Super Potato

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The Death of Box Art

Modern video game box art is terrible, but it used to be good.

The "Shadow of the Beast I & II" box art is by Roger Dean, and the "Awesome" box art is by John Harris. These are all for the Amiga.

PC Engineer

Belongs to this guy.

Small fraction of what he has. I like that it's a terrific mess.

Satellaview!

Three Dee

Picked this up last night, midnight launch.

Wish I could have gone to NY to the Nintendo Store, but too much to do.

System itself is highly recommended, but I feel like my eyes are going to melt. Pilotwings is proof of concept for the 3D, although I wish the game was longer.

Acid Washed and Pleated

Found @ Kotaku

I'm a Sucker

It's everything I didn't want it to be, which is to say that it's everything it's been since ~1996. I bought it anyway, knowing this, and I have to say that I'm a couple hours into it and it's a lot of fun. It's warmly familiar, albeit idiotic, to buy a game where you do the same things in precisely the same order every four years or so, but with newer visuals.

This game got fairly good reviews stateside, but Famitsu gave it a perfect score. This seems typical of the difference of opinion between American and Japanese reviewers, whereby we in the US will knock something for perhaps not being fresh or new enough, in Japan they'll evaluate it solely on the basis of being fun or not. I'm somewhere in between.

Anyway, if you bought it, comment and post your friend code.

Recent Pickups

I've been hasty with the "Buy it Now" button lately, thought I'd post some of it.

This is an NTT Data controller for the Super Famicom (SNES). It was part of a package that included a modem and a special cartridge that accessed an NTT DoCoMo off-track betting system. I would like to find the entire setup new in the box, but this will do in the meantime.



I'd never had one of these, so I bid on a PSOne and got it for like $12 shipped. The auction had no picture, so I didn't really know what I was in for. Not bad for twelve bucks, but the owner just shipped it like this without any other box, so it was covered in labels and stamped "Parcel Post". I'd still like a mintier one, but I can't complain for the price.



I also lucked into a pretty good haul of Japanese Saturn games. I primarily wanted this lot because of Last Bronx, but it came with a lot of other good stuff also. I sold my NTSC-J Saturn ages ago, so now I have an excuse to get another one.

Acquisitions

My fascination with non-retail items continues. I picked up a big lot of DS kiosk and demo carts last week on eBay, and they finally arrived from Germany. Two identical sets of ten, so I'm going to be selling off all the duplicates. I'm only missing three of the Download Station carts now.

Cleaning House

Given that I'm frustrated with the Cub and waiting on a few parts for the MX73, I'm finally getting around to putting my game room in order. I realized that I own a lot of stuff that I'm not particularly attached to, which I intend to sell so I can refocus on buying more interesting items.

I did stumble across one of my Wonderswans, which I will probably start playing again on my morning train commute. I've always been a big fan of the console, partially developed by Gunpei Yokoi. It has lots of good turn-based strategy titles, especially Gundam franchise stuff. I'm also a sucker for anything with many limited hardware versions.

There was a Limited Box like this for both FF1 and FF2.

Color Me Impressed

I don't usually cover gaming news, figuring that there are better people than I to be doing such things, but I'm pretty excited about the 3DS after that keynote.

Check out Nintendo's site HERE

Be sure to look at the Metal Gear Solid shots.

Off-Topic

I haven't made a gaming post in awhile, so I figured I was due. My collecting hobby is bad enough that I could probably make 1-2 posts a day about stuff I pick up, but I'm going to wait and branch that off as another blog someday.

At any rate, I picked up this N64 Lodgenet controller from Assembler.

Lodgenet was a pay-per-play system used in Hotels that started with SNES in 1994 and grew to include N64 content in 1998. The controller connects to a special N64 via a telephone cord and the user can select various game content like they're ordering a pay-per-view movie in the room.

Obviously, the controller has a number of buttons/features that differentiate it from a normal N64 pad. As the photos show, there is no memory card slot.

Stuff like this is supposed to either be destroyed or sent back to Lodgenet or Nintendo when it's no longer in use, so it can be fairly difficult to find. I'd really like to add a functioning Lodgenet N64 to my collection alongside this controller.

