Retro Games convention in Stockholm!

November 1, 2016 by stopXwhispering

This weekend in Stockholm was really awesome and totally surpassed my already high expectations :D After attending a book release and having an awesome after party at an arcade on Friday I spent Saturday at a retro game convention called simply Retro Games :) This is the third year in a row that Retro Games is being held, and I’ve missed it the previous years due to so many other conventions taking place this time of year here in Sweden. Also Stockholm is kind of far away for me.. but this time I was determined to check it out, and boy am I glad I did! :D

I was there already when they started setting up, so I could get some nice pictures of all the arcades. I’ve heard that the Retro Games convention is more focused on gaming than the buying or selling of retro games, and this was kind of true. The venue was smaller than a lot of the other retro game conventions, but the ratio of sellers contra arcades were different here. THERE WERE SO MANY ARCADE MACHINES! In the main room with the vendors there were 7 various candy cabs, both newer and older ones, containing great shmups set to free play ^_^ I just think these Japanese cabinets are so beautiful <3 Sorry for the picture spamming below, but DAMN they’re just all so pretty! XD

Atomiswave arcade green buttons

100 Yen

START

Bullet hell shmup on arcade

Arcade candy cabs

New Astro City arcade

Sega New Net City joystick

Shmups on arcade

Orange arcade joystick

Bullet hell shmup on arcade

Astro City 2 arcade

New Astro City arcade

Atomiswave arcade green joystick

Sega New Net City

Bullet hell shmup on arcade

Atomiswave arcade cabinet

Green arcade buttons and joystick

Black arcade joystick

Japanese arcade cabinets

Japanese shmup on Atomiswave arcade

Black arcade joystick

Japanese shmup on New Net City arcade

Yellow arcade joystick

Sammy Atomiswave arcade

Shmup on New Astro City arcade

Black arcade panel

playing shmups

Then there were even more arcades in the other room! Old classics such as Space Invaders, Defender, Tempest, Pole Position, Centipede, Missile Command, Asteroids, Robotron 2084 and also a few that I wasn’t as familiar with like Battlezone, Space Firebird and Space Duel. Missile Command is really hard in my opinion.. but I really enjoy Tempest, Asteroids and Robotron 2084! Also Battlzone was really interesting with different controls ^_^

Vintage arcades

Battlezone arcade cabinet

Centipede arcade cabinet

Robotron 2084 arcade cabinet

Tempest arcade cabinet

Space Invaders arcade cabinet

Asteroids arcade cabinet

Defender arcade cabinet

Pole Position arcade cabinet

Missile Command arcade cabinet

Space Firebird arcade cabinet

Space Duel arcade cabinet

Vintage arcade cabinets

There were of course still a lot of great sellers there to show off some awesome goods! This time I took the train up to Stockholm though so I had to restrict myself from buying the whole place XD I didn’t buy more than I could carry ^_^ But I had so much fun talking to friends that were there and meeting internet acquaintances and new people as well! I barely had time to browse through everything that was being sold XD

Mixed games

Talking SMD

Sven666 selling some really good games!

Super Famicom games

R-Type 3 SNES VS SFC

Ghoul Patrol on SNES!

Anders and Michaels old school table

Atari 400

Amiga games

Atari 130XE

ZX Spectrum games

Horrible CDi games XD

So many games!

Arcade joysticks

Kristin finding l00t

Anders selling vintage games

NES games

Arcade parts

Saturn and Playstation games

Svensk Videospelsutveckling (Swedish game development)

Martin selling his book with Thomas

Athletic World and Earth Bound repros

Boxed NES

stuff

Buttons

Browsing

Flashback and modded Gameboy

Cassettes

Cyberbots Saturn

Game & Watch Donkey Kong Hockey

Hats

Motaro selling loads of retro games

MSX games

Neo Geo games

Söders Spel & Skivhandel

Neo Geo MVS 120 in 1

NES and arcade stick

Part and pieces

Anton showing off a Perfect Dark Soundtrack on vinyl

Perfect Dark Soundtrack vinyl

Retro Games has three years in a row held the Swedish Championships of Pac-Man at the convention. I’ve never played Pac-Man on arcade but thought I might as well try it out. I actually managed to get the 6th highest score and made it to the take-outs! :D Then I lost XD

