Retrospelsmässan 2014 (Sweden’s retro gaming exhibition)

May 4, 2014 by stopXwhispering

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

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

The last 1/5 part of the queuing

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

It’s a me! Mario!

Street Fighter and Kingdom Hearts cosplay

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

Zelda & Link cosplay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sega Mega Jet!

October 29, 2013 by stopXwhispering

Since it’s the 25th anniversary for the release of Sega Mega Drive in Japan today (29th of October 1988) I thought I would make a post about one of the variations of the Sega Mega Drive that’s a little bit less known, namely the Sega Mega Jet! Which I have just recently acquired ^_^

The Sega Mega Jet was only released in Japan and it’s basically a semi-portable Mega Drive. It’s small enough to bring along and works as a controller, but it also requires an AC adaptor and an external screen to work, so it’s not really that portable like the pictures on the back suggest:

He forgot to put the big fat AC adaptor and the other cords in
his purple man-purse!

Oh yeah, and if you’re friend is gonna play with you don’t forget to bring an extra controller with your portable console!

Later you can just store it with your diary in the drawer, unless you can’t fit your diary there because of the fat AC adaptor!!

Yeah.. well looking at the back of the box explains it all:

But I’m still happy to have one ^___^

The Sega Mega Jet was originally used for in-flight entertainment on Japanese Airlines. Later a consumer version was released in Japan as well, in 1994. The Mega Jet began the technology behind the Sega Nomad, which was only released in North America.

I found a fun fact on the Sega Wiki: The July 2006 issue (issue 27) of the British publication Retro Gamer stated that the majority of Mega Jets that are owned by private collectors come from an initial shipment hijacked by Indonesian sea-pirates. However, as no supporting information is available, this statement could potentially be an urban myth.

How cool wouldn’t it be if the one I have in my possession was stolen by sea-pirates?! :D I wish to believe it was so ^___^

Old Sega Mega Drive and Atari ads!

August 4, 2013 by stopXwhispering

Today I went to a flea market where I sometimes go on Sundays. This place is mainly filled with antiques, porcelain, books and interior decorations. I’ve never seen any games or electronics there, it’s more vintage stuff, but I like that too ^_^ However today I found something gaming related! I saw a stand filled with old comic books from the early 90’s, like the Phantom and Modesty Blaise (which in Swedish is Agent X9) and I thought of my friend Gabriella who likes Modesty ^_^ I picked one up and saw an old ad for Sega on the back!I thought this was so cool that I had to go through the backs of every magazine they had to see if there were more! And there was!!! I ended up buying 10 magazines with gaming ads on the back and I thought I would share them here. Even if they are in Swedish I hope you all can enjoy it, I will translate the ridiculous slogans they had ;D

First of all here are the magazines I bought, Modesty Blaise sure does look cool ^_^

Sonic says: I hate all environmental criminals!

“I hate all environmental criminals!” Sonic promoting Global gladiators..

“He is almost as cool as I am” Sonic promoting Cool Spot

"Cooooooool summer games"... they almost got it right, if they would have removed the Tournament Golf >_<

“Cooooooool summer games”... they almost got it right, I don’t care much for the Tournament Golf >_<

"Flipper, the ocean is not big enough for both of you".. yeah... cause Flipper the dolphin was a big thing back then too ^^

“Flipper, the ocean is not big enough for the both of you”.. yeah, I get it… cause Flipper the dolphin was a big thing back then too ^^

“LYNX – a new portable computer-game in color!” and in the key selling points they are listing: pause button, power adaptor and built in joypad.. isn’t that kind of … obvious things??

“No other 16-bit video game has as many… 80 strong games.” 4 new games per month! wow.. that’s a bit less.. than today ;D

"The worlds fastest video game characters is returning in a neck-breaking game for Mega Drive - SONIC 2!" I really hope the kids didn't actually break their necks...

