goatdan

I don't know how true this is, but I seem to remember hearing it from a reliable source -- Bill Gates worked at Atari for a short period of time. Can anyone confirm that / unprove that?

Saturns appear in a lot of places around Milwaukee, but games never do. I really don't understand how it works, but I often will find a used Saturn or two for about $40.00, and I will find one, maybe two used games in the entire store. I saw a Jaguar used in a store today and I couldn't believe it. It was the second time I've ever seen a Jaguar in Milwaukee in the wild.

quote Actually, I got burned after saying that last night and I found a new copy of Surf Rocket Racers in a store today for $9.99. Kind of disappointing, as I spent $15.00 on my copy, and it has a crummy insert. Eh well. I remember quite clearly seeing ISPY at the local Best Buy every time I went there for the longest time. It stuck out in my mind because some magazine that I read gave it a really horrendous review, and I kept asking myself who kept buying it where Best Buy kept getting in so many copies (they had a lot of copies). Guess it was probably just the same copies that weren't going anywhere that I was seeing. I still cannot find Gigawing 2 anywhere, and most stores don't even have it in their lists as games that were produced for the Dreamcast. As for the Samba Maracas, are you sure that they were the actual Samba Maracas produced by Sega or the third party Maracas (which I believe have a Donkey on the box?) The third party ones were produced in much bigger numbers, and are much easier to find. quote I believe that you are very correct in this statement. The game Coaster Works is pretty hard to find in Milwaukee, but if I go into any game store in Gurnee (home of Six Flags Great America), it is one of the more common games to find. I really don't know why Milwaukee would've gotten a larger shipment of ISpy, but I'm definitely going to keep my eyes open for a copy and when I find one in really nice condition, I'll snag it. I quite happily snagged a copy of Sword of the Beserk ($11.00 New), UFC ($8.00) and PenPen Trilethon ($5.00 New) today. PenPen makes me really happy, as that is a game that I have seen tons of imports for, but no actual US released versions... [ 04-06-2002: Message edited by: GOAT Dan ]

quote: According to the sticker on my 4 copies of ISPY (see the photo), the sticker does indeed mention that a strategy guide is available. I never followed through with getting one, but judging by how difficult the game is, it may have been a good idea... After reading this post I decided to check out my local game shops to see if my memory serves me correctly about seeing it quite often in town. I found a new and a used copy in the two stores that I went to, so it is available in the Milwaukee area. I also saw a strategy guide for the game today in Gurnee at a shop called the Music Recyclery for $1.00 if you purchase any game there. If anyone is interested, next time I am in Gurnee (about a week) I can check if it is still there and pick it up if it is. Honestly though, I'm not interested in picking up any of their games so you'd have to pay like $2.00 and you'd get a copy of Super Mario Bros / Duck Hunt too [ 04-06-2002: Message edited by: GOAT Dan ]

quote Just curious, did you own a copy of 007? I completely agreed with this position until I actually bought an N64 and some of my friends and I pitched in together to get it (was not my idea, either). I can honestly say that I never expected what I got out of that game. Truly a classic. The Turok series was a good series, but I never found the gameplay to live up to that of 007 or Perfect Dark. I will admit that I haven't played the third game in the series, but I spent a horribly long time with the second one after my wisdom teeth were pulled (horribly long time not because the game was very bad, but because my mouth hurt like hell.) quote I thought the exact same thing about the controller too until I actually got one. I think that the controller would've been one of the best ever if the analog joystick and the D-pad had switched locations. For the few rare games that let you use the D-pad and the right hand side of the controller I find it great. I don't understand why everyone thought that the N64 had really blurry graphics. Of course, I also don't understand why people don't like the Colecovision controllers, and why people cite the Dreamcast fan as a reason that the system sucks. Honestly though, in all of the games that I played, except when the game purposely made the graphics blurred I never found myself thinking that the graphics looked poor. And lastly, while there were some... um... a lot of overly simplistic games for the N64, there were some true gems that were released for it. Again, I found the depth of both Perfect Dark and 007 to be incredible. Too bad that FPS was really the only thing that the N64 ever had going for it...

quote Actually, we already offer two models for the 2600 version, but I think our wording about that disappeared when we did a recent Web site switch. Offering two different models wouldn't be that hard to do, and would be a lot more economical than adding a switch. quote Am I the only one that really liked the Colecovision controllers? quote I would love to do this, but besides the fact that making a keypad would be hard, here is the cheapest analog arcade joystick that I have found. At $41.00 a stick, plus tons of buttons, a nice 5200 Joystick would cost over $100.