Pac-Man arcade cabinets

Pac-Man

Pac-Man Swedish Championships

Pac-Man arcade cabinet

Pac-Man Swedish Championships

Blomman hosting the convention

Awesome gaming tattoo on Pac-Man contestant ^_^

Barklund knowing all the tricks in Pac-Man SM

Ghost and Pac-man

Pac-Man arcade cabinet

Pac-Man Swedish Championships

Pac-Man arcade cabinet

Pac-Man Swedish Championships

Pac-Man on arcade

Pac-Man Swedish Championships

Such pretty, such heavy XD

Pac-Man and the champion lurking behind it

Retro Games is definitely not the biggest retro gaming convention in Sweden, but it has a nice mix of both playing retro games and buying them, and also of course a really nice lineup of people attending it! :D I will definitely try to go back next year ^_^

Sven666 at Retro Games convention Stockholm

Retro Games convention Stockholm

Stepping up my Sega game! Alien Soldier and more! :D

January 3, 2016 by stopXwhispering

I’ve had a lot of focus on Japanese games and systems lately, mainly Famicom, Super Famicom and PC Engine. This means I haven’t bought as much for Sega Mega Drive or Master System, except for the occasional Japanese Mega Drive title, but not to long ago my friend likilato started selling some retro games, and not just any retro games, basically some of the more sought after expensive titles out there that you don’t see every day! And I of course couldn’t refuse buying everything I didn’t already have more or less >_< So here goes, this is what I picked up for the Sega Mega Drive and the Sega Master System:

Alien Soldier – Sega Mega Drive

The Adventures of Batman & Robin – Sega Mega Drive

SeaQuest DSV- Sega Mega Drive

Wonder Boy in Monster World – Sega Mega Drive

Darius II – Sega Mega Drive

Mega Turrican – Sega Mega Drive

Wolverine Adamantium Rage – Sega Mega Drive

Addams Family Values – Sega Mega Drive

Justice League Task Force – Sega Mega Drive

Master of Weapon – Sega Mega Drive

Steel Empire – Sega Mega Drive

Task Force Harrier EX – Sega Mega Drive

Aero the Acro-bat – Sega Mega Drive

Aero the Acro-bat 2 – Sega Mega Drive

Slap Fight – Sega Mega Drive

Let’s start with all the Sega Mega Drive games that I’ve tried out:

Alien Soldier – this is a sidescrolling action platform game which is brilliant! I started by checking the options, and you had two choices, Super Easy or Super Hard! Hahaha! Both settings are quite difficult though.. The controls are super fluent, and I’m definitely gonna spend some more time with this game to see how far I can get :)

The Adventures of Batman & Robin – This game didn’t work at first, I had to buy one of those screwdrivers for Sega cartridges and once I opened it up and cleaned it some more I finally got it working properly :D It looks amazing, the music is cool and the gameplay is fun, until it gets repetitive.. The stages are really long and you’re just sidescrolling through the same scenery over and over again with the same enemies in slightly different numbers from various directions.. It’s still fun for a while though, but it’s gonna take patience and time to beat..

Slap Fight – This was one of the more expensive titles, and it’s from Japan. It looks like a pumped up version of Xevious o_O It’s a vertical shmup, catchy soundtrack, powerups and stuff you’d expect from a 16-bit shmup. Don’t know why it’s so expensive though, maybe because it’s rare?

Wonder Boy in Monster World – This Monster Boy game is extremely inferior to other titles in the series, boring and sooo slooooow… o_O Of course the graphics are cute and colorful, but that doesn’t matter if the gameplay is boring.. IMO

Darius II – A fun horizontal shmup with loads of power ups and you get to pick which way you want to go through the stages, I think it makes it less repetitive when you can have different outcomes each time you advance if you pick different routes :) This is also a Japanese release.

