Retro Gaming October

September 28, 2014 by stopXwhispering

I’m sorry for my lack of posts lately, but Destiny happened o_O

This coming October is going to be crazy though! Here in Sweden almost EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND has some kind of Retro Gaming or Gaming related show or convention! And I’m going to all of it ;D

First up is Retro Gathering in Västerås which I am visiting for the first time this year! Retro Gathering is a gathering for retro game enthusiasts and has been going on since 2006. You can buy retro games, play retro games and they are also hosting the Swedish Championships in Pong! I am attending that this year, I have never really played Pong competitively, only against the computer lol! So I’ll probably get my ass handed to me ;D

The second weekend is Retrospelsfestivalen in Malmö. This is the first year they are throwing a festival for retro gaming in the south of Sweden. I really hope this one will get a lot of visitors so that it comes back every year ^_^ Here they will have competitions, workshops and lectures about retro video games :)
During the same weekend, from the 11th-12th of October there is also the Play Expo in Manchester, UK. I wish they didn’t collide because then I would have visited both.. but Malmö is a bit closer for me ;D

On the 25th-26th of October there’s both a retro gaming show and a sci-fi convention on the same weekend. At Retro Games you can buy games and also play pinball, arcades and console games. This one takes place in Stockholm. Sci-Fi World is in Helsingborg and is a sci-fi, game and film convention. I’ve never visited this one before, but I might swing by one of the days :) Freddy Krueger, Jabba the Hut and a bunch of people from Game of Thrones will be there ^_^

Gamex used to be the largest gaming convention in Sweden, they have now joined forces with Comic Con. So there will be a joined Comic Con-Gamex convention in Stockholm between the 30th of October and the 2nd November. I’ll spend two days there ^_^

If anyone knows any other gaming related events taking place that I’ve missed feel free to comment :)

Retro Rumble 2014!

July 13, 2014 by stopXwhispering

Retro Rumble is back! Yesterday I had a retro gaming get-together with a retro gaming quiz and retro game competitions in my game room ^_^ I was very happy to have GamingGrannar visiting me for the weekend, they arrived already Friday to make a video of my retro game collection. Keep an eye out for the episodes that will show up on their blog soon :) They stayed and took part of Retro Rumble on Saturday as well. There was a lot of gaming this entire weekend! :D

For the competition I had chosen 5 games:
Ninja Hattorikun for Famicom – First leve, 1 life, best score
Soldier Blade for PC Engine – Caravan mode (2 minute score attack)
Super Monaco GP for Sega Mega Drive – Free practice Japan, Super A-class, 1 lap, best time
Panel de Pon for Super Famicom – Score attack mode
Jigoku Gokuraku Maru for Famicom – First stage, 1 life, best score

Out of the 12 contestants 4 went on to play in the semi-finals :) DAVE, Murazor, Mensflickan & Mattias :D

Here they got to play Super Bomberman 4 for the Super Famicom and then Harapeko Bakka (Hungry Dinosaurs) also for the Super Famicom.

We did not continue on with the third game since it was already clear which two players would continue on to the finals, namely DAVE and Mattias ^_^ They went on to play Rakuga Kids for the japanese N64:

And then also Combat for Atari 2600! :D

It was a fun and exciting competition, and I think everybody had a great time ^_^ All the competitors were also divided into teams, and I had prizes for the both the best team, the best player and player 2 and of course the Quiz Master! And here are all the winners!

