HE-MAN video games collection

August 1, 2017 by stopXwhispering

There’s always a few things that you find particularly cool, that are extra entertaining or that you just hold a strong nostalgic value too. I always enjoyed Tetris games and the Castlevania games so I have of course always collected games in those series when I see them :) Another one of these series that I find particularly interesting is He-Man! I loved the animated He-Man series when I was a kid back in the 80s ^_^ GE MIG KRAFTEN GRÅSKULL!!! (yes I watched the dubbed Swedish versions of Masters of the Universe XD).

It wasn’t until recently that I encountered a video game based on He-Man, and it just never struck me that games based on the popular show might have been made back then! So I started researching (= scour eBay for He-Man video games ^_^). The first one I got was He-Man for the Mattel Intellivision. This one has some pretty awesome 80’s style cover art :D

Masters of the Universe The Power of He-Man – Intellivision

Masters of the Universe The Power of He-Man back – Intellivision

It was also the first game I tried out with my ‘new’ Intellivision that I acquired not too long ago. Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man is actually a pretty good game, even though the graphics are pretty basic. It varies between two types of stages, you start off with flying in He-Man’s wind raider to pursue Skeletor. After you clear that stage it turns into top-down action where you have to block projectiles from Skeletor and dodge other enemies to reach Skeletor and swing your sword ^_^

After this I discovered a few other He-Man games, like Masters of the Universe the Movie and Masters of the Universe The Arcade Game both for ZX Spectrum

Masters of the Universe the Movie – ZX Spectrum

Masters of the Universe the Movie ZX Spectrum

Masters of the Universe the Movie back – ZX Spectrum

I tried out the He-Man game based on the horrible movie from 1987 starring Dolph Lundgren XD It wasn’t very good.. I was just walking around looking for the correct way and trying to find some shit.. it was boring, and I never reached the type of gameplay that was displayed on the back of the cover :/

I tried to get Masters of the Universe the Arcade Game to work, but unfortunately I only got it to load the intro scene and then it got stuck :(

Masters of the Universe The Arcade Game – ZX Spectrum

The Arcade Game He-Man and the Masters of the Universe in the Ilearth Stone back – ZX Spectrum

Masters of the Universe The Arcade Game ZX Spectrum

ZX Spectrum loading

Masters of the Universe The Arcade Game screenshot

The next He-Man game I bought was for the Playstation 2. I actually haven’t tried Masters of the Universe He-Man: Defender of Grayskull out yet. It looks like a 3D adventure and the further you get from 2D the less interested I usually am in a game XD but I’ll get around to trying it eventually ^_^

Masters of the Universe He-man Defender of Grayskull – PS2

Masters of the Universe He-man Defender of Grayskull back – PS2

At this point I had heard of another He-Man game that I saw a bunch of loose cartridges for on eBay, but never a complete game in box.. This game was Masters of the Universe He-Man: The Power of Grayskull for Game Boy Advance. A few weeks ago it finally popped up though, from somewhere in the US, and I bought it after bargaining a bit with the seller regarding shipping etc. Today it arrived in the mail ^_^

Masters of the Universe He-Man Power of Grayskull – GBA

Masters of the Universe He-Man Power of Grayskull back – GBA

I played it for a bit today and it looks good, but the constant tutorials from Orco were a bit frustrating, let me figure stuff out myself! Or at least turn to the manual if I’m clueless.. I hate it when they force the manual on you through the gameplay >_< Also the controls are a bit slow and clunky, my left hand got a bit tired and soar after just one stage because of all the diagonal steering in this isometric environment.. Since the game is so slow it’s also hard to avoid getting hurt.. I gave up at the second stage when reaching the boss and getting Game Over…

It was an extremely frustrating and tedious game. Also it’s based on the new series and not the cool 80’s one ;D

And this was the worst.. XD

I can break stuff??!

Pick up the shiny objects you say…

I was wondering what those things did..

I just saw that with my own eyes.. but thanks for pointing it out..

No shit Sherlock!

