Oh, All The Places You’ll Go and People You’ll Meet

Ever since the beginning of time, our ancestors have either hunted, or they gathered to survive. Modern humans have taken it to the next level by not only doing both but by also hunting and gathering items that are not necessary for our survival. We are now a society of collectors. People collect all sorts things from little things like rocks or stamps to the expensive luxuries like cars or boats. In between those extremes there are the retro video game collectors. Depending on which video game console you are collecting for it could be a fairly cheap hobby or it could be an expensive hobby. I know this because I am a retro game collector myself.

You may have heard the saying that it takes a village to raise a child, well it takes a community to amass a collection. Nothing is more exciting than seeing someone complete a collection with the help of other local gamers. I still remember the excitement in our local group when a member was going for a complete Nintendo Entertainment System set, and only needed about 20 games to finish his collection. The community banded together to help this collector by keeping an eye out for his missing titles, and he managed to complete his set shortly after. Some people would say “you could always log onto eBay and click “Buy It Now” on the games you need,” but where is the fun in that? I would rather hunt around and have an amazing story about the adventure of where I found it or finding it for such an amazing deal. In the end, the games might be fun to play and own but the memories are really what this hobby is about. Some families have even turned video game collecting into a hobby with their kids, where they will go out on weekends and go to shops and yard sales pursuing games for their collections. Game collecting is now like the nerdy version of a father and child building a car.

I joined the Pittsburgh Retro Gaming community back in 2014. When I joined, I did not know anyone in this local scene. Since that time, I have had made trades and attended conventions and other local meetups. Along the way, I have met people whom I would consider some of my closest friends and whom I never would have met if not for this local community. So, the next time you think about simply logging onto your computer and clicking “Buy”, just think about what adventures you might be missing or the people you may never meet while hunting for that game instead. That adventure may change your life.

Review: Super Retro-Cade by Retro-Bit

Back in the day, if you wanted to play aracade game, you had to go to the local arcade and feed quarters into a machine until you ran out of money or got bored. Sometimes the controls were broken or something was jammed in the coin slot. Well, what if I told you that you could relive those days again but with the broken controls, jammed slots, or even leaving your house? Enter the Super Retro-Cade by Retro-Bit.

This is a plug an play arcade system that hooks up to your TV and plays in HD. You're probably thinking this device has a bunch of shovelware or garbage games but you might be surprisingly wrong. This device feature some amazing titles such as:

That is over 90 games with titles from Capcom, Data East, and other major publishers. Out of the box, this system comes with two controllers, an SD cart slot for save states, and the ability to hook it up to your HD or SD TV. So how much does something this awesome cost? $200, nope. $100, nope. Try $59.99. Yes, you read that right, it's the price of a brand new Playstation 4 or Xbox One game. That's a crazy value for the amount and quality of these games.

 
This probably sounds too good to be true. I know what you're thinking, "It's got great games, two controllers, ability to play in HD or SD and it's cheap. What's the catch?" Honestly, I couldn't find anything I didn't like about this except that it didn't have the two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games and The Simpsons Arcade Games, but that is expected because of licensing issues. For those tech savy readers, there are whispers in the wind that you can add those titles and many others to this system but I won't comment on that because that is piracy.

 
So would I recommend this product? Yes, I definitly would. In fact, I have already recommended it to numerous people. I have a blast using the one I bought recently. I love how clear the picture is, I love the game selections, I love the feel and shape of the controllers, and I definitly love the price of it. I highly recommend this for any retro gamers espically if they love arcade game. I give this product an A+.

 Buy The Super Retro-Cade on Ebay!

Preview: Intrepid Izzy

This game was created by Senile Team who have previously worked on Beats of Rage and Rush Rush Rally Racing. This game was successfully backed on Kickstarter in October 2017.

I stumbled across this game while looking up some indie games and was instantly drawn in by the animation style. After finding out that the team behind Beats of Rage was working on this, I decided I had to play it. Once I started playing this game, it reminded me of the Shantae series and Kid Chameleon which is great because I am a fan of both series. I had a lot of fun playing this demo, and look forward to playing through it a lot more before the full version is released in November 2018.

Dreamcast Demo Download

Official Site

                                 

Review: Seaman

Seaman is a very "unique" game that was released for the Sega Dreamcast in 2000. This game is a virtual pet, similar to a Tamagotchi or Giga Pet, that you must take care of. You must feed it, keep the tank at the proper temperature, and talk to it using a special microphone that came with the game. Talking allows the Seaman to learn your language and it can have conversations with you, but beware he can be a smart ass. The game is narrated by the late Leonard Nemoy, which was very surprising the first time I booted the game up. Time in the game is tracked by the Dreamcast's internal clock and certain events in the Seaman's life happen after a specific amount of days. Seaman was so popular in Japan it even got not one, but two different Dreamcast bundles.

