Computer Spiele Museum in Berlin!

This weekend I’ve been to Berlin with my friend NinjaBrite, we had a relaxing weekend with a lot of fun. One of the best things we experienced though was the Computerspielemuseum (Video Game Museum). It’s a permanent museum on Karl Marx Allee in central Berlin and it’s got a lot to offer!

NinjaBrite outside the computer spiele museum in Berlin

They had loads of retro gaming consoles on display in pretty green boxes, all labeled with the name of the system. I photographed mainly all the ones I didn’t own, so I would remember what to look for next ;D There was only one game displayed in these green boxes, which was Atari’s E.T.! But there were lots of other games there that you could play in other areas.
Console display Console display
Atari Touch Me

They also had an arcade area with original old arcade cabinets that were free to play!! This was totally exciting for me since I’ve hardly ever gotten to play any arcade machines, except when I was in Japan. The coolest one was of course the original Pong arcade cabinet, and an old spacey green arcade cabinet with some kind of shooter. You only got the try these out on mondays though and we were there on a thursday :( but we got to play a lot of Donkey Kong, Space Invaders II, Frogger, Gauntlet, Asteroids and others ^^
Me with the first pong arcade cabinet

Spacey old retro arcade cabinet

Donkey kong arcade          Asteroids arcade          Asteroids arcade

Asteroids arcade          Space invaders II Arcade          Frogger arcade

Space invaders II Arcade          Space invaders II Arcade          Poly play

Gauntlet arcade cabinet artwork          Gauntlet arcade          Gauntlet arcade

There were a lot of cool things to see, read about and experience. For example they had 4 computers playing Ludo against eachother, a 5 player pong you could try out, a computer you could ask anything and another computer which was impossible to beat!
computers playing Ludo
5-player pong
Ask the computer anything! 42?
NinjaBrite tried so many times to figure out how to beat the computer in this light game

Immediately at the entrance there were life sized statues of famous characters such as Link from Zelda, Rayman, Jak & Daxter and Lara Croft ^_^
Jak & Daxter, Link, Rayman, Lara Croft

They also had a GIANT Atari Joystick! It was even working and hooked up to an Atari 2600 Junior and you could play Pacman with it ^_^ I of course had to try it out! It was difficult but worked well!
Giant atari joystick Me playing with giant arcade joystick

Another cool game we tried out was Rom Check Fail! This was a recently made game (don’t remember by who..) that was basically a bunch of old classic games merged together in one big glitch! Really hard but really fun to play ^^ One second you’re playing as Pacman in Mario world, the next your the Asteroids ship flying around in Hyrule haha ^_^
Rom Check Fail!

This was a GREAT museum! And I recommend anyone going to Berlin to go see it ^_^

Retrospelsmässan 2013 – Sweden’s yearly retro gaming exhibition

Yesterday I went to Gothenburg with my friend NinjaBrite to attend Sweden’s yearly retro gaming exhibition ‘Retrospelsmässan‘. This is the 4th year in a row that they’re hosting this exhibition and I think it’s a GREAT initiative! I was there 2 years ago as well, last year I missed though since I was in Japan. It has grown immensely in these past years, and it will probably be even bigger next year. The amount of people who came was way more than they had anticipated, even though they had hired larger facilities people were still quieing for hours to get in! I myself had to que about 4 hours (arriving at 12, two hours after they opened). It was ok though, since Nintendo was hosting a Streetpass competition everybody had brought their 3DS and so did we, so we kept busy ^_^ And also met some awesome cosplayers, like Pixelninja dressed up as Megaman :)

megaman

que
This year on the exhibition they had all the old consoles displayed and connected to TVs so you could try everything out, everything from old Pong consoles and Odyssey 2001 to the Atari Jaguar and everything Nintendo and Sega of course. They also had a corner for speedruns where you could watch some of Sweden’s fastest gamers ;D They had a Doom LAN, Cosplay competitions, arcade and pinball corner, game competitions and stands with companies and people selling retro gaming stuff and of course games! :D

Videopac Computer displayed at Retrospelsmässan 2013 Pong
pinball
smb competition
arcade

