Retro Gathering VCE – The Loot!

It has taken some time to sort, clean and photograph all of the 138 games I bought at Retro Gathering Vintage Computer Edition last weekend, but finally, here they are! :D I will go through them system by system ^_^

Retro Gathering VCE 2016 loot

Atari ST

The first thing I bought at the convention was an Atari 1040 ST, I already had one game for it back home, and it was in nice condition, and cheap, so I couldn’t refuse ^_^ I also picked up a few games for it. I have never played on an Atari ST before, so I’m looking forward to trying it out! :D If anyone has any suggestions of exclusive games for the system that are a must have, then please let me know :) So far I only have 5 games for it, the ones I found this weekend were Deathbringer, Gauntlet III, Future Dreams and Captive.

Atari Lynx

To continue on the Atari trail, I also found a few additions to my Atari Lynx collection from Spel & Sånt :D Not particularly exciting titles, but they were in pretty nice condition :) I do however enjoy the game of Shanghai, and it’s gonna be interesting to see what the Slime World port on Lynx looks like! :D

Atari 2600

I’m always on the lookout for Atari 2600 games as well, but this year there were hardly any :/ I found one guy who had like 5 cartridges, crappy games in shitty condition, but he still wanted a lot for them! I bargained a bit and bought one, just to come home with at least one 2600 game >_> I got Super-Ferrari…

Atari 2600 Super-Ferrari

Commodore 64 – 5 1/4 Floppy disk games

Moving on to Commodore, I’ve had a 5 1/4 floppy disk game for the C64 for a while, and nothing to play it on :( But this weekend I found a new in box Ocean floppy disk drive for the C64! :D It was a bit pricey.. but I really needed one since I also bought even more floppy disk games this weekend ^__^ I got the classic text-based adventures of Zork 1-3, and at the very end of the day I got a good deal on a pretty cool adventure game called Infidel. The cool thing about it is the packaging and contents! Inside are handwritten letters and maps and stuff, it’s really well made ^_^ I have a friend that I think will really enjoy trying this game out ;D Apart from that I had bought a whole moving box full of old Amiga and Commodore games from my friend Likilato beforehand and I picked it up on this weekend since he was going to Retro Gathering too :) In this package were quite a lot of C64 floppy disk games as well ^_^ Some games that I’m quite happy with are T2 Terminator Judgement Day, Robocop, Space Harrier II and Weird Dreams, they all look pretty cool ^_^ Then there were also a few less fun games, I’m not quite sure what Operation Market Garden is, but it doesn’t sound fun, and the last three: Europe Ablaze, Russia The Great War in the East and Halls of Montezuma I’m pretty sure are some kind of edutainment games for learning history >_<

Commodore 64 – Cassette games

I found a few cassette games for the C64 as well. I got Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker from Japon, and Slap Fight for the ZX Spectrum. Pontus from Japon also tried to sell Last Ninja 2 to me, fortunately I didn’t buy it!! Because inside the big cardboard box of things I had bought from Likilato earlier contained not one but TWO copies of that exact game XD I had bought the package weeks before and didn’t remember everything that was in it.. but I’m just happy I’m not possessing three copies right now at least ;D The other C64 cassette games from Likilato were Last Ninja 3, Superman the Game, Ghostbusters II, Mr. Heli, Platoon, Speedball, Silent Service, Starglider and The Hunt for Red October.

Commodore VIC 20

Going back in time a bit we have the Commodore VIC 20, I got one of these last year and I’m still trying to expand my library of games for the system. I found a few VIC 20 cassettes on Retro Gathering this time on Mikael Holm’s table (he always has the coolest stuff!) ^_^ I know there’s two copies of Panic for VIC 20, but I couldn’t choose which one to go for, since they are DIFFERENT! It’s weird, since they are released by the same company, but one has a black spine, and the cassettes inside are different colors as well! O_o These were all dirt cheap though so I just picked them all up :) Except the two games called Vicolumn and Blue Star, these two were new releases for the system and cost a bit more, but it’s always interesting to see what people develop now for these old systems! Doodle Bug, Space Scramble, Cosmiads and Alpha Blaster all sound cool!

