Retro gaming

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
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Michiel K
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Michiel K »

I realised I never did one of these posts for my september 2017 visit to a retro gaming convention. So here then.

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Two Mega Drive classics. Hellfire is a rock hard side scrolling shooter by Toaplan, with an incredibly badass name and Dune II is the Mega Drive version of Westwood's formative realtime strategy game, coded by the same team of developers. It feels oddly at home on the MD, given that this game was influenced so heavily by the Mega Drive exclusive Herzog Zwei, by Tecno Soft.

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Dynamite Deka was another great find. Super cheesy and fun early polygonal beat 'em up by SEGA and from the cover it's not hard to see they went for the Die Hard license (Die Hard Arcade), when bringing it to the west. Tekken 2 is a nostalgic rebuy. Spent so many hours on it on the PlayStation, back in the days.

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I'm an SSX 3 guy, but I've always been interested in Tricky, not in the least as the legendary Rahzel is the commentator / radio DJ in this one.

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Having played through Vesperia last year for the podcast, I could see myself going for more Tales. Symphonia is one of the most well regarded entries in the series and it's not one of those JRPGs that has shot up in value ridiculously.

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Cheat: I got this one very recently, but I didn't want to dedicate a separate post to it. This is one of a small handful of o.g. Xbox games that has really increased in value recently, but I found a DE/FR copy that was much cheaper than the EN versions. Screen text is still English, so that's all good.

So SpikeOut: Battle Street is a sequel to the linked cab beat 'em up arcade game SpikeOut by SEGA, which I've actually seen in the wild - and it was pretty spectacular, with its separate screens for each player, branching paths and multiple direction scrolling. This one still has that typical, delicious, sunny and solid look of SEGA's arcade games around the millennium mark, can be played with 4 players in a LAN setting or with split screens and you can tell the director went on to spearhead the Yakuza series, as the basic feel of that series' combat is definitely here.
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Suits
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Re: Retro gaming

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Michiel K wrote: June 28th, 2018, 10:48 am Two Mega Drive classics. Hellfire is a rock hard side scrolling shooter by Toaplan, with an incredibly badass name and Dune II is the Mega Drive version of Westwood's formative realtime strategy game, coded by the same team of developers. It feels oddly at home on the MD, given that this game was influenced so heavily by the Mega Drive exclusive Herzog Zwei, by Tecno Soft.
Cool man, Mega Drive stuff is always great to pick up and play. I've been getting back into mine over the last 6 months or so. The box art on those, especially Dune 2 is captivating, very nice. I'm not actually familiar with either gameplay wise.
Michiel K wrote: June 28th, 2018, 10:48 am I'm an SSX 3 guy, but I've always been interested in Tricky, not in the least as the legendary Rahzel is the commentator / radio DJ in this one.
Ha, I didn't know/forgot about that :lol: .
Michiel K wrote: June 28th, 2018, 10:48 am Having played through Vesperia last year for the podcast, I could see myself going for more Tales. Symphonia is one of the most well regarded entries in the series and it's not one of those JRPGs that has shot up in value ridiculously.
I picked mine up a few years back, I found that the price went up, then has come back down to around £25/30 of late for some reason - still, nice game to pick up man 8-)


Love these posts, thanks for sharing !!
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Michiel K
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Re: Retro gaming

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Suits wrote: June 28th, 2018, 12:18 pm Cool man, Mega Stuff is always great to pick up and play. I've been getting back into mine over the last 6 months or so. The box art on those, especially Dune 2 is captivating, very nice. I'm not actually familiar with either gameplay wise.
They're both excellent in their own right. Not the cheapest games to come by, but the prices on these two were fair. Hellfire didn't come with a manual, making it a more affordable purchase.

I've come to a point where most things left to collect on my list are on the pricey side, I'm afraid. The way the second hand market for older games has developed in the past 5 - 10 years has also contributed to that. I should be thankful for what I've been able to snag for relatively little money so far.
Suits wrote: June 28th, 2018, 12:18 pm Love these posts, thanks for sharing !!
Good to know, man, thanks!
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Re: Retro gaming

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Michiel K wrote: June 28th, 2018, 2:21 pm I've come to a point where most things left to collect on my list are on the pricy side, I'm afraid. The way the second hand market for older games has developed in the past 5 - 10 years has also contributed to that.
The items left on my list now are predominately recommendations, which kind of makes things more fun and interesting in a way.