Of course I had to pick up some games ^_^ I was looking for one game in particular, which was Starship Hector, but I’ll write more about that in a later post, that’s a looong story ^^ But I found it at this exhibition! And I also found Ninja Kid, Power Blade, Castle of Dragon, The Krion Conquest and James Bond JR. All were NTSC NES and I didn’t previously have them! (I am proud of myself that I brought a PDF of my collection in my phone, because I always tend to buy doubles unintentionally when attending places like this)… ;D
So here’s a little photo shoot I had of my latest pickups ^_^
Ninja Kid_800
Power blade_800
Castle of Dragon_800
The Krion Conquest_800
Starship Hector_800
James Bond JR_800

retro_gaming on instagram

I’ve also been spreading my love for retro gaming for quite some time on Instagram! Feel free to follow me there ^_^ Sometimes when I have less time to sit down and publish new posts on  my blog I at least try to share my recent gaming experiences through Instagram :) Everything from Screenshots, Games, Manuals, Toys etc.

Check it out @retro_gaming

tempest 2000attack of the mutant penguinsAtari JaguarCannon Fodder Famicom Juju (Toki)Games games games all organizedFun with friends ;DZelda CiBCybermorphGunNac screenshotBeat the bossGame Over

New design!

I decided to change the design on my blog a bit. Make it easier for the reader to find posts by showing previews and also changing to a theme that gave me more room to work with menus ^_^ I hope you will all like it! It might take some time to get used to, feel free to express your opinions! :D

I still have some work to do with the menus, and also the collection libraries since all the Famicom tables got a bit glitchy when I changed.. but I will get that fixed as soon as possible ^^

Cassette-rack-box-thingy for my C64 games!!

This weekend I went to a second hand store and found the most awesome thing I’ve found in years!! The second hand stores around where I live never sells games, I usually see antique stores and random charity shops to loot for decorative nonsense, jewelry and interior stuff like furniture and such (yes I do buy other things than games sometimes) ;D

But this time I found something that was completely and utterly useful and fit right into my Retro Room!! A vintage cassette rack box thingy!!

Cassette box

It’s all orange and pretty, which is the color I’ve been using in my gaming room ^_^ It fits right in!! AND now I have a really clever storage for my Commodore 64 games :D

Cassette box with C64 games!!
And it looks awesome when it’s filled with some C64 cassettes ^__^

Cassette box with C64 games!

There’s even some room left in one corner so I can buy even MORE games for the C64 :D Any good suggestions of what the must-haves for Commodore 64 would be? ^^

Secret Sega prize!

Today the secret prize has arrived to theSegaDude who won the contest!
secret prize!!!

For those of you who were curious, then here is what it contained! :D
secret prize! content

I actually waited until the winner was announced to decide what the package should contain, since I wanted to optimize the prize for whoever would win ^_^ Since theSegaDude is a Sega collector, the price was Sega inspired! :D

First of all a game, that I don’t think he already had in his collection: Tiny Toons Adventure: Busters Hidden Treasure
tiny toon adventures busters hidden treasure sega mega drive

Then I made SEGA coasters with perler beads! :D
sega coasters 8bit perler beads

And then I also made a few artworks from Sega characters such as Sonic and Opa-Opa from Fantasy Zone (which is theSegaDude’s avatar) ^_^
opa-opa fantasy zone perler bead
sonic 8bit perler bead art

Check out the unwrapping of the prize on theSegaDude’s site! :D

1 year anniversary for Retro Video Gaming! :D

2 days ago it was 1 year since I started my site retro-video-gaming.com! I can’t believe a year has gone by so fast!
I would like to thank all my followers and friends that has stuck with me this whole year, and I am happy to have met so many nice retro gaming friends and collectors all around the world! I will continue to spread my love for Retro Gaming on my site for many more years to come ^_^

retrogaming1up

1up

In celebration of Retro-Video-Gaming’s anniversary I will have a little contest! The contest will be up for 1 week and there will be a winner who will get a secret prize! :D

The question that need to be answered is:

How many Famicom Disk System games do I have?

