Retro Gathering L00t part I

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…

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

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

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 ^_^

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 ^_^

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..

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.

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!

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 ^_^

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 ^_^

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!

The Tetris Collection

I’ve amassed quite an extensive Tetris collection by now. I always buy a Tetris game if I don’t already have it, and man! There’s a lot of Tetris games out there! Tetris is such a fun game, you never get tired of it, and I think it’s so exciting to try different versions :) So here they are! You can click the pictures to view them larger if you for example want to see the screenshots on the back of the box ^_^ I right now have 136 different video game versions (including 3 arcade games) of Tetris and 5 board games :) These picture below are already outdated and missing around 40+ games from the collection XD

Atari Tetris Arcade

My most proudest Tetris game is definitely my dedicated Atari Tetris Arcade from 1988. It’s so much fun to play against friends ^_^ And it has the unique gameplay where you have objectives instead of just endless mode with increasing difficulty. You can read more about this one in my blog post about the Atari Tetris Arcade >>

Sega Tetris Arcade

My most recent Arcade pickup is the Sega Tetris PCB. This is not a Jamma standard, but fortunately I got an adaptor with it so I can play it on my Blast City cabinet :) It has these photorealistic pictures in the background, so awkward XD And when you die this disappointed monkey is disappointed in you… haha XD

Tetris Plus 2 Arcade

I also recently got a PCB of Sega Tetris that I can use with my Blast City arcade ^_^

C64 Tetris

I have three different editions of the Tetris game on C64. The gameplay is the same, it looks like on the back of the big box one (it’s almost all in black and white), the screenshots on the back of the smaller one are taken from a different system. I also have the game on a floppy disk version instead of cassette :) This one is a bit more rare to find.

ZX Spectrum Tetris

I recently got the ZX Spectrum version of Tetris on cassette tape as well. The packaging looks exactly the same as the C64 version, but the graphics are quite different because of the hardware. I recently found a Spanish version of Tetris for ZX Spectrum. I’ve also bought a copy of Welltris for ZX Spectrum. Since the colors are so different on this system I can’t wait to see what it looks like compare to the Atari ST version :D

Tandy CPC Tetris

Someone on Instagram showed me that there was a version of Tetris for the Tandy CPC, I don’t even know what that is!?! But I found a complete version of Tetris for it on eBay XD So now I have a Tandy game, but nothing to play it on >_< I’m hoping I’ll eventually bump into one.. I think it’s some old type of computer..

Amiga Tetris

I’ve begun finding Tetris games on Amiga as well ^_^ So far I have three versions of Tetris, Tetris and Super Tetris that were released by Spectrum HoloByte (I love the box art on the first one :D) and one released by Infogrames. The Infogrames one I bought from an eBay seller in Australia, but I don’t think it’s an Australian copy, unless it was exported there since they are also a PAL region. Infogrames is French, and on the back of the game it has German, French and English language. I’ve never seen this box art before though. The last one is an Amiga cover disk with the game Tettrix on it! This was gifted to me from a friend :)

Atari ST Tetris

I recently got myself an Atari ST 1040, an so far I only have like 5 or 6 games for it, one of them is of course a Tetris game ^_^ This one is called Welltris and it’s like playing Tetris in a well :D Read my review of this game here >>

X68000 Tetris

I haven’t got a Sharp X68000 computer/system yet, but I’ve so far gotten two games for the system, mainly for my two most collected game series: Tetris and Castlevania. It’s annoying not being able to play them, but hopefully I’ll find a Sharp X68000 one day…

MSX Tetris

I actually have an MSX, I’m not sure wether it’s an MSX 1 or 2 though.. but I don’t have a disk drive or a tape deck for it.. so I can only play cartridge games on it so far.. unfortunately the red Tetris game is on floppy disk, the rare Korean one is however on cartridge :) It’s for the Korean version of MSX called Zemmix.

