Drixxel

Interesting. Does it stand to reason, then, that games like Sensible Soccer or Cannon Fodder on the Jag may be ST ports at their core that borrow assets from the Amiga version?

I'm enjoying these nostalgic tales of Jaguar acquisition! It wasn't until 2000 - 2001 that I purchased a Jaguar through some retailer/wholesaler called Dentec, I can't remember what business they were actually in but the company was sitting on some stockpile of consoles, games and accessories. They were listed among other online vendors on some Jaguar fan site, the name of which escapes me, and it was something like $99 for a new Jaguar (sans Cybermorph) and 20 or 30 bucks for the sealed copy of Tempest 2000 I ordered alongside it. This was a pretty exciting experience for a 14 - 15 year old kid who'd never bought anything online before, and it was my first time worrying about money orders, shipping costs and delivery times. A local (now defunct) used game store had a handful of Jag games in stock, so I'd picked out Soldier and Doom in anticipation for the Jag's arrival. No one else in my group of friends really gave a shit about anything beyond the current gen, but I was completely thrilled to finally get my hands on a Jag, even if the hopes I'd been building up for years meant an impossible amount of internal hype that the console's library could never really deliver on.

That's a very thoughtful breakdown of what makes AvP tick, boxesofgame, and I'm inclined to agree with all of it. Despite the game's flaws and missed opportunities, I've always felt it to be effectively immersive and the slow, deliberate pacing does give AvP a feel of its own. My wishlist for improvements is pretty long, but I like what's there in the finished product.

Great review, Satoshi! The Master Everdrive definitely looks like a quality flash cart and you picked some cool games to demo. Two things I really enjoy about your videos, with this review being no exception, are 1) how thorough and well researched they are, and 2) how comfortable you come across when discussing the technical side of things.

Neo Turf Masters - NGPC Alien 3 - SMS Ikki - Famicom

Overall, I'm pro Bubsy. Claws Encounters on the SNES was my first experience with the series and it remains to this day one of my favourite platformers. The first Bubsy is a surprisingly replayable game, IMO, and quite fun to boot up and zip through for even a few minutes here or there. The colourful backgrounds, sprawling levels and zany tunes struck a chord with me when I played the game as a wee lad, and as far as animal mascots were concerned, I thought Bubsy had some appeal (even if I didn't really understand the game's pop culture references at the time). I can appreciate why Bubsy is loathed by some -- the collisions are definitely a bit wonky and the touchy jumping physics take a certain amount of patience to overcome. It's the sort of game that honestly may be easier to warm up to as a kid when free time and focus are more readily available. The Jaguar version, by comparison, feels rather unfinished to me. It needs more of everything to be a complete game, testing not the least of all. My hopes were high after an extensive screenshot-laden preview that appeared in GameFan, but in play, FFT isn't all there. Years ago, a member of the Bubsy dev team posted a bit about their experiences working on the first two games over at Sega-16, which I found fascinating. Clicky to check out the full thread.

Very cool! A most enjoyable review. It looks like a reasonably fun game, although the distinct lack of visual panache goin' on in the backgrounds seems to kill the thrill of exploration a bit.

It'd be cool to see some other Amiga games make their way to the Jag, the library would really benefit from more platformers. An arranged version of Turrican 3 with souped up high colour graphics would be... awesome.

Haha, I love doing that. There's always interesting stuff to make note of from one port to another, to see the changes, tweaks or compromises that were made to get the game on a given platform. Even poor games can be made enjoyable this way, I find.

Pretty cool, I quite enjoy this. The game has a definite Ghosts'n Goblins-ness about it while not outright cloning the gameplay and control style (although I honestly wish it borrowed a little more). These folks did a great job!

Ahaha, this is awesome. It looks honestly kind of annoying to play, but very amusing to watch. Has anyone ever tried putting Pac-Man into a Labyrinth-style tabletop marble maze environment?

As easy as it is to envy their collections, it really must feel awesome to receive the amount of stuff from fans that they're fortunate enough to. What better validation as an entertainer/reviewer can there be than to have the very people who enjoy what you do send you reams of games and hardware because they're interested in hearing your opinion on it? Good on 'em, I say.

I've always found the non-SNES versions of Alien 3 to be strangely difficult. The combination of time constraints, maze-like stages, respawning (and cheaply placed) enemies, a screen that doesn't scroll until you're over halfway to the edge, ammo that's easy to burn through, a need to find all the cocooned inmates to proceed... this all comes together and frustrates. Adjustable difficulty and player stock helps, but it's still a tough game that requires memorization and patience. I've hardly made progress in it over the years, but it is, for whatever reason, a game I do continually return to. EDIT: Holy crap, NES Smash T.V. has a dual controller mode? That's awesome! I had no idea. Time to dust that mofo off. EDIT 2: Haha, good lord, there it is on the title menu. I can't believe I've been unaware of this.

I just clued in to the bit of cool attention given to this video by Hardcore Gamer, presumably because of this thread. Much appreciated, Hardcore Gamer! "The animated short short shows what could have been if only Nintendo included an 'Adventure' mode, turning a day at the 2D races into a deep, existential crisis with the red racer." http://www.hardcoreg...adventure-game/

This is an animated short I threw together for a local retro gaming art show that opens tonight, I thought some of you folks here might enjoy it. Excitebike, more exciting than ever before...! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSJM0aGc3DY

Operation: Logic Bomb (SNES) World Heroes 2 (SNES) Excitebike (NES)

A few favourites of pack-in swag spring to mind. The GunCon packaged with Time Crisis is at the top of the heap for me, the gun games on PSX are some of the best around and the GunCon makes for a great shootin' experience. Next, I'd have to say, is the Vaus controller bundled with NES Arkanoid, but then again I've always been a fiend for anything Breakout-style. In that vein, an honourable mention goes out to the rotary controller packaged with the Japanese release of Arkanoid DS that plugs into the GBA slot. That take on Arkanoid may be a bit dull, but the accessory is extremely cool. Also, interesting article.

