Lord Thag

I got a brand new one for $15 from 4jays. It's worth every penny. It is, without a doubt, one of the most fun (and impressive) titles for the 5200. I'd play it, if I were you.

It's been a gradual thing with me. I didn't start collecting Atari, I just never stopped. I was still playing the 2600 when the SNES came out. I used to trade unwanted NES games for 2600 stuff, because my friends would usually give me 10 or so 2600 games for one NES cart. Soon enough, I have 150 or so. Then a good friend of mine got on the bandwagon an tried to compete with me, so we would spend saturdays thrifting. Faster than you could think, collecting 'retro' games became a full blown hobby. I now have well over 1000 games for classic systems. Crazy? Maybe, but I have fun with it. I can't hold a candle to another friend of mine, who has 4000+ games (!). The way I look at it, I'm not spending thousands of dollars on rims for my car or whatever. Collecting games is fun, cheap, and rewarding. A few people I know have made snide comments about my hobby, but public opinion has never been high on my list of things to cultivate

I dislike most modern games (but not all) for a couple of reasons. One, they're pretty much all 'me too' clones of something else. For every Halo, you get 15 'halo killer' knockoffs that suck. Ditto GTA. 95% of modern games are clones. Two, as mentioned above, it usually takes hours of your time to get anywhere on a newer game. Old games give you more bang for your buck timewise. Plus, the older games tend to be more intense than the newer ones, and require your total focus to play. Some new games are like this, but not many. I don't hate ALL newer games, but I only buy one or two a YEAR that I actually will keep and play again.

Well, I like 'retro' gaming because a good game is still a good game, outdated graphics or not. I never stopped playing river raid because ace combat came out, you know? Also, I think the focus of gaming has changed. Games now are more experiences than games in the original sense, which is fine, but classic games are just that: games. They are not epic, 20+ hour masterpieces of interactive cinema and story. Don't get me wrong, I loves some of the newer games, but they are not really games in the old sense of the word. Pac Man is a game. It's simple, fun, and challenging. The depth is in the gameplay, not the presentation. Most newer games have deeper presentation, and more shallow gameplay. Also, a lot of older games do not pull their punches in terms of difficulty too. There were a lot less set 'genres' of games back in the day too. Individual creativity came into play more.

I personally like the IMAGIC labels. The cool silver tone, combined with the strange-but-cool models they hammed up for the pictures was great. I love the dime-store rubber dinosaur with model airplane wings on Demon Attack. Nothing like a good can o' silver spray paint to make yer label art with! I remember drooling over the boxes as a kid at sears. I always thought Star Raiders was cool as well.

I have a co-worker with a PSP and Untold Legends. We're going to give the MP a try sometime this week. I'll post a review here after we do. Fun game! It has that 'just one more level' quality that makes it really hard to put down.

Doom64 is awesome. There is a PC port you can download for free as well. Don't remember the site though....

Subterranea, Quick Step and Lazer Gates to finish off my Imagic set.

The 2600 will always be number one, but I really enjoy the 5200 and intellivision as well. NES is good too.

I think there's a 'pricky' game store in every town It's gamestop where I'm at, and the place is full of those 'hardcore' elitist gamer types who sneer down at you if you have the unforgivable bad taste enough to buy something uncool (read unprofitable), and who will ignore you unless you hit them in the head. The EB games is actually the small, new store in town, and the people are friendly. Unlike the other big stores in town, their not jumping down your throat every five seconds with those stupid sales gimmicks, but it's still a corporate store. Unfortunately, the locally owned store is even worse, as it's run by a guy who charges high ebay prices, and THEN ADDS SHIPPING to them, because (as he says) you'd pay that anyway, and his store ofters the 'convenience' of not waiting for a package to show up. Fortunately, he's not very knowledgable, and will sometimes miss a rare game. What IS it with game stores anyway?

You ever played a Vectrex? I got one for christmas. It's vector-graphics nirvana.

It's pretty fun. The fact that there are TONS of optional dungeons, extra levels in dungeons that you have to unlock later, and the fact that the whole game is randomly generated with each restart make it pretty fun. It definately is a baldur's gate knockoff, but it's a darn fun one. Dunno about you guys, but Diablo in the palm of my hand with wireless multiplayer is a GOOD thing....

I've found quite a few extras. If my 5200 arcade stick ends up panning out, I'll be happy to sell a couple of them for a fair price. Give me a week or two and I'll let you know.

Why not PM or email one of the AA owners? They sell hombrew stuff all the time, and I'm sure they could help you out. The usual selling price for a homebrew boxed game is $40-50, at least from what I've seen, so I would imagine it costs $30-35 at least to produce it. I'm not an expert, though.

Personally, I think they hold up the corners of my wobbly, game-filled bookcases quite well. Great coasters too!

Probably a no go. I kind of like having some of the stickers and markings on the game. Kind of like a suitcase with travel stickers, you know? Adds a bit of originality to a collection. Or maybe I'm just weird.

It's amazing how many little details they added to it to. The breaking mugs, the detailed bar graphics, even the little full/empty mugs that keep track of your extra lives. The space bar looks great, as well as the bonus round. Whoever programed it was quite talented. What amazes me is that the gameplay is just like the arcade. I should know, I used to OWN the arcade years ago.

Just an aside from a relative soldering idiot like myself: I'd heard of the problems with the power switch before, and having two CV units with garbled graphics etc, I decided to try it. I did it, and the system now works like a charm. My only problem was that my soldering iron is a sucky radio shack piece of crap, and took a looooong time to melt the old solder on the boards. Resoldering the switch was easy. Works great, now! So any of you having doubts about how difficult an operation it is, relax, it's quite easy!

You can build your own stick for a lot less. There is a card you can buy (forget where) that allows you to map the joystick/button pins to ASCII keyboard codes on you pc. It plugs into a USB slot. My bro made one for about 50$ or so, if memory serves. It was fairly easy to do as well.

I've just managed to repair a couple of CV's, and am looking to start a collection. I have about 10 very common carts (Donkey Kong, Avenger, Lady bug etc). Anyone have a decent sized stack of stuff they're looking to part with? I'd prefer to buy a small-big lot at once, but single carts are ok too. PM me if you've got an offer.

Swordquest Earthworld: Cyclopean nonsense - zodiac flu! - deposit in toilet, flush like poo Firefly: Happy sun in midnight sky. Stabbing eyeballs. Let me die!

I just scored some decent stuff. I found Tapper, Nexar, Buck Rogers and Wabbit at a thrift/used game store. Not bad. Tapper is AMAZING. All the arcade screens as well as the bonus round, and spot on gamplay to boot. Another example of how the 2600 could make arcade ports that looked odd, but played better than their prettier, but less fun counterparts on the other 'big three'. I've heard Tapper mentioned favorably before, but not that often. I'm assuming this is because of the R6 rating and lack of exposure. Any of you who haven't picked it up yet, should. Nexar and Buck are so so. Wabbit is odd, kind of a cross between Galaxian and Worm Whomper. So, any of you have luck this past weekend?

How about a movie store going out of business and selling WALLS full of SNES and Genesis games for a buck a pop. Or Dreamcast for $5. PS2/XBOX/GC for $10. It was a good weekend

Metal Mech is a really fun platform/shooter with some cool gameplay elements. It's cheap and fairly easy to find. And it has great graphics to boot.

Solomon's Key. I can almost, ALMOST beat it but it always wears me down and kills me in the end. I go down fightin', but I always loose. Kinda cool actually, to be very good at a game, and still have it kick your tail in the end. I still play it, fifteen years later...