Mega Turrican – When I first encountered the Turrican games it was Super Turrican on the NES, and this game blew my mind! Then I bought the Turrican game for Mega Drive which sucked in comparison :( This one however was definitely better, much nicer graphics, faster movement, smoother controls, better music, but the 8-bit Super Turrican game is still my favorite ;)

Wolverine Adamantium Rage – This is a sidescrolling action game that looked stunning at first sight, the graphics are really rad, but the controls are so stiff it’s just a pain in the ass to steer wolverine around >_>

Addams Family Values – In this game you play as Fester and it’s a top down adventure game. Not my type of game and I got stuck pretty early on in the game :/

Justice League Task Force – This is a fighting game with all the Justice League characters. I played a bit of the campaign, I played as Batman ^_^ It was fun for a while, but I’m not that into fighting games either, so I can’t really tell if it’s a good one or not. The graphics were ok though :)

Master of Weapon – Another Japanese vertical shmup, fast paced and pretty cool :) It’s got a field of depth and you can drop bombs on stuff below.

Steel Empire – This is a sidescrolling horizontal shmup from Japan, the setting feels a bit steampunk :) The soundtrack is good and the controls are nice. You can shoot both in front of you or behind you. A well made game ^_^

Task Force Harrier EX – Also a vertical shmup from Japan, detailed graphics and futuristic setting. It’s very very grey in the beginning, but gets more colours later on.

Aero the Acrobat 1 & 2 – These two are sidescrolling platform games. Cute graphics and you’re an acrobatic bat.. I thought they were pretty mediocre compared to all the awesome platform games out there with cooler characters.. Like Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel, Marsipulami, Earthworm Jim, Ristar, Sonic, James Pond, Battletoads, Mr. Nutz, Rocket Knight, Toki just to name a few!! ;D

SeaQuest DSV – This game was awful! Haha ^_^ You play as some sort of futuristic submarine that’s supposed to take out other ships under the sea, and the controls are just awful…

Alf – Sega Master System

Asterix & The Great Rescue – Sega Master System

Power Strike II – Sega Master System

James Buster Douglas Knockout Boxing – Sega Master System

Streets of Rage II – Sega Master System

T2 Terminator 2 Judgement Day – Sega Master System

Wonderboy in Monster Land – Sega Master System

Out Run 3-D – Sega Master System

Home Alone – Sega Master System

Cheese Cat-Astrophe – Sega Master System

Championship Hockey – Sega Master System

Buggy Run – Sega Master System

Alf – I’ve been searching for this game for quite some time, mainly because of the cool cover, and because I used to love the show when I was younger :) Playing the game wasn’t as fun as I had expected though :/

Asterix & The Great Rescue – This was a fun sidescrolling platformer, much like the other Asterix games, felt a bit more polished than the first Asterix game on Master System though :)

Power Strike II – Vertical shmup with really awesome soundtrack and a cool back story ^_^ You can select various weapons at the start which is quite unusual for 8-bit shmups. It’s fast paced, colourful and has nice graphics!

James Buster Douglas Knockout Boxing – It’s a boxing game.. I bought it because I didn’t have it, and apparently it’s rarely seen for the Master System.. Quite detailed for an 8-bit boxing game, but I didn’t play it for long.

Streets of Rage II – A lesser version of the Streets of Rage II for Sega Mega Drive. This series really does shine in 16-bit, not as much in 8-bits unfortunately :/ Still a decent game though.

T2 Terminator 2 Judgement Day – A sidescrolling action game. I think you’re supposed to be the Terminator, but you don’t really look like him. I think AVGN made a review of this game a while back, together with all the other Terminator games. Decent, but repetitive.

Wonder Boy in Monster World – This Wonder Boy title however is much more fast paced than the Mega Drive game I bought, and more of a challenge. It’s a really fun platforming adventure game :)

Out Run 3-D – This is the second 3D game I got for the Master System, this forced me to invest in a pair of those Sega Master System 3D glasses because trying to play the game without them makes you think you’re having an epileptic attack or that the game is suffering from Parkinsons >_<

Home Alone – I couldn’t make it past the first screen XD It’s some sort of re-enactment of the movie, but I didn’t know what to do or where to go.. sucky!!

Cheese Cat-Astrophe – This game kept me entertained for a while, it’s a sidescrolling platform game starring the Looney Toons character Speedy Gonzales. He’s definitely speedy, not Sonic-speedy but speedy none the less, you easily run past and miss the objective XD The graphics are a bit dull though. A lot of brown and yellow and not very detailed backgrounds, just a lot of repetitive single coloured areas.

