A Momentary Lapse of Awesome
Taking game night on the road
Posted on Apr 23rd 2018 at 01:09:50 AM by (nupoile)
Posted under gamenight, kids, halo, vectrex, contra, party

Sometimes people come to your house to play games, other times you have to bring games to them. I was invited to a game night for kids this month. For whatever reason they put me, of all people, in charge of bringing older games. Where would I ever come up with older games I wondered?....Probably in those large piles of boxes that have been sitting in the garage and basement since we moved my, wife told me.

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It took quite a while to find things. Most of my collection has been in boxes since we moved. I peek into those boxes from time to time and wait for the day it's all set up again.

Knowing my audience was going to be young people, around 30 kids, middle school to high school aged was predicted. A few adults to keep things not on fire, or whatever it is adults do. I tried to come up with a good list of fun stuff they probably hadn't seen much of. Mostly games that were quick to pick up, nothing too obtuse. Also I didn't want it to be overly familiar, what's the point of having stacks of games if you can't show off something a little off the beaten path? Since this was for a group were the oldest one would have been born after 2001 I didn't think that would be too hard.


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Several old consoles, a few handhelds, one to six games per machine, a dedicated screen for everything was my goal. I went to those piles of boxes. Some of what I wanted was easy to find, some not so much and some of it not at all. Two player Typing of the Dead didn't make the cut because the keyboards are hiding. Original Gameboy made it but not with Tetris, GB games are off in some un-found box, Pipedream was in the GB so that was what I brought. I did some cleaning, some of it had dust on it, some of the controllers were tangled with every other controller possible in the box...The Gameboy had some careless owner ahem leave the batteries in it when they moved which leaked. Fortunately Gameboys are made of adamantium and are impervious to all but fun. It cleaned up nicely after a very late minute disassembly.


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You would not believe how many young people want to play the first Halo. So many times I heard someone come into my room and excitedly say "Is that Halo CE?! I want to play!" The weirdest thing was how many of them had current skills in the game, as in they've played it in the recent past. Several of them could navigate the menus and choose game types with ease. They could explain to each other the differences between CE and the later game in the series. When I joined in and played I wasn't able to go 25 and 0, the kids were pretty good Wink


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There were two rooms set up at this thing. One with more current games and my room. There was another room to eat and play board games too. I brought 14 liters of Mt Dew because that seemed right. I think there was spaghetti and juice too but who knows.

In seriousness, the food was good and my wife complained of me smelling of garlic later, "They had garlic bread though!" I told her.


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My room was used pretty well all afternoon. There were a few lulls in the action but not many. I got to chat with some of the other adults. One who had recently bought a Switch because he had to have Breath of the Wild. Another guy came in and immediately asked about the Vectrex, he then told me of the first video game he ever saw, I guessed the next thing he would say was going to be Atari but no, it was Pong, in 1971 though! I quizzed him about it later and he lived in the Silicon Valley area growing up. He had a friend who's dad worked for some tech company. Magnavox Odyssey didn't ring any bells for him so we were speculating he may have had some custom made pong console the dad brought home from work. We chatted a bit, pretty fun story.


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I never got all of my machines set up. Even being there an hour early there wasn't time. No real need though. Kids were all over Contra, Halo and the Vectrex. Those three got by far the most playtime. There was some SMB3 and Duck Hunt. I got a few people to play Katamari Damacy for a bit. The new Oregon Trail handheld was tried out by several people, had one little girl come up to me at the end and say how she really liked it. Again it was funny how much the kids knew about the older stuff, one young lady, maybe 14? picked up my Game Boy and was like, "Hey! A Game Boy"

I was like, "Yeah! You turn it on by.....oh, you know how to turn it on..."
Her in all seriousness, "I'm a big Nintendo fan"
Me, "....awesome!"

She wasn't the only one either, how do these kids know how to turn it on so easily? I don't mean that they simply assume there is a power switch somewhere and look for it, I mean they just turn it on like they've done it a hundred times.


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I put the Vectrex right by the door. So many people asked about it. The best part, aside from all the play time it got, was after me talking about it a few times, other kids started doing that for me. New person enters room "That thing!" other kids, "Yeah, it's a Vectrex, it came out in 1982 and was...."

The little kid in the picture, maybe he's 3?, played it for an hour I'm sure. A bunch of others too. No one even knew to complain about the controllers broken centering spring either, great stuff.