Famicom Disk System Contest

Everybody gets 1 guess, and the closest answer will win the prize! :D

You can compete by either leaving  your guess in the comments here, or on my twitter, tumblr, facebook or instagram! Still you can only have one guess no matter where you leave your answer! ;D

retro video gaming 1up

EDIT: I am now ending the competition and announcing a winner! TheSegaDude was the closest at 44, the correct answer is that I have 45 Famicom Disk System games ^_^ I would like to give a big thanks to everybody who joined the contest! I will announce what the secret prize is as soon as it has arrived to TheSegaDude (because I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise) ;D
famicom disks

Christmas gift from Canada!

Sorry for the lack of posts recently but this holiday has been very busy.

Not only celebrating xmas and spending time with family, but also organizing and cleaning games. I bought quite a lot of games from Ebay recently, and I’m still not done scanning and trying them all out yet..
famicom-games

Also today I received an exciting package from Canada!! It was from Alana at retrogamergirl.com ^_^ It contained some 8 bit bead art that she has created:
8bit bead art Game Boy

And lots of games! :D First an ultraman game for the Super Famicom:
Ultraman game SFC

And a Kirby Fun Pak game for the SNES:
Kirby fun pak SNES

And also 8 famicom cartridges :D
SONY DSC

Apart from my Nintendo 3DS this was the best christmas gift this year :D Thank you Alana!! :D
And not to forget my cute mushroom lamps that I got from my bff ^_^ They fit in perfectly in my Retro Room!
mushrooms
THEY GLOW!!! :D
mushrooms lit
AND CHANGE COLORS!! :D :D
Mushroom lamps lit 2

I’ll be back soon with more posts on all the new games I’ve gotten and also a Game & Watch :D

New retro game trading page! Check it out! :D

All my games that I have doubles of are now organized, photographed and published on my blog! You can find it here on my GAMES FOR TRADE page!

You can always find this logo on my start page:

It will take you straight to the list of games that are up for trade ^_^

If there’s anything you are interested in leave a comment on the trading page!

There’s already loads of games and more will come ^^  So what are you waiting for? Go check it out! :D

Pacman Poignant Potion

So this last week I’ve been down with the flu.. sucks badly.. however during my days of illness I’ve come up with my own special cure, in drink form. I call it the Pacman Poignant Potion :D

It’s not for the weak, and it is an advantage if you like whiskey ;D If you don’t then it can be taken like a shot instead. Me personally I love whiskey, so I’ve been sipping away on this thing every evening ^_^

The recipe is simple:
1 deciliter whiskey (of your choice, I chose Jim Beam)
1/2 lemon squeezed into juice
2 table spoons liquid honey
4-8 penny sized pieces of chopped fresh ginger (depending on how strong taste of ginger you want, more ginger=more effective against your cold)

Mix the ingredients with ice in a shaker and shake it!
Pour it out in a glass of your choice, I topped it off with a Pacman lemon wedge and some Pacman ginger slices in the drink.

Mind you, this is a strong and alcoholic drink that works wonders on a bad cold, however most people might not find it very tasty as a party drink ;D Skipping the lemon and ginger will make it more easily consumed for a friday night ^_^

My Mega Men..

Today all my 110.000 beads arrived! :D

So this is what I’ve been up to tonight. I’m particularly pleased with my Megaman or Rockman as I prefer calling him, since I put him next to all my Rockman games for the Famicom ^_^ I even made two! One with a bit more shading..

I have Rockman 3 through 6 for the Famicom and they’re all in pretty nice condition! :D I’m still looking for 1 and 2, but I will find them eventually ^_^



I love the Megaman / Rockman games (probably not as much as Alana though) ;D But they are a lot of fun! I always love jump-and-shoot-games! (<< seriously check that link, it’s awesome funny!) If anyone wishes to see some gameplay from any of the ones that I happen to have just let me know, but I assume that everybody knows about most of the Megaman games already ;D

Tomorrow I’ll try to catch up with blogging about all my recent additions for both Sega Master System, PC Engine, Famicom, Super Famicom and Game Boy games! ^___^

8-bit beads

I was planning on blogging about all my newly purchased games both yesterday and today, but I got distracted..

