I was invited to be in the North American Retro Collective’s podcast. It was a lot of fun talking with Rip, John & Chris, even though I did really shitty in the quiz ;D We’re discussing import games and collecting, and the differences in perception between NTSC and PAL games in Europe and the US ^_^
Go check out the podcast on either Podomatic or on iTunes ^_^
20 years ago, on July 21st 1995, the Virtual Boy became available in stores in Japan. Less than a month later, August 14th, it released in North America as well. We never got to see a release here in Europe but it was advertised and many people were excited to see it, but disappointed that it never came out. Unfortunately the console got discontinued not even half a year later! On December 22nd 1995 the Virtual Boy was discontinued in Japan, and 3 months later on March 2nd 1996 it discontinued in North America.
The Virtual Boy only sold a mere 770,000 units, it’s Nintendo’s lowest selling console ever! The launch price of a Virtual Boy was $180, and it was supposed to be a considered “handheld” system. Compared to the Game Boy which initially cost $89.99 the Virtual Boy wasn’t attractive enough to justify the price tag. The portability was questioned, since it was on a stand and there was no way of equipping it on your head like a “real” VR headset. It only had one color, red on black, it was less powerful than home consoles, and even though it was 3D it wasn’t interesting enough to beat the other handhelds on the market which had more colors. Finally the health issues were on all the parents’ minds, the Virtual Boy even had a built in function to turn itself off after 15-30 minutes of gameplay so that the player could take a break before any injuries occurred to their eyes! That and the warnings that use of the Virtual Boy might cause epileptic attacks, nausea and headaches probably made parents hesitate on buying one for their kids. Still today many people who have tried gaming on a Virtual Boy states that they experience nausea when playing, I thankfully don’t! ;D
Apart from all this, at launch Nintendo partnered up with Blockbuster, having 3000 stores to rent out the Virtual Boy console for $10, once returned they got a $10 coupon for when purchasing their own Virtual Boy. This proved damaging to the system though, since everybody got to see what the system actually was (or was not!) capable of instead of being lured in by the advertisements. The console was rented out to 750,000 people in total during the campaign.
When I started collecting games some 12 years ago I bumped into the Virtual Boy for the first time on eBay, I got super intrigued and had to find out what it was! After getting my first Virtual Boy I became obsessed with the obscurity of the system and started collecting everything I could find related to it! Today I have 3 Virtual Boys (had a 4th which I gave to a friend) and almost all the games released for it. My latest purchase was Space Invaders which was only released in Japan. I am now only missing some obscure Gundam game and Virtual Lab I think.
I prefer the box art on the Japanese games, they’re usually prettier, but the US ones do carry a certain nostalgic charm to them as well :) Here’s all my Virtual Boy games with some screenshots I tried taking with my camera through the lenses on the VB, it was hard to get good focus ;D
Vertical Force is probably my favorite Virtual Boy game :) It’s a shmup with an awesome soundtrack! :D It’s kind of cools since you can switch between two different levels of depth in the stage, but it also makes it much more difficult than a “flat” shmup.
Space Invaders is also pretty cool, there’s both a classic 2D mode and a new 3D mode. It’s not that different from regular space invaders though.
Insmouse no Yakatta (インスマウスの館) is a dungeon crawling horror game, you walk through corridors and encounter creepy monsters. It was only released in Japan.
Jack Bros (ジャック・ブラザースの迷路でヒーホー!) is also a fun game. You can choose between three different characters, and the game is sort of a top-down platformer where you collect keys and enter new levels and encounter bosses. There’s a time limit on each stage which is kind of annoyingly short..
V-Tetris (V・テトリス) is just like normal Tetris. There’s just some flying spots in the background (maybe it’s supposed to resemble space and stars?) that are sort of 3D. I really like Tetris though, and it’s got good music ^_^
3D Tetris is different though! This is much like Blockout on Sega Mega Drive, but harder, since the platform keeps moving around like a 3D model.
Waterworld is based on a horrible movie with Kevin Costner, the game wasn’t all that bad though.. it’s not good, but it’s not awful. It’s a shooter where you’re some kind of boat shooting at people on jet skis hahaha ^__^
Nester’s Funky Bowling is quite a rare one out of the US releases, it’s a bowling game.. and I’m not that into that :/
Panic Bomber (とびだせ！ぱにボン) was only released in Japan. Just like in V-Tetris it’s not really using the 3D effects much, but Panic Bomber is fun anyway :) Not as good as Tetris though ;D
Space Squash (スペース スカッシュ) is the only game I own that I haven’t played.. because I only have one copy of it, and it’s still sealed >_< I need to find an opened one, but so far this is the only copy I’ve ever encountered.. This game was also only released in Japan.
Galactic Pinball (ギャラクティック・ピンボール) is just what it sounds like, a pinball game. I’ve never quite gotten into those… This was released both in the US and Japan.