Oh so that’s what that’s for…

Really?!?

Now there is one more He-Man game that I know of, and I went to eBay to check on the current status of it right now for this piece. I usually only see the occasional loose cartridge of the He-Man game for the Atari 2600, but for the first time there was a complete copy! In super nice condition! So I had to buy it :D Now I can’t wait for it to arrive ^_^ Here’s the eBay pics of it:

Masters of the Universe The Power of He-Man for Atari 2600

Masters of the Universe The Power of He-Man back for Atari 2600

Can’t wait for it to arrive ^_^ The gameplay looks totally different from the Intellivision version, based on the pictures on the cover :)

Do you like He-Man? Do you know of any more He-Man video games out there that I might have missed? :)

Ajax TV Game – a super sleek pong console

January 4, 2016 by stopXwhispering

I’ve been on the look out for Pong machines recently, mainly to train my skills before the yearly Swedish Championships of Pong that takes place each year at Retrogathering ^_^ I’ve been attempting to compete since 2014, but haven’t had anything to train on except my Philips Odyssey 2001, which has a quite different feeling than the original Atari Pong console. While scouting for an Atari Pong, like the ones they use in the competition I stumbled upon this beauty on eBay! It was so cheap and yet beautiful that I couldn’t help but buy it ^_^

I’ve never heard of the Ajax TV Games before, it’s from the UK, or at least that’s where I bought it from. It was complete, the box is a bit tattered but the console is in excellent condition! Shining white! It’s also so stylish and well designed! It can run on batteries or a power adaptor (which wasn’t included), and all the outputs for antenna and other chords plus the battery container is hidden behind a sleek compartment where you could also store the controllers, because they’re so tiny! Just look at this beauty ^_^

“Most exciting…fascinating home video games ever built
for your family.”

Ajax TV Games TG-621 in box

Ajax TV Games console box side

Ajax TV Games system box side

Ajax TV Game system

Ajax TV game chord compartment

Ajax TV Game with controllers

Ajax TV Game controller

The controllers really are tiny, one of the controllers is a liiiittle bit slower to turn than the other, but they both work fine. I tried it out for the first time today :)

The machine itself has loads of settings! You can turn the sound on and off, it comes straight from the system and is basically just beeps for when the ball hits the paddle. You can change angles between +-20°/40° or just +-20°, I guess this is how the ball will fly when it hits the edge of a paddle. There’s also two different speeds, H and L, High and Low I guess. You can choose between Auto serve or Manual and you can also set the bat size (the size of the paddle) between L and S, Large and Small.

Apart from this there’s 4 various game modes to choose from, Tennis, Hockey, Handball or Practice mode :)

This sucker takes no less than 6 C batteries to play!!!! Hahaha ^_^ I need to get an adaptor…

When I first tried finding the channel I had trouble. Two of my TVs refused to find it. The second one scrolled through a tuning that looked perfect, but refused to stop there, if I forced it to stop there it went bad again.. and whenever it did stop everything on the screen was warped like I was seeing double.. Eventually I got it working on the third TV though, luckily I have many TVs ;D

Here are the four variations of Pong that can be played on the Ajax TV Game :) I find Tennis to be the most fun one. Handball was kind of different though, I’ve never seen it before on a Pong machine. You take turns on hitting the ball, it gets a bit confusing to see which one is you or who’s turn it is. If the wrong paddle tries to hit it the ball just goes straight through. I would call this squash.. not handball.. XD

I didn’t have anyone to battle with so it was my left hand VS my right hand! (I’m right handed), but I recorded some gameplay of the Ajax TV Game, the first video is a game of Tennis on slow setting, and I was amazed at which hand came out victorious! It was hard focusing on turning the wheel in mirrored ways since I had it in two different hands XD The second video is of first Tennis on high speed and then some Hockey and Handball so anyone who’s interested can see how those look as well :) It was extremely difficult just controlling the paddle with one thumb!

