Skippy B. Coyote

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I've gone ahead and returned the game for a refund so I can hunt down another copy of Dino Crisis 2 without disc rot. At this point there are 38 original PlayStation games in my wife and I's library and Dino Crisis 2 was the first game with disc rot that either of us have come across. It seems to be a pretty uncommon problem with PS1 games, but it does happen sometimes so it's definitely something to be aware of when buying games for the system. I know that I'll be a bit more wary of buying higher cost PS1 games on eBay after this little experience.

Thank you for the reply and picture Shawn! After looking at the game I bought again (which is Dino Crisis 2, for anyone who is curious) it seems to be quite possible that it's got some disc rot going on. Here are a few pictures for reference: The only thing that makes me wonder whether or not it's disc rot is that the pinprick sized dots in the black layer of the disk have a shiny metallic look to them rather than the completely clear color that you usually see in cases of disc rot. What do you guys and gals think?

After a great deal of searching online trying to find pictures of original PlayStation discs with disc rot (or bit rot, depending on what you want to call it) and coming up empty handed I decided to make a thread and ask about it. There are plenty of pictures out there of Sega CD, Saturn, and other early disc based games rotted out, but since PlayStation games were made a bit differently with a black coating on the bottom and usually a layer of solid non-translucent art on the top I'm not sure exactly what I should be looking for when checking original PlayStation discs for rot. I ask because I recently acquired a fairly pricey PlayStation game that I'm planning on giving as a gift but I noticed that on the bottom of the disc there are half a dozen little pinprick sized dots clustered together that look like shiny metallic spots in the black layer. They're definitely inside the black layer and not on the surface of the disc, but due to the solid artwork on top of the disc I can't tell whether or not they go all the way through the disc even when it's held up in front of a bright light. So, I'm hoping someone can provide some pictures of what the underside of an original PlayStation disc that has succumbed to disc rot looks like to help figure out if the game I'm planning on gifting just has an odd manufacturing defect or if it has indeed developed disc rot and should be returned for a refund. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Paperboy (Game Boy) Tomb Raider: Starring Lara Croft (Game Boy Color) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reflex Edition (Nintendo Wii)

I know exactly how you feel. My wife and I live in a small one bedroom apartment and to fit all our stuff in there we've had to confine the retro gaming center to a space about 7 feet long by 2 feet wide. For this kind of space using bookshelves to store games and accessories was clearly out of the question, so we ended up going with some Sterilite brand stackable plastic storage drawers from Target and a little particle board TV and console stand from Target as well. Everything fits very nicely in the space and we've been really happy with how it turned out. Here's a picture if you're interested, just disregard the plethora of pastel purple ponies.

Eurogamer's sources are purported by Nintendo Life to be pretty rock solid, so at this point I think it's fairly safe to say that the system they've been describing is the real deal; and so far it sounds pretty darn good to me. The Tegra X2 chip would provide utterly stunning graphical power for a handheld system (literally 100x the power of the original 3DS) and relatively on par with that of the current gen home consoles from Sony and Microsoft, which is kind of mind blowing when you consider the technology gap that has always existed between handhelds and home consoles throughout the history of video games. I'm also digging the idea of detachable controllers for multiplayer gaming and the option to customize control inputs depending on the game that you're playing. That all said, there are still a couple things that concern me. One is battery life, since a handheld pushing the kind of power that the NX likely will be can't be easy on batteries by any means. I'm anticipating a couple hours of battery life at best, which somewhat defeats the purpose of having a portable system. A few hours might be fine for most people, but as someone who still plays a Game Boy Color every week and is used to getting 20+ hours out of their batteries the battery life of the NX could be a major annoyance. The other, and definitely largest, concern of mine is the seemingly credible rumor from the Wall Street Journal that the NX will play all of Nintendo's mobile games. It doesn't take much to figure out that if this were true that would mean that the NX will come saddled with a sim card and monthly data plan fees. I'll be blunt here: I am never under any circumstances going to buy a game system with a data plan. Never, ever, ever. I'm just not doing it. I already have half a dozen systems and hundreds of games to play that don't require me to pay monthly service fees, and any game that requires a data plan to play isn't going to stand up to the test of time in a decade when the company making it shuts their servers down because they've moved on to newer systems and games and aren't making a profit off of the old device anymore. And I think that pretty much sums up how I feel about the NX at this point. I think it's a system that has great potential and I'm definitely excited about it, but the battery life issue is worrisome and if it comes saddled with a data plan then I'll just have to pass on it and stick to my older handhelds. Which is fine really, since between the Game Boy / Color, Game Boy Advance, and DS / 3DS there are already more high quality handheld games than I'll probably ever be able to play during my lifetime.

