The Saga Continues

I was feeling a bit empty when I woke up this morning. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Was it to with my eggs? My coffee? No.
As I was eating my eggs and drinking my coffee, I looked up the statistics for this blog and saw that I hadn't done a post in two weeks!
"That was it!" I yelled to myself, making the dog next door bark and a baby in the distance wail. Time to start writing!

Instead of a post about one particular subject, I thought I would just give a short sort of update on my current retro gaming lifestyle.
First off I received my solder sucker and my solder in the mail, now I can get onto hopefully finally playing my Game Gear. I've just got to suck out the amateurishness done solder job, give the mobo a bit of a clean and then solder the caps back in using the smaller in diameter solder I've bought.
I've also finally tracked down a copy of Shenmue for Dreamcast off eBay. Copies are fairly common but I always kept on getting snipped at the last second, I think it's in pretty high demand. In the end I just gave in and bought a cheapish Buy It Now. It's a bit more than I would of paid in a bid but its in excellent condition and isn't as near a rip off as some other Buy It Now's I saw. Some were around the $110 mark, no joke. It's been mailed to me as we speak.
I'm very excited to play it as I've wanted this since I originally got my Dreamcast, I can't wait.

Hardware Review: Futuretronics 4MB Memory Card for PlayStation One

Memory cards are an essential, although annoying part of playing a PS1. Back in the day you always had the problem of running out of space on your merer 1MB Sony memory cards. It simply wasn't enough, I always had to delete old saves in order to make way for saves of new games. 

We all know that only un-manly men deleted game saves, so what were we do to? Buy a new one? Play an actual sport? Ew! Screw that!

No, we used our noggins and bought a 4MB memory card! It's four memory cards in one! Brilliant!

PlayStation not included.

I'm not really a fan of buying after market accessories but to my knowledge, no official Sony ones were ever made. This one still seems to work though, so bravo Futuretronics!

Futurtronics was and still is an Australian after market accessory company. They seemed to do the right thing with this but it should be noted that I have another memory card made by them that no longer works and a controller that has a broken up button. Ah well, at least they got this right. I dunno what I would have done otherwise. 

The design is sleek. There are four LED's, each represent 1MB of the card. You choose between them by holding down Select and either L1 or R2 to scroll. A weird combination, but its one that doesn't really effect any game controls I guess.

All in all, a great piece of hardware. A mostly essential one as well!

     

Do You Like NES Games?

Well if you do, check out this auction. It's perfect for you. At only $75,000 you could own every single NTSC NES game in box, complete.
The good news is that that calculates into only $69,079.86 Australian. Gotta love that exchange rate.

As well as the NTSC games it also comes with a sizable PAL collection as well as a whole lot of other shit including two NES's themselves and around 50 controllers! I think its fair to say that someone wants to retire.
The action is Buy It Now so if you have the spare money I suggest you either invest in this or at least give it to  charity, you rich bastard.  

Eighties Sound

My camera seemed to have trouble focusing on everything. Maybe because its all just so darn awesome.

A new addition to my retro collection. Not gaming, but close.
I've recently dragged some old AWA speakers and an attached amp out of my garage. They use to be part of a bigger kit that included a tape deck and a record player. There was also an old Sony CD player part of it at one stage. Unfortunately though, one by one, all those things broke. Out of the whole collection the only thing that survives is the speakers and the amp/radio combo.
My Dad bought this back in the 80's but it's been sitting in the shed for a few years. I wasn't even sure if it worked anymore, but I brought the three piece in bit by bit while dodging the rain. After moving that beast of a CRT (seriously, I nearly broke my back) and the stand I now have a fully fledged stereo entertainment system for my retro gaming needs.

LED's and the whole shebang. 

Those speakers are mostly made out of wood you see, the acoustics are brilliant.
I play tested it today with Crazy Taxi and it certainly was an experience. Having The Offspring glare out of those 3 foot tall speakers was simply awesome. So much better than the stock tv speakers, I can never go back.

Practice Makes Perfect

An update on the whole Sega Game Gear situation. 

The other day I went to work and re-soldered all the capacitors. I've never done any type of soldering before besides from the night before when I used the iron for the first time. I guess the chances for success weren't in my favour in the first place as, well, to be blunt I f*cked it up. It's jumped from one capacitor problem to another. Now it turns off as soon as it's turned on. 

