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In the past few years I've taken a much greater interest in 'retro' games, primarily trying to reassemble my childhood collection. I tended to keep most things anyway, though a few games fell through the cracks. For example, Star Wars fever has reminded me of the fun times I had with Episode 1 Racer and Rogue Squadrons 1 & 2. I gave them away (I think I was tired of being fobbed off with pods and X-wings when all I wanted was a lightsaber) but I have some great memories of them all so I hit ebay. These ones certainly aren't in the pristine condition my other N64 games are in, but it's nice to have them back. Likewise Mario Sunshine, Wave Race: Blue Storm and F-Zero GX.

 

I'm also poking around trying to assemble a few choice NES games. I never had one until a few years ago but I spent hours playing my brother's. So far I've got SMB3, Probotector (Contra), Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers, Battletoads Vs Double Dragon and Dragon's Lair (yes, a regretful impulse purchase, that one). Ghostbusters nostalgia triggered a purchase of HAL's New Ghostbusters II, which I've never played but it's supposed to be one of the three 'good' Ghostbusters games. Looks a lot like Pokemon. I'm on the lookout for a zapper with Duck Hunt, and all the usual suspects but NES games in decent condition are at least the price of a brand new AAA release. Slow progress.

 

I know emulators and VC and remasters, etc. make all this seem like a needlessly expensive pursuit but there's a lot of pleasure to get from having a little library of the 'real' things. The older I get, the more the idea of a study appeals. I tracked down a SNES pad and an adaptor so I could play Super Metroid on VC with the proper pad. I also picked up Konami Arcade Classics for DS for next to nothing last week. It was made by M2, the same guys responsible for the awesome Sega 3D Classics on 3DS, and is a beautiful little compilation. I'm playing arcade Gradius, Contra and Track & Field for the first time. Although DS (and Wii) games are hardly retro, it's probably best to nab them now while they're cheap and plentiful. Wireless, single-cart multiplayer Bomberman for a fiver? Yes, please.

 

Anyway, this can be a catch-all thread for retro purchases or ponderances. Pics might be good. Anybody got a nice collection or been to a retro festival (I've got one coming up this weekend near to me)? Jonesing to pick up a decent Atari 2600 (woody) or a CIB Game Gear?

 

I'm off to fire up Rogue Leader and relive the 2 months when I had a Gamecube and the game, but not a memory card.

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Oddly enough I just plugged in my Dreamcast for a game of Dynamite Cop and boy if was glorious, it reminded me of the glory of the arcade game and game could be silly for silly's sake and you didn't question why the enemy was dressed as a crab.

 

When it comes to "retro" gaming, the PS2, GC and Dreamcast are as far I'm comfortable playing "un-emulated", the older stuff just looks bad unless you find an older monitor.

 

I'm probably going to replay Chibi-Robo on the GameCube pretty soon too, if that helps.

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Would this be an okay place to talk about the Neo Geo Humble bundle or do you want to keep to non ported or emulated stuff?

Either way, the animation on Metal Slug is gorgeous.

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I have Chibi-Robo for GC, but never played more than an hour of it. Is it the best Chibi-Robo game?

Neo Geo bundle is very welcome! If they were all Steam games I'd be all over that, but I'm an infant console gamer who can't take the stress of non-Steam PC gaming. The Neo Geo has always been a desirable thing to me, but simply as an object. Beat 'em ups are a big hole in my knowledge (as are shm'ups) and I could do with an education. The background art in King of Fighters is just incredible.

I think that at least 50% of retro gaming is object fetishism. I could get one of those Atari 2600 plug-n-play sticks with 30 built-in games, but besides the holes in the pack-in catalogue, I also want the console itself to look at and display. Things like the Retro Freak or Retron 5 are intriguing but a large part the appeal of collecting comes from wanting to curate and display the objects. I've got an idea that would involve spray painting a collection of consoles gold and wall-mountain them like all the past Enterprises in the TNG Observation Lounge. Oh yes! That's not collecting or playing...it's more like exhibiting. Keeping a collection boxed is a waste.