Personally, I have seen quite a number of copies of I-Spy in the Milwaukee area. I'm not saying that you are wrong, but I think that it may just do with the demography that you are coming from. In my opinion, the rarest DC items are the DC Broadband adapter and the Samba De Amigo Sega Moroccos. According to Sega themselves, less than 10,000 of both of these products were released to store shelves. But talking about Dreamcast games, I have never seen a copy of Surf Rocket Racers in the wild. It also took me about two weeks on eBay before snagging myself a copy of that game. Again, this may just be the Milwaukee area... Lastly, just a general comment: Even if it holds true that I-Spy was made in lesser numbers than some of the other Dreamcast games, most of the games that get really expensive are both impossible to find and really good games. A good example is Aircars for the Jaguar vs. Battlesphere for the Jaguar. Aircars is infinitely harder to find than Battlesphere, but copies can be had for half the price.

quote While that would be awesome, there simply isn't any way to do that because the cases that we use aren't big enough to comfortably support four buttons and a joystick. quote Unfortunately, turbo relays are quite expensive and/or take a really long time to make. And no arcade game ever used them. We'll definitely start looking into making a 7800 JAMMA more, but as for the relays... well...

Personally, I really enjoy eBay for the things that it does well. There are certain items that I have wanted for ages and would have _never_ found in the wild. I found my Battle Balls JAMMA PCB for $100.00 on eBay and I don't think that I'll ever be happier about a purchase. There is no way that I would've ever found that game in a store or something... For any item that you can no longer get in a store, eBay sometimes is the only way to go. Of course the price on some things on eBay will be driven up to insane levels, but I would've been willing to pay a lot more for my PCB than I had too.

quote Duly noted, and I'll see what I can do. Perhaps that the Midwest Classic I could have one at least to try out. I have to find a 7800 now though, although that isn't really a bad thing... quote Do you or anyone else know of any places that sell Y adapters? I would love a Y adaptor for both the Colecovision and Jaguar, but I haven't found any myself and I don't want to attempt to build those.

quote Come on! We're selling two broken Odyssey 2 systems for a penny! ...aw crap. I was going to quote that guy in Short Circuit 2 from Radio Shack, but I can't remember the quote other then "I'm in a panic, I'm *oblyoblyobly* Manic!" Ah well.

Favorite: Pac Man Jr. Least Favorite: Ummmm... a lot of games that I don't own

quote Strange, yet true. I found the missions and the gameplay of the original to be pretty loose and un-addictive. When I failed to complete a mission, the first game never made me feel like "I can't believe I messed that up! I _have_ to do it again!" It left me with a feeling of either "I can't do that" or "Why do I want to do that?" Iron Soldier II was like Tempest 2000 for me. If I didn't pass a mission, I felt that it was because I messed up and I could do it again if I just tried again. I got hopelessly addicted to IS2 for the longest time, and played the poor thing to death. Iron Soldier 1 on the other hand, I played for a few hours before deciding that there were much better games to play, and only went back after loving IS2 so much to find out that I still don't really like IS1.

quote Again, if you live anywhere near a Super Auctions auction city, check them out first. If not, might I suggest the HAPP Controls Web site as they have the best prices and best customer service on the Web. Another good priced vendor is WICO The Source, but I haven't ever used them so I can't comment much. The CEC that I work at swears by HAPP, and so does the GOAT Store for our JAMMA Joysticks. quote Yeah! I was extremely happy about it! I had a bad power supply (which I had one from another game that I tossed in there) and that was about it. For some reason, the screen doesn't get the game signal, but I've gotten the screen to work from my other arcade game, so when I have some time to sit down and fix it, I'll have really gotten one hell of a deal!

I didn't think that the N64 was a waste of money (Robotron 64 bay-be!) but I definitely didn't feel like it lived up to it's potential. I had the luck of getting my system used for $50.00 in 1997, so I can't say that I overspent for it. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark kept me busy for hours, and I'm going to end up keeping the system due to those two games as well as Robotron 64 and Conkers Bad Fur Day.

JohnnyWC, I completely forgot to answer your comments, sorry! While I would love to do an arcade paddle controller, the part cost to build one would be absolutely astronomical. A set of arcade buttons and a joystick for the regular 2600 JAMMA LX costs approximately $15.00, and that doesn't include the box, the crimps, the wiring or the cord that connects it to the system. The cheapest I can find an arcade rotary for is around $100.00. I would love to do a racing controller too, but the cheapest you can find steering wheels for is around $150.00. On a related note, our JAMMA Joysticks were nominated for an award by MyAtari.Net so if you want to stop by and give them a vote, we would appreciate that!

Wow, I completely missed this thread. I thouhgt I had read it, but upon reading it I hadn't read it. Anywho, GOAT Dan is 21 First console: Atari 2600 Vader (dad's console) First video game played: Space Invaders First console I owned: NES First video game I bought new: Super Mario Bros. 3 First arcade game played: TMNT First arcade game owned: Ajax First pinball game owned: Cybernaut In many ways, I think it's odd that I got into video games so much. My parents kept telling me that I couldn't get another video game system because the 2600 was more than enough until I finally bought myself an NES around 1988. This did really get me into 2600 collecting though, as I could find 2600 games for fifty cents at rummage sales or buy NES games for forty...

