So I just got back from Tokyo 3 days ago and I’m still a bit jet lagged, and also very sick >.< But I refused to miss out on 2014’s RSM (Retrospelsmässan), Sweden’s yearly retro gaming exhibition in Gothenburg. So I drove there yesterday to see what they had to offer.

The setup was similar to last year, the biggest improvement though was that they had more registers at the entrance (6 instead of 1 or 2 last year) so the massive queues went a lot faster (but they were still there). Last year I waited almost 4 hours before I could get in, this year it took a little more than one hour.

The last 1/5 part of the queuing

There were as usual loads of cosplayers running around. It’s always nice to see ^_^ Here’s a few of the characters I managed to capture on camera:

It’s a me! Mario!

Street Fighter and Kingdom Hearts cosplay

My personal favorite: Wheatley from Portal ^_^ Brilliant!

Zelda & Link cosplay

At the fair there were loads of things to do. They had competitions, hundreds of systems, arcades and pinball machines setup to be played, artwork being made and sold, speedruns, street fighter tournaments, traders selling retro games and stuff and lots more.

And Charles Martinet was there (the voice of Mario & friends) and you could get his signature…

…which I did ^_^ He was very friendly and funny :)

I came in quite late since I had to drive for 2 hours to get there, so I didn’t have time to browse around a lot through the games. I also think that most of the good stuff had already been picked out, but I did manage to find a few things :) I found Sunset Riders for Sega Mega Drive, Wolfchild and Prince of Persia for Sega Mega CD. I’ve been curious about the Mega CD version of Wolfchild ever since I made the review for Wolfchild on Master System. I found it disturbing that the game lacked music, then someone told me that the Mega CD version had music, so I had to hear it ^_^ Sunset Riders has also been on my radar for some time but it has always been so pricey on eBay. I got it for approximately 40 GBP (or 69 USD).

I also found a mysterious Famicom pirate game which had no name, just an image of Tetris and airplanes?! So I had to buy it to see what it would be like ^_^

It turned out to be just Tetris, but I haven’t seen a Tetris that looks exactly like this one before. It had loads of gameplay options like 1 player, 2 player, cooperative, versus etc.

It also had loads of russian songs to choose from ^_^ Troika is my favorite :D

That’s it for now, soon i’ll make a big post about all my pickups in Japan, and also a small guide of Akihabara’s great assortment of retro game shops ^_^ But first I will have to sort out this mess on my desk of over 100 games that I bought during my 2 weeks there… o_O

If you wanna know more about Retrospelsmässan check out their webpage, you can also read about my visit to last year’s RSM here >>

I’ve recently come back from a two week vacation in Tokyo, I went there with 5 other friends and we had a blast! ^_^
  

While in Tokyo I took the opportunity to go hunting for some retro games of course! I’ve been to Tokyo quite some times now, but I’ve only ever found Super Potato where I could buy retro games. This time however I got a friend from instagram to show me around Akihabara to all the best retro game shops! ^_^
Here’s a map I’ve made of the places I went to:
 

The two Sega buildings that I pinned on the map are easy to find. After you take the Akihabara Electric Town Exit just go right, out into a square, if you look to your left you will see the first giant SEGA building:

Once you get closer to it you will see the second SEGA building as well:

SUPER POTATO

So first off is Super Potato, this place is a bit pricey, but it’s a must-go for all retro gaming enthusiasts! It’s located on the street behind the two SEGA buildings. It’s kind of hard to find the entrance since it’s quite small and you won’t really see the signs for it unless you look up (or can read japanese). It’s down on this street, I’ve located it with a circle, however if you go on the route of the map it will be on your right side instead of left.

This is the building:

You will have to go into a corridor and take the elevator up:

Super Potato has 4 floors, first floor is mainly cartridge games (famicom, super famicom, sega master system, mega drive, pc engine, game boy etc). Second floor has some newer games like playstaytion, dreamcast etc. The third floor has mainly strategy guides to retro games and the fourth floor has retro arcade machines where you can play puyo puyo, pac-land, final fight, ghosts n’ goblins and a bunch of other old classics ^_^ Everything is very neatly displayed and they also have a bunch of merchandise.
One thing that bugs me about Super Potato is that they have two giant shelves filled from top to bottom with famicom games and most of them are doubles. You will see the same game 10 times in a row sometimes, it makes it hard going through it all.. and time consuming. They have however put end labels on the plastic wrap of each game, but it’s written in japanese.

MANDARAKE COMPLEX

Next up is Mandarake Complex, I didn’t spend too much time here, but they had loads of retro games at reasonable prices! And so many boxed games in great condition ^_^ I saw a mint CiB Recca and I really wanted to buy it, but that game is almost just as expensive in Japan as it is on eBay… :( At Mandarake Complex all the games were in hard plastic cases, it made it a bit dull to look through it all, and hard to spot the games you were looking for..

They also had an assortment of Neo Geo games, I really would like to start collecting for that system, but damn those games are pricey! The most expensive one I saw was 220.000 Yen, which is over 2000 USD… o_O

MANDARAKE GALAXY

I did however spend more time at another Mandarake store in Nakano (Nakano is just one stop from Shinjuku station with the JR line, or three stops if you don’t take the chuo rapid line). (Note that this store is NOT located in Akihabara and not pinned on the map above..). Mandarake Galaxy is located on the second floor inside Nakano Broadway, a mall that is just straight ahead after exiting the station.

This one wasn’t very big but they made use of their space by only displaying one of each game instead of triples (like in Super Potato). Their games were also really neatly displayed in a way that you could easily browse through them ^^ And it was very reasonably priced! :D This is how happy I was at the Mandarake Galaxy store in Nakano ^_^

They had a lot of gems and I bought loads of games here, including Gimmick! ^_^ They also had another cabinet inside where they had stuff that wasn’t for sale, just for show >-< Like the Sega Mega Drive Tetris!! 

TRADER

Next up is Trader in Akihabara, this is located just a bit further down the street from the two SEGA buildings.

Just like in the Mandarake Complex in Akihabara this store had all it’s cartridges and boxed games in plastic cases. This makes it kind of hard to browse through loose Famicom carts.. I bought a few games here though.

I found a boxed Altered Beast for Game Boy Advance, I regret not getting it since it was so cheap >_<  3500 Yen is approximately 34 USD…

They also had a bin filled with loose carts that all cost under 100 Yen! The cheapest I found was 19 Yen, which is less than 20 cents ^_^ There was no guarantee that they would work though. However, all the five games I found in the bin has worked perfectly ^_^

You could also get Neo Geo games here and other rarities. However they were not displayed, only by advertisements all over the walls. I guess you would have to go to a counter to order them.

FRIENDS

Now the last shop my friends took me too was so cute! It was run by this old lady and her husband, and it was called FRIENDS ^__^
        

It was very small, but it was crammed with retro games! ^_^ And it was mostly very cheap :) It was really easy to browse through the Famicom carts, and they also had a bunch of bins filled with cheaper carts, around 100 Yen.

Apparently there was also a second floor, I didn’t have time to see it though. I was told they had Sega Saturn games and stuff like that upstairs.

