Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it,
follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Our rules have been updated and given
their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
Buying retro console hardware/software
Posts
Ha, I remember how oddly shaped that FFVII box was. Didn't the front have a flap that opened on top?
I like how the Amiga boxes are largely standardizes. I'll take a picture later tonight, thye look sharp on a shelf.
Last time I spoke to a mod about an arcade game with a PC inside, I got the OK to post provided A) I could prove that I owned the actual PCBs for the games I was showing, or B) I was showing the PC version of specific games. In the above topic's instance, I owned SF2 and was running the PC version of MK2 (although now I have the MK2 PCB).
There is so much more you can do with putting a PC into an arcade cabinet besides emulation. My cabinet, for example, has a steam client, with SF4 installed, and the cabinet itself is connected to the network, so it's a legit, online-enabled SFIV arcade machine.
Yep, and the box opens to the side. Clearly the work of Bizarro Sephiroth.
Punch Out, Journey to Silius, TMNT 2, Dragon Warrior 1, Tetris, Faxanadu, and Little Nemo are on the way (as well as a second controller) and should arrive in 2-4 weeks since I got the free, slow shipping. I might be buying Base Wars, Golgo 13, Tiny Toons, and Smash TV from a guy this evening. My friend picked up a copy of Paperboy and Spy Hunter but I don't know if he intends to sell/give those to me or not.
The NES works great although I had to clean out my games with windex and a Q-tip. I've heard different things online about cleaning old games. Some say use rubbing alcohol, some say don't. Some say use windex, some say don't. Some say to buy a special screwdriver and cleaning kit and take apart the game and clean it properly, some say that's ridiculous (that's me).
I also have my N64 hooked up to my TV. I only own Ocarina of Time, Pokemon Snap, Pokemon Stadium 2, Smash Bros, and Harvest Moon 64.
it's a hand polisher. I only recommend this in extreme cases, because you're basically scraping a thin layer off the contact points, and it's easy to scrape off a contact entirely. But if you do use it, and use it correctly, the results are stunning:
Old:
New:
It looks brand new. This, even more than a new 72-pin connector, will drastically improve performance in a front-loading NES. Did you get a front loader or a top loader? I find myself using my top loader a lot more since I imported Super Turrican from Europe out of habit.
I never got around to getting an NES, but I'd get Castlevania 1, Megaman, Megaman 2, Contra, and definitely Kirby.
It already has the 72 pin connector replaced.
Just a general tip for front loaders with a new 72-pin connector - the reason the connection wears out is because of the zero-force insertion mechanism. Pressing down on the cartridge and locking it into place creates a better connection, but it bends the pins out of whack over time. You don't actually need to press the cart down if your 72-pin connection is new. To prolong the life of your new NES frontloader, I'd advise against pressing the cart down at all.
The top loader is great for one reason - it lacks the 10NES lockout chip. This is what makes the NES do that thing where the light blinks on the front and you get a flashing red or yellow or black screen. The reason this happens is because there is a poor connection somewhere between the cart and the 72-pin connector - either because the 72-pin connection is bent or because the contacts on the cart have corroded - and the 10NES lockout chip can't verify the NES cart. So, as a default, it treats it like a pirate cart and stops you from booting it up.
You can actually remove the 10NES lockout chip - or rather, disable it - from a front loader, and it'll behave almost exactly like a top loader. Which means instead of having to fuck with your NES to get the game booted, it'll boot up every single time without fail. That's the most amazing thing about my Top-loader. I'm so conditioned to having to fight my NES to get it to boot the game that it always takes me back when the top loader works on the first time, every time.
You need some sunsoft love. I suggest Blaster Master, Batman, and Batman: Revenge of the Joker to begin with.
Some say to use electronics contact cleaner, I have some and its never worked for me as well as alcohol.
My extreme cleaner is ceramic glasstop oven cleaner. Like the stuff mentioned above you have to be very careful and gentle with it as you can strip the contacts down. I rarely need to use it but its worked 99% of the time. The only time it didn't I noticed that one of the capacitors somehow got disconnected on the pcb. You do have to open the cart case to use this well though, a set of good security bits costs like $10 shipped though.
This is where I got my last set from
http://www.newelectronx.com/
Steam/PSN/XBL/Minecraft / LoL / - Benevicious | WoW - Duckwood - Rajhek
I replaced my 72-pin connector back in 2006 and I've been clicking down carts ever since. Whoopsie.
In fact there's probably a cart in my system that's been in the "down" position for close to a year now.
Well, it was good to know you, connector.
It refuses to play CV3 because of the special MMC5 chip inside the cart. You need to modify your converter, or pull one out of a spare gyromite cart, to play it on a US NES.
Edit; the mod involves taking 2 famicom pins which aren't wired up, and wiring them to 2 pins on the NES side of the converter. These 2 pins worked sorta like the spare pins on an SNES which aren't on a game genie - i.e. they're only for special axillary chips.
this is the modification:
"Be who you are and say what you feel, as those that matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter."
-Dr Seuss.
With the amount of arcade ports (TMNT, Simpsons, X-Men, Game Room) and arcade-like games (Scott Pilgrim, Geometry Wars, Castle Crashers) on XBLA I'd love to do the same myself.
