Korean Tetris games add upp to 100 different Tetris games! :D

November 21, 2016 by stopXwhispering

I’ve reached 100 various Tetris games! :D I think I will celebrate with playing some more Tetris tonight!! ^__^

My two latest additions are not that common. One is Tetris on MSX from Korea, or Zemmix as they called the MSX there. Apparently Korean government banned Japanese companies from selling products in Korea, so they made their own knock-offs. The Zemmix / MSX Tetris game is not the greatest Tetris I’ve played. It’s odd. It only gives you 1 point per row cleared, no bonus for making a Tetris (4 rows at once), and the sound effects and music is scarce and dull. Also the controls are quite jumpy, I don’t know if it’s my joypads that are glitchy, but I tried 3 different ones and it was equally difficult to steer the tetraminos..

Tetris for Korean Zemmix

MSX Zemmix – Tetris

MSX Zemmix – Tetris back

Anyway, here’s some gameplay of it, I sat for hours last night trying to record gameplay through my Elgato but I just couldn’t get the signal unscrambled, it has some serious anti-pirating code built in or something XD So I ended up just shooting it with my phone.. sorry for shitty quality, but at least you can see what it’s like ^_^ I couldn’t find a video of it anywhere else..

The latest addition is another Korean game, but for the Gam-Boy, which is Korea’s equivalent to the Sega Master System or the Sega Mark III. The Gam-Boy was produced by Samsung in Korea. It reads 테트리스 which means Tetris ^_^

Tetris on Korean Gam-Bit

Gam-Boy / Sega Master System – Tetris

Gam-Boy / Sega Master System – Tetris back

This was better than the MSX/Zemmix version of Tetris, it had a lot of different settings. One cool feature that I’ve only seen a few times before in Chinese Tetris games is the scrolling. If you set it to scroll the blocks at the bottom will shift one block to the left or right (it changes each level you increase) and makes it more difficult to plan how you want to build! It’s interesting :) But you can of course play without the scrolling feature as well. In the beginning there’s also the choice of Easy or Hard mode, hard makes the floor rise with random blocks once in a while, and you can also set speed to Low or High, once you get to the next screen though you have even more selections where you can set level and height, the height starts you off with blocks already on the board. You can basically make it really difficult for yourself by setting highest speed, highest level, tallest height and add some scroll to it XD Basically impossible! I enjoyed it, except for the music that was kind of shitty and the controls being a bit jumpy. There was like a delay every time a new tetramino appeared in the top.

I recorded some gameplay of this one too so you can see what it’s like ^_^ Here’s Korean Tetris for the Gam-Boy / Sega Master System / Sega Mark III:

Some other recent Tetris purchases that has helped adding my collection up to 100 Tetris games are these ones below ^_^ Two quite rare ones for the Japanese MSX and the Sharp X68000. I still need to find myself an X68000, so I can play it! That one and the PC ones are the only ones I can’t play right now. I also need to find an old PC with Windows 98 XD… Tetris Elements and Tetris Gold are both PC games. Then there’s a ZX Spectrum Tetris game, Tetris Attack for Game Boy (which isn’t quite Tetris in my opinion, but since it’s called Tetris I’ll count it..) and a Japanese PS2 Tetris Kiwamemichi game ^_^

MSX – Tetris

X68000 – Tetris

PC – Tetris Elements

PC – Tetris Gold

ZX Spectrum – Tetris

GB – Tetris Attack

PS2 – Super Lite 2000 Tetris Kiwamemichi

See the entire collection of 100 different Tetris games >>

Here’s some gameplay of Tetris Ultimate that I usually play when I’m on my Xbone. Just to show that I don’t suck completely at Tetris XD

l00t from Retro Games Stockholm!