CDI Tetris

I also have a Tetris version for Philips CDi. Just bought myself a CDI last week, so I’ll be able to try it out now ^_^

Famicom Tetris

Moving on to 8-bit Tetris we have a couple for the Famicom :D The BPS Tetris is by far my favorite, mainly because of the fucked up controls XD A fun challenge, and the Technotetris soundtrack is awesome! ^_^

NES Tetris

I also have the NES versions that I’m aware of. Here my favorite is by far Tengen’s Tetris, since they have this awesome co-op mode that is incredibly fun! You either work really well together with a friend, or it’s a train wreck, or you start fighting about the score and try to work against each other XD The most recent addition is Dushlan, not an official Tetris game but a game very much “Tetris-like” by Mega Cat Studios.

Game Boy Tetris

Then there’s the handhelds! Tetris for Game Boy was a classic ^_^ But even more versions were released! I’m still missing Tetris 2 >_< But I’ll get it eventually! A recent addition is Tetris Attack which I didn’t know existed on Game Boy as well, it’s not really Tetris in my opinion, but since it’s called Tetris I’ll let it slip…

Game Boy Color Tetris

For Game Boy Color there was Tetris DX! This I accidentally bought for both PAL and JP region, usually I’m content with having the game from just one of the regions.. as long as I can play it and it’s the same game then I don’t really care for which region I have it :) I also have a version of Disney’s Magical Tetris Challenge for Game Boy Color, this game was released on many systems, like PS1 and N64 as well :)

Game Boy Advance Tetris

I also have one for Game Boy Advance :)

Pokémon Mini Tetris

Continuing on handhelds I also have Pokémon Tetris for the Pokémon Mini. Unfortunately I don’t have a Pokémon Mini console to play it on :(

Wonderswan Tetris

I found that there was a Tetris game released for Wonderswan Color as well, so of course I had to get it ^_^ It’s merely called “Tetris”

Tetris Jr.

I also have this tiny little Tetris Jr. handheld keychain ^_^

The first one is distributed by Bergsala in Sweden, I also have a second one that is still sealed, published by Squaresoft.

Super Famicom Tetris

On Super Famicom loads of various Tetris versions were released, like for example Tetris Battle Gaiden which brings RPG elements into it. In Super Tetris 3 you can play up to 4 people versus each other, I usually bring this one forth during the finals of my Retro Rumble competitions ^_^

SNES Tetris

On Super Nintendo we didn’t get as many Tetris versions. I don’t really want to add Tetris Attack to this collection, but I will, just because people always mention it when talking about Tetris on the SNES. I don’t think it’s a Tetris game though, in that case I would have to add every other puzzle game I have into this category. Tetris Attack is just Panel de Pon where they added Super Mario characters and called it Tetris because it’s a puzzle game, but it’s nothing like Tetris.

Sega Mega Drive Tetris

Nintendo was the company that acquired the license for Tetris back in the 80’s, therefore Sega was not allowed to release Tetris games, they created their Columns instead, which wasn’t as popular. They did however make a Tetris game for Sega Mega Drive, but they got sued and it got pulled out of production immediately. However a couple of copies made it out. There’s less than a handful known copies which sell for ridiculous amounts of money when they go up for sale. I do however have a bootleg/repro of this Sega Mega Drive Tetris game, just so I could play it and see what it was like for myself :) It’s a Chinese copy so it’s not very pretty, and doesn’t look like the original, but the game plays well ^_^

Sega Mark III / Gam-Boy Tetris

Another rare Tetris game that I just got, and which marks my 100th Tetris game (counting the board games ^_^) is the Korean Tetris game on Sega Master System (Sega Mark III), or Gam-Boy which it was called over in Korea :)

Nintendo 64 Tetris

Moving on to N64, there were a couple there as well.

Virtual Boy Tetris

Nintendo’s Virtual Boy didn’t get a lot of games (like maybe 15 in total), but two of them were Tetris! In North America they got 3D Tetris and in Japan they got V Tetris. The two are completely different games ^_^

Sega Saturn Tetris

Sega Saturn was popular in Japan, and so was Tetris. I guess Nintendo lost the exclusive license for Tetris by then O_o  I have a few Tetris games for Sega Saturn, not sure if I’m missing any..