After coming home after work yesterday I sat down and got the idea that I should try to make some of that bead art in 8bit, since I had recently purchased a huuuge box of 20.000 beads for a bachelorette party I was hosting. However we never got to beading so I was just stuck with a bunch of beads!

Beading turned out to be really fun and relaxing, and somewhat addictive! O_o

And it takes forever!

The most time consuming thing is sorting all the beads >_<

But after about 5 hours (I don’t really know, I seriously lost track of time) I had finished my Pac-man and Inky, Blinky, Pinky & Clyde and some variations.

My favorites were these ones:


My boyfriend came home after a fishing-trip at around 11 at night, and I had continued with new characters and hadn’t even taken the time to eat dinner! That’s how addictive it was! I had run out of black beads so I basically had to improvise with the colors..

At 1 past midnight I managed to go to bed… and today after work I said I wouldn’t bead (until I had gotten the new beads I purchased during my lunch hour! I bought 110.000 beads in sorted colours!…i’m serious……they were cheap…) But I still got stuck beading some more.. >_<

It’s fun! You should try it out, unless your easily addicted to things like I am…

Famicom Pillow!!!

Yay! Today I got a parcel! I had forgotten what it was, and I was super happy when I remembered! :D
I had bought a customized Famicom Pillow from Lucy Sparrow!  She makes all kinds of cool stuff out of felt ^_^ But I really think my Famicom Pillow is the best :D

Even my cat loves the pillow (and this cat usually hates change…)

She is even guarding the famicom pillow now, my famicom pillow guardian!!

Thank you Lucy, I’m super happy! And I really liked the bonus hand grenade keychain ^_^ Super cuuuute!


You should check out her shop, lots of cool stuff made out of felt!

Game inspired drinks

I got incredibly inspired by this weekends gaming related drinks so I decided to make up a few of my own, based on some of my favorite games and characters ^_^ Here they are:

Flicky with Chirp shots
Flicky
1/4 Blue Curacao
1/4 Bacardi Razz
2/4 Fanta Lemon
Mix the Blue Curacao and Bacardi Razz, shake with ice and pour into a glass. Top it off with the Fanta Lemon.
Chirp shot
2/3 Mango Liqueur
1/3 Pineapple drink mix (could also work with pineapple juice)
Mix the ingredients together and shake it with ice, then pour into a shot glass.


Jade (from Beyond Good & Evil)
1/4 Apple Sourz
1/4 Cointreu
2/4 Sprite
Mix Apple Sourz with the Cointreu, shake with ice. Pour into a tall glass and top it off with Sprite. (If the apple sour doesn’t add enough green to the drink then add some caramel color)


Chocobo (from Final Fantasy)
1/2 Rose’s Lime Juice Cordial
1/2 Pineapple Liqueur
Pour together, shake it and add a slice of lemon on top.


Vampire’s Kiss (Castlevania)
1/2 Red Wine (or Port wine if you prefer it sweeter)
1/2 Passoa (Passion fruit liqueur)
Stir the ingredients together and pour into a small wine glass. I tied a black ribbon into a bow on the foot and attached a blood red flower on it to get that gothic romantic touch. If you fail to get the ribbon to stick to the top of the foot then it’s ok, it looks good when it’s at the bottom as well:

I love making drinks, and I had even more ideas for gaming drinks tonight, but my boyfriend didn’t wanna help me finish drinking all the drinks so I had to stop at these >_<

Girl’s Gaming Weekend!

So here’s what we’ve been up to this weekend..
Like usual we get stuck playing only on the Xbox the whole weekend since it offers such a wide variety of gaming ^_^

We played a lot of retail games, but also lots of XBLA. Here’s the retail games we played:

We started off with “Sonic Sega All-Stars Racing with Banjo-Kazooie” (wasn’t just Sega All-Stars Racing enough for a title??). It was an entertaining game though, a good racer, kind of like Mario Kart. However it got boring after we’d tried all the varieties of gameplay such as racing, capture the flag, king of the hill, battle etc..

Next up was DeBlob 2, it said it was 2 player co-op, however the second player didn’t earn achievements and was just an animated little dot on the screen which could help out collect shit.. that was a disappointment, but we still played it for a while before our fourth player arrived. We took turns just painting the cities, it was a bit too child-friendly though. The tutorials were constant! And you couldn’t turn them off >_<

No shit?! That’s only the 25th switch we’ve encountered!!!

