've never seen before: a A/V switcher that does Component, Composite, S-Video, and HDMI. It was an Intec G5239 A/V switch. Looks like this: I passed on it at $19.99 because it was missing the remote, the little door on the front was broken, and it had no power supply, therefore no way to test it. Seems to sell for a lot on Amazon and eBay, although I couldn't find any sold listings. I may go back and get it, not sure yet. I also hit up a used book store that sells games, and picked up The Final Round (Konami golf game) and IHRA Drag Racing for the PS1 for $5 total. Yay.

I started this thread looking to see if there was a better solution for running my Composite A/V-connected consoles and why the display was getting noise and other weirdness on my Plasma TV I just put in my game room. I wasn't even thinking about upscalers, let alone arguing about them. This has turned into a complete s***show. Mods, feel free to close this one down. I think I got enough info to figure out the rest on my own. Thanks to those who actually helped!

I'll have to get some pics of the "interference" or "fuzziness" when I get a chance. It could be anything from bad power supplies, to bad grounds in my house's wiring, to crappy cables. I have no clue. For now, I'm just running a modded Wii through Component to play the old stuff. After messing with some TV settings, as well as the settings on the emulators and Wii, it looks good enough on 90% of the games I've tried. I used a modded Wii on this particular TV for years now, and it does the job. I also have a Retropie kicking around that I can use that looks great on modern TV's. I'll look into the OSSC and that cheaper Amazon option soon when I get the urge to use the real deal again.

I got a Dreamcast back when they were clearing them out of Gamestop stores for $19.99 each, probably around 2002 or 2003. One of the first games I picked up was Shenmue. Back then, I really liked it. The exploration was a ton of fun, and the story was interesting. Even though it seemed like I spent 3 actual days trying to find where I could "find some sailors", I had fun with the game overall. I probably spent the most time in the arcade, drinking weird soda, and collecting capsule figurines. But, I have Video Game ADD. I always start games and never finish them. Shenmue was one of those. I have the 2nd one for the Xbox, but have never played it due to not finishing the 1st. Honestly, with the amazing open world games we have now, I don't know how they would hold up. I'll have to revisit them soon with the new one coming out.