Gabriel

One thing to remember is that The Transformers became big after the great videogame crash. The Transformers fad fell neatly in the time period after the death of the classic consoles, and before the rise of the NES. That's the age of Commodore 64s and very little major, "mass-market" video game software. The box art for the C64 version of the game probably lacks Optimus Prime and Megatron for a very simply reason. Those toy figures were out of production at the time. Advertising them on a current videogame cover would have been pointless. Instead, we see Cyclonus, Blitzwing, Hot Rod, and Springer, all of which are "movie era" characters. That would be about right, because I believe that Transformers: The Movie was a 1986 release. Transformers: The Movie also marked the end of the massive popularity the toys had in the 80s.

Around here it seems like the ONLY place to get old videogames is GameStop (no older than NES) or the used game shop on the mall (some scattered common 2600 carts). The hastings book and video store has been good lately, but they only go back to PS1 games. Most Goodwills, thrift stores, or garage sales that I've visited for the past 6 months have been devoid of games. The only exception is a Goodwill that has 2 EA sports games and a couple of Sonic games for the Genesis. The games were in a glass case, and impossible to examine. I think they wanted $10 for each.

I think my 2600 and NES collections might be about to get a shot in the arm. On Thursday, I accidentally bumped into a friend that I hadn't seen in quite some time. In fact, it had been so long since I had heard from him, and when I had he was not doing so well, that I was beginning to think he was dead. So, it was exceptionally good news to see him alive and well. We arranged to hang out this past Saturday, and we basically shot the shit all day long. Currently, my friend has a shitty job in a podunk crap town. He's maintenance at a really crummy apartment complex. Some of his stories about the tenants were pretty amusing, and some of his stories were downright sick or scary. Anyways, being a classic videogame lover, I asked him if he had found any video games that had been left behind by evicted residents. He replied that he found such things regularly. In fact, he knew that he had seen several Atari 2600s, complete with controllers but no games. He also remembered having a couple of NESes, and one of them had been like mine (a top loader). I asked him how much the apartment complex would get for selling these things, and he told me that they would sell the old systems, from VCS to NES, for $5 each. Of course, I was quite amazed that they sold a top loader NES for $5, and I had paid over $100 this past Christmas on ebay for an Atari 2600 and 30 games. So, I told my friend flat out that such things were worth $5 for the controllers ALONE to me. I offerred to pay him for any orphan systems he would bring to me. He agreed, and told me that he'd only charge me if he couldn't sneak them past the apartment manager. And he also said he had at least one Atari 2600 that was fully working with controllers that he'd bring me next week. So now, I'm gonna sit tight and see what my friend brings me next week. I feel like its Christmas in May.

Cool. I have found the losing formula on this site. All I have to do to be ignored is post about PS1 games! Does my above post actually have the complete list of PS1 Guncon compatible games? I'm missing Point Blank 1 and 2 and Elemental Gearbolt and wondering if there were any others I missed. I must have ALL the Guncon games! Muahahahahahaha!

Anyone have any inkling how common Time Crisis: Project Titan for the PS1 is? I'm inclined to believe that its fairly rare, considering that I'd never seen it until a week ago, and I don't see it pop up all that often on ebay. On the other hand, I've scored 2 NIP copies of the game, complete with Guncons, recently. Related to the Guncon, what PS1 games use it? I know of Time Crisis, Time Crisis: Project Titan, Point Blank 1, 2, and 3, and Elemental Gearbolt (I think that was the title). Are there any others? In similar happy news, I found a pristine copy of RPG Maker for the PS1 for $15. I'm glad that I decided against trying to get one off ebay for $35.

My mistake then. But the way the post was phrased, it looked as if the prices being quoted were US prices, not currency conversions. Personally, I'd say to get the GBA-SP. I think it has better games than the GC anyway.

I think I'm in love with that gif.

Uhm, what are you talking about? The sticker price (and MSRP) of the GBA-SP is $99.95. I may not be up on current happenings, but the GC was still $149.99 last I checked. The $149.99 does include a game (or is that the $189.99 pack?), but they're all games heading for the $20 bargain status, so you're really not getting that good of a deal.

As anyone can see from my sig, I dislike 3D platformers. I wrote a big ass long post about what I think of 3D platformers. Then I looked at it (always a good thing before hitting submit) and realized it was pissy and inflammatory. So I deleted almost all of it, and was left with this little paragraph and accompanying orphan sentences that sum things up without the ranting. "There has been one and only one 3D platformer that I liked. That one was Jumping Flash for the PS1. Still, I didn't like Jumping Flash enough to keep it. I traded it or sold it to someone. I don't remember exactly. I also don't know if I'd still like Jumping Flash today, or if the appeal was just it's newness. I think the latter is the case. I do think that most 3D platformers have serious pacing problems, and they tend to lack any gameplay focus other than wandering around."