I would recommend all of these shops for retro game collectors that visit Tokyo ^_^

And if you’re not into buying games, there are also loads of places to just play games! :D Here’s my post about the Arcades of Akihabara ^_^

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 ^_^

Finally I’ve had some time to go through all the games that were already on my desk before leaving for Japan, and also the 117 games I bought while in Tokyo!! :D

On this trip to Tokyo I mainly focused on Famicom, I just went through every shelf of every retro gaming store and picked up anything I found that I didn’t already have! This concluded in a few really rare and expensive titles, but also a lot of junk like baseball games and unplayable mystery solving games and RPGs, but I’m really happy to finally have Gimmick!, Over Horizon and Snow Bros in my collection :D

Snow Bros wasn’t as fun as I had hoped. Kind of like Bubble Bobble, but not as cute :/

Over Horizon is a great shooter! The visuals are so pretty ^_^

And Gimmick! was also a lot of fun! So adorable, but yet difficult! ^_^

I also found Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers in pretty condition and Gebara (or Guevara)  which I’ve only ever encountered once before and it was too expensive that time. Below is also a game called Jigoku Gokuraku Maru. I had never seen it before but the cover art reminded me of Genpei Toumaden so I assumed it was good ;D and it was! But it’s just a sidescrolling action platform where you play as a red-headed girl :)

Guevara is a fun Commando-style shooter where you can team up with a friend (who then plays as Fidel Castro) ;D

I found a Famicom cartridge copy of After Burner, I’ve never seen that before either.. I have it for Sega Master System and Mega Drive though.. Also got Cross Fire and Guardic Gaiden (Guardian Legend).

Cross Fire was kind of fun, very much like Dead Fox (Code Name Viper) but not quite as good.

I’ve been looking for Wanpaku Kokkun no Gourmet World but it’s been awfully pricey on eBay, in Tokyo however it was much more affordable ^_^ The middle game is called Pyokotan no Dai Meiro and it’s kind of like a maze game but with various mini-games whenever you open chests and stuff. It was interesting :) I also found Moero Twin Bee on a cart! I’ve only ever seen it for the Disk System, I didn’t think it existed on a cartridge, but I was pleased to find it ^_^

Wanpaku Kokkun no Gourmet World was OK, kind of easy and childish though.

In Moero Twinbee you can play three players simultaneously! This blew my mind ^___^

These were just a few of all the Famicom cartridges I got (103 in total!), but I also scored a few Super Famicom Games:
  
  

And some PC Engine and Sega Mega Drive games:
  
  
 

Now this was a few of the pickups, I will make another post soon with all the rest of the Famicom carts when I’ve uploaded them to the Famicom Collection Library :)

Once again I’ve made a trade with Eric The SegaDude and this time we shipped A LOT of games across the atlantic ^___^

I found some games here in Sweden that Eric had laid eyes on, so I grabbed them for him to trade with some doubles he had that I didn’t have in my collection :) This is what I got:

Rampage is a classic game, I had it for a few other systems, but not for Sega Master System ^_^ The cover artwork is really cool and the box was in great condition, unfortunately lacking a manual, but I don’t really care about that :) This game is fun and you can play two players just wrecking buildings together :D

Dead Angle was complete and in great condition ^_^ This game makes use of the Sega Master System’s lightphaser. I have a lot of games for the Master System now that requires the lightphaser, I get the feeling that Sega was better at making use of their accessory than Nintendo, however Duck Hunt was a total hit ;D

I already had The Ninja, but mine was in really awful condition, the box was basically falling apart :/ So this was a nice upgrade :D The Ninja is just that, you play as a Ninja throwing ninja stars at enemies trying not to get killed by other ninjas ;D

Speedball is a kind of sports game, much like soccer, but futuristic. It kind of sucks ;D haha! The controls are unresponsive and I couldn’t quite figure out how to pass or how to shoot or tackle.. >-< I don’t like sports in general though, but still it’s complete and in great condition so a nice addition to the collection ^__^

I enjoy Space Harrier, and I have it for several different systems. I didn’t have it for the Sega Master System though so I couldn’t pass this one up ^_^ Even though it’s lacking the manual, it’s in excellent condition :)

I’m not really into RPG’s, but since I didn’t have it it can still join my collection, I bet I have a friend or two who would enjoy it ;D Noticeable is that the music is not nearly as good as it is on the japanese version that I recently got for Eric :) And it’s still completely different than the Famicom version :) It was also complete and even had a huge map! (not pictured..) ^__^

I had Dynamite Dux before, but that one was completely littered with a German child’s drawings and stickers.. >_< so I’m happy to have a clean version of the cover ;D Unfortunately it was without manual so I had to complete it with the other manual filled with doodles ;D lol

This is also not really my type of game, not enough action and too much reading ;D But I’m happy to have it in my collection ^^

Cloud Master was a bunch of fun! ^_^ It was also complete and in great condition :D It’s a cute shooter with a boy on a cloud :D I have the Famicom version as well, it’s called Chuuka taisen :)

Apart from all these Sega Master System games I also got a few japanese Sega Mega Drive games :D

Maou Renjishi (or Mystical Ninja) is a really cool beat ‘em up in japanese style! I hadn’t tried it before and I was stuck playing through the first 4 bosses until I died ^_^ I enjoyed it a lot :D

I also didn’t have Ghostbusters for the Mega Drive before, this is a really cute platformer, but i got stuck on the first stage. I couldn’t get past a room with a ghost head that shot fireballs at me >_<

I also got this one :D Garou Densetsu is a fighting game, I don’t know much about fighting games since I don’t play them that often, but it looks decent ^_^

Eric also threw in a loose NTSC Sega Genesis cart of Sonic Spinball so that I could try whether I would be able to play NTSC games on any of my systems!

Unfortunately…. This is what it said when I started it up on my PAL Sega Mega Drive.. and when I started it in my japanese Sega Mega Drive the system just wouldn’t power on :( But at least we know for sure now!

A pleasure as always doing trades with The SegaDude! :D Thank you Eric! ^_^ And let me know if you want the Sonic Spinball cartridge back ^^

(make sure to check out his awesome Sega Collection!!)

Thanks to @VariXx from Twitter I finally took the time to scan all my PAL Sega Saturn games, I will go for the Japanese ones next :) You can find the entire Saturn Collection here!

I haven’t been that fond of the Sega Saturn games since I got it a couple of years ago, but that’s probably because I have a lot of shitty games for it ;D And also I don’t really like the awkard beginning of 3D games, and the fact that they have to put “virtual” in almost any title ;D This is one of the reasons I only have 29 games for this system so far, but since I got the japanese saturn and tried out a bunch of puzzle games for that one, I’ve become more and more fond of the Saturn ^_^ I have another 25 games for the japanese Sega Saturn.

If anyone has any suggestions of good games (preferably platform, puzzle or 2D shooters ;D) for the Sega Saturn then please let me know! ^_^

Here are a few games that I enjoy from my PAL Saturn collection:
         

And here are the rest (check out the full size scans in the Sega Saturn collection library):

I know a lot of people are fond of the Panzer Dragoon series.. but  I just don’t feel it holds up today.. and I never played it when it came out :/

I bought so many games at Retrogahtering 2014 that it has taken some time to organize it all. It was a great place to shop for games though, they had a lot of great sellers, like Spel & Sånt whom I bought loads of stuff from ;D

The most expensive game I bought was Separation Anxiety (PAL) for the SNES. It’s the sequel to Maximum Carnage. The day after my friends over at Gaminggrannar showed me a cool little shop called Ploppsi in Örebro, here I also found this action figure of Venom which I basically got for free after buying some games there as well ;D It made for a great photo opportunity ^__^

Here are some other SNES games I picked up. The Lost Vikings, Robocop 3, Lost Dimension, Judge Dredd, Push-Over, Rival Turf! and Space MegaForce. When I tried Space Megaforce out I realised I already had it for the Super Famicom, it’s Super Aleste…

I also got some really nice Sega Mega Drive games, like Ristar and Contra Hard corps for the Japanese Mega Drive, and also Captain America and the Avengers, Galaxy Force II, Robocop vs Terminator, California Games, Sword of Vermillion, Alien 3 and a bunch of NHL and sports games that I didn’t previously own. 