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I didn't go into this expecting no chance of damage or loss. The only bad thing was this broken NES door. That one has the Blinking Light Win mod. Works great but games fit really snugly, takes a bit of doing to get  carts out. Probably, the kid was absently pressing it open in some way trying to get a game out. I heard a noise and walked over there, helped him out the rest of the way. Oh well, if that's the biggest loss I'll just count it as a battle scar.

I had fun, kids had fun, adults had fun. It was a bit of work getting it all together. Still wishing for game things to get organized here at home to make this sort of thing easier. While I knew to keep the game selection simple, next time it'll be even more streamlined. While I wouldn't go so mainstream as CoD or Madden, there isn't any need to drag out hundred hour RPGs or highly tactical grand strategy games. Fun and easy to play is the way to go. No need to bring out spendy collector items either, none of these people would know a hundred dollar shmup from a five dollar one. Game nights on the road are different than ones at home.

Anyone ever do this? Setup a mini traveling museum of sorts? Ideas for next time? I kinda wanted to bring Steel Battalion, Project Cars with a full race wheel and pedals, four NES Advantages with Smash TV, two player Typing of the Dead.....


2017 Catch Up Blog
Posted on Nov 19th 2017 at 06:34:53 AM by (nupoile)
Posted under collecting, prge, cowlitz, pinball, tailgate party, ed averett


Sometimes life is funny. For the last 18 months or so my wife and I have been far more busy than ever before. I like to tell the story of how there was a day a few months ago when the busyness was at it's height were I was able to sit down without anything to do for 45 seconds and that was the longest break I had had for a few weeks. I think things are slowing down, I occasionally come home now and have an hour or two were I can think about the work I should be doing, heh heh. The only reason I've had time to put this together is I've had a cold and only worked a few hours today, so if my prose is all wonky, remember, I'm sick and tired....

Somehow I managed to pick up a few things during all that time being busy. It's been so long since I've posted in the small scores, this is going to look like a lot of stuff, like, Zagnorch and GamerNick levels of stuff, so be prepared.




Lets start with the Cowlitz Gamers for Kids show. This was all the way back in April and is about were I left off posting my finds.

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A smaller show but with lots of vendors that go to PRGE (which we'll get to in a bit). The highlights of this show is the more laid back atmosphere and the chance to hang out with Fokakis all day. We meet up here pretty much every year and wander about, chatting up the other people we know from past shows. There is a pretty good selection of stuff, fun people to talk to and things to look at.





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I made out with these Laser Discs, the middle row was from Fokakis and I was super excited about The Killer and Hard Boiled. Criterion Hard Boiled. That movie is all but impossible to find in the original aspect ratio outside of this version.





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Also from Cowlitz, games! Your going to notice a little bit of a trend with picking up common Xbox titles. Not that it's set up yet, but I've got all the bits for two complete Xbox lan stations. (I keep forgetting I can also do this with GameCube and PS2 now as well, and maybe xbox360....hmmm)





Now for more normal finds:


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There were so many random pickups this year I forgot everything, this is just what I found as I was wrapping up taking all the pictures for this. Wife was really excited to find the Minecraft book set, the 7 year old that hangs around with us is really into them. She studies the books and builds what she sees in the game.






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For awhile now I've really been thinking of the best way, which includes being cheap, of hooking up lots of consoles at once. We all probably have those av selectors which let you plug 4 things into 1 but I'm looking for more, lots more. I finally came across a decent AV receiver for a good price. Rarely do I see used receivers around here other than beat up entry models. Craigslist has $100+ mid-level ones but that's about it. This one is pretty good for my needs, I'm still on the lookout for one of those awesome Denon, top of the line, things from 10 years ago, but this Sony will hold me over for a bit. The matrix switcher was at the thrift next to it. Got them both for ~$25






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Look at those inputs! And outputs too for the switcher. This is a early 90's high end switcher. Something really rich people had at home or small local tv stations might use. I can't find much on it, but saw something saying it was $1000 new and one guy was using it in his quarter million dollar home theater. What I really wonder is if it can run more than one thing at once. It's 7 in and 7 out plus 2 monitors, so can you have 7 consoles hooked up to it and one person on one tv play one of them and another person on a 2nd tv be playing a different console all through this box? It even has a remote, so I could just sit back and switch from console to console without ever leaving my seat!