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It's the only Chibi-Robo game I've played, but from what I've heard it is the best? It's the only one where you're a tiny robot trying to help out a family, while the rest are.. gimmicky?

 

The Neo Geo Bundle is worth it just for the music alone, not to mention you're getting legal roms for some games you can't get at all or are hard to find? The Last Blade, Twinkle Star Sprites and Garuo: Mark of the Wolves? Yes, please! It seems DotEmu bought the emulator from GameTap, but some people didn't know, and thought Humble was selling the roms illegally, which by the way, somebody tried them and they work in Mame?

 

And speaking of bundles, you can get the 3D Realms Anthology with the latest "Killer Bundle" from Bundle Stars and... Super Noah Ark 3D?

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So my housemate built a Super Nintendo out of a Raspberry Pi.

 

Because my housemate is an electrical engineer, this meant he:

  • Is using the original power brick for the SNES instead of replacing the power plug (the AV out did get replaced with a HDMI out),
  • is using original controllers and controller ports, and he wrote his own firmware to detect button presses instead of running it through a USB port and potentially dropping keystrokes,
  • re-jigged the power switch so that it would shut down the machine instead of cutting the power,
  • re-compiled an emulator that would support Yoshi's Island onto the Raspberry Pi,
  • wrote his own interface for loading ROMs, including a search

It's basically a magic SNES. As far as we know, no-one's ever done a more thorough fit-out, so he's planning on writing up what he did and posting a guide online.

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So the whole thing is housed inside the SNES casing? That sounds pretty great. While there's definite merit to using the original hardware, that's a losing battle as parts become scarce. I like the idea of preserving the aesthetics of the console while modernising the innards. The ball ache of having a TV that will display a 2600 or works with Duck Hunt is a big barrier for people.

The Analog NT is an attractive idea, kinda the reverse of your housemate's - authentic innards (plus hdmi gubbins) in a new case. The set-top box design is a bit generic. I hear the build quality is good, though. Then again, it should be expected at $500.

I discovered a new retro shop near me this morning and it struck me just how difficult it is to find anything in good condition that isn't still sealed. I guess in most cases the insides are in better shape than out. A good clean will bring some things back but sun damage and scratches and frayed cords are standard.

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Man, this thread speaks my language. I have so many retro consoles, I refuse to play emulators if I can and I try to own every old game of mine complete in box. I only have a few games for each console because a lot of them were rereleased somewhere on a newer console and take up space.

 

I keep most of these consoles hooked up at all times: NES, Sega Saturn, Sega CDX, 32X, SNES, Xbox, N64, PS2 slim, Dreamcast, GBCs, GBA SP, original blocky DS (for the rumble pack), and an old Nokia Symbian smartphone for some old Java games and Ngage 2.0. It's kind of a weird combo of collector OCD, nostalgia for consoles I did or did not own, and the magic and authenticity it feels to load up stuff on what it was made for.

 

Sometimes repairing this stuff is a little bit of fun in and of itself. My dad does PC repair for a living (he used to do a lot more intricate stuff in the 80s and 90s, but these days it's more about just swapping out parts). He taught me how to solder but I haven't used it much. I'm not as good as him, but I'm inclined to figure this stuff out myself sometimes, especially since I fondly remember my dad fixing my NES blinking issues to somehow make it so you didn't push the tray down and I guess make the contacts hit the pinout easier.  He doesn't remember how he did this though, so I have no idea.

 

I've taken apart an NES to clean the pin connector. I once bought all of the capacitors for a game gear and then replace and soldered them all in using a youtube video. That one was tough but this is what you have to do to fix any Game Gear these days because they will almost all have faint sound or unwatchable screens right now since apparently Sega (and many companies in the early 90s) used cheap ass capacitors back then. It ended up that somehow the video card chip was a mess though and the tiles for any game would be all out of wack and they would lock up, so I had to through it away. The Sega repair forum I went to told me that was basically not replacable. I've also replaced a bad Xbox DVD drive twice, and attempted to repair a PS3 blu-ray drive, but somehow PS3s are wired to only communicate with the chip on the Blu-ray drive it comes with even if you replace the laser, and I think either that chip failed or I damaged it by taking it apart.