Personally I've never understood the appeal of "Let's Play" videos for any game. Back when I was a kid there was nothing more annoying and frustrating than having to watch someone else playing a game when you wanted to play it yourself. Like waiting in line at the arcade or waiting for a friend to lose at a home console game so that they'd finally pass the controller to you. I can understand watching strategy guide and game review videos, since I used to read strategy guides and game reviews in magazines all the time growing up and I still often reference guides and reviews on IGN and GameFAQs when I need a hint or want a professional analysis of a game's quality. But just watching a video of some random whoever playing a game has never been even remotely appealing to me. I just don't get the whole "Let's Play" phenomenon at all.

That is the single most amazing and awesome business model ever! If high speed internet with streaming services, digital downloads, and torrents hadn't come along and laid waste to the entire rental market then I think that's the sort of store that should have been in every city. Pizza, games, and movies delivered right to your door sounds fantastic!

Growing up I owned and played a lot of bad games, and I never thought of any of them as "bad" back then. To me they were just games, and it wasn't until about halfway through my teenage years that I started thinking of games as good or bad; before that they were all just games. A few that I remember most fondly were... Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (Game Boy) Gremlins 2: The New Batch (Game Boy) Bubsy (Genesis) Bubsy II (Genesis) Brutal: Paws of Fury (Genesis) Zool: Ninja of the "Nth" Dimension (Genesis) Bubsy 3D (PlayStation) Those are just a handful of them, and yes, I was a huge fan of the Bubsy series as a kid and played all three of the games on the Genesis and PlayStation for countless hours until I could practically beat them with my eyes closed. I had no concept of them being badly designed games, I just knew that I liked the characters and the games' visual styles so I kept playing them until I got good at them. There were still some games like Gremlins 2 for the Game Boy that were just too hard for me to beat as a kid no matter how hard I tried or how long I practiced, but I've since gone back and beat them as an adult so I'm not sore about it. I do think I'll pass on revisiting Bubsy 3D though.