It's a great magazine and I fork up the $15 or so whenever I see an interesting cover story (Like the one on Sonic 2 last year) but it's too expensive to pickup on a regular basis.
I spend way more than $15 a month on retro gaming and collecting in general, so I don't mind tossing another $15 for some print dedicated to it. Also, I have the complete G4 tv series Icons on my HTPC, along with every episode of AVGN, Screw Attack Game Vault, and Screw Attack top 10, and a few random episodes of Classic Game Room, and a good 500-ish Sega, Nintendo, Playstation, and other gaming commercials. I'll throw them all together in a big playlist and put it on random and it's like I have the best video game TV channel ever made. Beats the steaming hot shit out of G4, at least.
Do these look like the cases you use? As far as I can tell they are the same.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/50-pcs-Multi-8-Disc-CD-DVD-Black-Case-Movie-Game-Box-27mm-/250924251081?pt=BI_Blank_Media&hash=item3a6c4037c9#ht_500wt_1180
Also, will a NES cart fit in their cleanly if you just remove the center divider? The ones I use you need to remove the spindle AND the part that holds the cd's in place from the outside edges.
Steam/PSN/XBL/Minecraft / LoL / - Benevicious | WoW - Duckwood - Rajhek
*I take no responsibility if you burn your house down trying this.
Also, I love steam and gog, but I really miss PC boxes. It's almost depressing seeing the PC games in Wal Mart now. It's usually just Blizzard games and the Sims now.
Yup, those are the ones I use. And yes, an NES game will fit fine when you remove the middle pages.
Thing is, I do get rid of games I'll never play again, if there's no compelling reason to keep them. So, I wouldn't get rid of Shaq Fu for SNES, or even Maximum Carnage for SNES. Or any cart based game, no matter how bad it is. But I'd get rid of a bunch of PC games from ~2004, because I won't play them and they'll never have any value, monetary or sentimental. So I actually have more of the old boxes, I believe.
Some of the new boxes aren't bad, though. I like how they are plastic cases. I just miss huge folding boxes with all that artwork/screenshots.
Steam/PSN/XBL/Minecraft / LoL / - Benevicious | WoW - Duckwood - Rajhek
Those games are nice, and I particularly like Raptor... And, of course, you can name whatever period you like as your favorite... but calling that time the GOLDEN AGE is kinda stretching and diluting the meaning of the term "golden age" a bit. None of them were even very influential... all dead end genres in PC gaming. Scrolling shooter, fighter, 2D platformer, so on. I wouldn't call some time i particularly enjoyed a Golden Age of anything unless I knew it had a lasting impact in its context that goes beyond my enjoyment.
If only you mentioned some of the actually relevant and influential games of the early 90's, like the later Ultimas, Wing Commander series (it made sound cards a required part of any pc), Civilization 1, Sim City, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom. Those games are important to gaming regardless of one's personal taste.
I personally really love the entire decade. It has helped shape and mature a good deal of what we can play today, regardless of PC or console.
No lasting effects? Methinks you don't know who made the games I listed. Epic Pinball? Without that game, there would be no unreal. Dare to Dream? Cliffy B's first game. It got him into the business. Jazz Jackrabbit would be the game that made him a household name to PC gamers. Those games built epic.
Jordan Mechner, for example, is a billion times more important to gaming than "Cliffy B". Maybe not the BUSINESS of gaming, but the creation of games. So is Sid Meier, Warren Spector, Chris Roberts, and even Lord British.
Picasso spent a long time making "normal" paintings that already showed his amazing skill, up to and including the pink and blue phases. Without those, his later works wouldn't exist, probably. But it's Guernica that's considered immortal and powerfully influential. It's his cubism and later phases that matter.
Anyway, I still firmly assert that all those games I mentioned previously are far more relevant to gaming as a craft than what Epic did.
I have no idea what the average price of a boxed GB Pocket is today - but that one is super nice looking and I've always loved the Pocket. I had a silver one and the combination of that and Donkey Kong and loved it - so much better than the original GB. Are you looking specifically for a boxed one because I would think you could find one without a box and a bunch of games as a lot somewhere?
Epic Games is an odd duck - I loved their early stuff - Jazz, Raptor, Epic Pinball, Jill of the Jungle, and One Must Fall but once they went all FPS games I pretty much lost interest. When I had a 360 I bought Gears 1 & 2 but never got more than an hour or so into each before losing interest for something less drab and with more interesting characters. Epic Pinball I think remains the lone piece of shareware I actually paid to upgrade to the full version.
This game is important because it's the very first video game that I ever finished.
Here goes - What exactly would you play on it? There are dozens of better versions of Tetris these days. The two other best Game Boy games, Link's Awakening and Donkey Kong GB, are both available on the 3DS. I guess you could play Final Fantasy Adventure (a personal favorite), Final Fantasy Legend 1-3, Wario Land, or any personal favorites you might have but they're probably not worth buying a system for these days.
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
I never had a Game Boy as a child (Was a Game Gear kid until the GBA hit the scene) and I just kinda want one. The fact that it's near-mint is nice because I don't have to deal with it being funkified in any way.
I bought a brick game boy a few years back because I never owned one and I wanted one...it's got the SNES-style discoloring and the screen has it's fair share of scratches. I don't use it, to be honest, and I kinda regret buying it.