DAVE was no.1 in the competition ^_^

Mattias came second, but he won the Quiz which makes him Mr. Quiz Master! ;D

And here’s the A-team!! :D

Here’s the RETRO RUMBLE QUIZ questions, how many correct answers would you have scored? ;D

1. What does NES stand for?

2. Who was SEGA’s mascot before Sonic?
X. Pacman
Y. Flicky
B. Alex Kidd
A. Opa Opa

3. Contra is a famous game from Konami, it’s also called Probotector and one other name. What is the third name?

4. In Zelda 2, The Adventures of Link for NES you encounter a man in the village of Ruto, what does he say?
X. Go West
Y. The Cake is a Lie
B. I Am Error
A. Take this Potion

5. Which game is this song from?
X. Megaman 1
Y. Megaman 2
B. Megaman 3
A. Rockman 4

6. What is the Konami code?
X. Up, Up, Down Down, Left, Left, Right Right, A, B
Y. Up, Up, Down Down, Left, Right, Left Right, A, B
B. Up, Up, Down Down, Left, Right, Left Right, B, A
A. Up, Up, Down Down, Right, Left, Right Left, B, A

7. What is the name of this game system?

8. On what stages can you go down tunnels and warp to stages later in the game in Super Mario Bros?
X. 1 – 1 & 3 – 5
Y. 1 – 2 & 4 – 3
B. 1 – 3 & 4 – 2
A. 1 – 2 & 4 – 2

9. Sony’s Playstation was original intended to be a CD-ROM add-on to which 16-bit console?

10. What is the resolution of an NES?
X. 260 x 310
Y. 256 x 240
B. 460 x 840
A. 356 x 255

11. Which Japanese company created Pacman?
X. Konami
Y. Taito
B. Bandai
A. Namco

At the end of the evening we ended up playing a lot of Utsurun desu. Ka wa uso hawai e iku. A really strange japanese game for the Famicom, but so very very very entertaining! :D I recommend anyone with a Famicom to try this one out!

Here’s what the chubby-legged guy in a beaver suit looks like when he’s jumping:

And here’s some other moves (the gentle wave of the hand is his main attack.. he can also dance and cast out some dance flames) ;D

Thanks to all of those who came and played, and watched, and laughed, and enjoyed some retro gaming goodness ^__^ And to all of those who didn’t make it I hope to see you next time!

Arcades in Akihabara, Tokyo

May 10, 2014 by stopXwhispering

Tokyo is full of arcades, they’re everywhere! :D And they’re a lot of fun!

Personally I prefer playing the music and rhythm games. Here’s a funny video of one of Sega’s newer games Maimai:

You can also find 4 player mario kart, where each get their own steering wheel and screen, and fun games like Taiko no Tatsujin where you hit on giant drums in time with music ^_^

I personally love this music game with all the buttons ^_^ I don’t know the name of it though :/

Most of the arcades are at least 4 stories high with the first two floors filled with U.F.O catchers.

When it comes to U.F.O catchers, I recommend the ones with three claws, because the ones with two claws are extremely weak. Don’t forget to check machines for something that is about to fall over that somebody else has already been nudging around ^_^

I got pretty good at these machines during our trip ^_^ It is also extremely addictive, I don’t know how many 100 Yens I put into these, and I don’t wanna count ;D Here’s a picture of how excited I was whenever I got to play though ;D

And I actually won this, after having put in a bit over 1000 Yen in this machine, trying to pin holes into the little paper holding the thing up. Eventually there wasn’t much left but it still wouldn’t budge. So I asked the personnel to nudge the box a bit so the entire weight was on platform (since it was a bit crooked and leaning on the plastic bar against the glass), then the guy started fiddling with the paper instead and the thing fell down, I just assumed that I won it and he gave it to me ^_^ YAY

I also won this cute Rilakkuma bear for myself and I won this other cuddly plushie for my friend ^_^

Most arcades will mainly have modern games and maybe a few machines with classic street fighter. I went and took some pics during mid-day on a week day so it was pretty empty. After 5 though it is always crammed with people. There’s mostly fighting games or strategy games. Some new ones even have touch screens.

I found an arcade located in between the two SEGA buildings (you can find the directions in my guide to Akihabara game shops) in Akihabara that had mainly retro game arcade machines! A whole floor of just 16-bit shmups! ^_^ It was called HEY (Hirose Entertainment Yard).