Dreamcast Tetris

For Dreamcast there were quite a lot of Tetris games as well. I don’t know if I’ve found them all yet, but I have 3 different ones so far :)

Playstation Tetris

Some of the ones released for Dreamcast also came for Playstation. I have The Next Tetris on PS as well, but also a Deluxe version :D Then there’s Tetris X, both in normal and “Playstation best” edition and I also recently found out from a Facebook friend about this Japanese Tetris game called Tetris with Cardcaptor Sakura Eternal Heart XD Quite different :) I have just picked up a lot of 3 Japanese Playstation Tetris games I didn’t have, even though I had a few of them for different systems I still felt like I needed them ^_^ These were The Tetris, Tetris Plus and Magical Tetris Challenge. All three were in excellent condition and even had the spine cards ^_^

Playstation 2 Tetris

I’ve finally gotten a few Tetris games for the PS2 as well ^_^ These are Tetris Worlds, which has also been released for various other systems, Sega Ages 2500 Tetris Collection and Super Lite 2000 Tetris Kiwamemichi :) The last two are Japanese.

PS Vita Tetris

I’ve finally gotten around to getting the Tetris game for PS Vita as well. It’s Tetris Ultimate, basically the same as on the 3DS and on Xbox One (where I have it digitally).

Wii Tetris

The Wii got a Tetris game called Tetris Party Deluxe. In this one they also have a co-op mode (just like in Tengen Tetris for NES)! So much fun! Two pieces on the board simultaneously ^_^

Nintendo DS & 3DS Tetris

Then there’s Tetris on DS. I’ve now found most of the Tetris games on DS and 3DS. Do you know of any other ones I’m missing on these systems?

Xbox & Xbox 360 Tetris

Tetris Worlds and Tetris Evolution got released on multiple platforms, I choose to get them on Xbox and Xbox 360 since that’s what I’ve mainly been playing on when it comes to the newer generation consoles. I recently found out about the Arcade Tetris game called Grand Master Tetris, never tried it, but I did find that it was also released for Xbox 360 in Japan, so I got it ^_^ Unfortunately the game is region locked and I don’t have a Japanese Xbox 360 to play it on :( yet… Meanwhile I’m also on the look out for the Arcade version!!!

Xbox One Tetris

The latest release of Tetris I imported from Japan for the Xbox One. It’s Puyo Puyo Tetris! You can choose to play either pure Puyo Puyo or pure Tetris, or you can play Puyo Puyo Tetris where they have merged the two! :D It’s awesome ^_^

PC Tetris

I’m not really a PC player, I’ve always preferred a controller to mouse and keyboard. But when I stumble upon really cheap PC games with TETRIS on them I just can’t resist XD I’m gonna have to get myself an old computer with Windows ’98 so I can play them hahaha! XD Especially since I found Tetris CD III!! Look at all the different versions of Tetris that it contains!! Some of the names on the back are: 1993TRIS, FINTRIS, HEXRIS, BALLTRIS, PRYCHTRIS, TEAMTRIS, INFINITRIS and many many more! I really wish I could try these out RIGHT NOW!!!!

Tetris Consoles & Handhelds

The Master Brick 80 plus 5 is a really cool looking vintage Tetris handheld in minty condition that my friend the Toy Villain found for me :) But he also found an even cooler Tetris handheld called the Brick Boy for me! The Brick Boy has an integrated cassette tape player :D Totally rad!

Magic Cube is another Tetris-clone handheld. It has quite an interesting way of play though, and it’s quite odd looking XD

This Block Game is from Spain, I found on eBay and just thought it had a cool design :)

One of the best handheld Tetris games I’ve ever played is the newly released Arduboy Tetris Microcard. The buttons are so responsive and it has everything you want in a Tetris game, but still keeping the design clean and simple.