I found a weird game that Borka at Spel&Sånt persuaded me to get. It’s called Caution Seaman and it’s for the Sega Dreamcast. Apparently you have some sort of seaman in an aquarium which you speak to through a microphone that comes with the game. It just sounded so weird that I had to get it! :D

The Swedish GAME store was also represented at Retrogathering and I got some complete Sega Game Gear games from there :) Halley Wars, Aerial Assault and Super Space Invaders!

I also got a bunch of Sega Master System from Super Motaro at Retrogathering. These included Kung Fu Kid, Rambo III, Great Golf, Fantazy Zone II, Rocky, Crash Dummies, California Games, Basketball Nightmare, The Lucky Dime Caper, Wimbledon and Wimbledon II. I also found Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker the day after at Ploppsi ^_^

I found something that I wasn’t expecting as well! When I started collecting a bit over 10 years ago I fell in love with the Nintendo Virtual Boy and bought every game I came across for it. After a while I had most of them, I was only lacking Water World out of the US releases, and I found it this weekend! :D I also got Warioland and Mario Clash for the Japanese Virtual Boy, I only had these in US releases previously, and I found a complete copy of Nester’s Funky Bowling (I previously only had the loose cartridge). This got me so excited that I went on eBay when I got home and found something else ;D I’ll let you know what once it arrives in the mail! :D After that I am only lacking two of the Japanese releases to have a complete Virtual Boy Collection! :D

I also got about 20 Atari 2600 games, a multi-game tap for the Atari 2600, 12 games for the Commodore 64 some pirate NES and Famicom carts, 3 complete N64 games and a bunch of other stuff ^_^ Now I’m gonna prepare my next entry about Retrospelsfestivalen which was this last weekend!

So here’s the games I picked up at Retrospelsfestivalen, due to the proposal the day ended quite quickly so I didn’t have time to buy much more, but I did find a few interesting things ^_^

First off I found a guy selling off some of his japanese games. I picked up Chitei Tairiku Orudora & Super Boy Allan for Famicom Disk System. Both complete in their big boxes :) I already had Chitei Tairiku Orudora, but not in it’s big box, so I couldn’t stay away from getting it ^_^

I also found a Jajamaru game I didn’t previously have :D They’re usually quite cute platforming games so I picked this one up as well. It’s called Jajamaru Gekimaden Maboroshi no Kinmajou.

He also had a bunch of PC Engine games, most of them I already had, and some were just a bit too expensive. But these two I got at a reasonable price :) Avenger and Prince of Persia.

Another seller had a Power Pad for the NES! I’ve always wanted one but never found one at a good price. It’s bigger than I expected! :D 

I’m really excited to finally try these two games out for the Power Pad! :D Athletic World I’ve had for about a decade (!) and Dance Aerobics I got the weekend before at Retrogathering. Look at those hilarious 80’s kids posing in aerobics positions! hahaha ^_^

And here’s a closeup of the Dance Aerobics label!

I also got an NES game called M.U.L.E. It’s a US release only I think, never heard of it before but I’m excited to try it out! The box art is amazing! :D It’s a freaking Space Cowboy!!! :D

The final game I bought was from a friend of mine that was selling off parts of his collection. I finally got around to getting Sonic 3! (Yes, I did not previously have all the Sonic games… shame on me…) I’m glad to have it now though ^_^

This weekend I’m heading to Gamex/Comic Con in Stockholm, so the update on this previous weekend’s visit to a Sci-Fi convention in Helsingborg will have to wait until after this weekend (and yes, I found games there too!!) ;D

I’ve been so busy with work and playing games with friends online lately that I haven’t gotten around to finishing my own video tour of my new Game Room. Thankfully my friends over at GamingGrannar paid me a visit and filmed it for me! :D They have now released all 5 episodes of my retro video game collection.

The first episode covers my Virtual Boy collection and Super Famicom. Unfortunately for all you non-Swedish people all the episodes are in Swedish, but you can still see all the games and stuff, you just might not understand what we’re saying about them ;D Here’s the first episode:

The second episode is covering my PC Engine collection, Dave gets to try out some PC Engine shooters like Cocoron and Download, and we play Katochan & Kenchan:

The third episode is about Famicom and we play some Crisis Force and other games:

The fourth episode is basically a tour of the game room and the setup and Dave gets to play some Vectrex :)

And in the fifth and final episode we go through my Castlevania collection and some Sega Mega Drive games:

There’s still a lot of things that GamingGrannar did not cover, but I’ll continue to post about all my games here on my blog ^_^

Hopefully I’ll get around to finishing my own video tour soon, meanwhile here’s some recent pictures I took of the game room (things haven even changed since they were here this summer) ^_^

And here’s some closeups of some of the game shelves:

Last time I had my bestie Becki (NinjaBrite) over we decided to make a youtube film! And she agreed on playing some retro video games with me! (We usually only play Xbox together) So I was thrilled and pulled out the worst games I could think of ;D No but I actually hadn’t really tried these games out, and it said it was multiplayer so we just went for it ^_^ And we ended up having a LOT of fun! Even with the most boring of games ;D

Check out the video here! :D

The first game we played was Dragon the Bruce Lee Story. This was a co-op beat’em up kind of game. The controls were kind of stiff, and the stages were kind of boring and didn’t change much (then again we didn’t make it very far ;D), and worst of all, the game had no music past the intro!! I guess they ran out of space on the cartridge >_< sucky…

Then we went on to play Sega World Tournament Golf which was extremely entertaining!! Probably mostly because it sucked haha, but we had fun and went all in ;D Unfortunately also a game that lacked music.. and it gets extremely repetitive.. and green…

Lastly we ended up playing Super Monaco GP (which we both love for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis, but the Master System version was something completely different!!) Also no music, and extremely annoying sound effects and the shittiest controls I’ve ever experienced!! >_<

Not recommended!

Hope you enjoy the video, and if anyone has suggestions of what you would like to see us play next time then let me know in the comments ^_^  Also if you have instagram check out our account @Geeky_Gals for random geekery ^_^

So here comes my pickups from yesterday’s Sci-Fi convention Sci-Fi World in Malmö :D I bought quite a few games for various systems, mainly Sega this time! But let’s start off with some odd stuff that I just felt compelled to get!! Like these Star Wars Bend-Ems figures from 1993 with bonus trading cards! The poses of these figures are ridiculous! :D Look at that Stormtrooper!! ^___^

Then there’s this awesome Samus Aran fuse bead lamp made by Pappas Pärlor ^_^  It looks great in my game room! I also got a pair of Game Boy earrings from him! Thank’s Johan! :D

This figure of Sepiroth was not possible to pass out on! So cheap, and so cool ^___^

I also got some stuff from Webhallen :) Mario, yoshi and toad PEZ dispensers, a Mega Man energy drink and a mushroom ^_^

After this it was all games! :D Let’s start of with Sega! I got four Sega Master System games, Monopoly, Golfmania, Prince of Persia and G-Loc. Prince of Persia had such an awesome cover! He looks like a scared Luke Skywalker! :D

Then I also got G-Loc for the Sega Mega Drive, and Super Hang On, Normy’s Beach Babe-O-Rama and Mario Lemieux Hockey. Probably not the best games, but I didn’t previously have them, and my fiance only plays hockey for the Sega systems ;D And I got Strider II which I hope is as awesome as the first one! ^_^

I also got a Sega Mega CD game that had two games in one, on one side there’s Cobra Command and on the other side there’s Sol-Feace.