Additionally, if you own a Wii, GO BUY SUPER MARIO GALAXY 2! I got my copy on Saturday and it is ruling my life.

Best Unboxing Ever

I've never seen an unboxing video for a vintage device before, let alone with such high production values. I used to own a PC Engine GT, which is the Japanese version of the Turbo Express, and it is indeed a choice bit of hardware.

This video seems a bit much with the music and all, and "Memento" is misspelled (allegedly intentional), but the cinematography is really good. Even if you really don't care about old NEC portables, let it load and just skip around a bit to see the eye candy.



Check out other vids and content on www.pcenginefx.com

Not for resale

This is my favorite category of game stuff to accumulate, anything that was never available at retail to normal customers. Thus, I have a lot of store kiosk demo goods, like my aforementioned DS wifi demo carts and these Gamecube demos.

These are the multi-game demos that play(ed) in Gamecube store kiosks. They're supposed to go back to Nintendo when the store is done with them, but a few leak out. Easier to find than development gear though.

And another one

I've wanted one of these for YEARS, ever since they came out back in 1998 in Japan and I read about it in EGM.

For whatever reason, they've recently become available in mass quantities on eBay, someone must've found a stash of them somewhere.

It's basically a Game Boy Pocket with a backlight. I always thought normal B&W Game Boy games looked jacked up on the Color or GBA, so this is really the only way to play them in low-light and have them look like they should.

More things I don't need

I've had an itch to fill in the holes in my Game Boy collection lately, primarily hardware. I picked up this Japanese Game Boy Pocket for like $25 on eBay a couple weeks ago, and it finally arrived via EMS.

It's in much better shape than I was expecting, it looks new. Fresh out of 1996.

expensive

I know I've had a lot of gaming posts lately, and I'm sure there will be a few more before I shift back to something else. Bear with me.

Anyway, a prototype "SNES CD" controller is apparently up for sale on DigitPress.

The Sony Playstation originally started out as a joint venture between Nintendo and Sony as a CD add-on (i.e. like Sega CD) for the SNES/Super Famicom. Hiroshi Yamauchi freaked at some point about who would own the rights to the new CD games and killed the whole project. Sony, at least partially out of vengeance, then went ahead and turned the technology into the Playstation.

Some of the original SNES CD stuff still exists, mainly development kits and whatnot. A complete SNCD devkit is probably a priceless item, but this is the second time I've seen a controller go up for sale.

This guy is asking $3,000 for his. Expensive, but it's definitely a unique thing and of some historical importance (to nerds).

It's for sale on DigitPress in the "buy/sell" section of their forums right now.

cutting edge technology

I've spent the last week or so playing through Final Fantasy VII again, only this time I'm doing it on the NES. Yep.

Yay China. Yay pirate software.

The enormous market penetration of "Famiclone" systems over there has lead Chinese programmers to adapt newer franchises to the quarter-century old NES/Famicom hardware. The results can be pretty entertaining, actually.

Granted, it needs an English patch and some game mechanics changes to really be playable (get the "97% patch"), but it might well be the best NES RPG I've ever played. It's certainly more engaging than FF1, FF2, or FF3 in their Famicom incarnations.

The WHOLE story is intact, including every last shred of dialogue. Obviously no FMV, and the battle mechanics are very different (materia system still persists), but it's a *really* good game for a Famicom RPG.

There's a Famicom-adapted version of "Link to the Past" circulating also, but it REALLY looks like the SNES game. No ROM dump yet, I might buy a hardcopy and dump it myself. No crime in dumping pirate software!

Playing between the lines

It's always fun to go someplace you're not supposed to be, be it physically or electronically.

The Zelda: Ocarina of Time debug ROM isn't new, it's been available on the internet for quite some time, but I just now got around to playing with it. Anyone can find it if they look in the right places.

This game was mythic to me when it came out, so it was neat to see test areas of the game that had previously been off-limits.

10 Years

Yesterday was the 10th Anniversary of the release of the Dreamcast on US soil (9/9/99). I remember standing in line on launch day for my system, and while I've since sold it, I still have another one sealed in the box (along with a couple other loose ones).

I'm definitely going to hook it back up in the coming weeks, probably via VGA, as nothing else does it justice.

WOW