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You might remember I got to meet techwizard this summer. Knowing he was going to visit Crabmaster shortly before me, we set it up for him to get me free shipping from Canada. It worked out great and I was super happy to get more lan worthy games for fun xbox nights with friends. You'll all have to visit some day so I can show you how to play Halo   Cool







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Some random stuff. Cart is for GBA and is a mp3 device called Advanced Musicplayer. Lets you use your GBA as a portable mp3 machine. Hooks up to a pc via usb. Hard to pass up a plug and play from Avatar the Last Airbender. I'm not one for tv series' or cartoon/anime but Avatar is really good, you should check it out.







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Most of this was from a garage sale. A guy was selling a huge collection of pc games for $1 each. I only bought a few of them though because it was raining really hard and although it was under a tarp, the games were all wet. I thought I was getting ones that were somewhat dry and leaving the soaked ones but most of these were pretty wet too. I didn't see how wet until I got home, they dried out surprisingly well though. Guy had an interesting collection though. 90% war games, flight sims and grand strat, from the early 90's to current.






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More laser discs. Wife has told me several times she thinks it's weird I picked up Harold and Maude, I don't even know what the movie is about, I've heard it was good?







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When techwizard and co. were here, we all went to a Toys r Us. They were closing out on Skylanders stuff so we jumped on that. I'm totally new to the series. This was $20ish I think for all of it.







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I wanted to be able to use the 3DS for Skylanders, needed a portal though. Zagnorch the rescue! I owe him now, big time.







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A pawn shop in town that normally prices things very much in line with ebay actually had some Intellivision games. They had them all under one sku though, named for a common INTV game that only sells for a couple dollars. I think the lot of these was less than $11 and some of those are $15-30 on ebay  Cheesy  I think I have fewer than 40 left in the library now. Not that I ever plan on finishing the whole collection, a few of them are super expensive.






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A new used game shop opened up in town. I've gone in twice now and felt I should buy something even if it pains me to pay what the now expected prices are for NES games. Oh well, support your local game store and all that. At least I've added new NES games to the collection, don't do that as much anymore. Oh, and since we moved sometime in all that busyness, I'm going to try and work in different backgrounds to my posts going forward. We'll see if I follow through with that.




Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2017

PRGE is by all accounts the big retro game show. That's what I hear anyway. Something like 10,000 people showed up last year. Lots of vendors, huge arcade, tons of panels, Tetris World Championships....I've written at least something about it every year for several years now.


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Caught someone doing some filming for his youtube channel.


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When you go to these kind of shows, got to bring the 3DS to get those streetpasses!

Did I say I got to hang out with russlyman? He was there two years ago too, fun times for sure.








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Wife is really into watching the Tetris world championships. This was during qualifying. Really hard to make out but the guy on the top left has a score of 999,999 which he did a second time right after this. These guys are really good. The guy on the top right, Jonas, won it in the end. World champ 7 times now. The guy in the bottom left, Harry, has won it all before and along with Jonas was in that Tetris movie. A few hundred people watch the finals and it's kinda funny but the contestants sit in the crowd with everyone else. My wife was sitting next to Harry and talked to him some about the Twitch stream he was looking at on his phone. I think I was streamed on Twitch, I'm famous now.






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There was a museum at the show.



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Dollar bin games I think.



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Exercise while playing games? What do you know about this crabby? I think this is the one they sold at the auction later on.



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Some "Sony-Nintendo" thing they had out to play. A cheap knock off for sure.







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The lighting in the vendor area is really bad for taking pictures and I've pretty much given up on that. I did manage this though. I can't say it's typical of anything one way or the other, but if you like looking at this sort of thing....click the link to see it bigger.







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I love riding escalators because it makes me feel lazy for a few seconds. This sign though. If the escalators are off, aren't they stairs?







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What did I actually buy at the show though? Lots of mainstream games. I've been so slack on keeping track of my collection I mostly concentrated on important, popular, games I've missed out on. Prices weren't awesome but a little less than what you'd see in a game store. Eagles laser disc was free because my wife picked it up and the seller said she was the only person to ever show interest in it.



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Two more INTV games, yay. Brett Weiss book, he's a member of this site. He was at the show and my wife saw the book and was like, "we need that" He signed the front of it for us. Nintendogs and Cats is for my nephew.



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I have all the US Odyssey2 games, plus a few from other regions. Ed Aerett was the developer/programmer for about half the library. He was at the show. Got him to sign our program and later decided to just pick up a loose O2 game for him to sign too. Really nice guy. Full of laughs and smiles. Signs his name with "KC's dad".






