Gabriel

Damn. That's cool. I got RC Pro Am recently for $1.99 and Double Dragon II for $2.99. I can't find a copy of 1942 anywhere. I didn't even know Smash TV existed for the regular NES.

WOOT! I finally found a copy of Afterburner 32x. Of course, it's just the cart, no instructions or box. It has movie rental stickers all over it. And I probably got massively ripped off paying $9.95 for it, but... It's MINE! It's my own! My PRECIOUS! Damn, this version is hard. The control is just a little too loose. Time to experiment with different controllers and see what works best. So, now, except for possibly Mortal Kombat 2 and maybe T-Mek, I have all the 32X games that I wanted (since CyberSled was never made).

OOOPS! Yeah, I can confirm that Paperboy on the Atari disc 2 is screwed. It's somewhat playable, but only if you enjoy constant screenwide flicker and redraw. I didn't know about that one. Mainly cuz Paperboy is one of my least favorite games of all time. I don't think I played that particular game since I first got the disc (and back then I was using a PS1). But all the other games on the disc work fine. Yes, even Roadblasters works; the control issues disappear when you have a steering wheel controller.

I'm jealous. I used to have 2 Pirates carts, one complete with box and instructions. Then a "friend" stole the complete one. I eventually recovered the instruction book and the map, but being the cosiderate thief he was, he threw the box away and sold the cartridge (for 50 cents). I don't have any of the really really rare ones in my collection. I think the highest rarity titles I have are Dragon Warrior III and maybe Bard's Tale or Might and Magic. There's a Tengen Pac Man down at a used game shop, but they want $20 for it (just the cart), and I don't figure its worth that much. I've never even seen a Wisdom Tree cart.

I'm coming to very much love my GBA. I think I enjoy it much much more than any of the current big consoles. I mean, since I bought this thing about two months ago, this is what I've gotten: Dragon Warrior I + II (GBC) Dragon Warrior III (GBC) Joust/Defender (GBC) Phantasy Star Collection Tactics Ogre Golden Sun Lunar Legend Dungeons & Dragons: Eye of the Beholder Advance Wars Monster Rancher Advance 2 Namco Museum Konami Collector's Series: Arcade Advance Gradius Galaxies Robotech: The Macross Saga Tekken Advance As you can see, I'm pretty big on RPGs, classics, and scrolling shooters. And in the case of this generation of consoles, the GBA is the ONLY system that is really catering to my desires. In about two months, I have as many games for it as I have for my PS2 that I've had a year. I'd definitely recommend picking up Namco Museum. I play that game a lot and I think anyone into any kind of retrogaming will get a lot of mileage out of it too. Tekken Advance is pretty cool too if you can find it for cheap (I got mine at Toys R Us for $10). Right now I'm spending quality time with the Dragon Warrior series. When I get done beating all three of them, I'll go on to Tactics Ogre, Golden Sun, or Lunar Legend. Oh, and Advance Wars is a cool little game too, I'd snag that one if you can find it.

I haven't had much problem with my PS2 as a DVD player. However, I have had a few little hiccups with it. But I've had far more problems with my X-Box DVD player. I have seen problems with Tron. The problems occurred on a PS2 with the older DVD driver AND a newer PS2 with the updated driver. I don't own the DVD, so I've never been able to try it out on my X-Box. My PS2 has only ever absolutely refused to play a disc once, that was with a Pioneer anime title. Incidentally, I also have some problems with the only other Pioneer anime DVD that I own, and I have those problems on any DVD player I try it on. On the other hand, I have 2 DVDs that my X-Box refuses to recognize at all. And I have 5 others that will only play with severe skipping problems. Every single one of these DVDs plays perfectly on my PS2. Incidentally, if anyone is keeping score on the issue of "PS2 - vertical or horizonal?", I have always had my PS2 used in a horizonal mode.