A friend in Hong Kong helped me score a full set of small keychain Tetris-games that were released as Gachapons in Japan. I wanted one in each colour because it was impossible to pick just one XD They’re totally adorable! The series that have a more square look is called Game Pocket Pro (ゲームポケプロ), they all came with a tiny screwdriver so you can open and exchange the battery :) The other set is called Game Box Mini and comes in 2 different color schemes, one set is transparent. These came in little gachapon balls :D

I’ve bought a couple of Tetris clone systems from China XD I just had to try them out. They supposedly had 9999 versions of Tetris in one! Hahaha! Basically what they count as various versions is if you start the game on various speed levels from 0 – 9, and then multiply that by a couple of different version and multiply it by the various amount of lines at the bottom that you can start with, then I don’t know.. maybe you reach 9999. The first time I tried it out though I managed to find a version where you were playing Tetris upside down, the block was falling from below instead of above, and as soon as you put it down the blocks at the top moved a step to the right and came out on the other side. This made it quite difficult to plan ahead XD An interesting version indeed ^_^ These were really cheap so I bought several in the hope of getting them in a couple of different colors, they ended up also being in a few different editions. Two were a bit smaller, and there’s other differences as well, like some have a super mouse logo and some have a smiley face making peace signs XD There’s even two different versions of the box. They feel extremely cheap but it’s still interesting to try out the various types of Tetris that you don’t really see in any official releases. The controls are surprisingly responsive and good :)

I have since gotten a few more Chinese clone systems in different designs, like these Wisdom Games. They are so incredibly cheap looking! I also got some more Brick games 9999 hoping to score a black game, and eventually I got it! :D

I also got a Tetris clone handheld called the POP Station value pack. It’s so cheap and barely weighs anything XD It’s supposed to look like a PSP I guess, but it only contains that same program which the Brick Game with 9999 versions of Tetris in 1 has XD I would even say that the controls and buttons feel better on the Brick Games.. I also found a mini mini version of this that came in pink and blue which also plays Tetris.

A handheld for your handheld! XD There’s now iPhone cases which you can play Tetris on! From Wanle you can get them in many different colours, looking retro like the classic Nintendo Game Boy and they’re battery driven. I had to get it of course ^_^

Tetris Game Watch by Nintendo

The best birthday gift I’ve ever gotten was this Tetris Game Watch! Still sealed in new condition :D I’m using it every day ^_^ It tells the time AND you can play Tetris on it! :D

2 years after getting this watch as a birthday gift I came across another sealed one that I couldn’t pass up, so now I have a sealed and an opened one :) In case it ever breaks I have a backup XD The new sealed one is in excellent condition! I’m just a bit worried that the battery inside might leak.. but hopefully it won’t.. They had slightly different packaging, the first one is from France, the second one from Italy.

I have also found a weird variant of the Tetris Game Watch on eBay from a New York seller. It looks a lot different than the original common Tetris Game Watch by Nelsonic. Nobody seems to know anything about this version which also has and output for earplugs. I have sent a question to the company who produced it and I’m awaiting answers. I read up a bit on the history and Nelsonic was the company who made the initial Game Watches, licensed by Nintendo, who in turn had a Tetris license from Elorg (a Russian state owned company who owned Tetris initially). Nelsonic had a company called Zeon produce the watches for the European market, so the two that I have are French and Italian and carry the Zeon brand on the back. Nelsonic was later purchased by M.Z. Berger, so this variant which reads M.Z. Berger Co. Inc. on the back must be later than the original Nelsonic Game Watches I assume. Wikipedia states that the Tetris watch was released by Nelsonic in 1990 in 4 different colours in North America, none of which looks like this one (this site shows the 4 different colours variants of the original Nelsonic Tetris Game Watch released in North America), I’ve never seen any of those colours variants show up anywhere though. Also the Zeon version in Europe wasn’t released until 1992. It reads 1990 on the back of the M.Z. Berger one. If anyone knows anything about this version please inform me :)

Plug & Play Tetris

I found this plug & play Tetris game called Arcade Legends Tetris. It has 5 Tetris games in one, one is called Garbage Tetris XD It’s basically just Tetris but starting off with a few blocks in the bottom.. The controls look really nice with a Tetris theme, but they are AWFUL! You steer left, right and down with the red square in the middle, but you ALSO turn the pieces with the same button by turning it clockwise or counter clockwise! Which means you almost ALWAYS turn a piece right before you put it down, unintentionally >_< Not a recommended purchase…

Tetris Board Games

And here’s my board games. It’s Tetris by Tomy, Jenga Tetris and a Nintendo licensed Milton Bradley Tetris! :D