While waiting for MissDeluxxe to arrive, we played some old arcades games through Game Room on Xbox. We took turns battling in several old arcade classics from Atari and Intellivision.

Such as Armor Battle, where you have to take out each others tanks. A lot of fun!


Also Combat where we tried out several different game types fighting with tanks, helicopters or planes. This is also a great game! and very hard since you can shoot through the walls and the bullets come out the other side, not easy avoiding your enemies’ bullets!


And last but not least Outlaw! A lot of fun since you can bounce your bullets on the walls and make them go diagonally. You are stuck on each side of an obstacle in the middle and have to try and shoot each other. As soon as you fire a shot you are frozen in your spot for a few seconds, so you have to make sure to fire first ;D

After our fourth player had arrived we played Fairytale Fights, and continued from where we last left off (read more about Fairytale Fights here). This time we finished the game. The ending wasn’t as entertaining as we had hoped and the last boss was pathetic >_<


My Gaming Girls ^_^

Lastly friday night we played some Scene It?, a movie quiz game. Quite entertaining, but the commentary voice all through the game are extremely annoying >_<

Saturday we started playing a new XBLA game with South Park called South Park: Tenorman’s Revenge! This game was a lot of fun! The creators of South Park is involved in the game, so it’s the original voices, stories and characters from the show and a lot of comedy ^_^ It’s a side scrolling platformer, the controls are smooth and you play as Cartman, Kyle, Kenny and Stan. They all have a special power which you can unlock during certain stages when it is needed. Cartman can turn into the Coon and climb walls, Kyle turns into the Human Kite and can fly short distances, Kenny turns into Mysterion and can turn immortal and Stan turns into the Toolshed, where he gets a tool belt so he can gain access to certain areas. I strongly recommend this game, we had a lot of fun, and weren’t able to finish it since it’s pretty long! It was everybody’s favorite of the weekend!

After this there was some DJ Hero, it makes you feel incredibly cool turning those tables ;D Two of the girls had never played it before, and they got pretty good at it quite fast ^_^

My friend NinjaBrite had brought her C3PO controller, she just got the Star Wars Xbox.. I have to get that too! It would be my fourth Xbox.. but it’s soooo cooool! :D

We ended Saturday evening playing Fable Heroes for XBLA. I finally managed to get that achievement where you have to button mash your way through the mine cart race in under 13 seconds!! We had been trying to get this so many times previously and never succeeded (I don’t know if it might have been thanks to the drinks this time) ;D but I also unlocked it for my friend ^_^

On Sunday we played some Kinect games. We tried Rabbids Alive & Kicking for the first time, it was a hoot! ^_^ I like the Rayman Raving Rabbids games, they’re always great fun when you’re with friends :) They’ve mainly been around for the Wii though, because of the motion control, except one which was released for the Xbox 360 as well, but this one wasn’t as fun when you had to use the regular controller. So now I’m happy they released one for the Kinect! It had a little too much and too long “in-between-actual-gameplay-scenes” but other than that the mini games were fun. There was one where you had to play a guitar, you had to hold your hand on the correct color of the guitar-neck and strike at the right time when matching colors fell down. And a bunch of other games where you just had to jump and stomp or wave your arms around like crazy ^_^




Playing Kinect sure makes you look retarded ;D hahaha

We also tried out an XBLA Kinect game called Hole in the Wall. This game was not very smoothly programmed though, we had bugs all the time and it hardly worked playing it..


We all just kept failing and falling into the water.. we gave up after a few rounds..

After this my Gaming Girl’s had to go home. We had a great weekend though and are already planning the next get-together ^_^

Girl’s Gaming Drinks!