Let’s move over to Nintendo. Here I got three NES games, R.C. Pro Am (which I was sure I had before, but I couldn’t find it in my list, so I guess I was wrong..), Mad Max (probably extremely shitty since games based on movies usually are ;D) and Defender of the Crown.

I also got three SNES games, first up was Kirby’s Ghost Trap. This one is interesting since I had never heard of it before, but in the morning before the convention I was at my friend’s house and she had it, I got curious since it looked just like puyo puyo so I needed it, then I looked it up on eBay and considered buying it, but didn’t. Then when I came to the convention I saw it again! So I bargained with the guy and got it! I’m super excited to try it out now! :D Then I also got Q-Bert 3 and Dragon’s Lair, I’m wondering whether it’s as hard as the NES version ;D

I found some cheap Super Famicom games as well, but they’re hardly worth mentioning ;D Soccer, Baseball and racing Z_Z boring..

That’s everything I got at the convention! I also popped by the GAME store afterwards, and got some more stuff ;D But I’ll make another post of that later ^_^

Yesterday was the second time I visited Pixel K.A.F.E. in Malmö! This time it twas mainly because they were hosting a Retro Market there, selling off games and consoles and other nerdy things! Unfortunately it’s not going too well for Pixel, but I hope the contributions and sales today will have some effect and make it turn around! Because it’s an awesome place! :)

There were so many things for sale! Both Nintendo and Sega games, both PAL, NTSC and Japanese! Even Neo Geo games!!! Both AES and MVS, right next to the My Little Ponys ^__^ There were Vintage Toys, consoles, even arcades! And also something I really wanted, but it was too heavy for me to carry home on the train >_< Namely a custom built arcade controller for the Playstation 2 to be used with Pop ‘n Music!! So pretty ^__^

Apart from this, the owner showed me around arcade town! I even got to see the insides of a Blast City cabinet! :D So cool! The key to the cabinet had “SEGA” written on it ^_^ It’s all about the details ;D

So this is what i scored! First up is a bunch of Neo Geo MVS cartridges!! :D :D I’m totally excited about these! And NONE OF THEM are fighting games :D I’ve bought a converter for my AES so that it can play MVS cartridges as well. This is mainly because the collecting will become more feasible and cheaper! I will buy shockboxes for these carts, then they will blend in with the rest of the AES games on the shelf ^_^ The games I got was Spin Master, which is a really cool platforming game, Puzzle Bobble, Puzzle de Pon and League Bowling ^__^ I’m eagerly awaiting my converter to arrive so I can play these!!!

One of the cartridges is transparent, the others are black.

Apart from this I also found some Sega Mega Drive games. These were The Tennis Tournament Grand Slam, RoboCop 3 and NHL 95. The last two lacked a manual, but Grand Slam was complete.

I also found some Super Nintendo games and a Super Famicom game. Even though this NTSC version of Final Fight was in pretty bad shape and lacked a manual I still had to get it, because that boxart is amazing!! I fell in love with it ^_^ I also found Final Fight for SFC, so I got that one too. It’s really fun to just see the differences in the artwork between the North American version and the Japanese :D Apart from these two I also found a really nice version of Tetris Attack!! I didn’t have Tetris Attack previously, but I have Panel de Pon, which is basically the same game, they just switched out the characters ^_^

I couldn’t help but look at all those amazing vintage toys that were there as well ^_^ They are just so charming! :D I ended up buying four figures for Pepparkaksninja that he wanted. He collects vintage toys, takes cool pictures of them and makes even cooler videos (check out his amazing collection here!). I also got a little something for myself that I think will fit perfectly in the game room! :D

When you move his arm the ghosts appear in his mouth!! :D Pac-Man <3

After visiting the GAME store and Café på Bit in Skellefteå I came home with 19 games! I’m really happy with my pickups ^_^ All decently priced!

Let’s start with what I found at GAME: shitloads of Game Boy games! :D Mainly for Game Boy Advance, but also a few for Color and one for the first Game Boy. DK King of Swing, Gradius Galaxies, Bust-A-Move Millenium and GTA 2 were all brand new and still sealed! :) I’ve already opened up two of them though.. so now they’re “used” lol..

I really enjoyed Gradius Galaxies! At first I thought it was a compilation game with all the previous ones in it, but when I realized it was its own game I was thrilled :D Just as fun as the original Gradius on the NES ^^ They kept all the good parts :)

When I was younger and didn’t have any console games I downloaded GTA 2 on my PC, had hours of fun with that game ^_^ I was glad to see a Game Boy Color port of it! Now I’m excited to revisit it :D

I also got these four games for Game Boy Advance: Batman Begins, American Dragon Jake Long (surprisingly fun!), Alex Rider Stormbreaker (like an updated version of Crackdown on the Mega Drive) and a compilation of Winnie the Pooh’s Rumbly Tumbly Adventure and Rayman 3 (Rayman is always awesome! Especially the older 2D games ^_^)

For the Game Boy I found a really pretty copy of Double Dragon! Love the artwork! :D The gameplay was far from as good as it is on other consoles though… probably the worst port I’ve played of that game so far :/ And then I also got Blade for Game Boy Color, since it looked like a cool platforming action game :) Haven’t tried it out yet though..

Apart from all these handheld games I also found an interesting game for the Super Nintendo, Harley’s Humongous Adventure! Never heard of it before.. it was one of the first things I tried out when I got home! And it was fun! The gameplay and controls were fluent, the sprites were pretty and it was most of all fun!

The story is about a smart inventor guy that has accidentally shrunken himself and has to fight off all the bugs to regain all the parts to his machine so he can re-size himself haha ^_^ Best part is that you get to ride a TANK!! :D

The final game I found at this store was Raiden for Atari Jaguar :) It was in really nice condition and to a decent price ^^

Now on to the interesting things I found at Café på Bit! :D You can’t begin to imagine the excitement I experienced when I realized that half of the games in their giant wall-covering shelf had price tags on them!! ^___^ hahaha

I only found one NES game I didn’t already have: McDonaldland

This game was OK.. I wouldn’t recommend it though. It’s a platformer, when you start the game the intro states the name of the game as Mc Kids instead of McDonaldland which it says on the cartridge. What’s also annoying is that this one is apparently a french version.. >_<

You have to run around and collect M’s and find the hard-to-reach M-boxes to unlock the face of Ronald McDonald on the map screen.. I gave up after having tried all the stages..

I found a bunch of Sega Mega Drive games that I’m super excited about though! Haven’t had time to try them out yet, but I’m really curious about Dahna, Turrican and Super Fantazy Zone ^_^ I’m also interested to see what Probotector is like and to see if I already have the same game for Super Famicom or not.. (Probotector is the European name for the Contra series)..