I seemed to have missed the start of this conversation. Oh well, here goes. I have heard that the reason that some PS2's will only work in one direction is that after having been run for a long time in either horizontal or vertical position, the DVD drive plastics settle into position for that position operation and will not work in another position. It isn't that the DVD drives are cheap, it is just that the plastic is

Ha! Yeah, I didn't exactly understand what this here page was for when I posted this. I thought it was a page where you posted what you were selling on eBay and talked about wins on eBay. My bad! It won't happen again!

I learned from the N64 not to trust that any game like this would be coming out for any system until I actually heard that it was shipping. In 1997, I bought myself an N64 because Earthbound 64 was announced for it, and I enjoyed WaveRace. Now, five years later I have all of five games for my N64 and Earthbound never came out for it. I'll take a deeper look at the XBox if/when Toe Jam & Earl 3 comes out. Then again, supposedly Earthbound is now coming to the Cube, in which case I would pick Earthbound over Toe Jam.

quote Take this as you will, but if you live anywhere close to a place where Super Auctions will be visiting, I would suggest a million times over picking up a cab there first, even if it isn't Double Dragon. The biggest reason is that the parts for an arcade machine are expensive. A good monitor will set you back about $295. A JAMMA wiring harness costs around $25. Two joysticks and 10 buttons costs around $50. A good speaker costs $10+. A power supply costs $40. Buying your own working cab with a great monitor at the auctions in Milwaukee costs $50-$100, depending on if you want a single player cabinet or a two player cabinet. If you are going to build your own, I would suggest purchasing a real one with a monitor that works, and then disassembling it and putting it back together in a new cab. I recently stole an auction where I picked up a working Bad Dudes cab with monitor and such in the non-working games for $5.00. It has a problem with the monitor not getting the images, but I'm sure once I actually have time to sit down and repair it, it'll be fine. Of course, I might not be the best person to talk to about this because I've been working on modifying my two cabs and now it seems that I killed my working one too

I've been following this thread for a while, but I haven't really decided on what to say about it until just now. I owned both of these games as a kid (and I still do... heck, I'm still a kid at heart!) and I think that they are both great games. $10.00 is a good price to pay for both of them. Popeye was a very good translation of the arcade game from what I have seen of it (but I've only seen the first level of the arcade game). This was one of the few games that I could beat my dad at. Spiderman was quite hard for a 2600 game, but it isn't too hard where it was unenjoyable. I personally don't think that it's gameplay has held up over time like Popeye's, but it is a very solid game, nonetheless.

quote Hmmmm. Sounds like a good idea. I'll have to tear apart the 7800 controllers that we have over here and see what we can do (I have never owned a working 7800! ) About the Colecovision controllers, we've been toying with the idea of making JAMMA Joysticks for them, but we ended up holding off because making a convertable numeric pad is darn near impossible. Would you be interested in one of these if you were to hit your option and then swap controllers for a JAMMA? Thanks everyone!

Hey, Nice collection! If I may suggest these to add: Raiden - One of the best 2D shooters of all time. This is one of the few Jaguar titles that I constantly pull out to play. Iron Soldier II - I hated the original version of this game, I absolutely love the sequel. It is one of the best put together mech games I have ever played! Battlemorph CD - The sequel to Cybermorph is just like Cybermorph... only instead of just picking up pods, you have a whole bunch of different missions that you can do. Your ship can now go under water. The graphics are vastly improved, and the music is perfect. One of the best Jaguar titles. Highlander CD - A lot of people don't like Highlander much because the control is truly awkward, but once you're used to holding the buttons down forever, you'll find a great solid RPG/Adventure game underneath. As for my collection, I got into Jaguar collecting which got me into game trading which lead to the GOAT Store I have every game that was ever made boxed (excepting Space War 2K and Power Drive Rally). I also have just about every variation on games that were ever made, and I came up with the label variation FAQ that is on the GOAT Store's site. I've also got a test cartridge, test CD and a bunch of other stuff like that including a pre-release demo of AvP. I really love the Jaguar, and I love to see it when other people do too! The system truly has a lot of good games that people don't give it credit for! I'm glad to see someone else collecting for it and enjoying it!

quote Okay, let me say this real slow for those of us that are slow... I post all the time at JI2 and there has never been a dissatisfied customer. If you were 'dissatistified,' you also _never emailed us or called us_ so that is your own fault. If you might notice, we also hosted Jagfest 2K1, which was a hit with everyone in attendance. Now, would you quit being a moron to me every time I post? You are becoming quite the annonyance.