November 4, 2016 by stopXwhispering

Since I went to Stockholm by train this time for the Retro Games convention I wasn’t able to buy more than I could carry, but once I got home I realised I had at least 35 games and also a new system with me home XD It was mainly games on cassette tapes though, and they don’t take up as much space ;D

Let’s start with the system. A few weeks ago I acquired a game from Zeela that I had previously seen at Retro Gathering, I mainly wanted to have it because of the cover. It’s called Softporn Adventure, and it’s made by On-Line Systems, which later turned into Sierra Online. The game is the predecessor to Leisure Suit Larry, but without graphics, it’s a text-based adventure. On the cover from left to right in the hot tub are Diane Siegel, On-Line’s production manager; Susan Davis, On-Line’s bookkeeper, Rick Chipman, an actual waiter from a local restaurant and Roberta Williams, famous for games like the King’s Quest series etc :)

Softporn Adventures by On-Line Systems on Atari 400

Once I got the game though I just really wanted to be able to play it, and especially I want my friend Gabbi to be able to play it, because she’s totally into text-based adventures and she reaaaallly wanted to try this game when she saw it at Retro Gathering XD So I’m working on getting a setup for it to work :) At Retro Games I bought an Atari 400 from Michael Berglund, unfortunately he didn’t have the floppy disk drive, so I’m still looking for one of those.. but the Atari 400 computer he had for sale was apparently quite rare, since it was a Swedish version with a Swedish keyboard :) Either way, I can at least play some cartridge games that I got with the systems meanwhile, until I find a floppy drive ^_^

Atari 400 Computer

Atari 400 game cartridges

Atari 400 Pole Position

Atari 400 Swedish keyboard

Atari 400

Atari 400 game Bug Hunt

Atari 400 Pole Position

Atari 400 system

Most of the cassettes I bought this time were for ZX Spectrum, and a few Commodore 64 ones. One VIC 20 game slipped in and also one that I discovered was for MSX! O_o I actually have an MSX that I just haven’t blogged about yet, got it not too long ago, but unfortunately I don’t have a cassette tape deck for it yet :/ I guess that’s next on my list together with the floppy drive for Atari 400 ^_^

Mission Mercury for VIC 20

Jackle & Wide for MSX

I’m really happy to have found the other two Horace games that were officially released for the ZX Spectrum, because I really really love Horace Goes Skiing! I’m hoping these ones will be just as good ;D I also got a bunch of other ZX Spectrum games, some that are text-based adventures for Gabbi to try when she visits, and some I just bought for the name or the artwork :) Transylvanian Tower looks rad! :D

Hungry Horace & Horace the the Spiders for ZX Spectrum

Doomsday Castle and Beaky and the Egg Snatchers for ZX Spectrum

Fire on the Water, Never Ending Story and Espionage Island for ZX Spectrum

Spy Hunter and Gauntlet II for ZX Spectrum

Molar Maul, Penetrator and Invincible Island for ZX Spectrum

Ah Diddums, Transylvania Tower and Braxx Bluff for ZX Spectrum

Planet of Death, Cavernfighter and Pimania for ZX Spectrum

When it comes to these old cassettes I mainly just buy them based on the name of the games or just looking at the artwork. I got six Commodore 64 cassettes :) The Official Father Christmas will be my go-to game this holiday XD

Xenon Ranger, The Official Father Christmas and Raid for C64

Thrust, Starlifter and Alcazar for C64

I got a few games for other systems. I bought Neo Drift Out from Sol, I now also owe him a game night at my place with freshly bakes scones because I got such a good price on it XD I bought Yie Ar Kung-Fu together with a 3DS game called Dream Trigger from Peter at Arkadbutiken. I found one Japanese Sega Mega Drive game I didn’t previously have together with some C64 games from Söders Spel & Skivhandel and I bought Martin Lindell & Thomas Sunhede’s newly released book “Svensk Videospelsutveckling“. Martin also had some promo games, so I grabbed Castlevania for my Castlevania Collection, and I got Pac-Man World 2 and Space Race with it ^_^ Thanks Martin!

Neo Drift Out for Neo Geo MVS

Yie Ar KUNG-FU for MSX

The Kick Boxing for Sega Mega Drive

Svensk Videospelsutveckling (Swedish Video Game Development) by Martin Lindell and Thomas Sunhede

Castlevania Curse of Darkness Promo for PS2

Dream Trigger 3D for 3DS

I recently purchased an arcade cabinet from a friend (I’m up to 4 arcades now!) and it was a bit of a rare one, I’ll make a blog post about it soon :) I’ve gotten to know another collector in Sweden who knows a lot about this particular cabinet and when I showed him pics of mine he told me that one of the buttons wasn’t original. He apparently had a spare original part and was kind enough to give it to me ^_^ Thank you so much Pinge! <3 Also when I was talking to Peter from Arkadbutiken and he found out that I had a Blast City cabinet, he gave me the manual for it ^_^ Thanks a bunch Peter! <3