During our Girl’s Gaming Weekend we’ve been having quite a lot of drinks, and what is better than gaming related liquid goodness! ;D
Thanks to The Drunken Moogle I found inspiration to many fun drinks! Here are some of the drinks we had this weekend, you can find a link to the original ingredients under each drink, however I changed some of them a little bit to make them even tastier in my opinion ;D

Metal Blade (Mega Man 2 Cocktail)


Metroid


Metroid (second version, tried new ingredients)


Leechade (Bastion cocktail)


Slow (from Slow & Haste Final Fantasy cocktail)

I strongly recommend the Metal Blade (I used mango liqueur instead of pineapple, worked just as well) and the Bastion Leechade, where I made my own eggnog instead of using the Advocaat.

Retro console photo shoot!

Today the weather was really nice, so I decided to take some of my consoles for a little stroll ^_^







I photographed a few more, but haven’t had time to resize them yet.. tomorrow perhaps ^^

Gifts from Canada!

Yesterday I also received another parcel, however this was not from Ebay or any other store, this was a beautifully wrapped red parcel filled with surprise! :D

I knew my friend Alana had sent me some NES games she had duplicates of, but there was also some cute Nintendo stuff! Like Mushroom and Mario straps, a keychain with Mario characters and a stuffed Koopa! :D The games were Tetris, Bubble Bobble, Kung Fu Heroes and Operation Wolf! So exciting! I didn’t have these for the NES before, I had some for the Famicom and one for Sega Master System, it’s going to be interesting to see if there’s a lot of difference ^_^

Thank you Alana (Retrogamergirl) for these wonderful gifts! Tomorrow a package is in the mailbox heading for Canada! :D

Here’s some happy ZX Spectrum music by X-Agon to share my joy ^_^


Retro gaming store in Japan

So today I took another trip to the Super Potato store in Akihabara. This time I spent hours just looking through all the retro gaming goodness they had to offer ^_^ And on the way to the store I took the opportunity to drop by a couple of arcades, like this one:

So here’s a couple of things you could find in the Super Potato store:

Famicom games, 4 shelves (only 2 are in the picture) all organized in alphabetical order.


On the opposite side just as many shelves with Famicom games in original boxes, all in really nice condition.

Super Famicom games, also 4 shelves in alphabetical order.


Super Famicom games in boxes, super nice condition.

Game Boy games! They also had shelves filled with boxed ones, and lots of GBC and GBA games too ^^

Lots and lots of Game & Watch!! ^_^

Nintendo 64′s that looked like new, came with controllers and all cables for like 2000 Yen (about 170 SEK, or 25 USD) o_O

On the first floor they also had a bunch of Sega, everything from 8bit to Dreamcast ^^

On the second floor they had all the PS1, PS2, comics, literature such as walkthroughs and guides, all soundtracks to games and lots more ^^

I really wanted to buy this Super Metroid book, but I had already picked up sooo many games that I had to stop myself somewhere :/

And of course they had all the machines where you can get little game related thingys like straps and keychains, I got some Mario stuff there ^^

On the third floor they had an arcade, and no regular arcade, they only had old games, 8bit and 16bit, like Pacman, Pac-Land, Donkey Kong, Final Fight, Splatterhouse, Ghost n Goblins, Street Fighter, Metal Slug, Space Shooters and lots lots more. I stayed there for a while and tried out most of the games, a japanese guy wanted to play Final Fight with me and we got quite far. It was a lot harder than on the console version O_o They also had this really cool chair made out of Famicom cartridges glued together! I sure hope those games weren’t in working order, otherwise it would be a waste :(

Also Pac-Land was a lot different from the Famicom version which I have previously reviewed here and re-visited here.

Here’s some pictures of the different arcade machines, especially Pac-Land ^^

Ghosts n’ Goblins

XX Mission

Final Fight

Final Fight Game Over :(

Pac-Land!


OMG Japan!!

20120426-221054.jpg
Retro gaming store in Tokyo Japan. Three floors just filled with retro heaven! This one was only Famicom ^_^

20120426-221246.jpg
So many things, I just wanted it all!

20120426-221300.jpg
And the prices were reasonable!

20120426-221323.jpg
Akihabara, also known as the ‘Electric Town’ in Tokyo. This is where you will find some of the Retro Gaming stores I’ve been visiting today :)

20120426-221341.jpg
Here’s some of the things I’ve picked up today. A Twin famicom! A bunch of Famicom games, some Super Famicom and a Sega Mega Drive game (just to see if it works on my PAL system).