Apart from these I also got Ariel the Little Mermaid, it’s in super nice condition and I didn’t have it before :) I remember playing it when I was young, at my friends place, and I recall it being fun. I hope it still holds up today ^_^

I also got Dynamite Duke and Krusty’s Fun House, cause they were cheap ;D

That’s it for this weekends pickups, got some things in the mail that I’ll write about soon ;D Meanwhile, I’m preparing myself for Sweden’s yearly retro game exhibition in Gothenburg that is coming up in just around 2 weeks :D

In celebration of May the 4th (Star Wars day!) I thought I’d share some of my beloved Star Wars retro games! ^__^

First up is the weirdest Star Wars game I have, Star Wars on Famicom:

This is a really interesting game! I think it’s a fun platformer, but it gets very challenging after a while. It’s got some really weird things in it, like Darth Vader magically transforming into a scorpion or crab-like creature or Luke Skywalker having black hair in game but yellow in the cutscenes haha ^^ It’s definitely an interesting game though that I urge any Star Wars fan or 8-bit platforming action game fan to try out! It’s also a great addition to any collection with it’s sparkly silver cartridge :D So pretty ^__^

Next up is the Super Star Wars thrilogy on Super Famicom:

These three are amazingly well done and really fun ^_^ Sometimes a bit challenging, for example, I got stuck on the Empire Strikes Back and couldn’t get past one of the later levels because there was a jump that was nearly impossible to make! Otherwise they’re well rounded and stay fairly true to the movies :) I also have the first one on Super Famicom, I have been considering getting the other two as well, but it’s not really necessary since I already have the games ;D I do enjoy the Super Famicom artwork a bit more though…

Next up are some Nintendo 64 games with Star Wars. These I haven’t played a lot, basically just started them to make sure they worked. I’m not really a fan of the N64 :/

One Star Wars game I have that I haven’t even been able to play is the Star Wars Arcade for the Sega 32X. I don’t have the 32X expansion for my Sega Mega Drive yet :( The artwork looks amazing though!

I also have Star Wars games for several other platforms, but I chose to picture the ones that are nice and complete ^_^ There is another one that I find really charming though, The Empire Strikes Back for Atari 2600 :D So I pictures it here with my awesome Darth Vader lunchbox! :D

I hope you have enjoyed some retro gaming Star Wars love! On our Geeky Gals instagram account we’ve also shared loads of various geeky pictures related to Star Wars today! Go check it out here >>

May the Fourth be with you!! ^____^

So  here’s the final part of my RSM loot! All the games!! :D Apart from the Atari Lynx games that I mentioned in the first post..

I got quite a lot of C64 games since these were cheap ^_^ Scramble Spirits, Pac-Mania and Cosmic Causeway were really pretty big boxes ^_^ Scramble is always fun! Pac-Mania looked like a cool 3D version of Pac-Man, I’m sure I have it for other systems already but it’s always fun to try out various ports ^_^ Never heard of Cosmic Causeway but I love the artwork! On the screenshots it kind of looks like some kind of Space Harrier game ^_^

I also found these 4 big boxes, I’m hoping this C64 JAWS is better than the NES version ;D Killer Ring looks to be some kind of shooter, Terry’s Adventure was just cheap and I loved the tacky James Bond montage on the 007 License to Kill cover ^_^

These C64 boxes were a bit different! Frost Byte and Kong Strikes Back were in soft plastic, the screenshots and artwork intrigued me ^_^ Creatures had a really pretty cover! It’s a paper box, and it looks like an amazing side-scrolling platform adventure ^_^

I also got Wibstars, Chuckie Egg (a classic that I actually didn’t have before), Herobotix and a Christmas Collection containing 6 games. Herobotix had such a cool name and an awesome robot on the cover! :D Had to get it ^_^ The Christmas Collection contained a game I’ve been wanting to try out for a long time now! I bought Exolon on Amiga 500 a while back and it never worked, the seller kept sending me new floppy disks but none would load :( So hopefully this cassette will and I’ll at least get to see what type of game it is! :D

I got a few PC Engine titles as well. There weren’t a lot of PC Engine stuff at RSM, but I did find these three titles that I didn’t previously have, pretty cheap ^_^ Master of Monsters, Ballistix and Babel.

I bought an expensive N64 title, Paper Mario! I have never played any of the Paper Mario games and everyone tells me they’re good. I’ve recently found out that they’re kind of RPG games as well.. which I don’t like >_< So I have no clue what I will think of it.. I guess I’ll just have to try it out and see for myself ^^

There were more japanese stuff at RSM, and I found some Sega Saturn games :D Pretty nice titles I think as well :) Vampire Hunter, Bubble Symphony & Saturn Bomberman Fight :D

Another system I got a few games for was Playstation 1. Both Puchi Carat and Parappa the Rapper were cheap :) I’ve actually never played Parappa the Rapper, I have a Playstation 2 version, but it was Japanese so I didn’t have a system to play it on until recently when I got a modded one. Haven’t gotten around to trying it yet though.. Now I will though ^_^

I’m extremely happy to have found a Neo Geo AES game that was affordable and NOT a fighting game!! :D I found this game called Puzzled ^_^ It’s quite fun and very challenging! It’s falling Tetris pieces that you need to put in place to remove the obstacles that is keeping your ship captured at the bottom. Once the ship is freed you clear the stage. I love puzzle game like this! :D It’s also in really nice condition ^_^

I also found some NES games, there were LOADS of NES games for sale at RSM, but I didn’t dig too deep into all the piles. I found these two that I didn’t previously own and was curious to try out ^_^ Tom & Jerry and… Barbie! haha

Tom & Jerry was a fun platformer, kind of hard though. You could only take three hits and there were so many things that would hurt you >_<

Barbie had extremely stiff controls and animations. It was extremely simple and stupid haha ^_^ And it got difficult only because of the stiff controls..

I also got a really cool looking NES game called Defenders of Dynatron City! I had never encountered this one before! :D And I got a pretty good deal from KCL to by this minty complete game ^_^ The cover art is amazing!! The game was also pretty cool, but the hit detection was extremely off, which made it frustrating in the long run >_<

You can choose from 3 various main characters, and while in game you can change between another three companions. There’s 6 characters in total, Jet Headstrong, Radium Dog and Ms. Megawatt are the three main ones, out of these I prefer Ms. Megawatt ’cause she has the best and fastest attack ^_^ The three other characters you can always choose from in game are Toolbox, Monkey Kid and Buzzsaw girl. It’s got a pretty cool setup, you have to clear all the streets of the map from robot enemies, once you’ve cleared a stage the shops open up, they’re also filled with enemies, but once killed you can get an item. The item is either a clue, money, food for health or some item you can use. Once all streets are clear you’ll find a boss, when killed he takes you to the next stage, which is inside a mall where you can use the money to buy more items ^_^ It’s got a lot of depth and nice graphics with a lot of various locations but falls short on the horrible hit-detection..

I only found one Famicom game that I didn’t already have. There wasn’t a lot of Famicom at RSM though. The one I found was Sanrio Carnival 2 with Hello Kitty ^_^ My friend Mattias also brought a Pachiottokun game for me which I didn’t have :) Thanks!

I found only one Sega Mega Drive game.. Granada, which is a japanese release. This was a cool tank shooter ^_^ I reached the first boss but he killed me >_<

And I got some Game Boy games, all japanese ones ^_^

Apart from all these games I got a few other goodies from various people or from the Asteroids competition I came in second place in ^_^

I’m extremely happy with this years RSM! Had a great time! Met loads of nice people, bought massive amounts of cool retro gaming stuff and had a blast! :D

This week I visited Halmstad with my buddy Becki. We went there since there’s an exhibition there called Game Masters for a few more weeks. Here they display various video game history from past to present, and they also have a bunch of games for you to try out. We had heard it wasn’t all that great, but that was mainly from friends who thought my game room had more to offer ;D haha! We still wanted to see it with out own eyes, and I also had a free ticket to go see it that I won in the Asteroids competition at the last retro gaming convention we went to :)

To my surprise there were actually A LOT  of old arcade cabinets there that you could play ^_^ I tried them all out except for three that were occupied almost all of the time, which were Donkey Kong, Pac-man and Space Invaders. I think it’s sad that people don’t dare to try something else, then again maybe they’re playing those because of the nostalgia of having played them before.. What kind of bugged me though was that the Donkey Kong cabinet was occupied during the entire time we were there and by the same 2 people which were hosts working at the exhibition.. I think it’s fine that they play when there’s no one around, but when I was in there there were at least 10-15 people in the arcade corner, they shouldn’t be occupying the most popular cabinet then since they can play it whenever o_O

It was really hard to get good pictures in the exhibition since it was pretty dark, only colorful neon lighting in various spots. It made for an extremely cosy environment though, and it looked really cool! But you will have to excuse the shitty images since my camera doesn’t have flash and I didn’t bring a tripod for it.. Anyway, here are most of the arcades that were playable!