Red arcade button

Sega Blast City manual

I’m really happy with my l00t, and that I managed to bring it all home on the train XD The Retro Games convention was a blast, and I can’t wait for the next convention to get to hang out with all these awesome people again! :D Now I’m off to play some Atari 400 ^_^

Retro Gathering L00t part I

October 6, 2016 by stopXwhispering

It takes time going through, cleaning, testing and taking pictures of 105 games, a few consoles and other things.. that’s how much I came home with after this years Retro Gathering XD Anyway, let’s get to it! I mainly focused on cartridge based games this year, I found a whole bin full of cheap Atari 2600 games to start with ^_^ In the bottom were even some boxed ones :D I tried all these ones out tonight and some that stood out was Planeten Patrouilie and Sub Scan, these were fun and intuitive :) Fatal Run was also interesting, it had the most advanced tunes I’ve heard in an Atari 2600 game so far! Unfortunately it only played the music when you got Game Over XD Superman was probably one of the worst Atari 2600 games I’ve played.. I didn’t even understand what the hell I was supposed to do…

Atari 2600

Human Cannonball, Wüstenschlacht and Sorcerer – Atari 2600

Racquetball and Arilock – Atari 2600

Fatal Run – Atari 2600

Gangster Ruine – Atari 2600

Planeten Patrouilie – Atari 2600

Midnight Magic – Atari 2600

Sub Scan – Atari 2600

Superman – Atari 2600

I found these two little handhelds that were super cute! I love how “Hero and Princess” is such a total rip-off from Donkey Kong Game & Watch, it’s even dual screen! XD And the gorilla looks totally derpy XD

Grandstand handheld

Hero and Princess handheld

I finally got myself the Zapper for Famicom! It’s so funny how this one actually looks just like a regular gun, while we had to have the “kids-version” XD

Famicom Zapper Revolver

I managed to extend my Tetris collection a bit, but not with a game.. a music LP and an old ad! My friend Marcus sold it to me and he also had a few other cool EP’s with video game reference :) I also bought a cute Dreamcast game from him called PenPen ^_^

Doctor Spin Tetris LP

Tetris ad

Space Invaders EP

Ms. Pac-Man EP

PenPen – Dreamcast

After getting to know a lot of other retro gamers online I tend to usually have some deals waiting for me once I meet up with these friends at a convention :) Anders was kind enough to sell me a Video Computer VC4000 game which I didn’t previously have. I just got into this system thanks to an old high school teacher that found this system in his attic XD I also met the guy behind arkadbutiken.se on instagram who had a PCB with Hatris for me :D Can’t wait to try this one out, the arcade version must be so much better than the Famicom one ^_^

32 Invaders – Video Computer VC4000

Hatris PCB

One of the things I bought from Zeela was this really cute little Pong clone called Las Vegas Super Color Teve-Spiel :D I tried it out tonight and it was fun, I didn’t see the colors though because apparently the TV was black and white XD I’ll try it with another TV next time… what I really liked about this Pong version is that the joysticks also go horizontally, so it actually resembles Tennis even more :) You can run back and forth and not only up and down XD It has SO MANY BUTTONS on it though! I had to read the instructions just to figure out what they were all for..

Boxed Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

Complete Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel Joystick

Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

I also bought a bunch of games from Zeela, he has such good prices on old cassettes that it’s hard to resist XD So many pretty covers! I also got some extra memory for my VIC-20, which is probably the reason why I haven’t gotten more than half of the games to work on it so far XD He was also kind enough to dig out a few Jeff Minter games! Hell Gate and Gridrunner ^_^ I also picked up some Amiga games.

Rockman, Cosmic Fire Birds and Critters – VIC-20

Alien Blitz, Outworld and The Alien – VIC-20

Hell Gate and Gridrunner by Jeff Minter – C64

Vic Rescue, Anirog Krazy Kong and Galaxions – VIC-20

Vic Scramble, Chopper and Skips Action Biker Clumpsy Colin – VIC-20 and C64

Vixen 16k RAM for VIC-20

Overkill – Amiga 1200

The Killing Game Show – Amiga 500

I also found a bunch of Videopac G7000 games that I was lacking ^_^ Some I bought from my new found retro gaming friend Jack :) Thanks for bringing them for me!