Damn. That's news to me, because I use my Guncon 1 with my PS2 all the time. The only PS1 Guncon game I have is Time Crisis 1, but it works fine on my PS2 with the old model gun. Time Crisis 2 even instructs you to use the Guncon 1 with the game. I think my friend used my Guncon 1 to play Elemental Gearbolt (is that it? the Working Designs RPG/gun game) on his PS2. So far, I've found one, and only one. Mortal Kombat Trilogy seems to always lock up if you've played a two player game and then try to let the timer run out in order to play a single player game or to let the game go to the demonstration screens. Other than that, it plays fine.

My Nomad, which was purchased during closeouts on the system for $20, did not come with a pack in. I don't think that any Nomads came with pack in games.

The front loading Sega CD came with Sherlock Holmes, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Columns, Revenge of Shinobi, Sol Feace, and a CD+G disc. The top loaders came with Sewer Shark. The front loaders were a vastly better deal. The earliest models of the Genesis came with Altered Beast as the pack in. This was later replaced by the original Sonic game. Later, Sonic 2, Comix Zone, and Vectorman all had their turns at being pack ins. I don't think the 6 in 1 was ever a pack in, but considering how erratic Sega got towards the end of the Genesis's life cycle (changing pack ins every month) it wouldn't surprise me if it was a pack in on the later release Genesis 2s. I never saw the 32X with a proper pack in game, but many retailers would give Star Wars Arcade away free with it.

I thought you needed to score 100,000 to get the 1,000,000 patch Maybe it has to do with what game difficulty you have it set on. I played it on 4 and the unlocks were at 10,000 and 100,000. Of course, I think a friend of mine played it on difficulty 1 and got the first patch at 10,000 too, so that kinda blows the game difficulty effect on unlocks out of the water.

I had an ADAM in the 80s. The first thing that went were the tape drives. They burned out their own motors after 2 or 3 months. The new drives I got as a replacement burnt themselves after about a month. But by then it didn't matter. The reason why it didn't matter is because the tapes wouldn't seem to hold any data. Dragon's Lair erased itself after about 2 months, and one of the tape drives completely ate the Buck Rogers game I had. The blank tapes sufferred similar fates and the tape drives had a tendency to erase them anyway. After the tape drives died and there was no reasonable expectation of replacing them, I used the machine mostly as a straight typewriter and also for cartridge playing. That didn't last long either. Somehow the built in word processor got corrupted. This made it unusable as a typewriter. Sometimes the printer would decide it needed to print a garbage page at start up, and that was the only printing it was capable of past that point. Eventually, playing cartidges became impossible. The game would freeze between the Colecovision screen and the actual game. Sometimes you'd be able to get some garbage graphics and something where you could move a block of garbage around on the screen, but that was the best it got by that point. Cleaning didn't do any good. By that point, Coleco was a non-entity and chances of getting service for the machine or a new unit were non-existent. The only cartridge games I had on it were War Room and Nova Blast (?). Honestly, I didn't miss them all that much. I had played the holy crap out of them, and I had hit a brick wall that I couldn't get past in War Room. I have to say that it was the crappiest put together piece of electronics that I've ever owned. I owned Atari 5200 controllers that lasted longer than the ADAM computer did.