I tried playing Tempest, but this was much harder than the console versions I’ve tried! The controls were a wheel that you had to spin to make the ship fly around the edges, and the control were extremely unresponsive! I don’t know if the arcade was faulty or if its supposed to be like that, but you had to really spin it hard for the ship to move a few steps around the side.. I prefer the console versions. Tempest 2000 for Atari Jaguar is pretty cool ^__^

I was surprised at how advanced Missile Command was! I have never seen one of these in person before, so I played it for a bit. It was really hard! You had to hit those missiles straight on the tip of the tiny thin line and you only had a limited amount of shots.. pretty cool ^__^ The controls consisted of a giant ball, it gave you quite a lot of precision but it was also very responsive which made it kind of hard to aim precise.. and you had three different buttons for the various missile launchers you had.

Rip Off was kind of cool, it took a while for me to figure out what the objective was cause I was pushing the wrong buttons on the machine, I was probably on player 2’s side haha ^_^ It’s kind of similar to Asteroids in the controls, but you had to shoot creatures that were stealing your triangles, STAY AWAY FROM MY TRIANGLES! LOL!

I was a bit disappointed in the graphics of Xevious, it looked JUST LIKE my Famicom version… at least how I remember it.. I guess it’s a really good port on the Famicom ;D I did make it into the highscore list on this arcade though ^_^ I like Xevious, but it’s far from the best shmup out there…

Reactor was kind of boring. You just pushed blocks with some kind of magnetic force into a wall while trying to avoid touching the wall yourself…

There was also a Tower of Druaga arcade there but it was out of order :/

I also tried out some Asteroids since that’s what got me the free ticket to the exhibition ;D This was the second time ever that I had played on an Asteroids arcade! I really love this game, and it’s extra nice on an arcade! The graphics remind me of the Vectrex, it’s so crisp! I wish I had one of these at home..

Elevator Action was better than I had expected! The graphics look so dull and I thought it was just about moving down the elevator to the bottom level avoiding enemies, but once I got down there they put me back up by the first red door, apparently you had to collect stuff as well! Woah! Advanced shit ^__^ haha!

Scramble is always good ^_^ Here I actually beat the main highscore!! YAY!!! But unfortunately you didn’t get to sign your initials, the game’s highscore on screen just changed… so nobody will know it was me :(

What really blew my mind was Robotron 2084! This game was so much fun!!!! I played this for the longest time, the controls were smooth, it was hectic but still manageable. You’re this little guy with goggles and you have to shoot all the robots on screen, but there’s also obstacles that you have to avoid or shoot and regular people which need saving, each person gave a bunch of extra points. I’ve researched a bit and there only seems to be an old Atari 7800 port on consoles, and one for Atari Lynx, I’m trying to get a hold of the Lynx version now since I don’t have an Atari 7800 :/ There’s also a Midway collection for GBA that contains the game, and then there’s newer versions like Robotron 64 on N64 and Robotron X on PSX, these do not interest me as much though since they probably fucked up trying to make it 3D >_<

The rest of the exhibition contained a bunch of other stuff, both old and new, but mainly newer things as you walked away from the arcade corner. I spent  most of my time by the arcades while Becki checked out the rest. I did take a stroll around and looked at everything afterwards though. Everything was extremely neatly displayed :) Colorful and clean.

Becki spent  most of her time at the Blizzard corner since she’s an old WoW player ;D She also spent a lot of time with Fable and Black & White, she loves those types of games ^_^ They had most common consoles on display with some typical games in them to be played, like the NES with Super Mario Bros, Sega with Sonic games, Dreamcast with Shenmue etc.. you get the point ;D There were also a lot of PC games, even a lot of earlier ones. A whole corner dedicated to Tim Schafer, and PC’s and consoles so you could play his classics, such as Psychonauts ^_^ They had cubes where you could walk in and play Rockband, a stage for playing some Dancing game, some Outrun arcades and a big corner for indie games at the very end.

In the indie corner I recognized two things I really enjoy, first up the Behemoth studio which made Castle Crashers and Alien Hominide ^_^ Great games! But then I was also really surprised to see Jakob Dvorsky’s Samorost on display and playable on a PC! I haven’t played this game since it came out on the web back in 2003! I used to love this game and show it to all my friends, you could play it in your browser and it was really cool! The graphics were really different for its time, the puzzle solving is a lot of fun and the animations of the characters are just adorable! I URGE EVERYONE TO TRY IT OUT RIGHT NOW! Even to just see the beginning, it’s amazingly odd! And the music is cool ^_^ Click this and play this point and click adventure naaaaoooow!! >> It’s pretty short, but he’s also made sequels to the game ^^ Samorost 2 is longer and harder and has the best soundtrack, you can only try out the first chapter for free then it costs $5 but you get the soundtrack with it if you buy it ;D And Samorost 3 is in the making :D

We got the advice to check out a store while we were in Halmstad, we were told they had a bunch of retro games for sale, among other geeky things like movies, posters, merchandise etc, it’s called Backlist. Of course we went to check it out!

And they sure had some retro games!! :D

There were loads of NES games, some even boxed, but most were quite common titles so I didn’t find anything I didn’t already have. There were also quite a bunch of SNES and N64 games in decent condition. I checked out a few but no real bargains. The store is quite aware of the value of the retro games. I did however find some Sega Mega Drive games. They had both Master System and Mega Drive games, and a few systems as well. In some glass cabinets you could find some rare stuff though, like odd NES controllers, Game & Watch systems, other weird handhelds and a bunch of other stuff.

Apart from all the things on display you could see boxes of things “behind the scenes”, so I bet you could always just ask to see if they have what you’re looking for :) They were also in the middle of re-arranging the store so maybe they’ll put it all up eventually.

There was another room upstairs filled with “not-so-retro” games ^_^ Here’ you could find anything from GBA to PS3. Loads of Xbox 360, Gamecube and PS2 games. A little bit more expensive than Game Stop’s second hand games, but they are on the other hand only selling games. Here you could find a few odder titles though, at Game Stop it’s mainly the same old games in the shelves, the ones nobody want anymore ;D The good or rare ones disappear immediately, while here there still seemed to be a good mix of different games :)

They also had a bunch of other things in the store!

I wish I would have had more time that day, then I would have gone through all the boxes with vinyl records ^_^ There were loads of music at Backlist, both CDs and LPs! And most of all there were movies! DVDs on almost every wall and in the basement! These you could get a really good deal on! But you could also find some really rare collectors edition ones that were priced accordingly. I saw this VHS with Macross “Do you remember love” which I really felt like getting, this one was in japanese, but I already have it from when I was a kid, mine is dubbed into Swedish though! Hahaha! It sounds ridiculous ^_^ But I loved that movie when I was young. They had basically all genres of movies there, both anime and korean films (which I love!).