When I was contemplating what to play at the beginning of the week I really thought that I was going to play something other than the Game Boy and Game Boy Color this time around, but old habits die hard. Arcade Centipede - 13 minutes Centipede (played on Atari Anniversary Advance for Game Boy Advance) - 4 minutes Ms. Pac-Man - 11 minutes Ms. Pac-Man (played on Namco Museum for Game Boy Advance) - 12 minutes Pac-Man - 10 minutes Super Breakout (played on Atari Anniversary Advance for Game Boy Advance) - 4 minutes Game Boy Alien 3 - 31 minutes Arcade Classics: Super Breakout & Battlezone - 14 minutes Boggle Plus - 26 minutes Gremlins 2: The New Batch - 104 minutes Mortal Kombat II - 6 minutes Solar Striker - 37 minutes Space Invaders - 36 minutes Game Boy Color Aliens: Thanatos Encounter - 250 minutes Frogger - 10 minutes Hexcite: The Shapes of Victory - 56 minutes Monopoly - 114 minutes Ms. Pac-Man: Special Color Edition - 17 minutes Pong: The Next Level - 36 minutes Super Breakout - 10 minutes PlayStation Alien Trilogy - 41 minutes Dino Crisis - 365 minutes Jet Moto - 135 minutes Total Play Time This Week 1,342 minutes (22 hours 22 minutes) [1,342 minutes eligible] Individual System Play Times This Week PlayStation: 541 minutes Game Boy Color: 493 minutes Game Boy: 254 minutes Arcade: 54 minutes This week marks the third week in a row that 100% of my household's video game play time has been tracker eligible, and a very good week it was! Last week I was planning on playing something other than the Game Boy / Color this time around due to my disappointment over my long awaited backlit and biverted Game Boy being impossible to see in bright or natural light, but that situation was quickly (mostly) remedied. After a little tinkering I realized that I could make it playable both indoors and outside under bright light by turning the polarization film behind the screen 90° back to it's original orientation and removing the bivert chip (turning it into a regular old backlit Game Boy with no bivert), so I decided to keep it. Unfortunately I didn't realize that a couple of the traces running from the flex connector socket had been cut to allow the bivert chip to do it's thing, so when I removed the bivert chip that cut off the video signal to the screen and now I'll have to wait until the beginning of next month when I'll have the funds to buy a soldering iron to repair the cut traces before I can play it again. That's alright though, if I can just be patient for a week then I'll finally have a backlit Game Boy that works just as well indoors and out; and that definitely got me excited to play some more Game Boy / Color games. To keep this post reasonably short I'll link to the write ups I did on most of the Game Boy / Color games I played this week here in the Games Beaten in 2016 thread for those interested in reading about them, and use my space in this thread to mention one other gaming related event this week that got me super excited. After most of a year of having a dead battery in my Game Boy Advance SP I was finally able to get a new one that held a charge properly this week! I had ordered 3 different GBA SP batteries off both eBay and Amazon over the last year, but they all seemed to be old stock that had been sitting in a warehouse for the past decade and none of them ever held a charge for more than half an hour to an hour at most. But, as luck would have it, this week I happened upon a company called KMD that is currently producing brand new batteries for the GBA SP! I ordered one through Lukie Games and was very pleased when it arrived in the mail and had the production date of April 2016 stamped on it. After installing it in my SP and letting it spend a few hours on the charger it's been working great, and I'm utterly thrilled to be able to play my GBA SP again without having to be tethered to the wall! The lesson learned from all this: If you're going to buy a replacement battery for your GBA SP then make sure you get one produced recently that has the manufacturing date stamped on it. Most of those cheapo Chinese batteries floating all over eBay and Amazon have been sitting in warehouses for 10 years or more and won't hold a charge for long, so pay a little more for a battery from a reputable manufacturer like KMD that you know was produced recently. To wrap things up for the week, the misses spent a fair bit of time with her system of choice—the PlayStation—and ended up fully playing through Dino Crisis two more times (for a grand total of 4 times over the last month) to see all the different endings and unlock infinite Grenade Launcher; putting it to use on her last play through. She also logged a little time in Alien Trilogy, since last week marked the 30th anniversary of the theatrical release of the movie Aliens and playing some Aliens games in addition to watching all 5 of the Alien movies again (which we did together over the course of the week) seemed like a pretty good way to celebrate. Lastly, I was really pleased to have gotten the chance to share one of my favorite PlayStation games from back in the day with the misses this week when I stumbled on a copy of Jet Moto for $2 at a local game store. While she's not generally a big fan of racing games she did have a some fun with this one and we ended up playing it together for a couple hours. I had forgotten just how difficult the single player tournament mode was, but I think it's still a great game nevertheless and I was really happy to be able to share it with my better half. Well, I think that about covers it for this week! I hope you're all surviving the summer heat alright and happy gaming to you and yours!