Tetris Guide Books & Manuals

I don’t really collect anything other than games, I rarely buy merchandise and such since I find that I could have spent that money on games that I can play instead XD But sometimes I can’t help myself, like when I find these cool Japanese Tetris manuals and guide book :D

Miscellanious

Here’s a shitty Tetris soundtrack that I found from eBay Japan XD All the songs were kind of 90s-techno-remixed.. one was decent, the rest were quite sucky >_<

Now if you know about any Tetris video game that I don’t have yet then feel free to give me some advice on what to look for next ^_^ Meanwhile, try out some Not Tetris 2, I blogged about it some years ago and it’s still hilarious ;D

Retrospelsfestivalen 2015 – the loot!!!

This year’s retro gaming convention in Malmö (Retrospelsfestivalen) was awseome! I didn’t have much time to buy stuff though since me and my Geeky Gals spent most time hosting competitions and stuff on stage. It was a lot of fun though ^_^ And we got to meet so many cool people :D I did however get half an hour off at the end of the day where I did some speed-shopping for retro games! haha :D

So here’s what I found ^_^ Not bad for 30 minutes huh? ;D

Retrospelsfestivalen 2015 loot

I’m thrilled to have found a Neo Geo game I didn’t already have! Less thrilled to find out that it’s a fighting game (like every other game on that system >_<) instead of a platform game, like the previous Karnov games on NES for example.. but I got a fair price so I’m happy :) I have a lot of friends who enjoy fighting games, so I’ll pop it in my new cab ;D (I’ll tell you more about that in a later post..)

Karnov's Revenge - Neo Geo MVS

I was also happy to stumble upon some PC Engine games, they’re quite unheard of here in Sweden. But Japon carried a few titles ^_^ I got Gokurake Chuka Taisen on HU card :) I love the other games in this series so I hope this one will be as good, if not better ;D

Gokuraku Chuka Taisen - PC Engine

Apparently Rock n’ Roll Racing for SNES is supposed to be rad, haven’t tried it yet, but I’m looking forward to it ^_^ It’s NTSC, but now I have an NTSC SNES so I feel comfortable buying this region as well :)

Rock n' Roll Racing - Super Nintendo

I found these C64 carts that I jus thad to have, since they had such amazing artwork haha ^_^ I love how the guy on the cover of Saboteur is both jumping, kicking and shooting a gun at the same time, with such precision! hahaha :D

Hysteria & Saboteur! - C64

I also got some games for the Nokia N-Gage, a few weeks ago I bought two N-Gage systems so now I also have games for them ;D It’s Sonic and Crash Bandicoot, so hopefully they haven’t screwed that up..

From MXS I bought two handheld Game & Watch clones, one was called Hungry Elephant and the other one Sky Invaders. Unfortunately Sky Invaders didn’t have a hatch over the battery slot, and it didn’t seem to work when I held batteries in there :/ But I got them really cheap so I’m happy one of them worked :) I also bought a Tetris Jr. from Pixel, so cute! ^_^

I also found a Famicom pirate called Mechanized Attack II, I liked the cover and was curious of what was on it :) And I found a Game Boy game from Japanspel, I mainly bought this one for the ridiculous cover XD It’s called Tasmania Monogatari. Apart from this I found a cheap Sega Master System game I didn’t previously have.

I got some gifts from friends, like the Famicom matchbox from Pappas Pärlor and the mushroom and Sonic pin från Pixel K.A.F.E :) Thank you!! And I bought an amazing album that I have been listening to all week on Soundcloud from Professor Sakamoto! :D He performed at the festival and also at the after party ^_^ So talented and an amazing composer of chiptunes! At the bottom here I’ve embedded a few videos I filmed from his performances :) Go check him out!