I also saw vintage toys decorating corners here and there, and merchandise like actions figures and that one pretty cool Final Fantasy watch :) The store is well worth a visit if you’re ever in the neighborhood of Halmstad, Sweden.

Here’s what I picked up at Backlist:

Yes yes, I know.. boxing..?! You all probably know that I’m not a fan of sports games, but I recently had a friend who asked me if I had this one boxing game that he used to play on the Sega Mega Drive as a kid, and I realized I didn’t have a single 16-bit boxing game o_O So when I saw these two (I do not remember which one it was my friend asked about, maybe it was one of these) I just couldn’t pass them up ^_^ So yay (>_<) now I have boxing games too! :D Hahah!

I’ve never even seen the other game before, The Ooze. The cover looked cool, but I have no clue what the gameplay will be like. It’s hard to tell from the screenshots on the back but I will try it out soon ^_^

That’s it for the Halmstad trip, I’m sorry for the extremely long blog post! Creds to those who stuck with it to the end ;D I’ll be back soon with some NEW PC Engine games, yes brand new… ;D

This weekend I visited Retro Gathering in Västerås (Sweden), I was there for the first time last year, but this convention has been running yearly since 2006! I came home with quite a lot of loot last year, and this year wasn’t far behind ^_^

I bought 62 games, and traded another 400+ games with friends! So I came home with lots of games.. most of the traded ones were newer games though so I’ll just cover my retro acquisitions on here ;D First up is the Philips Videopac Computer G7000 with 8 games that I traded with Anton for a bunch of Famicom doubles I brought for him :) I also found one Videopac game at the convention, this one was a newly made homebrew game for the system, the packaging was just splendid though, fits right in with the originals ^_^ Can you spot which one it is? ;D

Another system that I bought at the convention was an Arcadia 2001, or at least one of it’s clones. Never heard of this one before, but it didn’t last very long, it was discontinued after only 18 months. The reason I bought it was that it came with almost all the games released for the system! :D The games come in paper boxes, which were surprisingly well kept! Inside there’s a manual and overlays for the controllers and the game cartridge is latched in a whole in the box. This is extremely frustrating since the cartridge tends to move around underneath the opening so it’s hard to get it out of there without ripping the paper around it >_< This makes me even more surprised though that the previous owners haven’t already torn the boxes apart! XD

BTW I think it’s hilarious when companies back in the day lacked the licenses for certain popular titles and had to come up with “alternative” names for clones ;D Nibblemen!!! Hahaha!

I also got my second Sinclair ZX Spectrum that I had bought previously, but got delivered on the convention ^_^ The 48k model is so cute!!!!!!!! :D

There were more japanese games popping up at this convention than what I have seen before in recent years here in Sweden. I think it’s nice that people are becoming aware of all the amazing things you can find from over there ^_^ Unfortunately when demand rises the prices also go up >_< There were no Famicom games that I didn’t already have though, but I did find 5 Super Famicom games and a Famicom pirate that was just cheap :)

It’s always nice to pick up some C64 games as well, they are usually pretty cheap and the artworks on these old cassettes are just amazing! :D I always buy games that look fun, have a funny title or just incredible or funny artwork ^_^

I also found some Atari 2600 games, two turned out to be unopened and I’m torn whether to break them open or not >_< I wanna play them!!

Apart from all this I found a few other titles for various systems, like Batman Forever on Sega Mega Drive, Wolfenstein 3D for the Atari Jaguar and two Amiga 500 games, Pinkie and Capone ^_^ These last two looked like fun games when looking at the screenshots on the back :) Unfortunately my Amiga 500 has gotten a green screen so I can’t try them out right now :/ Have to get it fixed or find a new one first…

This year on Retro Gathering there were even more sellers than last year and loads of old systems setup to play ^_^ They held competitions in Super Bomberman 2 for the SNES, Super Skidmarks on the Amiga and Car Race ][ for Commodore PET. This last one in honor of the late CEO of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, who programmed that game back in the day. They also hosted the annual Swedish Championships of Pong, and I participated this year as well! I made it one step further than last year, so just a few more years and I might win! ;D hahaha or not.. I’ve began searching for an Atari Pong console so I can do some serious practicing though ^_^ They’re unfortunately hard to come by :/

This is one of my favorite retro gaming conventions in Sweden, the atmosphere is just so friendly and you can find so much more than just Nintendo and Sega stuff! ^_^ It’s just a shame it’s so far away from where I live :/ I will still come back next year though ;D

For more pictures from Retro Gathering, check out Geeky Gals :)

This year’s retro gaming convention in Malmö (Retrospelsfestivalen) was awseome! I didn’t have much time to buy stuff though since me and my Geeky Gals spent most time hosting competitions and stuff on stage. It was a lot of fun though ^_^ And we got to meet so many cool people :D I did however get half an hour off at the end of the day where I did some speed-shopping for retro games! haha :D

So here’s what I found ^_^ Not bad for 30 minutes huh? ;D

I’m thrilled to have found a Neo Geo game I didn’t already have! Less thrilled to find out that it’s a fighting game (like every other game on that system >_<) instead of a platform game, like the previous Karnov games on NES for example.. but I got a fair price so I’m happy :) I have a lot of friends who enjoy fighting games, so I’ll pop it in my new cab ;D (I’ll tell you more about that in a later post..)

I was also happy to stumble upon some PC Engine games, they’re quite unheard of here in Sweden. But Japon carried a few titles ^_^ I got Gokurake Chuka Taisen on HU card :) I love the other games in this series so I hope this one will be as good, if not better ;D

Apparently Rock n’ Roll Racing for SNES is supposed to be rad, haven’t tried it yet, but I’m looking forward to it ^_^ It’s NTSC, but now I have an NTSC SNES so I feel comfortable buying this region as well :)

I found these C64 carts that I jus thad to have, since they had such amazing artwork haha ^_^ I love how the guy on the cover of Saboteur is both jumping, kicking and shooting a gun at the same time, with such precision! hahaha :D

I also got some games for the Nokia N-Gage, a few weeks ago I bought two N-Gage systems so now I also have games for them ;D It’s Sonic and Crash Bandicoot, so hopefully they haven’t screwed that up..

From MXS I bought two handheld Game & Watch clones, one was called Hungry Elephant and the other one Sky Invaders. Unfortunately Sky Invaders didn’t have a hatch over the battery slot, and it didn’t seem to work when I held batteries in there :/ But I got them really cheap so I’m happy one of them worked :) I also bought a Tetris Jr. from Pixel, so cute! ^_^

I also found a Famicom pirate called Mechanized Attack II, I liked the cover and was curious of what was on it :) And I found a Game Boy game from Japanspel, I mainly bought this one for the ridiculous cover XD It’s called Tasmania Monogatari. Apart from this I found a cheap Sega Master System game I didn’t previously have.

I got some gifts from friends, like the Famicom matchbox from Pappas Pärlor and the mushroom and Sonic pin från Pixel K.A.F.E :) Thank you!! And I bought an amazing album that I have been listening to all week on Soundcloud from Professor Sakamoto! :D He performed at the festival and also at the after party ^_^ So talented and an amazing composer of chiptunes! At the bottom here I’ve embedded a few videos I filmed from his performances :) Go check him out!