OK. The following is merely my opinion. If everyone else likes Robotech Battlecry, then that's cool. I'm just saying that I don't, and I'm not trying to diss anyone else's opinion of the game. First off, I was VERY disappointed with the graphics. While they move well, I don't think the imagery is very good. The backgrounds are very plain, with the various starships lacking nearly any kind of detail (and the SDF-1 in particular looking very bad). The city backgrounds remind me of Iron Soldier, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but I expect a bit more graphic performance out of my PS2 than the simple cubes of the Jaguar. Another thing is that I HATE cel shading. In this game it makes everything look like a cutout. I feel like I'm watching mecha South Park or something. Worse yet, a lot of things look like they're made out of some kind of day-glo type of substance, particularly the Battle Pods. Next, I have to make a mild complaint about the gameplay. To me, it's just boring. There is never enough action going on, and I constantly feel completely separated from the action as a player. Even the Force of Arms mission, which should be an action packed blowout, feels plodding and dull with no clear goal. Speaking of goals, there is a definite problem with goals in the game. I still have no idea how the hell I got past Bursting Point. As a Robotech fan, I must also take issue with the storyline of the game. I think that many opportunities for really cool missions were ignored, and I think it might have been a better choice to put the player in the role of Rick Hunter and allow the play of missions throughout the show. Or better yet, ditch the character identification altogether and have the player go through the entire Macross series sequentially. A really big thing I dislike is the control. It really seems like effort was taken to make the game as totally unplayable as possible, and there isn't even any option to change the godawful control scheme. At the very least, mode change should be on the shoulder buttons. To add insult to injury, the controls are slightly unresponsive. It feels not so much as flying an ultra-high performance aircraft as navigating a bicycle through thin mud. As for extras, the game lacks. The game should have allowed the color swaps at will, ala Shadow Squadron for the 32x, and allowed a greater selection of mecha to be played. As it stands, the unlocks are not really worth the effort. What did I like? It was cool to hear the original voice actors. And it was cool to hear the original Robotech theme for about the first 30 seconds (before it became apparrent that it was about the only piece of music in the game). It was also cool to be able to play the series (until you realize how boring they've made the missions). Altogether, I'd have to say that for me it was a waste of the $30 I paid for it. But I had to have it because of my being a big time Robotech fan. When all is said and done, I think that the demo of the American suppressed Macross VFX-2 was a much superior game. Perhaps if there is a sequel, it won't have the problems that Battlecry had. Rumor has it that the next game will be Mospeada based, so that will be cool (unless they make the game exclusively Cyclone based). There have been a lot of complaints about the mission structure, so if the developers are listening, then that will change. With any luck the graphics won't be that horrible cel shading stuff on the next game, but opinion is split pretty evenly in the Robotech community as to whether the cel shading looks good or not, so that one is definitely a toss up. Customizable controls are something that MUST be added. And it's not going to happen, but support for the PS1 dual analog flight stick would be awesome. Anyway, my apologies if my opinion of the game offends anyone. If you like it, keep on playing it. And blow some Zentraedi scum up for me and my old Robotech RPG character.

Most of them are pretty crappy for gameplay purposes, unless you feel the need to make the game insanely difficult. Sometimes I play Laser Blast or Demon Attack with the rotating screen feature. Seaquest is interesting when played on the 3d rotating cube. Fishing is kinda fun with distortion turned on. The only really good playable ones that I've unlocked so far are the scrolling starfield, the v-hold, and disco features. The multiple screen one is pretty fun, but the graphics become too small for my tastes. I play SeaQuest pretty much exclusively with the scrolling starfield now. The v-hold feature combined with the black and white switch is good for some nostalgia.

Robotech Battlecry didn't do anything for me. I was very disappointed with that game. But if you enjoy it, then rock on. For your future purchases I'd recommend the following: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 = A very good arcade style racing game with a vast number of cars and interesting tracks. GunCon Games = I recommend either Time Crisis 2 or Ninja Assault. Time Crisis 2 if you prefer accuracy and a kind of strategic sort of gun game, and Ninja Assault if you'd prefer frenzied action instead. Namco Museum = PacMan Arrangement is worth the price alone. Out of fondness, I call that particular game "Psycho Pac Man" or "Dope Trip Pac Man". Ace Combat 4 = If you like flight sims at all, then you must have this. Mere words cannot explain how fucking awesome it is. It's only flaw is that it doesn't support the old PS1 dual analog flight stick. Tekken Tag Tournament = It's $20 or less, and its still one of the best fighting games out there.

I only saw the NeoGeo portable once. (At least I think that's what it was) I saw it in Best Buy. It looked neat, but they didn't have a demo of it. To make matters worse, they didn't have any games for it at all. I made a note to check on the system in the future. The next month I was in there and saw that they had games. I seem to remember some Pac Man game, and something else I wanted. I looked for the system and... couldn't find it. They didn't have any and they weren't going to order any more. In my case, the system just didn't reach its audience. Best Buy was the only place I ever saw anything for it. I asked about it at Toys R Us and Circut City and got a resounding "what's that?"

I didn't really like FF9, but it was good in the aspect that it returned the game to its more classic feel. FF9 also struck me as being hard. Other's mileage may vary. It's very possible the massive number of ridiculously easy RPGs of recent years have made me soft. FF6 is definitely my favorite, but FF7 is a close second.