“The worlds fastest video game character is returning in a neck-breaking game for Mega Drive – SONIC 2!!” I really hope the kids didn’t actually break their necks though…

“Now there’s over 100 16-bit games for the Mega Drive! No other system has more!”

“This is where the adventure starts”

Video tour of my Game Room!

August 4, 2013 by stopXwhispering

So I made a video… it’s a bit awkward and I couldn’t get the freaking formats to line up the way I wanted them too >_< and the lighting in my room is very … red!! But still, I hope you’ll enjoy it!! ^_^

More Bday gift games ^_^ Aleste, Rock N’ Bolt, Kid Icarus, Gun.Smoke etc

June 19, 2013 by stopXwhispering

Here’s a few other games I got for my birthday ^_^

Some Famicom Disk System games, most were complete with manual as well, Kid Icarus, Gall Force, Gun.Smoke and Zanac :) I have a copy of Kid Icarus for the NES, however that one doesn’t always work so I’m really happy for this Disk System one :) I also already had Gun.Smoke for the NES, but it’s a great game and it’s always interesting to see if there are any differences between the disk and the cart version ^_^

Then there were two japanese Sega Master System games, Aleste and Rock N’ Bolt. I’m excited to try these out! Rock N’ Bolt I’ve never heard of before ^_^

Also Columns for japanese Sega Mega Drive:

And a few Famicom games I didn’t previously have: The Blue Marlin, Musashi no Bouken, Jackie Chan, The Lord of King and Great Deal.

And last but not least a bunch of PC Engine games that I didn’t have :D I will upload these to the PC Engine library soon ^_^

Sega Sunday #1 – Shiten Myooh

March 17, 2013 by stopXwhispering

Sega Sunday has a nice ring to it! I will try to post something Sega related on sundays hereafter ^_^ Just based on the amount of Sega games I own I would be able to make a new Sega Sunday for 7,5 years!! :D haha

The Sega game I will cover today was released in Japan and it’s called Shiten Myooh! I bought it only because of the name, it made me giggle ^^ It turned out to be a pretty cool game though!

Shiten Myooh is a Sega Mega Drive game, and it’s got some pretty cool artwork!

I was so happy when I tried it and found out it was an action platformer where you can play co-op with a friend! :D There’s 4 characters to choose from, if you’re playing solo these 4 characters basically mean you have 4 lives before you’re game over. However if your playing 2 players you only have 2 lives each since there’s still only 4 characters to choose from.

If a characters dies you won’t be able to use them again:

Here are the character profiles (in japanese), scanned from the manual:

There’s 6 main stages, and before each stage you can choose which character you wanna play, they all have different abilities and special powers that can be useful in various situations, so there is probably strategic choices you can make depending on the stage.

During the stages you can pick up powerups. Not until at the very end we realized that depending on the color of the item it belonged to certain characters, and picking them up with the wrong character would just make it disappear. We also figured out that you can change characters during the stages to enable you to pick up the right powerup.

After each stage there’s a boss, some where really difficult, even on the first couple of stages! It was easier when you were 2 players, but if one died and had no characters left you were left alone to finish it. You have unlimited with continues though, so as long as you beat a boss that stage would be cleared.

So I tried this out with my friend Annett first, and we almost beat the game (so we thought)! We just couldn’t get past the forest stage that required simultaneous precision jumping, if one fell both would fail.. However I tried the game a few weeks later with my friend NinjaBrite and we managed to beat that damn Forest stage! That’s when we found out there was also a 7th stage.. and an 8th stage.. and a final boss! Here’s a scan of the manual showing the final stages:

Now after beating the 8th stage we thought we had beat the game since there was this awfully long cutscene, looking like some dude thanking us for our effort. And also after beating the first 6 stages there’s no indication of what’s to come…

The text was all in japanese so we didn’t quite know what was going on, but I started filming the ending, still holding the controller, and BAM! There’s a final boss fight!