 

Then recently (not game related) I had an all region blu-ray player where the laser failed. It's a cheapo model by Toshiba, one of the few that you can region unlock with Australian firmware, but they are rare as they aren't made anymore. I got one on ebay but the tray would not open, so I got a refund and they told me to keep it. I eventually opened it up to see if I could fix the issues with the plastic tray, but no luck. Then I realized I could take the laser from that one and install it in my old one. I was back in business (for free even!) because of my experience with messing with the PS3, without the headache of the Sony chip locking the drive to the hardware it came with.

 

Also I like to region unlock things so I broke the tabs on an SNES, I use a Game Genie for Genesis region unlocks, and I put the little tabs and stuff in my PS2 for Swap Magic. I also installed Homebrew on my Wii to play Fatal Frame IV, although I haven't had any luck the last time I tried, it will however play all region. I installed the hacked firmware on the PSP so I can run this tweak that will use more of the processor speed and make certain choppy games run fine.

 

Oh and last thing, I like to have bootleg repro carts for unreleased games or games with fan translations, since I'd prefer to play those on original consoles as well. I have some GBC flash carts for For the Frog the Bell Tolls and Balloon Fight GBC. Then I have some for GBA just in case, but I only use one for Mother 3 at the moment. My first repro cart was Earthbound Zero and then I kind of been getting more and more as they come out. Eventually I got Devil World for NES, Famicom Detective Club for SNES, Zelda BS, and Zelda Stone Tablets (Also BS). There's some more games I hope get translated one day so I can have more repro carts. I know some people get mad when dudes sell repro carts of translations other fans made, but I guess in the end I would rather pay to own the games and play them on the actual hardware instead of through an emulator for free.

 

Sorry if this dumb stuff comes off as bragging, I just think retro junk is cool.

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I've been playing Chibi Robo all day and boy is it as amazing as I remember.... which is funny because I don't remember anything about the game except loving it.

 

All I knew is that you're a cute and tiny helper robot, and that you picked up junk and cleaned... It's very explorer and "Vania-y" and you explore and get items and upgrades to reach new areas.

 

You'd think I'd at least remember how annoying it is for Telly to leave a bunch on confetii I have to clean up each time he congratulates me... or puddle to clean when he cries. 

 

But now I'm a bit upset that none of the other Chibi-Robo games seem to be like the original. Was Park Patrol good? Since Europe never got it, I'm pretty sure it was.  :wacko:

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I bought that Neo Geo Humble Bundle, but it didn't occur to me until reading this thread and contemplating my collection that I have all of the games in the bundle as cartridges. Some are home carts and others arcade. (And a bunch of them actually belong to a friend.)

At least I'm getting a cool T-shirt.

Aside from the Neo Geo, I have a lot of 3DO and Jaguar shit, and a Nuon. I love old game crap!

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Old game crap is great! Occasionally musty, but great.

@ syntheticgerbil

I wish I had tools and (more importantly) knowledge to do basic soldering and tinkering. I saw a Game Gear yesterday missing a d-pad (and probably with dodgy screen and sound) for 5€. It'd be cool to experiment on it.

The Vanamo Online Game museum might be interesting for you guys. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Evan-Amos

It's an online resource by a bloke called Evan Amos who is photographing VG hardware and thingys for public use. His photos turn up EVERYWHERE, often uncredited (naturally). It's a really high quality gallery and fascinating for people interested in the design of these objects but will likely never get to play (or even see) 95% of them in the flesh. All the popular iconi stuff is there as well as obscure curios you've never heard of.

Chibi-Robo has officially joined the backlog list.

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Well, it does saw that the pics are public domain.

 

It's missing a few computers from Europe and probably all the ones from Japan?

 

I'm still playing Chibi-Robo and it's still amazing, I just had a "aha" moment when you figure how to access a new area. I feel silly for now knowing how to before, but I guess that's how Chibi-Robo works. 