Posting some pictures to a Racket Boy thread and the general consensus I got was I used too much solder and didn't clean off the gunk from the previous blown capacitors. Now that I know what I've done wrong I plan on fixing it. I'm going to get rid of my soldering job, clean were I need to and then re-solder using smaller solder (the bunch I used was quite thick).

I bought a 'Solder Sucker' off eBay for...

One dollar!!!

Plus $1 postage. 

Now all I need to do is find some smaller in diameter solder and I'm good to go. 

I honestly didn't expect this project to go flawlessly the first time anyway. It is my first fix after all, I'm sure plenty of people failed their first try. The most important thing in my opinion, is that I keep trying. In the end it may or may not work but I won't be satisfied until I least know I tried. 

Another One To Add To The Collection...

Yes, I know. I already have a PlayStation. It does work, but it's kind of resting in peace(s).
My quest for this PS1 started about a week ago. It started off in a thrift shop that won't be named. Needless to say I've bought plenty of stuff there before (a lot of retro stuff mind you) and it's all been fine. I bought a PS1 in which they told me was in perfect working order. Needless to say I brought it home and it wouldn't display properly on a TV. A couple of video cables and three TV's later I decided it was a dud. Usually I would have a crack at fixing it like this Sega Game Gear but since it came with a 40 day warranty I decided to just return it.
They didn't have another one but luckily another thrift shop next door did, which works! :D After eight years or so I can finally play my PS1 collection on a fine working console.

Also talking of Game Gears, restoration work has began. Here's a teaser picture...

Retro Scan: Duke Nukem Forever (PC)

Hey, isn't that the game that just came out that got poor reviews?
Why yes it is! The only problem is, I scanned this out of a Hyper magazine dating back to November, 2001.
Duke Nukem was still being developed that far back and even earlier still but it didn't get released until just recently. I think the problem is that twelve years is way too long to build up hype for a game. No wonder so many people were disappointed with it.

Blog Update 12/7/2011

Two Blog Updates in a row. Whoops, sorry.
I promise there will be some actual retro content soon its just I did say I would make this page so I decided I would get it out of the way.
The button for it is pretty much in an upward direction from where you are looking now, its labelled 'Games.'
On this page you'll find a list of my embarrassingly small games collection. I plan on keeping it up to date so if you care and are awesome, check it out :D

Blog Update 8/7/2011

Retro Game On has a new page!
Clickity clack that new button to your top rightish labelled 'Systems.' In that page you will find an inventory of sorts of all my gaming systems that I own. Its kind of embarrassingly small now, but I'll update it every time it needs to be.
I'll also be doing a different page which will be listing all the games I own on every system. That will take me a while but stay tuned as it will be up soon.

Hardware Review: Handy Power by Joyplus For Sega Game Gear

I bought this hunk of crap along with all that other Game Gear stuff I scored back in June.

A glamour shot for the lulz

Keep in mind though, when I say its a hunk of crap I mean its a hunk of crap now. Fifteen years ago it might of been totally great, awesome and spectacular. I would never know though so I'm going to be an ignorant fool and be harsh about it.

The premises for this device is actually quite a good one. Anyone in the know about Game Gears knows that it chews through batteries like a Biggest Loser contestant who just jumped the fence and found the nearest Macca's.
The idea is that you charge it up by plugging it into a Game Gear wall charger and then once it's charged up you clip it on your belt and go along your merry way. Quite a good idea since there really is no alternative to playing a GG on the go unless you invest a fortune in batteries, or get separate rechargeable batteries.

My problem is that since its so old that the case is yellowing, the inbuilt rechargeable batteries are next to useless now. You can't charge it for more than twenty minutes without it getting red hot and possibly catching on fire or exploding. I want neither of those things to happen so I think I will just let it be.
Since I don't use it I shouldn't be fazed but they're is yet another problem. The cable that attaches it to the GG is shoddy as, move it a mill in a direction it doesn't want to go in and it cuts the power and resets the GG.
What a pain in the arse, I hate it.
Luckily the GG isn't the most mobile game machine ever so I don't think this problem will bother me too much. I just have to fix the damn Game Gear now.