Oh man, offensive 2600 stuff hadn't even crossed my mind until now. Those palm trees are a bit weird, but at least they're static. It's the crazy colour cycling backgrounds, like in the inter-room clue screens of Swordquest: Earthworld, that stand out when I think of eyesores among that library. Even that sort of thing retains an element of coolness for me, though, which makes it easy to look past, and at least you aren't expected to actually control something over top of it. I guess it's just a matter of preference, but I'm personally quite fond of the look and style of Kirby Superstar. It's overly colourful, perhaps, but not excessively bright or contrasty. More.. lively. And, like the palm trees in Coconuts, we're talking mostly static ultra-colourful assets here as opposed to twisting, distorted, motion sickening effects. Still, I can see how the game would be off-putting.

Oh yeah, those swirly backdrops are definitely an eyesore from time to time. The wavy intestines level in Wings of Wor is pretty dang busy. Then there's the more psychadelic, fast-moving background to the Gorgon stage in Thunder Force 3, I'm not sure how I feel about it. Jump to 3:25 in the video below for a glimpse of that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL81XjT_xxQ

After browsing a thread on Sega-16 about unreleased Genesis/Mega Drive games, I ended up looking into the Jim Power: The Arcade Game beta and the other versions of Jim Power in existence. The first and immediate thing that jumped out at me about the Jim Power beta is the absolutely ridiculous parallax scrolling, and it's made even more pronounced by the cheesy palette employed by the game. For the on-foot stages, the oppositional layers of background scrolling gives the weird impression of the camera perpetually rotating around the player, as if you're actually running in an enormous circular path and not straight left-to-right. It's honestly quite visually distracting when one factors platforming into the mix, at least it is for me. The supposedly 3D iteration of Jim Power on SNES, of course, takes this to a new level with the inclusion of glasses to intensify the depth of scrolling, but this is something I have not experienced in person. Another example of obnoxiousness that I've encountered recently is the Arrange Mode soundtrack in Castlevania Chronicles. This particular take on the game's music comes across to me as way, way overdone, whereas the toned down CD audio arrangement available within the Original Mode is considerably more appropriate. Anyone have some good examples of games that leave taste at the door in one or more ways? Jump to practically anywhere in this video to check out the wacky parallax from the Jim Power beta: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9pyY1QgoPI

Haha! Yes. This can't be the earliest example, but Cocoron for Famicom lets you build your character from a bunch of visually-and-functionally distinct pieces before setting off into 2D platforming territory. I'd have to say that's fairly deep customization for a console game in 1991.

It really is slick work that's been done on that console, but I have to admit it's kind of a funny selection of games that come bundled in that auction. I mean, Vectorman 1&2, TMNT Tournament Fighters and Road Rash 2? Haha, something tells me whoever ends up buying this thing won't be doing so to score those elusive jewels.

While it's routinely bagged as the worst of the model 1 hardware revisions due to its infamous audio problems, I feel that the VA7's really not that bad. A point that isn't brought up enough, in my opinion, when talk of differences in Genesis/Mega Drive model 1 hardware revisions surfaces is that of video quality, and the VA7 shares the best of the video encoders (the Sony CXA1145, as identified in the ubiquitous thread of hardware revision knowledge) among all models, as I take it. I only clued in yesterday, after moving my Genesis to a different TV (a Samsung CRT), that my VA7 Genesis throws out a picture free of rainbow banding. Not only that, but it's a mono TV I have the console hooked up to and I hear very little hiss when running audio either from the composite connection (also mono) or as one half of the stereo output from the headphone jack. For what it's worth, I've determined that the volume level of the mono audio via the composite connection on my Genesis is equal to the volume slider for the headphone jack being set to 90%, almost precisely. Also, I hear zero difference in the audio quality from either source, but I admit that closer listening through a better sound system (not the built-in speakers on this TV) may reveal something more. Anyhow, I ended up taking a chance on this particular Genesis after running into it at a Value Village a couple years back, my recall from that Sega-16 thread being thoroughly incomplete and making it pure speculation as to the good-or-bad-ness of the console I was dealing with. I was disappointed when later I determined what hardware revision I had, but I've never given this specific model a fair shake and impartial go of it until just recently. The video quality is worlds ahead of the model 2 I'd been playing on previously, and that for me is far more important than any imperfections found in the audio. Any thoughts on the VA7, one way or the other? Anyone here gone through with, or had done, TmEE's extremely clever audio mod?

Haha, yeah, I think I see the initial thought process behind that policy, but in practice, it's ended up exactly as you say - unsold "prestige" merchandise, sitting unclaimed and collecting dust. If their worst case scenario is a customer dropping by and trading in a few dozen everyday Xbox & PS2 games for store credit against the display cabinet rarities then they've misidentified the problem. Console commons are obviously going to come and go a lot more fluidly, that kind of dynamic inventory is clearly good for business and the perception of business. Hell, customers might even pick up on the fact that they've sold one of their big ticket collectors items, that's something of a confidence builder and even a conversation.

Man, what an awesome find, and thankfully your gamble paid off! Well played. I can't say I have anything especially rare console-wise, a Coleco Gemini is probably as uncommon as it gets.