39. Jack Nicklaus Golf (Game Boy) A really surprisingly good game, and one that has gone on to beat out Mario Golf for the Game Boy Color and Mario Golf: Advance Tour for the GBA to become my new favorite handheld golf game. I'm utterly puzzled as to why this game never seems to come up on anyone's list of recommended Game Boy/Color games, because it's by far the most intricate, well designed, and full featured golf game on the original Game Boy and in many ways superior to Mario Golf for the Game Boy Color if you're not into the whole RPG story mode that the Mario games are focused on. There are four different 18 hole courses to play in Jack Nicklaus Golf, three of which are accurate pseudo-3D recreations of real life golf courses, and you have the option to play Stroke or Skins play against a large assortment of computer opponents of varying skill levels; playing against as many as 3 other opponents per game. The game gives you just the right amount of information necessary to estimate your shots, and everything about the game just seems way ahead of it's time. If you're into golf games and you own a Game Boy/Pocket/Color then definitely see if you can track down a copy of Jack Nicklaus Golf. I assure you that you won't be disappointed! 40. T2: The Arcade Game (Game Boy) It's hard to believe that the infamous LJN could have made a game this good, let alone that a light gun game for the Game Boy could be worth playing, but I've been getting my light gun shooting fix on the go with T2 for a couple weeks now and have been enjoying it immensely. At this point I've beaten the game 3 times (the first time around getting the bad ending, and the second and third times getting the good ending by destroying all objects in the Cyberdyne labs level) and I'm sure that I'll go back and play through it many more times just because it's so darn fun and can be beaten in 20 minutes or so once you get the hang of it. The only complaint I could really make about T2: The Arcade Game for the Game Boy is that it really needs to be played on a Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, or a GameCube's Game Boy Player. On earlier monochrome hardware like the original Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, and Super Game Boy the graphics are just too detailed to be able to clearly make out everything happening on the screen without having the enemies often blend into the background; but when played on a GBC, GBA, or Game Boy Player the enemies and your aiming reticle are all automatically colored a different color than the background so that you can clearly see what is going on and where everything is. It's still a darn tough game even with the visual enhancements of later hardware, but definitely one I'd recommend picking up for any Game Boy fan looking for a fun, unique, and well crafted shooting challenge. 41. Pong: The Next Level (Game Boy Color) There's really not a whole lot to say about this one. It's the original Pong plus three other variations with stylized backgrounds, power-ups, and various field hazards to add some variety to the game. There are three different difficulty levels for playing against the computer plus link cable multiplayer support, but with just half an hour or so of practice I was able to beat the computer in tournament mode (which is all four Pong variations back to back) on the hardest setting. This game certainly wouldn't have been worth it's retail price when it was new, but if you happen to stumble on a loose cart for a couple dollars then I think you'll get your money's worth of fun out of it. 42. Aliens: Thanatos Encounter (Game Boy Color) This week marked the 30th anniversary of the theatrical release of the movie Aliens, and since the Alien series is by far my all time favorite movie franchise I just had to play at least one Aliens game this week. I had actually started playing Thanatos Encounter twice before but never managed to get more than halfway through the game's 15 levels because, to be totally blunt, this game is refrickendiculously hard. Don't get me wrong, it's still an enjoyable and fairly well designed game, but as far as top down shooters go this one is right up there with the top down stages in Contra games like Operation C in terms of difficulty. Fortunately there is an Easy mode, which is what I ended up playing through Aliens: Thanatos Encounter on this time. There were still a few punishingly hard levels that took numerous tries to beat even on Easy, but I did make it through them eventually and never felt frustrated to the point of wanting to give up like I have during previous play through attempts on Normal difficulty. If you're a fan of both Aliens and the Game Boy Color then I think Thanatos Encounter is definitely worth checking out, since the designers really nailed the theme with everything from Pulse Rifles to Smart Guns, Flamethrowers, and Power Loaders at your disposal and a wide variety of nicely rendered Xenomorphs to aim them at; just be prepared for a serious challenge and a whole lot of time spent reentering passwords at the Continue screen to try again on the later levels. 43. Gremlins 2: The New Batch (Game Boy) Gremlins 2 is, in short, four levels of platforming Hell. I suppose the first two levels actually aren't all that bad, but Stage 3 and Stage 4 are just nightmarish; and by "nightmarish" I mean the kind of stuff that Mega Man wakes up in a cold sweat dreaming about. I think the only reason that I actually like this game is because I used to own it and play it all the time as a kid, but back then I could never get back the third stage (with good reason). If you're a fan of the Gremlins movies and like exorbitantly difficult platformers then this could be one worth checking out, but for everyone else I'd recommend looking elsewhere for your Game Boy platforming fix. There are plenty of good platformers on the system that won't drive you to the brink of insanity and demand absolutely flawless perfection on the last level and final boss fight to beat, but suffice it to say this isn't one of them. I took a couple pictures of the ending for this one, because I wasn't sure that anyone would believe that I actually beat it without invoking the almighty power of the Game Genie if I didn't include pics.