This place was awesome ^_^ I wish this was my living room! haha

They also had these special 2-player machines with Darius and Ninja Warriors ^_^

Also if you wanna find retro arcades you can find some on the fourth floor of Super Potato (directions can be found here). They have more than just shmups, for example Puyo Puyo, Bomber World, Ghosts n’ Goblins, Final Fight, Pac-Land etc.

There’s a lot more arcades to explore in Tokyo and in Akihabara alone. It’s thrilling to see how this culture is still so much alive over there ^_^

Retro Gaming Guide to Akihabara in Tokyo

May 10, 2014 by stopXwhispering

I’ve recently come back from a two week vacation in Tokyo, I went there with 5 other friends and we had a blast! ^_^

While in Tokyo I took the opportunity to go hunting for some retro games of course! I’ve been to Tokyo quite some times now, but I’ve only ever found Super Potato where I could buy retro games. This time however I got a friend from instagram to show me around Akihabara to all the best retro game shops! ^_^
Here’s a map I’ve made of the places I went to:

The two Sega buildings that I pinned on the map are easy to find. After you take the Akihabara Electric Town Exit just go right, out into a square, if you look to your left you will see the first giant SEGA building:

Once you get closer to it you will see the second SEGA building as well:

SUPER POTATO

So first off is Super Potato, this place is a bit pricey, but it’s a must-go for all retro gaming enthusiasts! It’s located on the street behind the two SEGA buildings. It’s kind of hard to find the entrance since it’s quite small and you won’t really see the signs for it unless you look up (or can read japanese). It’s down on this street, I’ve located it with a circle, however if you go on the route of the map it will be on your right side instead of left.

This is the building:

You will have to go into a corridor and take the elevator up:

Super Potato has 4 floors, first floor is mainly cartridge games (famicom, super famicom, sega master system, mega drive, pc engine, game boy etc). Second floor has some newer games like playstaytion, dreamcast etc. The third floor has mainly strategy guides to retro games and the fourth floor has retro arcade machines where you can play puyo puyo, pac-land, final fight, ghosts n’ goblins and a bunch of other old classics ^_^ Everything is very neatly displayed and they also have a bunch of merchandise.
One thing that bugs me about Super Potato is that they have two giant shelves filled from top to bottom with famicom games and most of them are doubles. You will see the same game 10 times in a row sometimes, it makes it hard going through it all.. and time consuming. They have however put end labels on the plastic wrap of each game, but it’s written in japanese.

MANDARAKE COMPLEX

Next up is Mandarake Complex, I didn’t spend too much time here, but they had loads of retro games at reasonable prices! And so many boxed games in great condition ^_^ I saw a mint CiB Recca and I really wanted to buy it, but that game is almost just as expensive in Japan as it is on eBay… :( At Mandarake Complex all the games were in hard plastic cases, it made it a bit dull to look through it all, and hard to spot the games you were looking for..

They also had an assortment of Neo Geo games, I really would like to start collecting for that system, but damn those games are pricey! The most expensive one I saw was 220.000 Yen, which is over 2000 USD… o_O

MANDARAKE GALAXY

I did however spend more time at another Mandarake store in Nakano (Nakano is just one stop from Shinjuku station with the JR line, or three stops if you don’t take the chuo rapid line). (Note that this store is NOT located in Akihabara and not pinned on the map above..). Mandarake Galaxy is located on the second floor inside Nakano Broadway, a mall that is just straight ahead after exiting the station.

This one wasn’t very big but they made use of their space by only displaying one of each game instead of triples (like in Super Potato). Their games were also really neatly displayed in a way that you could easily browse through them ^^ And it was very reasonably priced! :D This is how happy I was at the Mandarake Galaxy store in Nakano ^_^

They had a lot of gems and I bought loads of games here, including Gimmick! ^_^ They also had another cabinet inside where they had stuff that wasn’t for sale, just for show >-< Like the Sega Mega Drive Tetris!!