Sinclair ZX Spectrum, ZX81

Before moving on to consoles we have pickups from yet another old computer ^_^ I bought a few games for the ZX Spectrum, Pssst, Jet Pac and Cookie had such cool matching covers! Had to get them :) Then I also got Jet Pac with a different cover and 3D Starstrike, Split personalities, Pedro, Ghosts n’ Goblins and a program that came with the system called Horizons. I also found a Sinzlair ZX Interface 2 so I can play cartridge games on my 48k :D Now I just need to find some cartridge games >_> I also bought a ZX81 :D I’ve only known about this one for a little while, when I was looking for 3D Monster Maze and found out that it only came out on the ZX81. Now I have one! So now I just need to find 3D Monster Maze again >_< I missed out on the one eBay auction I’ve ever seen… >_<

Nintendo NES (+ Game & Watch and FDS)

I bought some NTSC NES games from Gaminggrannar and from some other sellers. I also got a Game & Watch Lifeboat from Söders Spel & Skivhandel and a random Famicom Disk System game with cats from Sven666 and another FDS game from my friend MXS :)

Sega Mega Drive

From my friend Karl I got a good deal and bought the sought after Japanese Sega Mega Drive shmup V-V (V five), I also got to buy most of his other Japanese Mega Drive titles since he wanted to get rid of them, it was mostly RPGs or strategy games, but I got such a good price that I couldn’t pass them up ^_^ I also found some PAL Mega Drive titles from other sellers, mainly sports games XD which I don’t particularly enjoy, but they were cheap! And some day me and Becki will have to have another Golf tournament ;D

Sega Master System

I also got a lot of Sega Master System games from various sellers. Mainly sports here as well, but I didn’t have them, and they were cheap ^_^

Sega Saturn & Playstation 2

Japon also managed to convince to bring home these two huge boxed Sega Saturn Arcade Racer controllers XD One PAL and one Japanese.. they told me that the controller was region free, so I sure hope they will both work with one console ;D In that case I might have another game to use in the next Retro Rumble competition for the finals ;D I also got two PS2 games with Megaman at a fair price from Anders :) They’re sealed.. but I might open them so I can play them!! ^_^

Amiga 500 / 1200

Now onto the biggest category of the day… Amiga! The big lot of games I had bought from Likilato contained A LOT of Amiga games :) I was happy to find Banshee in there, since MXS had recently told me it was a good game, it’s for the 1200 though so I have to find a place to plug that system in as well.. They’re so big and space-consuming! Loom has a beautiful cover, and I’ve seen it before, not quite sure what kind of game it is though, but I will find out :) There were a lot of other games that looked cool like Harlequin, Codename Hellfire, Wonderland, Super Stardust, Galdregons Domain etc. It’s gonna be fun to try them all out :D I wonder what kind of game Leather Goddesses of Phobos will turn out to be XD

That was all the loot for this time, now I have some gaming to do ^____^

Retro Gathering 2015!

This weekend I visited Retro Gathering in Västerås (Sweden), I was there for the first time last year, but this convention has been running yearly since 2006! I came home with quite a lot of loot last year, and this year wasn’t far behind ^_^

I bought 62 games, and traded another 400+ games with friends! So I came home with lots of games.. most of the traded ones were newer games though so I’ll just cover my retro acquisitions on here ;D First up is the Philips Videopac Computer G7000 with 8 games that I traded with Anton for a bunch of Famicom doubles I brought for him :) I also found one Videopac game at the convention, this one was a newly made homebrew game for the system, the packaging was just splendid though, fits right in with the originals ^_^ Can you spot which one it is? ;D

Another system that I bought at the convention was an Arcadia 2001, or at least one of it’s clones. Never heard of this one before, but it didn’t last very long, it was discontinued after only 18 months. The reason I bought it was that it came with almost all the games released for the system! :D The games come in paper boxes, which were surprisingly well kept! Inside there’s a manual and overlays for the controllers and the game cartridge is latched in a whole in the box. This is extremely frustrating since the cartridge tends to move around underneath the opening so it’s hard to get it out of there without ripping the paper around it >_< This makes me even more surprised though that the previous owners haven’t already torn the boxes apart! XD

BTW I think it’s hilarious when companies back in the day lacked the licenses for certain popular titles and had to come up with “alternative” names for clones ;D Nibblemen!!! Hahaha!