Christmas Seaman Edition

Seaman Edition

 
Seaman got a sequel in Japan for the Playstation 2, but it never came to North America. In March 2017, the creator of the game posted an update to his Twitter account hinting that a new Seaman game is being worked on.

Seemingly, a new project is being started. Guess what from the web-address on their back.

 @YootSaito

The history of the Seaman was included in the manual for the game. During the 1930s, Dr. Jean Paul Gassé was a member of a special team of French biologists sent to Egypt by the French government. During that time, Dr. Gassé was determined to research a creature that was an "omnipotent messenger of gods" among the ruins of the Third Dynasty. In March 1932, in the city of Alexandria, Dr. Gassé met up a local resident, who, while fishing, caught a seaman. Dr. Gassé obtained a sample of some of the seaman eggs, and went back to France with the egg samples in his possession.

 When Dr. Gassé returned to France, he attempted to raise the eggs, but in the process, the seaman died. Shortly after this, he published a thesis of his work. Leading academics, however, dismissed him and his work as a PR stunt and without proper evidence to support these theories. As the result, the work was ignored, and no one believed him. His hypothesis suggested that the Seaman was responsible for transferring knowledge that increased during the Third Dynasty across oceans and other lands. This theory became the basis for Anthro-Bio Archaeology, which is a highly valued field of study.

Shortly after publishing his thesis, Dr. Gassé was fired from his post. After his dismissal, news of Gassé’s whereabouts and activities were unknown, and details during those times were sketchy. Rumors began circulating that Dr. Gassé's trail traced to some remote islands in Southeast Asia. It is known, however, that he escaped the horrors of World War II and met up with his colleague, Kimo Masuda. It became clear that sometime during these years they were able to conduct further research on Seaman's evolution, quite possibly even up to the creature walking on all fours. Unfortunately, there was very little hard data or evidence that substantiated these findings.
 
In March 1996, the French Government established the Anthro-Bio Archeological Research Institute (ABARI), headquartered in Paris. The institute is based on the work of Dr. Gassé, and most of the modern day research of Seaman specimens has taken place there. In 1997, the ABARI announced there was a strong possibility that these Seaman species were closely related to the origins of ancient civilizations in Egypt. On October 6, 1998, one of Gassé’s formaldehyde specimens is discovered at the University of Paris.

On February 15, 1999, parts of Gassé's journal and note entries were found in the Masuda family storehouse in Matsuzaka City in Mie Prefecture, Japan. Professor Kendare Takahashi, who was directing the Japanese branch of the ABARI, successfully managed to breed Seaman eggs in captivity, in July the same year. Soon after, Seaman was presented in aquariums across Japan. In July 2000, an expedition team embarked for Egypt in a first major research of the Seaman in the wild.

Verdict: As an adult who grew up in the 90's during the Virtual Pet craze, I enjoyed playing this game. The only part that I did not like about it, was that after about 15 minutes or so, the only thing to do with your Seaman was to keep talking to him. It gets better once you unlock the cage because it gives you other tasks to perform. If you enjoy games that you take your time with and not have to worry about giving it your full attention while you play it, then this game is definetly worth checking out. I would rate this game as 4 out of 5 for it's uniqueness and novelity, if there were more things to do with the Seaman, this would be an even better game. Hopefully the newest entry comes to North America with tons of new features.

Get Seaman for Dreamcast on Ebay! 

Secret of Greed

 
It was announced today that the Secret of Mana remake is going to have a limited physical release that is going to be exclusive to GameStop stores in the US and EB Games stores in Canada; physical copies will also be available at "all participating retailers" in Latin America. This is going to cause madness for fans of the series that would prefer a physical copy over a digital copy. The scalpers are going to scoop them up as fast as they can and resell them on Ebay for three times its MSRP.

It also doesn't help that it's GameStop who has the exclusive rights to the physical rights. GameStop is known for some shady practices. One of GameStop's most recent ideas was taking all of their new copies of Odin Sphere Leifthrasir and opening them up because their used copies are $40 while their new copies were priced at $30. They also had a surplus at their warehouses but were only sending 1 copy to each store to create a false sense of rarity to justify their price increase. Let's not also forget their "bundles" of items that no one wanted that came with the NES Classic last year. These bundles were priced at nearly $200, while the NES Classic's MSRP was $59.99.