Championship Hockey – It’s hockey, and I hate sports.. This was also an unusual one though, so I bought it.. Hoping that my fiancée would enjoy it, but he hasn’t tried it yet.. :(

Buggy Run – A top-view racing game that kind of reminds me of micro machines. It was okay, but I’d much rather play RC Pro AM which is way more fluent ;D

That was all the Sega games I bought from likilato, he was kind enough to throw in a few extras! ^_^ I got 9 cassette games for Commodore 64. These were Vigilante, Star Paws, Slap Fight (which I bought for Mega Drive, haven’t had time to compare them yet though), Sky Runner, Silent Service, Hunchback II Quasimodo’s Revenge, Karnov, Bionic Commando and Vengeance. Star Paws looked completely awesome and is such a fun pun on Star Wars! XD It was not as fun playing as I had hoped though, you’re basically just a dog running around on a planet in space chasing birds.. I love the cover art for Karnov and Vengeance as well, they look badass! :D

I also got 2 Amiga 500 games, Ivanhoe and Keef the Thief. Ghouls’n’Ghosts was for another system that I don’t have.. don’t remember which one right now, and Tangled Tales was for the C64 floppy disks, and I don’t have a disk reader for my Commodore 64.. yet ;D

Big thanks to Likilato for this deal! I just bought another 60+ games from him for another system ;D

Hypernova Blast & Meteor Blaster DX for PC Engine

September 1, 2015 by stopXwhispering

Nathan over at Mindrec was kind enough to send me some of their latest games! I am always thrilled to see new games being developed for old systems. It keeps them alive and kicking ^_^

I got this awesome package with both Hypernova Blast and Meteor Blaster DX! Apart from the games I also got an HNB sticker and a cool little dome ^_^

I have tried them both out, and both are CD games for the PC Engine ^_^ I started with Meteor Blaster DX since this was the first game to be released of the two, and damn this game was hard! I don’t know if I was just really sucky at it or if it was just extremely-super-mega-hard! Anyway, there was supposed to be boss fights on every 10th level, but I never managed to get to even the first one ;D hahaha! I did try every ship there was to offer though, 5 different ships in total which all worked a bit differently. My favorite was the blue one ^_^ It just felt easier to control. All the ships are very slow though, compared to what you’re used to with similar games like Asteroids and other shmups where you usually can get speed-ups pretty quick or just thrust around the screen and control your speed. The lack of speed really added to the difficulty, it made it hard to avoid all the meteors and also to reach powerups in time. I bet there were power-ups for speed in the game, but I hardly ever managed to catch those darn power-ups ;D haha! You did have a few hyperspace warps, but they ran out fast, and could potentially teleport you into even more danger ;D

Meteor Blaster DX for PC Engine

Meteor Blaster DX back

Meteor Blaster DX inside

I played the game for quite a few hours and really tried to get further but it was just too hard for me. You were supposed to have some kind of shield as well, but I don’t think I managed to figure out how to use it.. :/ I guess I’m gonna have to give it a few more tries some other day.

Here’s a gameplay video of me sucking at Meteor Blaster DX!! haha xD

What was really annoying though was that the highscore table was not functioning! I got scores higher than those on the board, and I got to sign my name every time, but it didn’t show up on the board. It was like it wasn’t fully programmed to record new scores over the old ones.. :(

When you start up the game you can choose two special games as well, apart from the Meteor Blaster DX there’s also a game called Implode and Implode Caravan. These are a type of puzzle game that I enjoyed quite a lot ^^ It was a bit easy though and I didn’t quite understand what happened when the game ended.. maybe there was a time limit or something. Anyway, there were different colored blocks coming up from below and you just had to click on them when three or more of the same color were touching and they would disappear. Here’s a gameplay video that better explains it ^_^

Both PC Engine games have been made with a lot of attention to detail in the packaging though. I love the covers, especially Hypernova Blast ^_^ Even the CD’s are printed and it looks really nice!

