3DS | Retro Video Gaming

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 ^_^

Once again it’s winter-een-mas, the gaming holiday so many have started to celebrate thanks to Ctrl+Alt+Del ^_^ In celebration of winter-een-mas me and my friend set out to finish as many games as possible, both new gen and retro, in one weekend! We ended up finishing 11 games :D I finished 6 games, NinjaBrite finished 4 games and my bf chipped in and beat the campaign of Battlefield 3.

I had set up the whole living room into a comfortable gaming zone, 3 screens with xboxes and a famicom connected ^_^

I started on Friday night to play an Xbox 360 game called Brave a Warrior’s Tale. This game took the entire evening and a bit of the morning after, but eventually I beat it. The most frustrating part was that half way through the final boss they cut you off and put you in a village with the elder indian who was “telling the story” and then you had to go do a bunch of bullshit chores for him before he would finish the story! What an anti-klimax! >_<

Second game I started playing through was Bee Movie Game for Xbox 360. It was actually a pretty good movie themed game, they had put som effort into both re-enacting the movie but also creating various gameplay factors that was both fun and well made. This game took until past midnight on Saturday to finish though. A whole day! But 100G was almost worth it ;D

The third game I choose to finish was Gunman Clive for the 3DS. This game was a lot of fun. I love the unique graphics and the gameplay is simple yet challenging ^_^

After this I connected the Famicom and tried completing some retro games. the first one was this really cool “whack-a-mole” type game called Pokkun Mogura. I recently bought it complete with box and the accessory Tap-Tap-Mat with a mallet. I previously only had the loose cartridge and didn’t know how to play it.. I thought it was a light gun game, and I didn’t have a light gun for the Famicom either ;D But now I was able to beat it! :D

It had various stages using various layouts of the Tap-Tap-Mat. And the Tap-Tap Mat was surprisingly responsive! :D It was fun to whack-a-way ^_^

The fifth game I finished was Happy Birthday Bugs, also for the Famicom. I’ve started the game many times but never played very far. This time it blew my mind, so many various stages, a lot of great music and challenging precision jumps ^_^ It was a great game, and surprisingly long! However, after each stage you got to play bonus games with all the carrots you had collected and it was quite easy getting extra lives with a bit of luck ^_^ At the end I had almost 80 lives! There were also loads of boss fights with various Tiny Toon characters.

The final game I finished was Hoshi no Kirby for Famicom. I had actually never played this game before, and now I am in love with Kirby ^_^ Great game! Great fun :D The final boss consisted of 3 consecutive bosses, it says everywhere that it’s a simple game adapted for a younger audience, but I thought it was actually quite challenging! Then again you have unlimited of continues so that makes it easier ^^ (I had to use a few…)

My friend NinjaBrite finished these games on Xbox 360: Feeding Frenzy, Bastion, Portal and Battlefield Bad Company. You can read about it (in Swedish or use google translate) on her new blog about Xbox gaming ^_^