Professor Sakamoto - Solar Soldier

Apart from all this my friend David showed up with all the ZX Spectrum games and other stuff I had bought from him earlier :) So I came home with 42 new Speccy games! (which I’m pretty sure is more than I paid for ;D) Thanks David! Apart from the Spectrum games I had bought a perfect case for storing Atari 2600 cartridges, or Famicom games :D But preferrably Atari 2600.. and a Neo Geo MVS game, Super Sidekicks 2. It’s football >_< but it was cheap :)

This year at Retrospelsfestivalen I also had a table where I sold off some doubles, I’m happy with how my table turned out ^_^ First time ever selling games!! It’s hard since I’m a hoarder by nature ;D hahaha! I set up a PC Engine with Coryoon so people could try out this awesome game ^_^ Unfortunately I didn’t sell too many of the japanese games, a lot of people don’t have the consoles for it here. Most people are into PAL NES and SNES.. :/ Also my fiancé was taking care of the table all day, and he is completely clueless when it comes to games! LOL!  I appreciate his support though, and people told me he was friendly ^_^

Here’s the videos from Professor Sakamoto’s performance at Retrospelsfestivalen 2015! Check them out! So much awesome!! :D

 

 

Game Masters & Backlist in Halmstad

This week I visited Halmstad with my buddy Becki. We went there since there’s an exhibition there called Game Masters for a few more weeks. Here they display various video game history from past to present, and they also have a bunch of games for you to try out. We had heard it wasn’t all that great, but that was mainly from friends who thought my game room had more to offer ;D haha! We still wanted to see it with out own eyes, and I also had a free ticket to go see it that I won in the Asteroids competition at the last retro gaming convention we went to :)

To my surprise there were actually A LOT  of old arcade cabinets there that you could play ^_^ I tried them all out except for three that were occupied almost all of the time, which were Donkey Kong, Pac-man and Space Invaders. I think it’s sad that people don’t dare to try something else, then again maybe they’re playing those because of the nostalgia of having played them before.. What kind of bugged me though was that the Donkey Kong cabinet was occupied during the entire time we were there and by the same 2 people which were hosts working at the exhibition.. I think it’s fine that they play when there’s no one around, but when I was in there there were at least 10-15 people in the arcade corner, they shouldn’t be occupying the most popular cabinet then since they can play it whenever o_O

It was really hard to get good pictures in the exhibition since it was pretty dark, only colorful neon lighting in various spots. It made for an extremely cosy environment though, and it looked really cool! But you will have to excuse the shitty images since my camera doesn’t have flash and I didn’t bring a tripod for it.. Anyway, here are most of the arcades that were playable!

I tried playing Tempest, but this was much harder than the console versions I’ve tried! The controls were a wheel that you had to spin to make the ship fly around the edges, and the control were extremely unresponsive! I don’t know if the arcade was faulty or if its supposed to be like that, but you had to really spin it hard for the ship to move a few steps around the side.. I prefer the console versions. Tempest 2000 for Atari Jaguar is pretty cool ^__^

I was surprised at how advanced Missile Command was! I have never seen one of these in person before, so I played it for a bit. It was really hard! You had to hit those missiles straight on the tip of the tiny thin line and you only had a limited amount of shots.. pretty cool ^__^ The controls consisted of a giant ball, it gave you quite a lot of precision but it was also very responsive which made it kind of hard to aim precise.. and you had three different buttons for the various missile launchers you had.

Game-Masters---Arcade-Missile-Command-controls

Rip Off was kind of cool, it took a while for me to figure out what the objective was cause I was pushing the wrong buttons on the machine, I was probably on player 2’s side haha ^_^ It’s kind of similar to Asteroids in the controls, but you had to shoot creatures that were stealing your triangles, STAY AWAY FROM MY TRIANGLES! LOL!

I was a bit disappointed in the graphics of Xevious, it looked JUST LIKE my Famicom version… at least how I remember it.. I guess it’s a really good port on the Famicom ;D I did make it into the highscore list on this arcade though ^_^ I like Xevious, but it’s far from the best shmup out there…

Reactor was kind of boring. You just pushed blocks with some kind of magnetic force into a wall while trying to avoid touching the wall yourself…

There was also a Tower of Druaga arcade there but it was out of order :/

I also tried out some Asteroids since that’s what got me the free ticket to the exhibition ;D This was the second time ever that I had played on an Asteroids arcade! I really love this game, and it’s extra nice on an arcade! The graphics remind me of the Vectrex, it’s so crisp! I wish I had one of these at home..