Hypernova Blast for the PC Engine

Hypernova Blast back

Hypernova Blast inside

Now onto Hypernova Blast, which is a re-imagining of the classic Nova Blast on Colecovision. This was also a shmup but a completely different one from Meteor Blaster DX. This one was more similar to the old Defender game. There were also different ships to choose from in this game, and its a horizontally sidescrolling shoot ’em up. You had cities to protect and aliens were trying to destroy them. Below you see a map of where the enemies and cities are at. The game has support for up to 5 people in co-op play :) Unfortunately I haven’t found anyone to play it with me yet :(

I did quite shitty in the first round which I put on Normal difficulty. I then got bold and went straight to Suicide difficulty and all of a sudden it was much easier, or maybe I just got better ;D but I managed to survive for 25 rounds ^_^ The only difference between difficulties are the amount of health your cities get. It’s either 300, 600, 900 or 1200, so on Suicide difficulty your cities start with the low health of only 300. Each enemy attack removes 100 from the city. I was hoping the enemies would get smarter or at least come in larger numbers but it seemed as though it was pretty much the same between the difficulty levels. The only thing that can potentially give you a game over is if you hurt yourself enough to die. I tried just staying on a stage, not killing anything, and none of my cities got killed.. so the enemies seem to be more after you than the cities. You can spend your own health to upgrade the cities health as well.

I big thumbs up goes to the music though! And the fact that you can choose what to listen too! There were about 15 (I think) different tracks that you could just pause and switch between, so you could choose to listen to your favorites over and over again ^_^ If you didn’t pick one it just played the list one by one for each new stage you reached.

All in all I think it’s a decent game. There are a few things I was lacking, like maybe a boss battle, some more variation in the sceneries between levels, a bit more detail in the menu bar below and an increasing difficulty level, because after a while the enemies from before just come back. At least my highscores got saved in this game :D

Here’s a gameplay video of Hypernova Blast.

Thanks a lot Nathan for sending me these games! I had a lot of fun with them and I will keep practicing to get good at them ;D

Star Fox for Super Famicom

March 28, 2015 by stopXwhispering

I’ve actually never played this game before, since I didn’t grow up having games of my own I just never encountered it. I’ve heard a lot of people through the years praising it though so I finally went ahead and bought it! Star Fox is what it’s called in Japan. This popular series has also gone by the name of Starwing and Lylat Wars, mainly in Europe.

A lot of people are probably gonna hate me now, but I don’t really care, everyone is entitled to their own opinion! ;D

I didn’t like it.. It might be because I don’t have any nostalgic memories when playing it. I bet it was all amazing and such when it came out, but it hasn’t’ aged well in that case. The controls were a bit stiff and I found it hard to aim and hit the targets.. I did give it a good hour or so before quitting.

I also tried several different routes you could choose from, and reached a couple of different bosses, all but one of which I couldn’t beat..

I have to admit that the graphics are unique for the SNES and the polygon shapes are somewhat charming, but this type of shooter (rail shooter) just isn’t my type of shmup. I prefer sidescrolling shooters, horizontal or vertical or fixed shooters like space invaders :) Bullet hell shooters are also quite fun ^_^

I will put this in my shelf, to await that nostalgic friend that will visit me and ask for it. Then I will gladly pull it out, let them play it for all the hours they want while I watch and in my mind being glad that I don’t have to play it again ;D

Arcades in Akihabara, Tokyo

May 10, 2014 by stopXwhispering

Tokyo is full of arcades, they’re everywhere! :D And they’re a lot of fun!

Personally I prefer playing the music and rhythm games. Here’s a funny video of one of Sega’s newer games Maimai:

You can also find 4 player mario kart, where each get their own steering wheel and screen, and fun games like Taiko no Tatsujin where you hit on giant drums in time with music ^_^

I personally love this music game with all the buttons ^_^ I don’t know the name of it though :/

Most of the arcades are at least 4 stories high with the first two floors filled with U.F.O catchers.