I feel that between the scalpers, GameStop's greed, and real fans of the series that this game will increase in value rapidly due to the limited supply and the high demand.  If fans are frustrated by what happens with Limited Run Games, then just wait until 2/15/2018 to see this circus that will be coming to your nearby GameStop or EB Games. If you are a fan and don't want to pay over retail for this game then I highly recommend pre ordering this game, otherwise good luck trying to get it cheap in the future.

Gotta Cash Them All

I have about 20 hours into Pokemon Ultra Moon so far, but something has bothered me about it and I think I finally figured it out.I like it way more than the original Moon. I felt at the time (and still do) that the original Sun and Moon were rushed, unpolished, and felt like things were missing that should be there. I felt cheated by Game Freak/Pokémon Company about it.Ultra Sun/Moon is basically the “Crystal/Emerald/Platnium” version of this generation, but it felt like all the things that were missing from Sun and Moon were finally added. I feel cheated because if they delayed the original Sun and Moon by 6 months or so they could have released these as Sun and Moon.I feel like they rushed Sun and Moon because of the Anniversary and Pokémon Go Mania  last year, then released this one (their original vision that couldn’t be finished because of time constraints) this year, almost 1 year to the day later. I felt like it was a cash grab last year. It felt like Game Freak and the Pokémon Company did something that I would expect from Electronic Arts, but not them.I have always played the latest version of Pokémon up until the next version were released. Sun/Moon were the first ones that after I finished them I didn’t keep searching, battling, capturing, or even playing. I liked it at the time but something always felt off about it which caused me to stop playing it. This seems to be the reason why the game didn’t hold my interest as much as earlier versions had.I hope I’m wrong about this, but I don’t think I am.

Nintendo 64 Classic

I think we can all agree that the Nintendo 64 Classic is definitely going to happen. This system will most likely have less games than the Super Nintendo Classic being the games are a larger file size and it will have HDMI. I hope that Nintendo will include the Rumble feature that debuted with Star Fox 64 and that it comes with 4 controllers. If it comes with 4 controllers and Rumble, I can see this retailing for $99.99. Here is what I think the most likely choices are for the Nintendo 64 Classic when it is announced.

1. Super Mario 64
   
   
    
2. Donkey Kong 64
   
   
   
   
3. Mario Kart 64
   
   
   
   
4. Mario Party 2
   
   
   
   
5. Pokemon Snap
   
   
   
   
6. Wave Race 64
   
   
   
   
7. Super Smash Bros.
   
   
   
   
8. Paper Mario
   
   
   
   
9. Banjo-Kazooie
   
   
   
   
10. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
    
    
    
    
11. Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
    
    
    
    
12. Mario Tennis
    
    
    
    
13. Yoshi's Story
    
    
    
    
14. F Zero X
    
    
    
    
15. Star Fox 64
    
    
    
    

Honorable Mention:

Goldeneye

While I hope that Nintendo can get this game on the Nintendo 64 Classic, I think it is extremely unlikely due to licensing issues with Rare and MGM over the rights to James Bond. If Goldeneye is on the Nintendo 64 Classic, then this is an automatic buy. 

Do you agree or disagree with my choices? Comment with your picks.

PewDiePie & The No Good, Very Bad Word

Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg or as the world knows him, PewDiePie is in another storm of controversy. During a live stream of the game Playerunknown Battlegrounds, PewDiePie said a racial slur and then laughed after saying it. While some gamers having been sticking up for him saying “He said it in a gamer rage”, but that still doesn't make it right. Every person who is reading this article has probably said something they regretted in their life, but there are two major differences about PewDiePie.

The Live Stream Incident NSFW: Language Warning 

The first one is that PewDiePie is a public figure. Being a public figure comes with the responsibility of being a role model for your younger fans who may not know that word is not proper. Kids tend to emulate who they look up to and we don't need kids walking around using that word because their favorite YouTube Star used it and thought it was funny. As a YouTube Creator he should know the demographics of his viewers and at least be semi-aware of some major world news events that are impacting his viewers lives. Racial tension has been a major hot button topic recently in the United States, especially with the events that happened in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The other major thing is that this is not PewDiePie's first brush with highly offensive material. This past January, he posted a video with the message of “Death To All Jews”. He said it was a joke saying that the site he hired the actors from “would do anything for five dollars”. That video caused PewDiePie to lose his deal with Disney. After his Death To All Jews scandal, Neo-Nazi websites such as The Daily Stormer proclaimed themselves as “PewDiePie's #1 Fan Site”. In the past he had also posted a few other videos with Anti-Semitic messages including one that depicted a man dressed as Jesus Christ saying, “Hitler did absolutely nothing wrong”.