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Retro is my jam. I wish I had the money/space to collect something a little unusual like the Saturn/Jaguar/Game Gear or whatever. I know we're supposed to scorn physical media now but I still think amassing a large pile of musty plastic you can play video games on is cool.

 

I went crazy a few years ago and decided to start collecting boxed Super Famicom games only. That got prohibitively expensive very quickly so I've changed tack and focus mainly on the DS and PS2 now which are arguably not retro but are unarguably cheaper and truth be told have far stronger libraries. I have fond memories of a ton of Mega Drive and SNES games but that stuff's easily emulated on the Wii U which is plugged in anyway and does a much better job of displaying it on an HDTV than SCART does so I'm over physical media for the 16-bit formats, nice though it was to play Super Metroid for the very first time in 2014 on all original hardware.

 

I would love to put together a PS1 collection but making one region-free seems like a lot of work still. I think my best option is to buy a Japanese PS2 to go with my PAL one and then use the backwards compatibility of that, plus I get the bonus of the JP-only PS2 games I missed out on.

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I went crazy a few years ago and decided to start collecting boxed Super Famicom games only. That got prohibitively expensive very quickly so I've changed tack and focus mainly on the DS and PS2 now which are arguably not retro but are unarguably cheaper and truth be told have far stronger libraries. I have fond memories of a ton of Mega Drive and SNES games but that stuff's easily emulated on the Wii U which is plugged in anyway and does a much better job of displaying it on an HDTV than SCART does so I'm over physical media for the 16-bit formats, nice though it was to play Super Metroid for the very first time in 2014 on all original hardware.

Yeah, a lot of the boxed copies of games I got were on ebay between 2004-2007 I have noticed since then almost everything complete in box that is worth owning Pc or consoles games has gotten almost as expensive as a rarer game from back in that time period. I remember getting Snatcher on Sega CD for about $70 back then and now I see a complete copy is something like $300.

A lot of those old systems look pretty nice on an HD TV if you get the S-video hookups, they are relatively cheap and the ones for Snes will work for both Nintendo 64 and Gamecube. The VGA box for Dreamcast is worthwhile to get widescreen on some games and there are cheap knock offs still available. Some people spend way too much money on an official SEGA VGA box and I have no idea why kt would actually be any different.

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Really? The main reason I only play GC, PS2 and Dreamcast on their original systems is because the older ones look terrible on TV. I'll have to look up those cables! :3

 

I don't really have that much more room for collecting physical games, I have three drawers filled with controllers and cables and every section I have is pretty much full. Not to mention that most of the older stuff I might want is probably too expensive anyway. 

 

I still like to dive in the used PS2 section when I see one, a few months ago I found the original EDF game and... it didn't work on my PS2, but did on the system they had in the store.

 

I did have a bad collecting phase where I bought a bunch or weird budget games I still can't get rid off and the few I want to play don't really work on modern systems.

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A lot of those old systems look pretty nice on an HD TV if you get the S-video hookups, they are relatively cheap and the ones for Snes will work for both Nintendo 64 and Gamecube. The VGA box for Dreamcast is worthwhile to get widescreen on some games and there are cheap knock offs still available. Some people spend way too much money on an official SEGA VGA box and I have no idea why kt would actually be any different.

 

See I'm the type of twat who'd probably buy that. Part of the reason I moved away from the SFC collecting was my increasing desire for a Framemeister Mini just to make it look its best. Happily PS3 component cables work on the PS2 and that thing still looks great to my eyes even on a big HDTV.

 

S-Video is an American thing, isn't it? Europe used RGB SCART instead which I believe was better but off the top of my head the N64 doesn't output that, or only some models do or it requires modded maybe, so the PAL one always looks shit. There was definitely an output reason I didn't rebuy an N64 as emulating that successfully is pretty hard nowadays - even if you get the games running nicely then you really need to be using the proper controller anyway so you might as well just use the hardware to begin with.

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I just found a bunch of promotional VHS that used to come with game magazines about Nintendo stuff....

 

I don't have a VHS anymore and I really don't know what to do with them.