I found it very worthwhile. As an old school Ultima fan, one thing you might find distasteful is the linearity of the Final Fantasy games. Unlike the Ultima games, you usually have a certain predestined path to the game's conclusion and deviation from that path is mostly not allowed. Of the two games, Final Fantasy I is the most enjoyable. It has a nice sort of quest with interesting dungeons and just enough inventory management to make things interesting. I am finding FF2 to be pretty disappointing. I feel far too railroaded, and the story being told just isn't all that interesting. Plus, the character advancement system (based around improvement of what abilities you use while unused abilities atrophy) is one of the worst I've ever seen. Even with half the package kind of a waste to me, I find the disc to be worth every penny of the $30 I paid for it. Final Fantasy I has great replay value, and has some nice improvements over the NES release beyond the pretty graphics. If you want to take my recommendation, I say get this game now before it disappears.

Tee hee. I had a kind of semi-bad experience the other day. It was my first negative experience for the store in question. I had been hunting all over for a brand spankin new copy of Tactics Ogre for the GBA (I needed it to trade for the N64 system I'm currently using to play Ogre Battle 64 on). I hadn't found it anywhere yet, so I decided to check GameStop which has been a pretty good place to find stuff like that. So they have a copy of the game, and I take it up to the front to check out. The guy looks at the game, does a mild snort, and then comments, "Wow, I've had a lot of complaints about this game." I think that this is an odd thing for him to say, as it comes across that he's kind of offhandedly dissing my taste in games (he had been raving about some brand new FPS to another customer a little while ago, so I know his tastes in games are probably radically different from mine). So, I ask him, "Really? Like what?" He responds by saying, "Oh, I guess it wasn't what they expected." I took that as his backpedaling a bit, and I dropped the matter. Maybe he felt he should say something about the game since I'm a regular of the store, and was truly just trying to be helpful. I don't know. It seemed a bit like my purchasing the game was a bit of an inconvenience to him on some level. It was nothing at all like the rudeness that I would have received had I gone into the pen & paper RPG shop and tried to purchase a game that the clerk didn't like. At the RPG shop, the clerk would have said something like, "This game sucks. Only brain dead morons play this shit. The publishers of this game and the people who play it should be executed. Will that be cash or charge?" So, it was really mild compared to that or any other gauge of such things, but it was irritating, and it gave me flashbacks of that unpleasant shop.

Hmmmm. I don't think I've ever been unimpressed with an entire generation. However, I have been unimpressed with certain systems. I know I was definitely unimpressed with the Nintendo 64. The only game that came close was when I watched Star Wars Episode 1 Racer in a demo. The N64 simply had lots of things going against it: bad games, bad controllers, limited storage, blurry graphics, etc. Although, I must say that I've reacquired a N64. I finally found ONE killer app game, Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber. But, most of this game could be done equally well on the PS1. For the most part the Dreamcast failed to impress me. The only title that stood out on that system was Soul Calibur. Grandia II and Garou were also impressive, but nothing that any other system couldn't already do. The X-Box is also failing to impress. The library is pretty dreary, packed with FPS types of games. Panzer Orta utterly failed to even live up to the expectation of being a good game, much less living up to the legacy of Zwei. This year will probably tell if the X-Box will ever wow and amaze or will simply limp along with Microsoft throwing money at it.

For me, its the opposite. My favorite sports games are Realsports Football on the Atari 5200, Realsports Baseball also on the Atari 5200, Blades of Steel on the NES, and Joe Montana Sports Talk Football II (I think that's the one) on the Genesis. The more modern the sports game, the less I like it. The modern games make me feel that it's all about the stats, and leave me feeling detached from the game. The classics don't do that, and focus on the gameplay. As for racing games, I don't really consider them sports games. And I enjoy a good game of Turbo, Pole Position, or Enduro just as much as a game of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2.

This list started off about average for these sorts of things and ended up in raving Miyamoto worship. Some comments about some of the other games in the top 10: #10 Street Fighter 2 = While this game did define the fighting game genre, it is not deserving of being in the top 10. Champion Edition or Turbo are more befitting that distinction, because people play those iterations still to this day, not this prototype. #9 Final Fantasy 2/4 = This is a fine game in its own right. However, to rank this in the top 10 while leaving FF3/6 far behind is a total crock. FF3/6 is this game's superior in every possible way. #8 X-Com #7 Starcraft = On these two items, this list is fairly on target. I don't entirely agree with X-Com, but it is a quality game, and I still know people that play it regularly today. #4 Tetris = This game was shafted by this farce of a list. It deserves #2 if not #1. #1 Super Mario Bros.= While the other Miyamoto games being on this list are total, absolute, bullshit, this game does deserve to be in the top 10. However, I don't think that it actually has enough merit to be at #1. I'd venture #3 at best. I think it's a good thing they snubbed Super Mario Bros 3, because this game has much more fun factor and replayablity than the later effort has (SMB3 is much more like work than a game). And Ms. Pac Man was cheated. That game is much more deserving of the top spot than anything in this top 10.

I don't think Gauntlet IV for the Genesis is as common as you might think. I had a hell of a time finding it and that was when the Genesis was still in its active life cycle. The 4 player adaptors are significantly easier to locate. It's been a while since I've seen the official Sega model, but I do come across the EA model from time to time.