Although, I don't have the original Metroid on the NES, Golden Axe Warrior, or SoR3, which are some of my more precious classic games.

Interestingly, PAL Streets of Rage 3, I can always remember being expensive mind. I can certainly remember balking at the price still some 15 years ago.

I still love bringing old games home, cleaning the carts, looking at the manual and messing about with them over a few beers.

At my last count, across all platforms, I was hovering around the 800 physical mark (I have an App that tracks things for me). Not that it's rank I wear or anything, it's just interesting to think about the titles that you amass over the years. I've also tried to refine it a few times but I just can't bring myself to get rid of any.
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Michiel K
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Re: Retro gaming

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Yeah, I know... I just did a count of how many games I got this year already, downloaded or bought in physical form... 84!

My grand total amount of games (hard copies or otherwise) now sits at 1112, and that's counting compilations as a single unit/game.

Wish I had more time to play them, but I might just be less occupied in the future.

What app are you using Suits?
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Re: Retro gaming

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Michiel K wrote: June 29th, 2018, 12:45 am Yeah, I know... I just did a count of how many games I got this year already, downloaded or bought in physical form... 84!

My grand total amount of games (hard copies or otherwise) now sits at 1112, and that's counting compilations as a single unit/game.

Wish I had more time to play them, but I might just be less occupied in the future.

What app are you using Suits?
I tend not to count my digital games, although I’ve probably not got 100 of them I’d estimate.

I use an app in iTunes called Game Vault, it uses the Giant Bomb database I think. It’s good as it lets you select multiply regions for titles.

Only a few times has it not had a game I have, although, there’s a feedback button that you can use and when my PAL copy of Navy Seals on the GameBoy wasn’t on there, I used it and it was soon added – without notice mind.

It gets tricky with regional naming mind, for instance Castleween on the GameCube is called Spirits & Spells NTSC and there isn’t an option to add another region – so it’s not perfect but it’s damn close.

It also lets you sort and categorise your collection in a number of ways that means, its simple to look for something or to get a total of a specific platform etc…
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Michiel K
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Re: Retro gaming

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Interesting. I have a huge excel sheet, but it would be nice to have something that's easy to look up online. Just installed it!
Joshihatsumitsu

Re: Retro gaming

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

Suits wrote: June 29th, 2018, 12:28 pm I use an app in iTunes called Game Vault, it uses the Giant Bomb database I think. It’s good as it lets you select multiply regions for titles.

Only a few times has it not had a game I have, although, there’s a feedback button that you can use and when my PAL copy of Navy Seals on the GameBoy wasn’t on there, I used it and it was soon added – without notice mind.

It gets tricky with regional naming mind, for instance Castleween on the GameCube is called Spirits & Spells NTSC and there isn’t an option to add another region – so it’s not perfect but it’s damn close.

It also lets you sort and categorise your collection in a number of ways that means, its simple to look for something or to get a total of a specific platform etc…
After reading your post I went and downloaded Game Vault, and it's not too bad at all.

I haven't finished going through my entire collection, but I think maybe 98% of my searches lead to a result of some kind, which is still pretty impressive. I even found an entry for the 2006 train sim Railfan for the Playstation 3, which I think only got a small Japanese release.

And I can add my arcade boards, which I greatly appreciate.

Like you said, it's not perfect, but its damn close!
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Re: Retro gaming

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Joshihatsumitsu wrote: July 4th, 2018, 6:35 am Like you said, it's not perfect, but its damn close!
Ah, good stuff.

Yeah, it gets me out situations at shows and shops where I see things that I can't accurately remember if I have in my collection or not.

There's a few amount of customisation to it as well, regards adding games that aren't on there.
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Re: Retro gaming

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I went looking for this app on Android and unfortunately it doesn't exist, but there seem to be a few alternatives to test out. I had a similar one for my movie collection on iOS years back. You could scan the bar code on the back of the DVD box to add to the app which was cool.
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Re: Retro gaming

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Suits wrote: June 29th, 2018, 12:28 pm
Michiel K wrote: June 29th, 2018, 12:45 am Yeah, I know... I just did a count of how many games I got this year already, downloaded or bought in physical form... 84!