When it comes to U.F.O catchers, I recommend the ones with three claws, because the ones with two claws are extremely weak. Don’t forget to check machines for something that is about to fall over that somebody else has already been nudging around ^_^

I got pretty good at these machines during our trip ^_^ It is also extremely addictive, I don’t know how many 100 Yens I put into these, and I don’t wanna count ;D Here’s a picture of how excited I was whenever I got to play though ;D

And I actually won this, after having put in a bit over 1000 Yen in this machine, trying to pin holes into the little paper holding the thing up. Eventually there wasn’t much left but it still wouldn’t budge. So I asked the personnel to nudge the box a bit so the entire weight was on platform (since it was a bit crooked and leaning on the plastic bar against the glass), then the guy started fiddling with the paper instead and the thing fell down, I just assumed that I won it and he gave it to me ^_^ YAY

I also won this cute Rilakkuma bear for myself and I won this other cuddly plushie for my friend ^_^

Most arcades will mainly have modern games and maybe a few machines with classic street fighter. I went and took some pics during mid-day on a week day so it was pretty empty. After 5 though it is always crammed with people. There’s mostly fighting games or strategy games. Some new ones even have touch screens.

I found an arcade located in between the two SEGA buildings (you can find the directions in my guide to Akihabara game shops) in Akihabara that had mainly retro game arcade machines! A whole floor of just 16-bit shmups! ^_^ It was called HEY (Hirose Entertainment Yard).

This place was awesome ^_^ I wish this was my living room! haha

They also had these special 2-player machines with Darius and Ninja Warriors ^_^

Also if you wanna find retro arcades you can find some on the fourth floor of Super Potato (directions can be found here). They have more than just shmups, for example Puyo Puyo, Bomber World, Ghosts n’ Goblins, Final Fight, Pac-Land etc.

There’s a lot more arcades to explore in Tokyo and in Akihabara alone. It’s thrilling to see how this culture is still so much alive over there ^_^

Twinkle Tale for Sega Mega Drive

February 28, 2013 by stopXwhispering

I recently bought this amazing shooter from FredJ, it’s called Twinkle Tale for Sega Mega Drive! It was released exclusively in Japan in 1992, developed by Zap Corporation and published by WAS (Wonder Amusement Studio). I’ve never heard of any one of these two, but they sure did a great job with this game!

Twinkle Tale is an overhead shmup, but it’s different since your character is walking around on the ground and you can walk in all directions. There are chests to open, narrow paths to follow and different roads to choose from (they all lead to the same end though). At first glance it looks like a fantasy RPG (and you all know how fond I am of RPG’s… >_<) but when you start shooting, feeling the fluent controls and experiencing the amazing graphics and sprites it all changes and you can’t do anything but love this game! ^_^

Since I still can’t record gameplay from my japanese Sega Mega Drive I had to use my iPhone to try and take some screenshots..

You can set the game to various difficult levels, I started on normal, but it was still pretty difficult.. The controls are pretty simple. You have a magic attack which is limited unless you pick up power-ups for it, but 3 is the maximum you can carry. You shoot with the B button and you can change between 3 various shots with C.

The first shot is straight forward and powerful, the second one spreads wider and is a bit less powerful, the third shot is a homing shot that aims directly towards any enemies but is pretty weak. This third one is the one I ended up using mostly during the stages since it took out all the smaller foes and medium foes quickly, but on the bosses I preferred the strong shot. You can level up all your shots to a maximum of lvl 3. If you get hit you loose one lvl of the shot you have equipped. You will quickly find power-ups though, since there are a lot of chests and stuff that carry items in all the stages.

You have three life bars, once you get hit three times it’s Game Over. However you have a couple of credits. You will encounter mobs of enemies coming at you, goblins throwing sticks, bats, mages, giant stone golems, skeletons, gargoyles and various other creatures. The enemies are very varied and well made and you encounter new ones on each stage.

You will also encounter various obstacles throughout the stages, like falling rocks in narrow paths, shooting arrows from the walls etc.

I made it as far as to the second boss on my first couple of credits. I made a few stupid mistakes, like walking right up the path where the boss would come from, thinking that was the way out, and he killed me instantly >_< I bet my second attempt will go much better! I just had to stop to write about it first ^_^ I also took some picture from the manual. It looks like it’s torn all around the edges but that “rip” is actually printed on the paper, I guess to make it look old?

And here’s the first boss, a three headed dragon-lion-thingy:

And the second boss, a giant floating knight casting lightning:

This game is pretty rare, and it wasn’t cheap, but I’m really happy I bought it. It’s an awesome addition to my collection and it has great replay value! I will continue my attempt to advance past the second boss after this post ;D