The Ajax TV game system is a great addition to the collection! So pretty and works like a charm! Now I just need to find myself the original Pong console! ^_^

Game Room updated!

December 16, 2015 by stopXwhispering

A lot has been happening this year, both outside the game room and inside! I have gotten myself another arcade machine, a Blast City from Sega. It’s fitted with a 4-slot Neo Geo MVS board, so I have yet another way to play all the MVS games I’ve bought instead of using the converter in my AES. I made room for the candy cab in the game room, and this lead to a bit of re-arranging for it to fit. I’ve also increased the amount of gaming stations, with more TV’s! :D So many TV’s!! There’s a total of 20 in the room right now ^_^

I have updated my video game collection page on here, but here’s most of the new pictures as well! :) The collection keeps growing :D

Heidi stopXwhispering’s Retro Game Room

Blast City arcade

Blast City Arcade with Neo Geo

Jeff Minter Games

Virtual Boy etc

Sega & Nintendo

PC engine games

Heidi stopXwhispering’s Retro Game Room setup

Heidi stopXwhispering’s Retro Game Room

Game & Watch Donkey Kong etc

Pacman

Castlevania Collection

Game & Watch, Zelda etc

I’ve been visiting a lot of gaming conventions this year, which also means acquiring a lot of new retro games ;D I will hopefully have some time this christmas to update the various libraries with scans on the site and perhaps add some new ones :) Meanwhile I am always on instagram posting retro game related stuff whenever I’m gaming or whatever ^_^ Feel free to follow me on there > @retro_gaming

Don’t forget to check out my other site www.geekygals.net where me and my gals post all types of nerdy things! The latest post was about a retro gaming competition I hosted for the first Geeky Gals Gathering which was very successful, we had a lot of fun! ^_^

Retrospelsfestivalen 2014 – and how I got proposed to!!!!!

October 16, 2014 by stopXwhispering

This weekend I went to Retrospelsfestivalen in Malmö. This was the first year they arranged for a retro gaming show in the south of Sweden. I was super excited to go there, and it’s less than an hour from where I live. I had been asking my boyfriend to please join me and keep me company since all of my friends couldn’t make it. He ditched me less than 24 hours before I was going there, made up an excuse that he had to clean his grandmothers attic with his mom… I was pissed and pretty sure he was just dodging it to go fishing instead >_<

I had been speaking to the organizers of Retrospelsfestivalen and they had asked me to help hand out the prizes after the Tetris tournament, I accepted and went up on stage around 3 pm. We handed out the prizes and then they interviewed me about my game collection for a while and after that they asked me to try out a new game. In the below video you can see the game while I’m playing it, and it’s being projected behind me for an audience of around 500 people…

At first I thought the game looked cool, was expecting some kind of action platformer, but after reading the first couple of mushy lines about love I was getting confused and thought the game was kind of lame ;D Until the story-telling stopped and it just said…

…Heidi

Then I certainly thought somebody was just pulling my leg, maybe the organizers had set me up to embarrass me a little bit. Then the question hit the screen:

Do you want to marry me?

Now I thought that some guy in the audience might have some crush on me and decided to try and propose! I never thought my boyfriend would have the imagination to surprise me with something so grand and also fitting to my interests. But indeed, he had a programmer make the game with him and he stepped out from behind the stage with flowers ^_^ I was chocked! …and I said yes :)

It’s not everyday you get proposed to through a video game ^_^ The game only had two options to choose from, play co-op or single player :D Check out the video below to see the whole thing:

After the proposal the organizers gave us a whole bunch of gifts that had been put together by some of the exhibitors and sellers at Retrospelsfestivalen. This was so nice! Thanks to all of the great people that made this day super special ^^ We got the Generation 64 book written by Spelpappan, a Swedish documentary about the NES from Videospelsklubben, a Zelda T-shirt, Tetris mug, Halo mega bloks set and a bunch of other merchandise ^_^

This was of course my highlight of Retrospelsfestivalen 2014 ;D But there were also lots of other great things! I did have time to buy some things before, and talk to people. They had a lot of sellers, but compared to Retrogathering they had a lot more “new” things, like plush toys, T-shirts and other merchandise from games. There were of course a lot of retro games being sold as well, and some people displaying home made retro games they had made. There were also loads of TV’s setup to play various retro consoles and a hallway for Pinball machines and arcade cabinets. On the stage they had competitions in Tetris, Super Mario Kart etc. In the finals of the Tetris competition the competitors had to first make their own controller using the Makey Makey! This was original ^_^ I also met Pappas Pärlor who make amazing bead art! Here’s some pictures from the event!