Elevator Action was better than I had expected! The graphics look so dull and I thought it was just about moving down the elevator to the bottom level avoiding enemies, but once I got down there they put me back up by the first red door, apparently you had to collect stuff as well! Woah! Advanced shit ^__^ haha!

Scramble is always good ^_^ Here I actually beat the main highscore!! YAY!!! But unfortunately you didn’t get to sign your initials, the game’s highscore on screen just changed… so nobody will know it was me :(

Game-Masters---Arcade-Robotron-gameWhat really blew my mind was Robotron 2084! This game was so much fun!!!! I played this for the longest time, the controls were smooth, it was hectic but still manageable. You’re this little guy with goggles and you have to shoot all the robots on screen, but there’s also obstacles that you have to avoid or shoot and regular people which need saving, each person gave a bunch of extra points. I’ve researched a bit and there only seems to be an old Atari 7800 port on consoles, and one for Atari Lynx, I’m trying to get a hold of the Lynx version now since I don’t have an Atari 7800 :/ There’s also a Midway collection for GBA that contains the game, and then there’s newer versions like Robotron 64 on N64 and Robotron X on PSX, these do not interest me as much though since they probably fucked up trying to make it 3D >_<

The rest of the exhibition contained a bunch of other stuff, both old and new, but mainly newer things as you walked away from the arcade corner. I spent  most of my time by the arcades while Becki checked out the rest. I did take a stroll around and looked at everything afterwards though. Everything was extremely neatly displayed :) Colorful and clean.

Becki spent  most of her time at the Blizzard corner since she’s an old WoW player ;D She also spent a lot of time with Fable and Black & White, she loves those types of games ^_^ They had most common consoles on display with some typical games in them to be played, like the NES with Super Mario Bros, Sega with Sonic games, Dreamcast with Shenmue etc.. you get the point ;D There were also a lot of PC games, even a lot of earlier ones. A whole corner dedicated to Tim Schafer, and PC’s and consoles so you could play his classics, such as Psychonauts ^_^ They had cubes where you could walk in and play Rockband, a stage for playing some Dancing game, some Outrun arcades and a big corner for indie games at the very end.

SamorostIn the indie corner I recognized two things I really enjoy, first up the Behemoth studio which made Castle Crashers and Alien Hominide ^_^ Great games! But then I was also really surprised to see Jakob Dvorsky’s Samorost on display and playable on a PC! I haven’t played this game since it came out on the web back in 2003! I used to love this game and show it to all my friends, you could play it in your browser and it was really cool! The graphics were really different for its time, the puzzle solving is a lot of fun and the animations of the characters are just adorable! I URGE EVERYONE TO TRY IT OUT RIGHT NOW! Even to just see the beginning, it’s amazingly odd! And the music is cool ^_^ Click this and play this point and click adventure naaaaoooow!! >> It’s pretty short, but he’s also made sequels to the game ^^ Samorost 2 is longer and harder and has the best soundtrack, you can only try out the first chapter for free then it costs $5 but you get the soundtrack with it if you buy it ;D And Samorost 3 is in the making :D

We got the advice to check out a store while we were in Halmstad, we were told they had a bunch of retro games for sale, among other geeky things like movies, posters, merchandise etc, it’s called Backlist. Of course we went to check it out!

Backlist-Halmstad

And they sure had some retro games!! :D

There were loads of NES games, some even boxed, but most were quite common titles so I didn’t find anything I didn’t already have. There were also quite a bunch of SNES and N64 games in decent condition. I checked out a few but no real bargains. The store is quite aware of the value of the retro games. I did however find some Sega Mega Drive games. They had both Master System and Mega Drive games, and a few systems as well. In some glass cabinets you could find some rare stuff though, like odd NES controllers, Game & Watch systems, other weird handhelds and a bunch of other stuff.

Apart from all the things on display you could see boxes of things “behind the scenes”, so I bet you could always just ask to see if they have what you’re looking for :) They were also in the middle of re-arranging the store so maybe they’ll put it all up eventually.