It's players like PewDiePie that gives gamers a bad name and reinforces the stereotype that every gamer online only talks about sleeping with your mother and calling you derogatory names. Actions like these from celebrities like PewDiePie have given power to racist terms and the ideological of the far right. We as the gaming community need to stand up against this type of racism and lead the march that will help make the world a more peaceful place for gamers and non-gamers alike.

Super Nintendo Mini Classic Wishlist

With the discontinuation of the NES Classic, there has been major spectulation of a Super Nintendo version going to be released in the future. This is a list of the most likely titles that will be included on it (along with some wishful thinking too).

 

Star Fox

 

 

Super Mario World

 

 

Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

 

 

Super Mario Kart

 

 

Chrono Trigger

 

 

Super Mario RPG

 

 

Super Castevania IV

 

 

Contra III

 

 

Super Punch Out

 

 

F-Zero

 

 

Pilotwings

 

 

Yoshi's Island

Super Metroid

Kirby's Dreamland 3

Super Ghouls N Ghosts

Super Double Dragon

Donkey Kong Country

 

 

Donkey Kong Country 2

 

 

Donkey Kong Country 3

 

 

Breath of Fire

 

 

Harvest Moon

 

 

Mega Man X3

 

 

Final Fight

 

 

R-Type III

 

 

Super Bomberman

 

 

Secret of Mana

 

 

Illusion of Gaia

 

Final Fantasy III (Final Fantasy VI)

 

Earthbound

 

 

Tetris Attack

 

 

 

Honorable Mentions:

The following three titles will most likely not be featured on the SNES Classic due to lack of demand or licensing issues, but I felt they needed to be mentioned.

Killer Instinct

 

 

EVO: Search for Eden

 

 

Secret of Evermore

 

 

Most Bizarre Games

This is a list of some of the most bizarre games from a variety of systems. While this is not a list of every crazy game ever released but the ones I felt were the most bizarre. I will publish another list in the future to include others that weren't mentioned on this list.

Seaman - Sega Dreamcast

You must take care of a fish with a human face while it grows up and changes. Remember Giga Pets? Well picture a Giga Pet that you talk to and it can talk back to you and have conversations or it can be a smart ass to you. You talk to it by using a microphone that goes into the VMU slot of the Dreamcast controller.

Kolibri - Sega 32X

When you think of Shoot Em Up games, you probably think of space ships or maybe cars. Well, what about Hummingbirds.

LSD - Playstation

This game is hard to define to a genre. You walk around these dream worlds that are strange and trippy but the crazier part is that the game is different every time you play it.

Who's Your Daddy? - PC

No, this game is not about Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop. This game is 2 players. One person plays as the father and the other the baby. The object of the game is for the father to protect the baby and the baby must try to die. That's right. If you are playing as the baby, the only way you can win is to kill yourself using various household objects.

Hatoful Boyfriend - A Pigeon Dating Simulator - Microsoft Windows, iOS, PS Vita

This game is a dating sim, which are huge in Japan and increasing in popularity in the U.S, where you play as a girl who attends a school for birds.....

Muscle March - Wii

I want you to picture in your mind a stereotypical bodybuilder. Now take that image and mix it with the game show Hole in the Wall. You play as the bodybuilders who are chasing someone who stole your protein mix. You must do different poses to fit though the holes in the wall to eventually catch the thief.

Toylet

You must pee on the target and you can win prizes.... Thanks Japan.

I Am Bread - PlayStation 4, Xbox One, iOS, PC, Mac

You play as a piece of bread and must make your way across the area to become toast. This game requires you to use different buttons to control each corner of the bread.

Cho Aniki - TurboGrafx-16, Wii, PC

Another Shoot Em Up but instead of a ship, you use bodybuilders. I don't know what is Japan's fascination with extremely weird games featuring bodybuilders.

Shower With Your Dad Simulator - PC

A matching game where you must match a child with the right father in the shower.

Boong-Ga Boong-Ga - Arcade

An arcade game where you poke in the butt with two fingers your ex, a child molester, and your mother-in-law. You use a life-sized butt, and foam finger to play the game.

Japan World Cup 3 - DVD

While this is a DVD and not an actual video game, it has become huge in Japan. Fans bet on their horses but there are very strange twists with the races.