Monthly Archives: March 2012

My Sega Collection

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Thought I’d share what is in my Collection of Sega right now. They’re in alphabetical order just taken down from the shelves (except for Castlevania on Sega Mega Drive at the end, since it has it’s place among my Castlevania collection) ;D









There are a few carts and one Mega CD game, but I didn’t bother to take a photo of that ;D

I also just bought more Mega Drive games that hasn’t arrived yet, but I’ll post a picture when I get them ^_^

And this is what my Retro video game room looks like:

I’ll try to go through all my Atari, NES and Famicom games and everything else eventually with detailed pics like the Sega collection.


This is my Castlevania shelf and below that I have the space shooters and various other Famicom games and my Metroid darling (there’s a Japanese version in mint condition of Super Metroid in the back corner, hard to see). At the bottom you can spot parts of the Atari collection.


Here is my shelf of stuff I like and other stuff that just couldn’t find a place somewhere else ^_^ I love Bucky O’Hare for NES, and Binary Land (Famicom), Mega Man X and my mint Mario Bros for Atari 2600, that one always baffle people ^^


And another shelf with my Virtual Boy games and and stuff.

Sega Mega Drive games received!

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I was E-baying a few days ago and found some interesting titles through one seller, and I just ended up buying a few extra since  I was gonna pay shipping anyway…

So here’s what I got by mail today:

Battle Squadron, Skeleton Krew, Phantom 2040 and Wings of Wor.

I had recently lost an auction with Skeleton Krew so this was the game I was actually out looking for. It’s a really cool platform shooter or as they call it on the back cover “outeRAGEous blastfest!!!”.

It really does have some cool effects to it that are not usually seen in Mega Drive/Genesis titles. It kind of felt a bit like the advanced SNES games.


When the Boss appears he is hovering up and down and also sideways. It’s really well made, and they really manage to give a good three dimensional feeling to it. The controls are also smooth and easy once you get into them!

I only played through the first stage and saved the password, so I will make a longer review of this game later perhaps. =)

So after finding Skeleton Krew I browsed through the sellers other Sega titles looking for things I previously didn’t have, and looked up videos of the gameplay of the ones I found. I usually don’t buy Sega games without boxes, but after finding Wings of Wor and seeing the gameplay on youtube I had to have it!! And there were only cartridges of Wings of Wor on Ebay… I assumed it was rare..

I read a bit about it and found that the original Japanese version was called Gynoug, and there were complete Japanese versions of Gynoug on Ebay, however my Sega Mega Drive is PAL so I wouldn’t be able to play them.. So I figured that the Wings of War needed to be the PAL version. However, reading about it today on wikipedia it says that Wings of Wor was the north american version?! So I am now officially confused >_< Either way it worked when I played it on my Mega Drive.. (!)

I also briefly tried the other two games today to make sure they were in working condition. Phantom 2040 was horrible, no horrible doesn’t even describe it.. I will have to dedicate a whole angry post to it later, IF I will be able to put myself through playing it again >_<

And Battle Squadron was a mediocre shooter similar to many others. I will have to attempt it again though and perhaps I’ll grow fond of it, the back cover made it seem intriguing with Biotech Wingmen, Mutant Cybersnakes, Magno Strykers and MechnoGuardians! i didn’t get that far this time though.. Also it has the benefit of being 2 player. I love 2-player games so I can play simultaneously with friends ^_^


It seems like the Danish  people have developed Battle Squadron, hooray for Scandinavia! ^_^

Gorbachev’s Pipeline (or ゴルビーのパイプライン) for Famicom

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Yes, it’s a japanese Famicom game featuring the former President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the goal is to lay a pipeline throughout Russia. Each dot on the map represents a stage, and the difficulty rises progressively.

Gorbachev however only appears on the Title Screen.

It’s actually a quite entertaining game if you like puzzle games. It resembles Tetris a bit, except here you have pieces of two pipes in each falling block and you will have to connect a pipeline from the right wall to the left by rotating and placing the blocks correctly.

There are quite a few games that resembles this one, like for example Pipe Dream for Game Boy. However Gorby’s Pipeline has a uniqueness to it. There’s different music on the stages, I only played through the first three, but they were all different. I guess it will start looping eventually. Both the animation and music has a very USSR feeling to it, the japanese have portrayed a very cosy image of old Russia. It makes me think of ballets like the nutcracker and swan lake, snowy landscapes, and of course the old fashioned Tetris.

It was fairly hard though, if you are not used to puzzle games it will take some time to think where to put the pieces. I myself have played quite a few puzzlers and love the genre, but Tetris is always easier. (Unless you’re playing NotTetris2)

Here’s a movie I put together of the gameplay:

Recording Famicom gameplay and NTSC vs PAL

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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

Abobo’s Big Adventure!

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I remembered watching this trailer quite a while back, and I was totally psyched about this Ultimate Tribute to the NES! Then i forgot about it.. and after browsing through my favorites on Youtube I found it again, and it has now been released since some time in January!

Tonight I’ve been playing through the whole game, it took me about 1 hour and 40 minutes, watching all the cutscenes and stuff (that are awesome btw!) ^_^

This game has it all, the retro 8-bit feeling and references to all the games we love <3 And it’s extremely funny! Here are just some of the things you will be able to enjoy and experience when playing Abobo’s Big Adventure!

Playing as MEGABOBO!

Earning medals for silly and funny things usually referenced to old NES games:

Working up your RAGE for amazing mind-blowingly awesome special attacks that are unique for each level!

References to Mortal Kombat, and in general pretty gory gameplay! =D

Finding hidden areas, where all the fun is at ;D

Abobo in Zelda:

Abobo in Balloon Fight!! With the Reaper from Castlevania!!!!

Encountering various famous NES characters all through the game, and with original NES music:

Awkward moments:

Or having babies with a mermaid.. or as they call it Merbobos!

Abobo in Contra, vs Krangby!!

YES! IT IS KIRBY WHO SWALLOWED KRANG TO BECOME KRANGBY!!!

Fighting Jaws, and even bigger Jaws!

Abobo vs Donkey Kong!

And much much more! I suggest you play it online or download it straight away!

What are you waiting for?? Go play it!

I always knew Kirby was evil…

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

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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 ^_^