You know, there's some kind of bizarre irony in the fact that you just doxed Doxcade. But in all seriousness, as upset as I am over being ripped off I wouldn't go doing anything malicious over it. Thank you though, having that information will make it easier to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

Will do. I waited a long time to post about this because my initial ordering experience went so well and I wanted to give Doxcade time to make things right, figuring that they were probably just swamped with orders, but after 9 months and no reply to any of the dozen emails I've sent to them I figured it was time to give up and let you guys/gals know what happened. Also, Doxcade has had their eBay account suspended since May. Gee, I wonder why.

http://doxcade.com eBay: Account suspended as of May 2016 My initial arcade machine order from them last October went fine, but when I placed another order a month or so later they ripped me off and stole my money. The full story is as follows... After owning and using my custom machine for a few weeks it quickly became apparent that while it worked just fine for me it was very difficult for my wife (who has some physical mobility limitations) to reach the buttons while operating the joystick. I sent an email to the owner of Doxcade about it and they said that they could make us a new control panel for the machine with the buttons moved down a couple inches lower to accommodate my wife's disability. They gave me a price quote on it, I sent the payment promptly, they replied once to confirm that they had received the payment and would get to work on it soon, and that's the last I ever heard from them. That was last November and I must have sent them at least a dozen different emails since then, politely requesting that they please build and ship the replacement control panel that I paid for or issue me a refund, but I never got a reply to any of my emails. By the time I decided to give up and file a PayPal claim to get my money back the buyer protection period had expired so it was too late to get a refund through PayPal, and as far as I can tell Doxcade has no intention of ever making the replacement control panel that I paid for or issuing me a refund. Additionally, since I got the machine last October quite a bit of the printed artwork on the control panel has flaked off, the side artwork is starting to peel up, and all but a couple of the LEDs in the strip that backlights the marquee have burned out. Due to their shoddy workmanship and dishonest business practices I would recommend avoiding ordering anything from Doxcade.com and would suggest looking elsewhere if you're in the market for a bartop sized multicade.

I just wanted to update this thread to offer a warning about Doxcade.com. My initial arcade machine order from them went fine, but when I placed another order a month or so later they ripped me off and stole my money. The full story is as follows... After owning and using my custom machine for a few weeks it quickly became apparent that while it worked just fine for me it was very difficult for my wife (who has some physical mobility limitations) to reach the buttons while operating the joystick. I sent an email to the owner of Doxcade about it and they said that they could make us a new control panel for the machine with the buttons moved down a couple inches lower to accommodate my wife's disability. They gave me a price quote on it, I sent the payment promptly, they replied once to confirm that they had received the payment and would get to work on it soon, and that's the last I ever heard from them. That was last November and I must have sent them at least a dozen different emails since then, politely requesting that they please build and ship the replacement control panel that I paid for or issue me a refund, but I never got a reply to any of my emails. By the time I decided to give up and file a PayPal claim to get my money back the buyer protection period had expired so it was too late to get a refund through PayPal, and as far as I can tell Doxcade has no intention of ever making the replacement control panel that I paid for or issuing me a refund. Additionally, since I got the machine last October quite a bit of the printed artwork on the control panel has flaked off, the side artwork is starting to peel up, and all but a couple of the LEDs in the strip that backlights the marquee have burned out. Due to their shoddy workmanship and dishonest business practices I would now recommend avoiding ordering anything from Doxcade.com and would suggest looking elsewhere if you're in the market for a bartop sized multicade.

As a little news update, the backlit and biverted Game Boy is no longer for sale. Once I realized that I could make it playable both indoors and outside under bright light by turning the polarization film behind the screen 90° back to it's original orientation and removing the bivert chip (turning it into a regular old backlit Game Boy with no bivert) I decided to keep it.

For those interested in getting a better look at the size and build of the NES Mini, the Nintendo Life staff had a hands on with it at the Play Nintendo Family Lounge at the San Diego Comic-Con today and took lots of great pictures. http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/07/gallery_a_look_at_the_quirky_delights_of_the_play_nintendo_family_lounge_at_san_diego_comic-con

With the 30th anniversary of Aliens this week the misses and I just had to play some Alien series games, and watch the movies all over again while we were at it. Aliens: Thanatos Encounter (Game Boy Color) Alien Trilogy (PlayStation) Alien 3 (Game Boy)

I'm voting (and hoping) for Resident Evil 1.5