Recording Famicom gameplay and NTSC vs PAL

I have finally found the optimal solution, and still being able to use the Elgato Video Capture i bought (see previous entry about Playing & recording 8-bit and 16-bit consoles on you Mac / computer). While the Elgato / DVD recorder combination worked excellently with all my PAL systems I still couldn’t get it to work with my NTSC NES and my japanese Famicom, since the DVD recorder was PAL region it messed up the images.

I had to buy rca y cable splitters since the Famicom only had one output of composite image and video cords, now being able to split the signal to two places I can play through connecting the Famicom to a TV while also having it connected to the Elgato, which actually captures the video and image perfectly however generates a black image (“no signal”) while recording. The rya y cable splitters might not be necessary for the regular NES since that console already has two outputs, one for the antenna input in a PAL television and also the composite on the side, however it is more nimble not having to search for the channel and just playing through the AV channel ^_^

If anyone has any questions about this topic feel free to ask me, I’ve been researching into it and going through a lot of trial/error phases to know a thing or two about it by now ;D

Play & record 8-bit and 16-bit consoles on your Mac / computer

Making reviews and wanting to be able to record what I’m playing so that I can show through video what the games are like. This has turned out to be a difficult problem to solve, but today I managed to solve all my previous issues.. with a little help from my friends ;D

I started out trying to record with a film camera, filming the TV screen. This was crap. Crappy quality, shaky, bad angles, ugly sound.. etc. So i moved on to borrowing my boyfriend’s brother’s HDPVR, this worked on and off, didn’t work with my NTSC or japanese systems, only my PAL. The recordings got a constant humming in the background sound and it was also a hassle to connect the thing, cords from the HDPVR to the TV, to the laptop (not being able to use my stationary computer=inconvenient) and to the console. I then had to transfer the files from my laptop to my stationary to work with them.

After talking to some stores, I got convinced to buy a DVD recorder. This worked, but not with my NTSC or japanese systems.. also it was a hassle having to record on DVD’s then transfer the files to my computer and convert them to files I could use. The recordings also carried a constant humming sound in the background and the image was laggy..

However the DVD recorder purchase was not in vain. A friend advised me to get the Elgato Video Capture from the apple store.

When I first connected it to the system and straight into the computer it didn’t work. Apparently because the consoles have some built in anti-piracy code (according to my engineer friend). The image looked like this and froze immediately:

BUT when I connected it through the DVD burner into the console the image was perfect, no lag, and I could play the games straight on my iMac, while recording!

It doesn’t look too messy, not too many cords or machines to connect together, and best of all, the sound is perfect!

I’ve been playing a bunch of Streets of Rage on my iMac tonight, with headphones, and OMG that games’ music is just so awesome! This is what the image quality looks like:

This is totally ok for my purpose ^_^

Now I haven’t had time to try it out with my NTSC machines or the japanese yet, but I hope it will work o_O The Elgato is said to be able to take all formats, however I’m not sure if the DVD burner might f*ck it up..
I’ll update once I find out ^_^

Cleaning your NES cartridges = no more glitchy gaming!

This week I’ve been busy learning how to thoroughly clean my old NES games, and after learning and experimenting I’ve been busy thoroughly cleaning all my NES games.. I’ve only gone through one out of the 7 boxes so far >_<

Here’s some advice for those of you who still are in possession of your old Nintendo Entertainment System and wish to re-visit you old games without having to huff ‘n’puff and jiggle your way to being able to play!

  • First of all you have to purchase a special NES cartridge screw-thingy, these can be bought online and really cheap. I got mine from a Swedish site called nesconnector for only 69 SEK (approximately 10 USD). This is needed to open the special screws on the back of your cartridge.
  • Open up the back lid of the cartridge, and lift up the circuit board carefully, avoid touching the surfaces and hold it steadily by gripping the sides.
  • Here is where it got tricky for me, I watched a video on youtube where they used some polish cream by an american brand to clean the connectors, but I couldn’t translate that into a corresponding Swedish product. However, after talking to three different stores in my hometown, the jewelry store finally suggested a polishing cloth since it’s a dry way of polishing without getting water on the circuit board. The polishing cloth is impregnated with some kind of gold polish, but nothing that hurts the connectors. Now rub both sides of the golden connectors on the bottom of the circuit board (try avoiding touching other things on it) and rub until there’s no more black coming off on the cloth.
  • After this you insert the circuit board in the same place you removed it from, and close of the cartridge and screw it back together. Easy peasy! =D I’ve even gotten a few games to work that previously didn’t! ^_^

Now go have yourself a nostalgic trip and play some Super Mario! ^_^

Happy Winter-een-mas!