Backlist-Halmstad---Behind-the-scenes

There was another room upstairs filled with “not-so-retro” games ^_^ Here’ you could find anything from GBA to PS3. Loads of Xbox 360, Gamecube and PS2 games. A little bit more expensive than Game Stop’s second hand games, but they are on the other hand only selling games. Here you could find a few odder titles though, at Game Stop it’s mainly the same old games in the shelves, the ones nobody want anymore ;D The good or rare ones disappear immediately, while here there still seemed to be a good mix of different games :)

They also had a bunch of other things in the store!

I wish I would have had more time that day, then I would have gone through all the boxes with vinyl records ^_^ There were loads of music at Backlist, both CDs and LPs! And most of all there were movies! DVDs on almost every wall and in the basement! These you could get a really good deal on! But you could also find some really rare collectors edition ones that were priced accordingly. I saw this VHS with Macross “Do you remember love” which I really felt like getting, this one was in japanese, but I already have it from when I was a kid, mine is dubbed into Swedish though! Hahaha! It sounds ridiculous ^_^ But I loved that movie when I was young. They had basically all genres of movies there, both anime and korean films (which I love!).

I also saw vintage toys decorating corners here and there, and merchandise like actions figures and that one pretty cool Final Fantasy watch :) The store is well worth a visit if you’re ever in the neighborhood of Halmstad, Sweden.

Here’s what I picked up at Backlist:

Yes yes, I know.. boxing..?! You all probably know that I’m not a fan of sports games, but I recently had a friend who asked me if I had this one boxing game that he used to play on the Sega Mega Drive as a kid, and I realized I didn’t have a single 16-bit boxing game o_O So when I saw these two (I do not remember which one it was my friend asked about, maybe it was one of these) I just couldn’t pass them up ^_^ So yay (>_<) now I have boxing games too! :D Hahah!

I’ve never even seen the other game before, The Ooze. The cover looked cool, but I have no clue what the gameplay will be like. It’s hard to tell from the screenshots on the back but I will try it out soon ^_^

That’s it for the Halmstad trip, I’m sorry for the extremely long blog post! Creds to those who stuck with it to the end ;D I’ll be back soon with some NEW PC Engine games, yes brand new… ;D

Retro game pickups in Skellefteå

After visiting the GAME store and Café på Bit in Skellefteå I came home with 19 games! I’m really happy with my pickups ^_^ All decently priced!

Let’s start with what I found at GAME: shitloads of Game Boy games! :D Mainly for Game Boy Advance, but also a few for Color and one for the first Game Boy. DK King of Swing, Gradius Galaxies, Bust-A-Move Millenium and GTA 2 were all brand new and still sealed! :) I’ve already opened up two of them though.. so now they’re “used” lol..

I really enjoyed Gradius Galaxies! At first I thought it was a compilation game with all the previous ones in it, but when I realized it was its own game I was thrilled :D Just as fun as the original Gradius on the NES ^^ They kept all the good parts :)

When I was younger and didn’t have any console games I downloaded GTA 2 on my PC, had hours of fun with that game ^_^ I was glad to see a Game Boy Color port of it! Now I’m excited to revisit it :D

GBA-DK-King-of-Swing-Gradius-Galaxies-Bust-A-move-GTA-2

I also got these four games for Game Boy Advance: Batman Begins, American Dragon Jake Long (surprisingly fun!), Alex Rider Stormbreaker (like an updated version of Crackdown on the Mega Drive) and a compilation of Winnie the Pooh’s Rumbly Tumbly Adventure and Rayman 3 (Rayman is always awesome! Especially the older 2D games ^_^)

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For the Game Boy I found a really pretty copy of Double Dragon! Love the artwork! :D The gameplay was far from as good as it is on other consoles though… probably the worst port I’ve played of that game so far :/ And then I also got Blade for Game Boy Color, since it looked like a cool platforming action game :) Haven’t tried it out yet though..

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Apart from all these handheld games I also found an interesting game for the Super Nintendo, Harley’s Humongous Adventure! Never heard of it before.. it was one of the first things I tried out when I got home! And it was fun! The gameplay and controls were fluent, the sprites were pretty and it was most of all fun!

SNES-Harleys-Humongous-Adventure

The story is about a smart inventor guy that has accidentally shrunken himself and has to fight off all the bugs to regain all the parts to his machine so he can re-size himself haha ^_^ Best part is that you get to ride a TANK!! :D

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