Teleroboxer (テレロボクサー) is a first-person boxing game, which was released in both regions. This is one of the few exceptions where I think the US boxart is actually better than the Japanese ;D
Warioland (ワリオランド) is a nice platformer, just like the old school super mario games :) It’s quite challenging as well! Was released in both regions and the box art is really similar…
Red Alarm (レッドアラーム) is a rail shooter which basically just looks like lines that haven’t been finished drawn.. quite annoying, especially with all the explosions and tiny sticks flying around >_< I prefer the Japanese box art on this one, what do you think? :)
Mario Clash (マリオクラッシュ) is what you would have hoped to be the platforming classic Mario game, but it’s not. Instead you’re stuck on one screen where you move through tunnels to the front or back and try to hit enemies that are on the opposite side by throwing other enemies at them.. gets boring after a while..
Golf (or Virtual Golf in Japanese バーチャル ゴルフ) is a golf game. I hate sports games >_< On this one though I also kind of appreciate the US boxart more, but they’re both hideous ;D
Mario’s Tennis (マリオズテニス) was released in both regions, and this is a game that uses the 3D effects well. I still don’t like sports games very much so I rarely play this one. I bet it would have been cool if they would have released a link cable so you could battle a friend on another Virtual Boy though, but that never happened :/
Last and definitely least in my book is Virtual League Baseball (called Pro Yakyuu ’95 バーチャルブロ野球’95 in Japan). I just don’t enjoy sports…
There’s a whole homebrew scene for the system today though, I haven’t gotten into that yet, but I am considering getting myself a Flashboy so I can get to see all the games that were never released and also some of the new games that has been made for the system, since the original library only contains about 22 games or so.
Anyway, I would like to celebrate this old 32-bit system’s birthday by running down to the super market and buying a big package of batteries, plugging in 6 of them in the Virtual Boy controller and then play some Vertical Force, followed by V Tetris and maybe some Space Invaders ^_^
The second video in our Neo Geo series is out! This time we’re playing some Garou Densetsu The Battle of Destiny (also known as Fatal Fury). Both Becki and myself are absolutely horrible at fighting games, and it’s definitely not really our cup of tea, but these types of games sure bring out the fighting spirit in you! Haha! We both tend to get extremely competitive….
Watch the video here:
I will get onto editing the final two games we played, Sengoku and Ghost Pilots soon :)
I’ve finally finished editing the first video of mine and Becki’s Neo Geo play session :) I really wanna make more videos like this, but it is very time consuming, but I’m trying my best to make videos whenever I have some spare time ^_^ Anyway, we had so much fun with the Neo Geo games! The first game we tried out was Cyber Lip! An action platform game that resembles Contra a lot. We love it when we find simultaneous co-op games, and the Neo Geo has loads of those! More videos will come soon with the rest of the games we played, like Garou Densetsu, Ghost Pilots and Sengoku :)
Check out the video and let me know what you think! ^__^
So here’s the final part of my RSM loot! All the games!! :D Apart from the Atari Lynx games that I mentioned in the first post..
I got quite a lot of C64 games since these were cheap ^_^ Scramble Spirits, Pac-Mania and Cosmic Causeway were really pretty big boxes ^_^ Scramble is always fun! Pac-Mania looked like a cool 3D version of Pac-Man, I’m sure I have it for other systems already but it’s always fun to try out various ports ^_^ Never heard of Cosmic Causeway but I love the artwork! On the screenshots it kind of looks like some kind of Space Harrier game ^_^
I also found these 4 big boxes, I’m hoping this C64 JAWS is better than the NES version ;D Killer Ring looks to be some kind of shooter, Terry’s Adventure was just cheap and I loved the tacky James Bond montage on the 007 License to Kill cover ^_^
These C64 boxes were a bit different! Frost Byte and Kong Strikes Back were in soft plastic, the screenshots and artwork intrigued me ^_^ Creatures had a really pretty cover! It’s a paper box, and it looks like an amazing side-scrolling platform adventure ^_^
I also got Wibstars, Chuckie Egg (a classic that I actually didn’t have before), Herobotix and a Christmas Collection containing 6 games. Herobotix had such a cool name and an awesome robot on the cover! :D Had to get it ^_^ The Christmas Collection contained a game I’ve been wanting to try out for a long time now! I bought Exolon on Amiga 500 a while back and it never worked, the seller kept sending me new floppy disks but none would load :( So hopefully this cassette will and I’ll at least get to see what type of game it is! :D
I got a few PC Engine titles as well. There weren’t a lot of PC Engine stuff at RSM, but I did find these three titles that I didn’t previously have, pretty cheap ^_^ Master of Monsters, Ballistix and Babel.