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Homebrew games are awesome. I love that they exist and am happy for people to get them that want them. I only have a couple though since they're normally priced the same as any new game and I don't normally buy games at 'new game' prices. Near the end of the show I was walking around and came across this. The guy how made it told me all about it, and let me play a bit. It's unique. A homebrew game for the NES Powerpad. Apparently this is only the 3rd homebrew-powerpad game. One of the others wasn't released and the other was similar to the Track and Field gameplay. Tailgate Party is played like that yard party game Cornhole. You have to supply your own beanbags, pick a distance away to stand and toss them at your powerpad. It's not a simple score keeper either, there is interesting gameplay involved. The dev was really thoughtful with the whole game package, lots of good design went into the layouts, characters, 'easter eggs', manual, logos, everything. I recommend looking into it just because it is so interesting of an idea and so well thought out.



A video of Tailgate Party

https://www.facebook.com/orabgames/

A facebook (whatever that is) page for the game.









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Told a new guy at work I had moved and was hoping to set up a game room sometime soon. He gave me this.





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Bally Lost World. All the parts seem to be there but it needs a lot of work, not the least of which is corrosion on the circuit boards. Supposedly this game is really loved for it's art, not so much for the gameplay which is simple and straight forward. My wife loves pinball and I surprised her by coming home with it, actually I only showed her the backglass first and told her a guy at work gave it to me for my game room, she thought that was awesome. I let it sink in before telling her I had the rest of the machine too  Cheesy








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The backglass is awesome for sure. The guy gave it to me.




I think that wraps it up for now, I know I missed some things. Didn't even show the Gamecube and Xbox consoles along with all the main Resident Evil games for GC that someone gave me because it's in a box somewhere since the move. Didn't show all the PC hardware I picked up for new and old PCs. There will be a pc centric post coming at some point, maybe after life slows down a bit.

I nearly put all this in a single post in small scores, that would have been a fun page....





What's Inside - Nintendo Controllers
Posted on Sep 2nd 2015 at 03:30:12 AM by (nupoile)
Posted under Advantage, nintendo, controller, 004, 027, 026, max, advantage, inside



It's been a long time since I've put up a "What's Inside" blog, or any blog for that matter. To keep things consistent I looked back on how the other "What's Inside" entries were titled. Apparently there was no consistency, every one of them was written with different formats, some had hyphens some didn't, I didn't even use the apostrophe in "What's" half the time. Of course, knowing myself like I do, this was done simply to entertain me. It kinda worked.

This entry is a threefer, three different Nintendo controllers were in pieces on my workbench today. And pictures were taken. Finding pictures of the original controller's guts online is pretty easy and not that the Advantage and MAX are impossible to find, these might show more detail than you've seen before.




First up is the original controller, the NES-004

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This is my worst controller, which is why I'm taking it apart. I don't think this one even works.


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I, ahem, cleaned it after the pictures were taken.


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You can't see it in the picture but most of those rubber contacts are torn pretty bad, one is completely detached.


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At least a little cleaner here.


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This is harder to get into than I would have guessed.


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Only five of the seven places for wires are used. The other spots are taken up in different controllers like the light gun and the four score I think.


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The tools I made to open up that connector.


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You can see some of the corrosion on the contacts. Don't spill pop on your electronics people!


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The D4021BC. Kinda an important thing for Nintendo's controllers. You can Google it or something.
www.google.com





NES MAX NES-027

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Looks comfy but is a little too small for my hands.


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Did some cleaning before I took pictures this time. See? Given time, I pick up new tricks


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Nothing very witty to say about the MAX I guess.




NES Advantage NES-026

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That's half of your Smash TV setup right there.


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Seven eighths of the weight is removed.


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Two circuit boards! What is the world coming to?


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[img width=640 height=488]https://farm1.staticflickr.com/740/21048294346_7a679dcfe9_o.jpg[/img]


[img width=640 height=530]https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5733/20887716499_8f7372484a_o.jpg[/img]
Two red buttons and the select and start buttons just kinda sit there.


[img width=640 height=534]https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5772/20886430490_e8150fc05d_o.jpg[/img]


[img width=640 height=546]https://farm1.staticflickr.com/569/20451897344_7a35b87ca7_o.jpg[/img]
It's that magic glowing, see-through circuit board trick again!


[img width=640 height=585]https://farm1.staticflickr.com/586/21064495512_833afd2172_o.jpg[/img]


[img width=640 height=582]https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5823/21048292576_dc42cbfdf9_o.jpg[/img]
Joystick bottom.