 

I also played a little Gex and... he's super annoying and he's not very funny. The sequels are even worse since they are early 3D games they are so... empty? They can't handle that much and the rooms only have a meager amount of items.

 

I also found a bunch of extra DS pointers. I'm finding a lot of junk today. 

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The VGA box for Dreamcast is worthwhile to get widescreen on some games and there are cheap knock offs still available. Some people spend way too much money on an official SEGA VGA box and I have no idea why kt would actually be any different.

Yeah, the knockoffs are just as good as the official unit. The Dreamcast looks awesome over VGA; widescreen is a nice bonus, but it's the progressive scan that really makes the difference. It was a significant half-step toward HD consoles gaming.

 

Pro-tip: Some games will appear not to work over VGA, but if you switch the output during boot-up, you can get them going anyway.

 

See I'm the type of twat who'd probably buy that. Part of the reason I moved away from the SFC collecting was my increasing desire for a Framemeister Mini just to make it look its best. 

I have one of these. I think it's defective, because even after tangling myself in a web of various custom adapters, I was never able to get the SCART input working, but it was cool getting scanlines on S-Video and composite stuff. Systems that are designed for an interlaced display look so terrible on HDTVs. Of course, it doesn't do anything for the latency.

 

When I have the space, I'm going to hook all the old junk up to a good CRT; there's really no substitute.

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I just found a bunch of promotional VHS that used to come with game magazines about Nintendo stuff....

 

I don't have a VHS anymore and I really don't know what to do with them.

 

Buy a super-cheap VHS player, somehow use the SCART OUT to rip them, then upload them to the internet!

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I actually have them as private videos on YT channel, since I'm pretty sure I'd get some content ID match of sorts, but now that I don't have a VHS, they are just taking up space for me. 

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I just realized I still have a copy of Voodoo Nightmare for the Amiga 500, which died a few years ago.

 

You wouldn't happen to know if I could just get an Amiga emulator to read the disquettes? 

 

I have a bunch of Amiga games I can't even play anymore, it would be nice to play them again in a relatively easy way.

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I have Chibi-Robo for GC, but never played more than an hour of it. Is it the best Chibi-Robo game?

 

It's absolutely the best Chibi-Robo game, and i would argue it's also one of the best games on the Gamecube. It is a relentlessly charming delight of a game.

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S-Video is an American thing, isn't it? Europe used RGB SCART instead which I believe was better but off the top of my head the N64 doesn't output that, or only some models do or it requires modded maybe, so the PAL one always looks shit. There was definitely an output reason I didn't rebuy an N64 as emulating that successfully is pretty hard nowadays - even if you get the games running nicely then you really need to be using the proper controller anyway so you might as well just use the hardware to begin with.

Oh sorry, I guess you wouldn't be able to get S-Video then, damn. Can you guys get component cables for the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox Generation and on?

 

Yeah, the knockoffs are just as good as the official unit. The Dreamcast looks awesome over VGA; widescreen is a nice bonus, but it's the progressive scan that really makes the difference. It was a significant half-step toward HD consoles gaming

Yeah it's surprising how much Sega was sort of ahead of the game with the VGA hookups, even though no one really knows it or generally used it at the time. Most HD TVs seem to have VGA ports but maybe this isn't as common anymore?

 

I'm kind of afraid if my HD TV breaks I may not be able to find one these days that have all the hook ups, because I don't know how many ports there are anymore. Mine currently has everything I need, although sadly there's only one S-Video port. It also only has only two composite which is a shame.

 

One thing I hate about PS2 is to play PS1 games looking the best, you have to also have a S-Video cable since for whatever reason it won't force the composite cable to output PS1 games.

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Oh sorry, I guess you wouldn't be able to get S-Video then, damn. Can you guys get component cables for the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox Generation and on?

 

Aye, they're fine. The PS2 can use PS3 cables and in my opinion still looks great on an HDTV. The GameCube does have its own component cables but they cost over £100 last time I checked and no third party solution exists... Luckily Wiis are so cheap it's more cost effective to buy one of those with a set of cables and just run everything through the miracle of backwards compatibility.

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