8 Baseball – Videopac

9 Computer Programmer – Videopac

30 Battlefield – Videopac

10 Golf – Videopac

19 Catch the ball – Videopac

14 Gunfighter – Videopac

Some other things I found were a Case Boy that Söders Spel & Skivhandel thought would look great in my Castlevania collection because of the Castlevania screenshot on the box :D I also bought a reproduction of Trip World, mainly so I can play the game.. I’m probably never gonna spend that much money on the original.. I also got some cheap Famicom pirates, I thought they were quite funny since they read “4 in 1”, then “39 in 1” and finally “1000000000 in 1”!!! I’m skeptical to whether it actually contains that many XD Apart from this I picked up a bunch of other games, like Hao-Kun no Fushigi na Tabi for Famicom Disk System, Slider and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Game Gear, Puzzle Figher II on Game Boy Advance, Cobra Command on NES, Puyo Puyo on N-Gage, a hombrew game called Photon for MSX a few other games and I also got two ZX Spectrum games for free ^_^

Game Boy Case Boy

Trip World – Game Boy

Photon – MSX

Famicom Pirates

Slider & Mighty Morphin Power Rangers – Game Gear

Hao-Kun no Fushigi na Tabi – Famicom Disk System

Horace goes skiing and Space Resque – ZX Spectrum

Puyo Puyo – Nokia N-Gage

Cobra Command – NES

Puzzle Fighter II – Game Boy Advance

Paper Boy 2 – SNES

Joe Montana II Sports Talk Football – Sega Mega Drive

General Knowledge for Dummies – DS

There’s not a lot of Japanese games at this Swedish convention, but I did manage to find a few. I found some cheap PC Engine games I didn’t already have, and also Super Darius which cost a bit more. I also bought some Japanese Sega Mega Drive games from my friend Karl ^_^ And I found some really nice Super Famicom games! :D Yoshi’s Cookie, Yoshi’s Island and Super Bomberman 3 which completed my Super Bomberman set ^_^

Yoshi’s Island – Super Famicom

Momotarou Densetsu – PC Engine

Quackshot – Sega Mega Drive

Yoshi’s Cookie – Super Famicom

World of Illusion – Sega Mega Drive

Super Darius – PC Engine CD-ROM

Super Bomberman 3 – Super Famicom

Street Smart – Sega Mega Drive

Maniac Pro Wrestling – PC Engine

Pro Tennis World Court – PC Engine

Now this wasn’t the entire loot.. I’m saving some of the best parts ;D I’ll be back soon with part II of the l00t!

Retro Gathering 2016 was awesome!!!

October 4, 2016 by stopXwhispering

Last Friday I drove up to Västerås to attend Retro Gathering on Saturday, my favorite Retro Game convention in Sweden ^_^ Retrospelsmässan is also really nice, but as a retro game buyer there’s just more variation at Retro Gathering :) You can find everything from vintage computers, Atari and Commodore to newer PS2 and 3DS games. There have been more newer games lately compared to the first couple of years that I started attending, I hope they don’t take over though, because I love that there’s a place I can go to find these old obscure computers and consoles! I mainly focus on old cartridges and cassettes when I’m at Retro Gathering. Nintendo and Sega I can find at all the other retro game conventions in Sweden anyway.

So this year I was also asked to host an exhibit of my Castlevania collection, so I was there an hour earlier to set it up. People seemed to like it, but there were also a lot of visitors that asked me where it was. My cabinet had been hidden behind a roll-up behind the scene where they hosted the competitions, which was a shame… but people who looked found it anyway :) For those that missed it, this is what it looked like:

Castlevania Collection

The first thing I spotted was a boxed Colecovision that Japon was selling. I snagged it right away, with a bunch of games and a steering wheel controller ^_^ Pontus and Jan at Japon are really nice and gave me a good deal on it :)