[img width=640 height=817]https://farm1.staticflickr.com/729/21082170241_beefc18ff3_o.jpg[/img]
Way out of proportion to the other pics because of the magic of photo cropping.


[img width=640 height=722]https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5803/21064494772_7c978249c5_o.jpg[/img]


If you want to see something closer or from a different angle, let me know. I took way more pictures and they are all way bigger than what I put here.

Hope you had as much fun looking at these as I did taking them apart. Should be easy enough, I'd rate this project at about a 4 out of 10 on the fun scale  Tongue








2013 Catch up blog
Posted on Jan 7th 2014 at 02:23:54 AM by (nupoile)
Posted under Zagnorch, ti 86, small scores, poker, little mermaid


Do you ever get distracted and busy? Does it make you put off doing things? I did that these last several weeks. I realized I was about to make a post in the small scores thread that had about a dozen pictures in it, then I also remembered I had a blog!

So here is some stuff I got, mostly small scores worthy but maybe too much to post at once.


The bulk of my game purchases of late have been from just one place. There is a thrift store nearby I like to give money to, so I make a point of going there at least every few weeks. Usually I just buy whatever they have as far as game stuff, sometimes it's actually neat.


This was just under $5. I found two copies of a Christian FPS made in 2000 called Catechumen. Reading the Wiki page for it makes the game sounds rather dark
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...techumen_%28video_game%29
Also found a sealed Taco Bell Centipede, Splinter Cell guide and a shiny circle of Don Henley. There was also that Let's Ride! Dreamer, I think I can wait to play that one.
[img width=640 height=480]http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3753/11809068674_3093694853_o.jpg[/img]



Continue reading 2013 Catch up blog


Portland Expo 2013
Posted on Nov 18th 2013 at 05:29:16 AM by (nupoile)
Posted under expo, odyssey, arcade, game show, portland, miracle piano, tg16, Polybius

People pay my wife good money to write, edit, format and post blogs on professional web sites, she tells me tricks to increasing readership and exuding quality include: posting regularly, using pictures conservatively and keeping each blog post to a few paragraphs or less.

I don't want more readers, so I make blogs super long, post very randomly and, like in this case, use so many pictures as to be annoying.

Welcome to my blog on the Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2013.



[img width=700 height=525]http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3669/10180032274_a8d0904abe_b.jpg[/img]
I remember seeing Tron in Halo 1,2 and 4, don't you?


The show took place Saturday and Sunday October 5-6 at the Portland Oregon Convention Center. Because I put off doing everything except procrastination, this is being written a month and a half later.


Continue reading Portland Expo 2013


Super Cobra Odyssey
Posted on May 19th 2013 at 10:13:07 PM by (nupoile)
Posted under Odyssey 2, super cobra

Another Odyssey^2 game has found it's way to my home.

I can hear my millions of readers asking, "Didn't you have them all?"

And I'm like, "Nope, still searching for Atlantis."

"Oh, so you found Atlantis?"

"No, I got a Super Cobra."


[img width=480 height=640]http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3808/8754296927_f696dffec2_o.jpg[/img]
The writing on there is either Klingon or Korean, either way, it's a made up language.


I've been causally keeping an eye out for good deals on O2 stuff from other regions. It's not a big concern but there are a few exclusives and the art is very different from none-US games.

Super Cobra is one of the games which never made it to the US (or Japan) on the Odyssey 2. It only came out in Europe and Brazil. There is a different variation for both of those regions. The game came out in 1983 and is supposedly rare, I don't know if it is actually rare in Brazil or it's just that American collectors think of it being rare.

The game play is a side scrolling shmup. Here's a short video I found:


As you can see, it looks exactly like Gradius.


For some reason ebay doesn't seem to track the game quite right. If you search for old listings they don't always show up. Therefore, Price Charting doesn't list old prices right.
http://videogames.pricech...ame/odyssey-2/super-cobra
At the moment Price Charting lists it as worth $51. That's actually about right for the game, loose. CIB it goes for most of $80 or so. There have been a few auctions I've watched over the last few months and the game gets several bids, I don't remember seeing it go for less than $50 in any condition.