TRADER

Next up is Trader in Akihabara, this is located just a bit further down the street from the two SEGA buildings.

Just like in the Mandarake Complex in Akihabara this store had all it’s cartridges and boxed games in plastic cases. This makes it kind of hard to browse through loose Famicom carts.. I bought a few games here though.

I found a boxed Altered Beast for Game Boy Advance, I regret not getting it since it was so cheap >_< 3500 Yen is approximately 34 USD…

They also had a bin filled with loose carts that all cost under 100 Yen! The cheapest I found was 19 Yen, which is less than 20 cents ^_^ There was no guarantee that they would work though. However, all the five games I found in the bin has worked perfectly ^_^

You could also get Neo Geo games here and other rarities. However they were not displayed, only by advertisements all over the walls. I guess you would have to go to a counter to order them.

FRIENDS

Now the last shop my friends took me too was so cute! It was run by this old lady and her husband, and it was called FRIENDS ^__^

It was very small, but it was crammed with retro games! ^_^ And it was mostly very cheap :) It was really easy to browse through the Famicom carts, and they also had a bunch of bins filled with cheaper carts, around 100 Yen.

Apparently there was also a second floor, I didn’t have time to see it though. I was told they had Sega Saturn games and stuff like that upstairs.

I would recommend all of these shops for retro game collectors that visit Tokyo ^_^

And if you’re not into buying games, there are also loads of places to just play games! :D Here’s my post about the Arcades of Akihabara ^_^

Retrospelsmässan 2014 (Sweden’s retro gaming exhibition)

May 4, 2014 by stopXwhispering

So I just got back from Tokyo 3 days ago and I’m still a bit jet lagged, and also very sick >.< But I refused to miss out on 2014’s RSM (Retrospelsmässan), Sweden’s yearly retro gaming exhibition in Gothenburg. So I drove there yesterday to see what they had to offer.

The setup was similar to last year, the biggest improvement though was that they had more registers at the entrance (6 instead of 1 or 2 last year) so the massive queues went a lot faster (but they were still there). Last year I waited almost 4 hours before I could get in, this year it took a little more than one hour.

The last 1/5 part of the queuing

There were as usual loads of cosplayers running around. It’s always nice to see ^_^ Here’s a few of the characters I managed to capture on camera:

It’s a me! Mario!

Street Fighter and Kingdom Hearts cosplay

My personal favorite: Wheatley from Portal ^_^ Brilliant!

Zelda & Link cosplay

At the fair there were loads of things to do. They had competitions, hundreds of systems, arcades and pinball machines setup to be played, artwork being made and sold, speedruns, street fighter tournaments, traders selling retro games and stuff and lots more.

And Charles Martinet was there (the voice of Mario & friends) and you could get his signature…

…which I did ^_^ He was very friendly and funny :)

I came in quite late since I had to drive for 2 hours to get there, so I didn’t have time to browse around a lot through the games. I also think that most of the good stuff had already been picked out, but I did manage to find a few things :) I found Sunset Riders for Sega Mega Drive, Wolfchild and Prince of Persia for Sega Mega CD. I’ve been curious about the Mega CD version of Wolfchild ever since I made the review for Wolfchild on Master System. I found it disturbing that the game lacked music, then someone told me that the Mega CD version had music, so I had to hear it ^_^ Sunset Riders has also been on my radar for some time but it has always been so pricey on eBay. I got it for approximately 40 GBP (or 69 USD).

I also found a mysterious Famicom pirate game which had no name, just an image of Tetris and airplanes?! So I had to buy it to see what it would be like ^_^

It turned out to be just Tetris, but I haven’t seen a Tetris that looks exactly like this one before. It had loads of gameplay options like 1 player, 2 player, cooperative, versus etc.