My grand total amount of games (hard copies or otherwise) now sits at 1112, and that's counting compilations as a single unit/game.

Wish I had more time to play them, but I might just be less occupied in the future.

What app are you using Suits?
I tend not to count my digital games, although I’ve probably not got 100 of them I’d estimate.

I use an app in iTunes called Game Vault, it uses the Giant Bomb database I think. It’s good as it lets you select multiply regions for titles.

Only a few times has it not had a game I have, although, there’s a feedback button that you can use and when my PAL copy of Navy Seals on the GameBoy wasn’t on there, I used it and it was soon added – without notice mind.

It gets tricky with regional naming mind, for instance Castleween on the GameCube is called Spirits & Spells NTSC and there isn’t an option to add another region – so it’s not perfect but it’s damn close.

It also lets you sort and categorise your collection in a number of ways that means, its simple to look for something or to get a total of a specific platform etc…
Thanks for the recommendation.

It’s a great little tool. Really helpful. I’m going to enter everything gradually as i think it’d be a huge undertaking to do it all right away.

Hopefully it’ll help me avoid duplicating purchases. I’m looking at you Rayman origins (my 3 copies all wave back and say hi).
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Re: Retro gaming

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Simonsloth wrote: July 11th, 2018, 11:15 pmI’m going to enter everything gradually as i think it’d be a huge undertaking to do it all right away.

Hopefully it’ll help me avoid duplicating purchases.
I systematically did it by platform, over the course of a few months as it can get very boring.

Standing there and doing it gets physically tiring too, so I used to take a photo of a shelf, upload it to my computer (at work :lol: ) and add them at my desk that way - much more comfortable.

I still manage to pick up duplicates quite often sadly, what I would encourage you to do is learn how the app groups games, for instance, it seem obvious but Splinter Cell games are under Tom Clancy and certain FIFA games are organised under their year. Also, for your larger collections, organise them on their shelf by the order in which the app sorts them, that way it's a lot simper to notice things and get used to how things are grouped - it's also a lot easier to find something when you're looking to play particular game.

The amount of times I've picked up games that I don't see on the app because it's referred to as 'THE' Simpsons: Road Rage.
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Michiel K
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Re: Retro gaming

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I already have a complete excel list, so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle for me. I almost immediately ran into games / versions that didn't show up though, so that turned me off. I might need to make my own app lol
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Re: Retro gaming

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Michiel K wrote: July 12th, 2018, 8:39 am I already have a complete excel list, so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle for me. I almost immediately ran into games / versions that didn't show up though, so that turned me off. I might need to make my own app lol
It can be fiddly man, give me an example of what you couldn't find ??

Not that I'm saying I'll definitely find it but I've persevered a few times and found what I was looking for eventually.
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Re: Retro gaming

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Ha, incidentally, the search function inst working at all currently, as the Giant Bomb website is down, so there's no access to the database the app uses :| .
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Michiel K
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Re: Retro gaming

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Suits wrote: July 12th, 2018, 9:02 am
Michiel K wrote: July 12th, 2018, 8:39 am I already have a complete excel list, so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle for me. I almost immediately ran into games / versions that didn't show up though, so that turned me off. I might need to make my own app lol
It can be fiddly man, give me an example of what you couldn't find ??

Not that I'm saying I'll definitely find it but I've persevered a few times and found what I was looking for eventually.
Ummm... The XBLA/Xbox 360 version of Galaga (PAL)
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Re: Retro gaming

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This is why I never use these things. I’ve tried various ones but they are always missing loads of stuff in my experience.
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Re: Retro gaming

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Michiel K wrote: July 12th, 2018, 7:44 pm Ummm... The XBLA/Xbox 360 version of Galaga (PAL)
Is that Galaga Legions ??

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Re: Retro gaming

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I think he meant actual Galaga. 2005/6 XBLA
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Re: Retro gaming

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ratsoalbion wrote: July 12th, 2018, 10:38 pm I think he meant actual Galaga. 2005/6 XBLA
Oh, ok, because that’s on there too.
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