Can anyone give me an estimate of the quality of the current PS1 remakes (the little white ones)? I have 2 of the older PS1s. One is part of the earliest run (with all the ports on the back) and the other is of a more recent vintage, requiring the AV adaptor and not having the s-video. Both work fine, but the youngest one sometimes exhibits the problems requiring the system to be flipped. I'm wondering if the most recent PS1s are more durable and reliable, much like the last run of the NES was the best one. If so, I was thinking of picking one up and keeping it in the box until such time as needed. Any observations?

Woo Hoo! Today I finally found a copy of Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis for the Gameboy Advance. I had looked all over the place for this game and was about to resort to eBay, and on a chance wandering into Circut City, there it was! Probably no one here thinks it's that spectacular of a find, but I'm happy as can be. And since happiness is contagious, I wanted to let everyone know so that maybe they can get infected.

I've been messing around with my NES all day and figured I'd list what I have as my current collection. Feel free to rate. NES Top Loading Console with appropriate hookups 2 Dogbone controllers (1 is in bad shape and missing the start button) 2 NES Advantage Sticks 2 Spectravideo QuickShot Jet-style control sticks Games (all are loose) Xevious = Bandai Gyruss = Ultra Lifeforce = Konami Marble Madness = Milton Bradley Tiger Heli = Akklaim Spy Hunter = Sunsoft Castlevania = Konami Archon = Activision Blades of Steel = Konami Roadblasters = Mindscape Q-Bert = Ultra (title screen says Konami, weird huh?) Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord = Nexoft Wizardry: Knight of Diamonds = Asciiware Gemfire = Koei Romance of the Three Kingdoms = Koei L'Empereur = Koei (with instructions) Might and Magic: Secret of the Inner Sanctum = Sammy The Bard's Tale = FCI Ultima: Exodus = FCI Ultima: Quest of the Avatar = FCI Pirates = Ultra (with instructions and 2 maps (?)) 2 x Dragon Warrior = Enix Dragon Warrior 3 = Enix Dragon Warrior 4 = Enix (with instructions and fold out in extremely shitty shape) 2 x Final Fantasy = Nintendo (with instructions and both fold outs for one copy)

I liked FF7 more. I found it possible to actually sympathize with the characters while I was on the railroad tracks. Plus, it was a good train ride. And the actual game elements, while sparse, kept my interest. Personally, I hated FF8. To me, it seemed a shame that such nice art design and character design had gone to absolute waste. I couldn't empathize with the characters, the story was boring, and the magic system had been completely ruined.

I love Space Duel. It's the only game in the Asteroids family that I really really like. I dunno. It's just kewl. I vaguely remember reading in some magazine of the time that it was destined to be ported to the Atari 5200. Looking back on it, I think it was best that there wasn't a home version at that time. Nothing back then could do the vector graphics games justice. And the vector graphics were the spiffiest thing about Space Duel. Without cubes constructed out of crisp bars of neon, it just wouldn't have been the same.

Currently, I'd have to say the GBA. That little thing kicks ass. Previously, I would have said the Nomad. The main problem with the handhelds is that none other than the Gameboy stand any chance of being supported. Therefore, a good selection of games never grows for them. The Nomad avoided this because of its compatibility with the large libary of Genesis games. Of course, the Nomad drains batteries at a rate of 6 in 3 hours or less.

The Laser Blast unlocks listed are in error, at least IMX. The laser blaster patch unlocks at 10,000. The one million patch unlocks at 100,000.

I didn't include FFT in my previous assessment. It has a significantly different enough feel that I don't really consider it a Final Fantasy game. But what I do consider FFT to be is downright cool. I've wasted many an hour with that game. I didn't like the story very much. I hurried through most of it because I found it bland. The excellent combats were the only reason I stuck with the game. As far as tactical RPGs go, I'd probably rate Shining Force for the Genesis and Front Mission 3 for the PS1 as better than FFT, but those are the only two that can touch it.

I don't know what it is, but that's the same art as is on the Atari 5200 Countermeasure cart.