I bought an expensive N64 title, Paper Mario! I have never played any of the Paper Mario games and everyone tells me they’re good. I’ve recently found out that they’re kind of RPG games as well.. which I don’t like >_< So I have no clue what I will think of it.. I guess I’ll just have to try it out and see for myself ^^
There were more japanese stuff at RSM, and I found some Sega Saturn games :D Pretty nice titles I think as well :) Vampire Hunter, Bubble Symphony & Saturn Bomberman Fight :D
Another system I got a few games for was Playstation 1. Both Puchi Carat and Parappa the Rapper were cheap :) I’ve actually never played Parappa the Rapper, I have a Playstation 2 version, but it was Japanese so I didn’t have a system to play it on until recently when I got a modded one. Haven’t gotten around to trying it yet though.. Now I will though ^_^
I’m extremely happy to have found a Neo Geo AES game that was affordable and NOT a fighting game!! :D I found this game called Puzzled ^_^ It’s quite fun and very challenging! It’s falling Tetris pieces that you need to put in place to remove the obstacles that is keeping your ship captured at the bottom. Once the ship is freed you clear the stage. I love puzzle game like this! :D It’s also in really nice condition ^_^
I also found some NES games, there were LOADS of NES games for sale at RSM, but I didn’t dig too deep into all the piles. I found these two that I didn’t previously own and was curious to try out ^_^ Tom & Jerry and… Barbie! haha
Tom & Jerry was a fun platformer, kind of hard though. You could only take three hits and there were so many things that would hurt you >_<
Barbie had extremely stiff controls and animations. It was extremely simple and stupid haha ^_^ And it got difficult only because of the stiff controls..
I also got a really cool looking NES game called Defenders of Dynatron City! I had never encountered this one before! :D And I got a pretty good deal from KCL to by this minty complete game ^_^ The cover art is amazing!! The game was also pretty cool, but the hit detection was extremely off, which made it frustrating in the long run >_<
You can choose from 3 various main characters, and while in game you can change between another three companions. There’s 6 characters in total, Jet Headstrong, Radium Dog and Ms. Megawatt are the three main ones, out of these I prefer Ms. Megawatt ’cause she has the best and fastest attack ^_^ The three other characters you can always choose from in game are Toolbox, Monkey Kid and Buzzsaw girl. It’s got a pretty cool setup, you have to clear all the streets of the map from robot enemies, once you’ve cleared a stage the shops open up, they’re also filled with enemies, but once killed you can get an item. The item is either a clue, money, food for health or some item you can use. Once all streets are clear you’ll find a boss, when killed he takes you to the next stage, which is inside a mall where you can use the money to buy more items ^_^ It’s got a lot of depth and nice graphics with a lot of various locations but falls short on the horrible hit-detection..
I only found one Famicom game that I didn’t already have. There wasn’t a lot of Famicom at RSM though. The one I found was Sanrio Carnival 2 with Hello Kitty ^_^ My friend Mattias also brought a Pachiottokun game for me which I didn’t have :) Thanks!
I found only one Sega Mega Drive game.. Granada, which is a japanese release. This was a cool tank shooter ^_^ I reached the first boss but he killed me >_<
And I got some Game Boy games, all japanese ones ^_^
Apart from all these games I got a few other goodies from various people or from the Asteroids competition I came in second place in ^_^
I’m extremely happy with this years RSM! Had a great time! Met loads of nice people, bought massive amounts of cool retro gaming stuff and had a blast! :D
So here’s the second part of my loot from RSM (Retrospelsmässan)! As I stated in my previous post my entire haul was 6 systems and 60 games. Apart from my 2 Atari Lynx consoles I also got a Commodore Vic 20! I’ve never heard of this old computer before, at first sight I thought it was the Commodore 64, the edition that had brown keys, but after having hastily bought it someone told me later on that day that it was in fact an earlier Commodore system which did not play C64 games o_O It’s super pretty and complete with all cables and a cassette drive, I don’t have any games for it though :( :( So trying it out will have to wait…
I also found a boxed Palladium Tele-Match console. This is an old Pong clone from Germany. It was just so charming and cheap! So I couldn’t pass it up ;D Unfortunately it didn’t have a power cable so I haven’t been able to try it out yet..
I also got another boxed old pong clone, this one is called Mark Color. The system is almost completely minty inside the box, with styrofoam inlays and everything ^_^ I really like the design of this old system ^_^ I also got two games with it, it appears that the game cartridges contain several games that you can choose from on the system. Unfortunately this one lacked a power cable as well so I haven’t tried out either… (click the images to enlarge)
And of course I found yet another Pong console clone (I think I’ve gone a bit nuts about Pong machines since I lost the competition at Retro Gathering last year ;D Need some practice!). This one is called TriStar TV Game – Programmable, and I think it’s super pretty ^__^ This one also has cartridges which seem to contain several different games, but no power cord >_< so I will have to wait to try this one out too.. :(
I find these old systems really charming :) What I really would want is that orginal Pong console though, like the hockey pong from RSM but brown or black ^_^
I’ll start working on my last post about my RSM loot now! This one will cover all the various games I picked up ^__^
Retro Video Gaming 