Pontus at Japon

I love visiting Zeela’s table, it’s always filled with obscure and colorful things :) He also had a really fun rarity, Softporn Adventure by On-Line systems! On-Line systems later became Sierra, and on the picture of the “sexy” cover are executives and writers from the company, to the right is Roberta Williams, famous video game designer, writer and co-founder of Sierra On-Line who created for example the King’s Quest series :) This is the game that later became Leisure Suit Larry. Such a cool piece of history! I would have bought it if it wasn’t so expensive XD Also I’m not that into text-based adventures… ;D

Softporn Adventures – On-Line Systems

Apart from this he showed me the TRS-80, a computer that I had bought from him a while back that I got delivered here ^_^ I needed one to play my Tandy Tetris game! It’s apparently some kind of Tandy computer.. It was in really nice condition though ^_^ Original box, and I got both a boxed joystick and a big box full of games with it! :D

Ready to hook up!

Tandy TRS-80

Tandy games

Boxed Tandy games

He also had a bunch of other cool stuff ^_^ Like Strip Poker and Centrefold Squares for Atari ST, I bought these for a friend who had been looking all over the place for Atari ST games XD He AND his girlfriend were thrilled and couldn’t wait to play it!! Haha!

Gakken TV-Boy

Zeela’s table

First laptop from Ericsson ///

Bentley Compuvision

Deluxe Strip Poker back

Deluxe Strip Poker

GX4000 – Amstrad home console

Centrefold Squares

Centrefold Squares back

M5 CGL Home computer

There were so many games for sale, and retro game related stuff ^_^ Spel & Sånt had brought some Virtual Boy rarities, they had the three games that I am missing! But they were darn expensive >_< Another seller had setup Zelda on CDi for whoever wanted to try it out XD The creators of Alwa’s Awakening were also there displaying their game which is almost done now, it will be released on Steam :)

Coleco Vision and Vectrex

Retro Game arts

Famicom

Games for sale

Atari 2600

Game Boy

NES

Virtual Boy gems

Sega Master System

Cheap retro games

Games for sale

So much Batman!

Zelda on CDI on display for whoever wants to try it

Cartridges for sale

Games for sale

Alwa’s Awakening

Jumpman Junior

My friends Nathalie and Andreas from up north were also there, and they were selling some of their games. Nathalie tried to sell me a weird DS game, and Andreas wanted me to upgrade my version of Tetris 2 to a mint copy XD I did end up buying Paperboy 2 from them though ^_^ Andreas is a pixel-perfectionist and he had some upscaler connected on display with Super Mario Bro 3, I don’t like when the picture is perfect and the scanlines are too obvious ;P I prefer it the original way with an old CRT and a bit of a glitchy pic XD

Nathalie & Andreas

Good sales pitch by Nathalie ^_^

but no thanks XD

I already have this Tetris game XD

Super Mario Bros 3

Too much scanlines XD

I finally got around to buying the game Photon that has been under development and on display for years at these conventions ^_^ It’s still not finished, but I bought an early version of it :) I also got to talk a bit to the man behind it who told me a bit about the Sord and the community around it :) Apparently there was a club back in the day that released a magazine here in Sweden called “Sordisen”, he had a few issues for sale. He also showed me a few different versions of the system. I almost went and bought one from Zeela, but then again, I don’t have any games for it yet.. so I think it’ll have to wait.

Photon

Sord computer

Sordisen Magazine

Sord M5 Pro

I competed in the yearly Swedish Championships of Pong this year as well :) I won the first take out but lost to my second opponent.. I haven’t been practicing enough, or rather, I haven’t been practicing at all XD I need to get my husband to start playing it with me!! The champion can be seen in the video below, damn that’s an intense Pong game!

Swedish Championships of Pong

Pong championships

As usual they also had a bunch of games and systems set up so people could try them out :) I saw an Intellivision there which reminded me that a seller had promised me from the previous Retro Gathering to bring me one, when I found him though he had already sold it to someone else :((( Hopefully he can set me up with another one.. I have so many Intellivison games and no Intellivisions to play them on XD

Games set up to play

Commodore VIC-20

Commodore C64

Amiga

Coleco Vision

MSX

Texas Instruments

Atari 800

Sinclair ZX Spectrum

Videopac Computer G7000

Fairlight on ZX Spectrum

Crew setting up the games before opening

Intellivision

Colour Genie

Atari 1040 ST

Atari 2600 & NES

Vectrex

Amiga CD32

Sega Master System

Sega Mega Drive, SNES & N64

They also had some other exhibitors, one collection of Sonic games and one of Handic for the VIC 20 :)