Apart from all this my friend David showed up with all the ZX Spectrum games and other stuff I had bought from him earlier :) So I came home with 42 new Speccy games! (which I’m pretty sure is more than I paid for ;D) Thanks David! Apart from the Spectrum games I had bought a perfect case for storing Atari 2600 cartridges, or Famicom games :D But preferrably Atari 2600.. and a Neo Geo MVS game, Super Sidekicks 2. It’s football >_< but it was cheap :)

This year at Retrospelsfestivalen I also had a table where I sold off some doubles, I’m happy with how my table turned out ^_^ First time ever selling games!! It’s hard since I’m a hoarder by nature ;D hahaha! I set up a PC Engine with Coryoon so people could try out this awesome game ^_^ Unfortunately I didn’t sell too many of the japanese games, a lot of people don’t have the consoles for it here. Most people are into PAL NES and SNES.. :/ Also my fiancé was taking care of the table all day, and he is completely clueless when it comes to games! LOL!  I appreciate his support though, and people told me he was friendly ^_^

Here’s the videos from Professor Sakamoto’s performance at Retrospelsfestivalen 2015! Check them out! So much awesome!! :D

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:

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 – 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

It has taken some time to sort, clean and photograph all of the 138 games I bought at Retro Gathering Vintage Computer Edition last weekend, but finally, here they are! :D I will go through them system by system ^_^

Atari ST

The first thing I bought at the convention was an Atari 1040 ST, I already had one game for it back home, and it was in nice condition, and cheap, so I couldn’t refuse ^_^ I also picked up a few games for it. I have never played on an Atari ST before, so I’m looking forward to trying it out! :D If anyone has any suggestions of exclusive games for the system that are a must have, then please let me know :) So far I only have 5 games for it, the ones I found this weekend were Deathbringer, Gauntlet III, Future Dreams and Captive.

Atari Lynx

To continue on the Atari trail, I also found a few additions to my Atari Lynx collection from Spel & Sånt :D Not particularly exciting titles, but they were in pretty nice condition :) I do however enjoy the game of Shanghai, and it’s gonna be interesting to see what the Slime World port on Lynx looks like! :D

Atari 2600

I’m always on the lookout for Atari 2600 games as well, but this year there were hardly any :/ I found one guy who had like 5 cartridges, crappy games in shitty condition, but he still wanted a lot for them! I bargained a bit and bought one, just to come home with at least one 2600 game >_> I got Super-Ferrari…

Commodore 64 – 5 1/4 Floppy disk games

Moving on to Commodore, I’ve had a 5 1/4 floppy disk game for the C64 for a while, and nothing to play it on :( But this weekend I found a new in box Ocean floppy disk drive for the C64! :D It was a bit pricey.. but I really needed one since I also bought even more floppy disk games this weekend ^__^ I got the classic text-based adventures of Zork 1-3, and at the very end of the day I got a good deal on a pretty cool adventure game called Infidel. The cool thing about it is the packaging and contents! Inside are handwritten letters and maps and stuff, it’s really well made ^_^ I have a friend that I think will really enjoy trying this game out ;D Apart from that I had bought a whole moving box full of old Amiga and Commodore games from my friend Likilato beforehand and I picked it up on this weekend since he was going to Retro Gathering too :) In this package were quite a lot of C64 floppy disk games as well ^_^ Some games that I’m quite happy with are T2 Terminator Judgement Day, Robocop, Space Harrier II and Weird Dreams, they all look pretty cool ^_^ Then there were also a few less fun games, I’m not quite sure what Operation Market Garden is, but it doesn’t sound fun, and the last three: Europe Ablaze, Russia The Great War in the East and Halls of Montezuma I’m pretty sure are some kind of edutainment games for learning history >_<

Commodore 64 – Cassette games

I found a few cassette games for the C64 as well. I got Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker from Japon, and Slap Fight for the ZX Spectrum. Pontus from Japon also tried to sell Last Ninja 2 to me, fortunately I didn’t buy it!! Because inside the big cardboard box of things I had bought from Likilato earlier contained not one but TWO copies of that exact game XD I had bought the package weeks before and didn’t remember everything that was in it.. but I’m just happy I’m not possessing three copies right now at least ;D The other C64 cassette games from Likilato were Last Ninja 3, Superman the Game, Ghostbusters II, Mr. Heli, Platoon, Speedball, Silent Service, Starglider and The Hunt for Red October.

Commodore VIC 20

Going back in time a bit we have the Commodore VIC 20, I got one of these last year and I’m still trying to expand my library of games for the system. I found a few VIC 20 cassettes on Retro Gathering this time on Mikael Holm’s table (he always has the coolest stuff!) ^_^ I know there’s two copies of Panic for VIC 20, but I couldn’t choose which one to go for, since they are DIFFERENT! It’s weird, since they are released by the same company, but one has a black spine, and the cassettes inside are different colors as well! O_o These were all dirt cheap though so I just picked them all up :) Except the two games called Vicolumn and Blue Star, these two were new releases for the system and cost a bit more, but it’s always interesting to see what people develop now for these old systems! Doodle Bug, Space Scramble, Cosmiads and Alpha Blaster all sound cool!

Sinclair ZX Spectrum, ZX81

Before moving on to consoles we have pickups from yet another old computer ^_^ I bought a few games for the ZX Spectrum, Pssst, Jet Pac and Cookie had such cool matching covers! Had to get them :) Then I also got Jet Pac with a different cover and 3D Starstrike, Split personalities, Pedro, Ghosts n’ Goblins and a program that came with the system called Horizons. I also found a Sinzlair ZX Interface 2 so I can play cartridge games on my 48k :D Now I just need to find some cartridge games >_> I also bought a ZX81 :D I’ve only known about this one for a little while, when I was looking for 3D Monster Maze and found out that it only came out on the ZX81. Now I have one! So now I just need to find 3D Monster Maze again >_< I missed out on the one eBay auction I’ve ever seen… >_<

Nintendo NES (+ Game & Watch and FDS)

I bought some NTSC NES games from Gaminggrannar and from some other sellers. I also got a Game & Watch Lifeboat from Söders Spel & Skivhandel and a random Famicom Disk System game with cats from Sven666 and another FDS game from my friend MXS :)

Sega Mega Drive

From my friend Karl I got a good deal and bought the sought after Japanese Sega Mega Drive shmup V-V (V five), I also got to buy most of his other Japanese Mega Drive titles since he wanted to get rid of them, it was mostly RPGs or strategy games, but I got such a good price that I couldn’t pass them up ^_^ I also found some PAL Mega Drive titles from other sellers, mainly sports games XD which I don’t particularly enjoy, but they were cheap! And some day me and Becki will have to have another Golf tournament ;D

Sega Master System

I also got a lot of Sega Master System games from various sellers. Mainly sports here as well, but I didn’t have them, and they were cheap ^_^

Sega Saturn & Playstation 2

Japon also managed to convince to bring home these two huge boxed Sega Saturn Arcade Racer controllers XD One PAL and one Japanese.. they told me that the controller was region free, so I sure hope they will both work with one console ;D In that case I might have another game to use in the next Retro Rumble competition for the finals ;D I also got two PS2 games with Megaman at a fair price from Anders :) They’re sealed.. but I might open them so I can play them!! ^_^

Amiga 500 / 1200

Now onto the biggest category of the day… Amiga! The big lot of games I had bought from Likilato contained A LOT of Amiga games :) I was happy to find Banshee in there, since MXS had recently told me it was a good game, it’s for the 1200 though so I have to find a place to plug that system in as well.. They’re so big and space-consuming! Loom has a beautiful cover, and I’ve seen it before, not quite sure what kind of game it is though, but I will find out :) There were a lot of other games that looked cool like Harlequin, Codename Hellfire, Wonderland, Super Stardust, Galdregons Domain etc. It’s gonna be fun to try them all out :D I wonder what kind of game Leather Goddesses of Phobos will turn out to be XD

That was all the loot for this time, now I have some gaming to do ^____^