As most gamers know, it’s become a yearly tradition to celebrate Winter-een-mas, from January 25th to Janury 31st each year. For those of you who don’t know what Winter-een-mas is, here’s the wikipedia explanation:
“The annual week long celebration of video games and the people that play them. Winter-een-mas is a holiday that takes place every year from January 25 to 31, but is also commonly celebrated for a month. The entire month of January constitutes the Winter-een-mas season, very similar to the “Christmas season”, where people begin to gear up for the holiday, and get into the spirit of things. The holiday was started by the fictional character Ethan in webcomic Ctrl-Alt-Del by Tim Buckley. Its stated goal is to “celebrate the joy of video gaming“. Many gaming stores, such as EB Games, celebrate the holiday.”

Here’s the origins:

So how are you going to celebrate Winter-een-mas? I myself will go back and play som all time favorite games, try out some new ones and on saturday join a bunch of friends for a gaming weekend where everybody is set to finish a game of their own choice.

Trip to New York

In December I went to the U.S of A with my boyfriend. We first went to New York for a week and then down to Miami Beach for another week. In New York I found two game stores which had a bunch of exciting retro games! However, it was in general extremely pricey..

The first store was awesome, however a bit disorganised. I didn’t wanna take any pics inside cause there was this bald rude looking man behind the counter, but they had like EVERYTHING. It didn’t look very Retro going up the stairs, however they had mainly Atari and NES stuff ^_^ My boyfriend got bored quickly though and wanted to leave =(

The second store we found was so awesome! They had everything so tidy and neatly displayed, but everything was behind glass and even more over prized =( They had a bunch of stuff I wanted to buy, like Donkey Kong Game & Watch! But it was too expensive.. I’ll just have to Ebay it instead…

While in Miami we decided to look up some vintage arcades where they might still have some of the old classics like Pacman and stuff. My nifty friend Gaston googled a bunch of places that might have the retro arcade machines close by, one of them had appeared in the documentary “Chasing ghosts beyond the arcade” (Youtube it, it’s an interesting documentary). So we rented a car to get to the places, a big-ass-mother-f*cking-jeep. I’ve never driven a bigger car, and it was scary as hell to drive on the american highways among all the other big-ass cars  (and I HAD to drive since I was the only one with a licence).

The first place we went to had no vintage stuff at all, and not many games at all.. The guys stopped to shoot some Terminators for a while, and after that we left.

The second one was way out in nowhere, called Gameroom Superstore and was the one that I think was part of the documentary. It had been a place for restoring and selling old arcade machines. It was however closed, even though the signs were still outside, apparently for several years according to the neighbours that we asked… it was sad. The place still had their website online.. they should shut that thing down! It’s misleading >_<

People had even vandalised the text on the door to the Gameroom Superstore. “This is not a coin operation gameroom” was now “This is not in operation gay room” … So after having driven for hours back and forth we went back to Miami Beach.
It really felt like chasing ghosts.. there were no vintage arcade machines to be found anywhere. The closest thing we came to that was an old pinball machine in a bar in Miami, but it’s not the same =´(

Apart from the lack of vintage gaming experiences the trip to the US of A was a lot of fun with family and friends <3

Xmas holiday activities!

Here’s a little recap of what I was up to this Xmas..

Mom wanted me to make ginger bread cookies with her, and I got tired of making hearts and tiny people.. so I started cutting out Space Invaders! They turned out real pretty ^_^

I stayed on the theme of videogames throughout the christmas season, and on the second ginger bread baking occasion I made Pacman! Loads and loads of little Pacmen and ghosts ;D