It also had loads of russian songs to choose from ^_^ Troika is my favorite :D

That’s it for now, soon i’ll make a big post about all my pickups in Japan, and also a small guide of Akihabara’s great assortment of retro game shops ^_^ But first I will have to sort out this mess on my desk of over 100 games that I bought during my 2 weeks there… o_O

If you wanna know more about Retrospelsmässan check out their webpage, you can also read about my visit to last year’s RSM here >>

Retro Rumble 2013!

December 15, 2013 by stopXwhispering

My Retro Room has once more been improved, it’s bigger and better and now twice the size of my last room! Once I had finished the moving and decorations of the new room I had retro gaming party to fully inaugurate it! I hosted a retro gaming competition, my friend NinjaBrite set up a music quiz with a retro gaming theme and there were loads of people playing loads of games! I am extremely happy that well over 30 people showed up :D

In the competition the following games were played: Hector ’87 / Famicom, Ninja Spirit / PC Engine, Musha Aleste / Sega Mega Drive, BPS Tetris / Famicom, and Halo / Xbox 360. I know the last one is not very retro, but since my boyfriend only plays this one game he thought it would be fun to add it in the competition to see how many kills the contestants could get playing against him ;D (the most amount of kills one person got was 3..).

Halo VS ShyachooMiik
© Jens Andreasson

Halo Finals
© Björn Jensen

Björn Soraheart playing Ninja Spirit on PC Engine
© x MissDeLuxe x

Me and NinjaBrite keeping scores ^_^ © x MissDeLuxe x

NinjaBrite and me keeping scores ^_^
© x MissDeLuxe x

There were a total of 26 contestants! Ranging from people who are total gamers that work with games to people that haven’t played since they were kids, but the competition was still pretty even!

Gaming at Retro Rumble © Jens Andreasson

In the semi-finals four contestants battled each other in three different games on the Super Famicom: Bomberman, V.S Collection and Battle Cross. The two finalists that made it to the end had a stand off in Fatman for the Mega Drive! This was hilarious to watch since the controls are awful in this game and the hit detection is incredibly glitchy!! haha so it gave them both an equal chance ^_^

Semi-finals at Retro Rumble, Horsefacekillah VS TGMaduin VS Zicsoen and Markisen (not pictured)

Finals in Fatman, TGMaduin vs Markisen © x MissDeLuxe x

Markisen VS TGMaduin

Christian came out victorious, but all the finalists got prizes ^^

Markisen with his prize ^_^ © Jens Andreasson

Through a projector on the wall people could also try out the incredibly frustrating and renowned to be impossible game: Cat Mario! This was a great hit, since people kept cheering each other on and tried to beat more and more stages. For every stage that was beaten I handed out a mini-prize to the person that made it ^^ Eventually at the end of the evening the game had actually been beaten through a collective effort :D (For those of you who have never played this game, I suggest you give it a go! It’s a lot of fun ^_^)

Cat Mario

Wobbly Mint Flava playing Cat Mario

We also got a cosplayer on Retro Rumble! Jocke went all in dressing up as the Hitman! It was amazing!! ^_^

Jocke as Hitman. look at that precious suitcase filled with strangling cord, dual revolvers and a gun with a silencer!
© Jens Andreasson

Here are some more pictures from the evening that I was given from some of the friends that were there:

Welcome to Retro Rumble sign © x MissDeLuxe x

Bead art station at Retro Rumble © Jens Andreasson

Parts of my new Retro Game Room © Jens Andreasson

x MissDeLuxe x & Fluffeth © x MissDeLuxe x

Duck Hunt & Zapper Corner © x MissDeLuxe x

Markisen & x MissDeLuxe x solving the Music Quiz © Jens Andreasson

The Amazing Music Quiz put together by NinjaBrite © x MissDeLuxe x

Thanks everyone for joining in! I hope I’ll see you all again for Retro Rumble 2014! :D
(p.s. I will make a guided tour of my new Retro Room soon..) ;D

Meanwhile, here’s a movie I put together with all the clips I got from some of the guests ^_^ Enjoy!