I also got my second Sinclair ZX Spectrum that I had bought previously, but got delivered on the convention ^_^ The 48k model is so cute!!!!!!!! :D

Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K

There were more japanese games popping up at this convention than what I have seen before in recent years here in Sweden. I think it’s nice that people are becoming aware of all the amazing things you can find from over there ^_^ Unfortunately when demand rises the prices also go up >_< There were no Famicom games that I didn’t already have though, but I did find 5 Super Famicom games and a Famicom pirate that was just cheap :)

Super Famicom games

Famicom pirate

It’s always nice to pick up some C64 games as well, they are usually pretty cheap and the artworks on these old cassettes are just amazing! :D I always buy games that look fun, have a funny title or just incredible or funny artwork ^_^

I also found some Atari 2600 games, two turned out to be unopened and I’m torn whether to break them open or not >_< I wanna play them!!

Atari 2600 games

Apart from all this I found a few other titles for various systems, like Batman Forever on Sega Mega Drive, Wolfenstein 3D for the Atari Jaguar and two Amiga 500 games, Pinkie and Capone ^_^ These last two looked like fun games when looking at the screenshots on the back :) Unfortunately my Amiga 500 has gotten a green screen so I can’t try them out right now :/ Have to get it fixed or find a new one first…

This year on Retro Gathering there were even more sellers than last year and loads of old systems setup to play ^_^ They held competitions in Super Bomberman 2 for the SNES, Super Skidmarks on the Amiga and Car Race ][ for Commodore PET. This last one in honor of the late CEO of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, who programmed that game back in the day. They also hosted the annual Swedish Championships of Pong, and I participated this year as well! I made it one step further than last year, so just a few more years and I might win! ;D hahaha or not.. I’ve began searching for an Atari Pong console so I can do some serious practicing though ^_^ They’re unfortunately hard to come by :/

This is one of my favorite retro gaming conventions in Sweden, the atmosphere is just so friendly and you can find so much more than just Nintendo and Sega stuff! ^_^ It’s just a shame it’s so far away from where I live :/ I will still come back next year though ;D

For more pictures from Retro Gathering, check out Geeky Gals :)

One week to RSM 2015!!

I’m so excited!! RSM (Retrospelsmässan) is one of Sweden’s largest retro gaming conventions, been running for 6 years now :D I’ve been there every year (except for once when I lived in Japan..). If you wanna see what it’s all about you can check out my posts from RSM 2014 and RSM 2013 here :)

This year I’m having two of my Geeky Gals coming with me :D It’s gonna be so much fun to meet up with people and this year I’m also planning on competing! They’re hosting competitions in Super Mario Bros on NES, Bomberman on Sega Saturn and Asteroids on arcade! I unfortunately only have Asteroids on Atari 2600 o_O Do you think my practice on that will suffice? ;D hahaha

Atari-2600-Asteroids

Super Mario Bros on the NES won’t be an issue, however I bet I will screw up in the competition ;D I can run through it usually on one life, but sometimes I get stuck on that stupid 8-3 stage >_< If those stupid hammer bros are in the wrong spot >_<

SMB-1-NES

Last issue is that I don’t have Bomberman on Sega Saturn… I’ve been meaning to pick those Saturn ones up as well, but I haven’t yet >_< I have loads of other Bomberman games though! Here are a few of them:

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Bomberman-games-Famicom-and-Super-FamicomBomberman-games-PC-Engine

I also have Bomberman (the first one) on PC Engine as well, just couldn’t find it right now.. Does anyone know which one of these are most similar to the Saturn version in gameplay? ^__^ And please don’t tell me it’s Super Bomberman 3, since that’s the only one I’m lacking in the series ;D hahaha

Anyway wish me luck! I will start practicing now ^_^ And after next weekend you will get to see all my pickups and all the other awesomeness from RSM 2015! :D

May the 4th be with you – Star Wars retro games

In celebration of May the 4th (Star Wars day!) I thought I’d share some of my beloved Star Wars retro games! ^__^

First up is the weirdest Star Wars game I have, Star Wars on Famicom:

Star-Wars-Famicom

This is a really interesting game! I think it’s a fun platformer, but it gets very challenging after a while. It’s got some really weird things in it, like Darth Vader magically transforming into a scorpion or crab-like creature or Luke Skywalker having black hair in game but yellow in the cutscenes haha ^^ It’s definitely an interesting game though that I urge any Star Wars fan or 8-bit platforming action game fan to try out! It’s also a great addition to any collection with it’s sparkly silver cartridge :D So pretty ^__^