Sonic Collection

Handic Collection

One of the best things about going to retro game conventions though is all the people! I met so many old and new friends, and people are so friendly :D

Söders Spel & Skivhandel

Matt8bit

Andreas

Spel & Sånt

Vira & friend

Retrospelsfestivalen

Retroplay

Anders and people :)

After the convention we went out and met up with a bunch of retro gamers, and we found Kralleman and PingeAhlin there who had missed the convention, but had been off on more exciting business! They had scored a bunch of old arcades and other rarities from a connection they had. I was lucky enough to get to go check out their loot :D They had gotten rare prototypes for the Videopac, old minty posters with ads for the Luxor computer, boxed Vectrexes, a Taito Space Invaders arcade cab and a Super Bug arcade with super mint manuals, a really old wooden arcade and an original Break Out arcade. The Break Out arcade had only been played on 64 times, which means it’s hardly been used more than factory testing. That’s pretty rad XD

Box of Videopac prototypes

Videopac prototypes 2-sided

Old luxor ad

Boxed Vectrexes

Taito Space Invaders arcade

Super Bug Arcade manual

Super old arcade

Old orange Break Out arcade from Atari

As you can probably figure, Retro Gathering has outdone themselves again and it was an awesome convention! I’ll go through my loot in a later post when I’ve gone through it all ;D

Castlevania games I didn’t know existed!

June 13, 2016 by stopXwhispering

I just bought some Castlevania games I didn’t previously have. Another Castlevania collector were selling off a lot of his collection on Facebook and I managed to snag a few of them :) Since I have recently acquired an MSX I thought it was time to get Castlevania for it, even though it was a bit overpriced.. It was still sealed though, but I’m gonna have to open it up, because I want to play it!! XD I’m not sure if my MSX is an MSX 2 or not though.. I hope it is so I can play it >_<

MSX 2 – Akumajou Dracula

MSX 2 – Akumajou Dracula back

There were two other games he was selling that I had never seen before, probably because one was a pirated game and the other one was a hack. They still looked pretty cool and weren’t too expensive so I picked them up as well :) One is a russian pirate of the Sega Mega Drive game Castlevania the New Generation, and the other one is a hack of Castlevania Dracula X called Castlevania Dracula X Evil Trevor, starring Trevor Belmont. This last one is also sealed, but I’m just gonna have to open it up to see what it’s like XD

SMD – Castlevania The New Generation Pirate

SMD – Castlevania The New Generation Pirate back

SNES – Castlevania Dracula X Evil Trevor

SNES – Castlevania Dracula X Evil Trevor back

I also picked up two copies of Lament of Innocence on PS2, because the one I had is a PAL version and these were NTSC and NTSC-J, with completely different cover art than the PAL game :) I don’t usually buy the same game just for various regions, but since it was Castlevania and these two were really cheap I couldn’t pass them up XD

PS2 – Castlevania Lament of Innocence US

PS2 – Castlevania Lament of Innocence US back

PS2 – Castlevania Lament of Innocence JP

PS2 – Castlevania Lament of Innocence JP back

I also bought a Japanese Symphony of the Night, or Akumajou Dracula X Gekka no Yasoukyoku as it’s called in Japan ^_^

PS1 – Akumajou Dracula X Gekka no Yasoukyoku

PS1 – Akumajou Dracula X Gekka no Yasoukyoku back

And the final new addition to my Castlevania Collection was a Soundtrack CD with music from the first three NES games, it’s called “Akumajou Dracula Famicom Best” :)

Akumajou Dracula Famicom Best Soundtrack

Akumajou Dracula Famicom Best Soundtrack back

The guy selling these games also had Castlevania for Sharp X68000 for sale, it was extremely expensive though, and I don’t have the system to play it on.. so it didn’t feel worth it..

I’m happy with these new additions to my collection :) I haven’t bought any new Castlevania games in a while. I’ve updated my collection page with these new ones already though ^_^ Check out my entire Castlevania Collection here >>