OK. I have a question for other Final Fantasy players out there. First off, some background. On the U.S./SNES version of Final Fantasy 6 (Final Fantasy III) it was possible, once you got decent thief skills on Locke, and the Magicite that converts monsters into items, to get as many economizer relics as you had the patience to acquire. To do this, you would fight the Brachiosaur (the big nasty Brontosaurus lookin' dino) in the dinosaur forest in the World of Ruin. If you could get him to morph into an item by magicite use, or if Locke could get a good steal result, then you'd get a shiny new economizer. A while back I had gotten my characters on the PS1 Final Fantasy Anthology version of the game up to the level where they could successfully fight this critter. I wandered around in those woods for several hours fighting that godawful dino as much as it would let me. For some reason, the trick never worked, and I could never get a new economizer off of it. The best I got was a meat item. My question is, has anyone successfully managed to get an extra economizer in the PS1 version of the game? If that little trick has been taken out, I'd rather not continue to waste time trying to get it to work.

Hmmmm. Favorite GC games... I'd have to say Godzilla. For one, its just damn fun to be stomping around as a famous monster, beating on other monsters, and crushing a city underfoot. Plus, in multiplayer, it's just freakin' awesome. I liked Super Smash Bros Melee when I first got it, but it got old quickly, and the multiplayer isn't as fun as Godzilla. Although there is the odd satisfaction of watching Mario and Link getting bitch slapped around.

I didn't like it. But it was worlds better than FF8, which blew gigantic chunks. I probably need to pick up a copy of FF9 in case I want to try it again someday. I didn't hate it. I just couldn't get into it because of how goofy the characters looked. Plus, I found the various mini-games irritating. I've long thought that if they could have combined the graphical design work of FF8 with the game of FF9, then things would have been much better.

Dragon Warrior IV ain't that great. It's good, but overrated. Bang for buck wise, I'd say get Ultima: Quest of the Avatar. It has a lot of depth to it, and it's decidedly non-linear. Final Fantasy 1 would be a good one to get too, but considering the insane prices that are asked for this rather common cart (the local used game shop wants $25 for a bare cart) you might want to consider getting Final Fantasy Origins for the PS1 instead.

Super Smash Bros and Wave Race better than Soul Calibur? The people writing this are officially on dope.

Maybe yours did. I agree, the Coleco controllers are about the worst ever.

It's a little choppy, but it does play extremely well. I agree that it wasn't worth the $90 to $100 initial price. However, it was very much worth the $20 I paid for it.

Is it a front loader (which fits under the Genesis) or a top loader (which sits to the right of the Genesis)? Assuming your drive isn't dead, clean the contacts on the parallel port of the Genesis and the connector on the SegaCD. One stupid question though, you do have both the Genesis's and the Sega CD's AC adaptors plugged in, don't you?

"Madden 03 the FIFTH game on the list. Madden is a franchise, but better than CIV, Starcraft?" Just a typical example of one of these sorts of lists. "Mortal Kombat II and Dance Dance Revoluttion at 39 and 40 over Unreal." I've never played Dance Dance Revolution, but here is my test for Unreal: If you still play it 10 years from now, then it deserves to be in the same league as MK2. "WTF is Devil May Cry on the list at all " Don't ask me. "and where the hell is POPULOUS, the orginator of the God game and still alot of fun despite being 15 year old? " I liked Populous when it was new, but I have to admit that I certainly don't play it anymore. It just doesn't amuse me like it did back in the day. I'd rule it off of a top 100 list that I'd make as well. "SPY HUNTER?????!!! What is influential or exciting about that? " I play this regularly on my Midway Collection 2 PS1 disk. It's a game that stands the test of time. "And they put that over STAR WARS arcade!!!! " I haven't played Star Wars Arcade in a while (I'm presuming you're referring to the Atari effort and not the Sega machine from a little under 10 years ago). Of course, the reason I don't is because my computer isn't good enough to properly emulate it without massive slowdown in MAME. "No SYSTEM SHOCK on that fackokta list " What the hell is System Shock? "unknown piece of crap arcade game called R Type? " Damn. I had never actually played R Type until just the past few days, but I had known about it forever.

A friend of mine has it, so I've played it before. I can get a few levels into it before I get slaughtered. But I'm still not quite good enough to be able to actually get past all the levels you can select initially and into new ones. I seem to remember some kind of boss that would stomp along the ground in a plant level that would always punch my ticket. My friend is the Lightening Force god. On the Genesis game he could actually beat it without setting his number of ships to 99. He's told me that he's gotten to see some of the further along levels in Thunderforce V, but he has never gotten anywhere near beating it. But even after finding all the games that I have for this weekend, I still wandered out yesterday and checked to see if there was anything else. It turns out that this was just the week for me to get PS1 games that I had missed out on, because I found a copy of Konami Arcade Classics for $5! I've been looking high or low for that one. I played Gyruss and Time Pilot for about an hour or hour and a half. It was odd that I played Time Pilot so much, because I remember I had hated it when it was new. But I guess times change, and I've grown to where I really like it.