Star-Wars-Famicom-cart

Next up is the Super Star Wars thrilogy on Super Famicom:

Super-Star-Wars-SNES

Super-Star-Wars-The-Empire-Strikes-Back-SNES

Super-Star-Wars-Return-of-the-Jedi-SNES

These three are amazingly well done and really fun ^_^ Sometimes a bit challenging, for example, I got stuck on the Empire Strikes Back and couldn’t get past one of the later levels because there was a jump that was nearly impossible to make! Otherwise they’re well rounded and stay fairly true to the movies :) I also have the first one on Super Famicom, I have been considering getting the other two as well, but it’s not really necessary since I already have the games ;D I do enjoy the Super Famicom artwork a bit more though…

Super-Star-Wars-SFC-JP

Next up are some Nintendo 64 games with Star Wars. These I haven’t played a lot, basically just started them to make sure they worked. I’m not really a fan of the N64 :/

Star-Wars-N64

One Star Wars game I have that I haven’t even been able to play is the Star Wars Arcade for the Sega 32X. I don’t have the 32X expansion for my Sega Mega Drive yet :( The artwork looks amazing though!

Star-Wars-Arcade-32X

I also have Star Wars games for several other platforms, but I chose to picture the ones that are nice and complete ^_^ There is another one that I find really charming though, The Empire Strikes Back for Atari 2600 :D So I pictures it here with my awesome Darth Vader lunchbox! :D

Star-Wars-Atari

I hope you have enjoyed some retro gaming Star Wars love! On our Geeky Gals instagram account we’ve also shared loads of various geeky pictures related to Star Wars today! Go check it out here >>

May the Fourth be with you!! ^____^

Retro Rumble 2014!

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

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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:
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And then also Combat for Atari 2600! :D
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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 ^_^

DAVE was no.1 in the competition ^_^

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

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

And here's the A-team!! :D

And here’s the A-team!! :D

retro rumble quiz
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?
mystery

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

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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!
Utsurun desu. Ka wa uso hawai e iku_

Here’s what the chubby-legged guy in a beaver suit looks like when he’s jumping:
utsurun 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
utsurun1Utsurun desu Utsurun dancing Utsurun desu

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!

Package in the mail today! Atari, Sega, PC Engine & Atomic Robo-kid!

Today I got two packages in the mail. It was a treat since I had totally forgot what it was that I had bought ^_^ (Yes my memory is sometimes like the one of a goldfish >_<) Anyway, the first package came in a padded envelope, inside was this really convenient box for the size of a CD case! (Yes, small details and things like this amazes me…)

And in the package was also what looked like a 10.000 ¥en bill?!

But this turned out to be a printed thank-you-for-buying-note! Really clever ^_^ Thank you Game Sensei! It was a true pleasure doing business with you :D And below you can see that the game I had bought was Atomic Robo-kid for PC Engine!

So I tried this game out tonight, and it was a blast!! A great horizontal shooter, with this cute Atomic Robo-kid sprite and cool powerups! It was really fast and fun!

Below follows a montage with screenshots and gifs I made from gameplay footage ^_^ All images are clickable to view larger :)

I got to the second boss, but then I got a Game Over after having used up all my continues >.< It was quite hard, but I will try to give it another go soon ^_^ In the second package I got two Sega games, Gangster Town for Sega Master System and Slime World for Sega Mega Drive. I’ve been looking for Slime World since I saw that TheSegaDude had gotten it ;D And I finally found a decent japanese copy of the game. Can’t wait to try it out! :D

I love the boxart for Slime World!! I have no idea what Gangster Town is.. it was dirt cheap! so I bought it…

Two other games were hiding in the second package! Star Wars Jedi Arena and Millipede for Atari 2600! Millipede also had a manual, something I was not even aware of when I bought it on Ebay ^_^ It’s huuuuge compared to the actual game haha! :D

The Millipede manual actual contains some hints to this incredibly frustrating game ;D It says:
Make sure you keep your eye on the millipede while you’re getting rid of the other pests. The millipede can sneak up on you if you’re not careful (NO SHIT!) so keep it under control.
… Each insect has its own unique sound so listen closely and you can anticipate what will be coming next! 
(I actually did not know that! Did you?)