These last few pictures are from a game called Space Clutter. It’s a homebrew game that only exists in this one homemade little arcade cabinet. The funniest thing is the handwritten note that was displayed next to the game, it reads in Swedish: “Space Clutter, super hard space game! You will NEVER be able to beat it!” so I just had to try it. It was difficult, but fun! :) The plot of the game is written underneath the shoot button and reads “Everybody in space hates you. Use the red button to kill them.”

I will make another post soon with the games I bought at Retrospelsfestivalen :)

The Baconing – Xbox Live Arcade

March 22, 2012 by stopXwhispering

Sorry I haven’t published anything in a few days, but I’ve been busy the last three evenings playing the third Deathspank game! The Baconing! It was a lot of fun ^_^ and I just finished it tonight! :D

I didn’t buy it when it just came out, since it was 1200 microsoft points at that moment, so I’ve been waiting, and finally they lowered the price so I bought it ^^

For those of you who haven’t heard of Deathspank, you should really check it out, it’s a really fun action rpg that kind of resembles the Monkey Island games, since it has a lot of humor and it’s filled with silly quests where you have to figure out what to find and where to use it. I really love it!

Deathspank is created by Hothead games which also made Braid (an amazing puzzle-platformer that you should play NOW if you haven’t already!) and the Penny Arcade Adventures.

It also has co-op, however your friend will be more of a sidekick and only the main player will get achievements. It might make it easier though when there’s hordes of enemies coming at you. I died quite frequently however that was mainly because I always rush into close combat and don’t pay attention to explosive barrels, so I always smash them and commit suicide >_< You always spawn at the nearest checkpoint and only loose a bit of cash (which you can run back and collect where you died) so it doesn’t really matter.

This game really has it all.. Cyborques, Pirate ships that you can commandeer, Leprechaun Mafia, A Casino, Valhalla, A two-headed dog, Clones, Z.I.M.O.N says, Aliens, The King (Elvis), and much much much much more!

All three games (Deathspank, Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue & The Baconing) are available on XBLA, and for those of you who don’t play Xbox, it’s on PS3 and Steam as well ^_^

I’m already looking forward to the fourth one!

Gorbachev’s Pipeline (or ゴルビーのパイプライン) for Famicom

March 13, 2012 by stopXwhispering

Yes, it’s a japanese Famicom game featuring the former President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the goal is to lay a pipeline throughout Russia. Each dot on the map represents a stage, and the difficulty rises progressively.

Gorbachev however only appears on the Title Screen.

It’s actually a quite entertaining game if you like puzzle games. It resembles Tetris a bit, except here you have pieces of two pipes in each falling block and you will have to connect a pipeline from the right wall to the left by rotating and placing the blocks correctly.

There are quite a few games that resembles this one, like for example Pipe Dream for Game Boy. However Gorby’s Pipeline has a uniqueness to it. There’s different music on the stages, I only played through the first three, but they were all different. I guess it will start looping eventually. Both the animation and music has a very USSR feeling to it, the japanese have portrayed a very cosy image of old Russia. It makes me think of ballets like the nutcracker and swan lake, snowy landscapes, and of course the old fashioned Tetris.

It was fairly hard though, if you are not used to puzzle games it will take some time to think where to put the pieces. I myself have played quite a few puzzlers and love the genre, but Tetris is always easier. (Unless you’re playing NotTetris2)

Here’s a movie I put together of the gameplay: