Welcome to Retro Game On!

Everything retro - big and small! Live from Perth, Australia!

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Video: Paperboy for Genesis/Mega Drive Review

Today we check out an interesting arcade release on the Mega Drive/Genesis that involves... you guessed it: being a paperboy. Who would of known that such a mundane childhood job could evolve into such an addictive video game.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Fear & Loathing in Geraldton [Part II]

Ah Christmas. A time of giving, spending time with family but most importantly, buying cheap Xbox's.
It wasn't that long ago that I went to Geraldton for Easter, but in Australia it was another month, so it was time for another public holiday. This time it was for Christmas, where in-between eating cray fish and then throwing it up over the side of a boat (there comes a time in life where you truly become a man, and other times where you learn you can get sea-sick) I managed to make it to one of my favourite op-shops in the state.

The Cogman Recycling facility hasn't changed too much since last April. Just check the image in the above linked post; I'm sure that funky 80's oven is still there, but sadly the great wall of VHS's and mid 2000's DVD players has diminished somewhat. What hasn't changed however, are the bargains. Last time I visited I scored a semi-working PS2, two PS2 games and an Xbox controller for the partly sum of $12. Hoping to match that absolutely ridiculous deal, I somewhat beat it by purchasing two Xbox's for $5 each, and a couple of PC games for $1 each. Later on, my cousin gave me an additional Halo Edition Xbox. They're fun to stack.

Still cheaper than Lego
The question on everyone's lips might be: how well does a $5 Xbox work? The answer turns out to be "quite well", actually. One of them works flawlessly, with not a problem in sight. It even has all the previous owners crappy music still on it.
The other Xbox boots up, and appears to have a fully functioning hard drive but the disk drive is a bit dicky. It wouldn't open-up on its own (it did try to though, I'll give it that) so I cracked it open and chucked a disk inside to find that the laser is still thankfully functional. The weird thing though, is that the disk drive would then function (and open) once the disk was inside, but would no longer open once the disk was removed. The disk seems to set something in place to get it working, but a lot of staring later on my behalf and it's still a mystery.

The Halo edition, or most of what I have of one, is a special case. As you can see in the photo, its missing its disk drive, but also the HDD. The cool thing about this unit though (apart from the exterior case) is that the motherboard and PSU are still alive and kicking, but the MOBO has a modchip soldered to it. I can confirm that the unit boots up, so sometime in the future I'm thinking of transplanting the HDD and disk drive from my usual unit and have the Halo Edition plus its modchip as my daily driver. Spare time is at a premium lately though, so expect it done sometime during my retirement (where I'll also probably finally play Skyrim).  


An op-shop visit wouldn't be complete without myself purchasing a rally game however, and this trip was no different. Also bought was Microsoft World of Flight. On purchase I assumed it was a plane game, maybe similar to the recently reviewed Wings 2: Aces High. But nope, it's an educational thingy. Eugh. Learning.
From what I can gather, Microsoft brought out a few like these varying in subject, and this ones all about planes. In a Windows 95 world, the internet as we know it was still in its infancy and apparently lacking in websites about planes. This was the disk to fix that temporary problem.
No doubt I'll still review it one day though.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Video: Wings 2: Aces High/Blazing Skies for SNES Review

I don't really give the SNES as much love on this channel as it deserves, so let's check out a WW1 dogfight game!

Monday, January 5, 2015

Video: Steel Reign for PSone Review

Retro Game On is back for 2015! Today for the first video of the year, we take a look at the relatively unknown (and early) title for the PSone: Steel Reign. This tank game does have its problems, but once you flesh out those, there's quite an enjoyable game here to be played.