I saw mine shortly after it was listed with a 'buy it now' of $15


Cowlitz Gamers for Kids Show 2013
Posted on Apr 21st 2013 at 09:43:20 PM by (nupoile)
Posted under Gaming Expo, Show, Arcade, Auction, Charity

Last year I wrote about going to the Cowlitz Gamers for Kids show in Kelso Washington. You can read more of the details of this show, put on for charity, in that blog:
http://www.rfgeneration.c...rs-for-Kids-Show-2147.php
Rather than retell much of what is written there, I will mostly cover new stuff for this post.

I'm going to rely on "pictures being worth a thousand words," which is keeps me from having to write much, always a plus Wink  So, if your internet is slow, sorry. The rest of you get to enjoy this multimedia extravaganza of pictures! other peoples videos! and text!

It was a beautiful sunny day here in the Northwest on Saturday April 13th 2013. If you read my post in the small scores thread, you will know that Zagnorch, giver of gifts, gentleman extraordinaire, sent me a lifetime supply of sunscreen. What a wonderful, and useful gift! Here in the NW we get so much sunshine, sunscreen is a constant necessity. The Saturday of the show turned out to be one of the hottest, sunniest days of the year. The temperature reached the mid 50's (F) and the rain let up several times. I took a picture of the blue sky:


[img width=700 height=525]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8239/8649264481_9eeea404a2_c.jpg[/img]
The sun was burning down on everything!


Continue reading Cowlitz Gamers for Kids Show 2013


How to find the rarest Odyssey 2 game
Posted on Mar 1st 2013 at 04:02:30 AM by (nupoile)
Posted under power lords, voice, odyssey 2

It's been some time since I last wrote an update on my Odyssey^2 collecting. The last I left off there were two games to go in the regular US set. Those last two games go for much more than I'm willing to spend on such things. Still, there were some Ody 2 items that could fill out my collection. The Voice is an important add-on to the O2 system. Also, because I didn't bother with getting games CIB, many of my games are still missing boxes and manuals.

I've been spending the last few weeks casually checking ebay for auctions with manuals, boxes and The Voice. The Voice is almost always available and the prices must not be too bad because it regularly sells for $40 or more. I wanted to pay less, about $20 was were I would start to consider getting one.


[img width=700 height=525]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8388/8463694278_309704010d_o.jpg[/img]




An auction comes up which has The Voice add-on, a bunch of manuals, 20 something games and a few other O^2 components. Two of the manuals really stood out, one for Computer Intro which is more like a small book than the simple manuals for the other games. The second manual I had my eye on was for Power Lords, one of the two games I didn't have. Opening bid on this lot was $20 plus $9 shipping, figuring I was going to be out bid, I put the first bid in.


Continue reading How to find the rarest Odyssey 2 game


Whats Inside Steel Battalion
Posted on Jan 29th 2013 at 04:55:52 AM by (nupoile)
Posted under steel battalion, controller

Steel Battalion. That mythical controller/game for the xbox. Much has been written about this beast, a few people have actually seen one. Through a unique set of circumstances, one of these has appeared at my house.

It was agreed that I could borrow this "thing" if I cleaned it. It had been in storage because the owner no longer has an xbox. He must have been keeping it at a RV storage facility, it wouldn't fit anywhere else.

So you can look at this two ways: If you let me borrow something with the promise I clean it, I will do my best by cleaning it inside out or if you leave something with me, I will tear it apart.

Oh yeah, lots of pictures. I know that is good for some and bad for others but I think it is necessary in this case.


Steel Battalion, look at this thing, I mean just look at it.
[img width=700 height=525]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8515/8425011013_e52d5e1bae_o.jpg[/img]


Continue reading Whats Inside Steel Battalion


The odyssey of Odyssey 2 collecting
Posted on Nov 24th 2012 at 07:30:49 PM by (nupoile)
Posted under Odyssey 2, collecting, inventory


This last week I added another Odyssey^2 game to my collection. Monkeyshines!

I paid a buy it now price on ebay of $8.30 plus $3.50 shipping. It's CIB and in fairly nice condition.


[img width=700 height=525]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8341/8214448954_de1f8dd4cb_c.jpg[/img]

This game leaves me with 6 to go for the complete US set. How many did I have left before this Monkeyshines!? I had been telling everyone 7, which makes sense right? In actuality it was 6. So I went from having 6 left to 6 left.

In my odyssey to get a complete set I had figured I should keep track of what games there were, what games I had and which ones there were left to go. Makes sense right? Fortunately there is some website on the internets helping me out with that. What was its name again....

More than half of my Odyssey^2 collection is loose but not much more than half. I've been kinda lucky getting as many boxed games as I have. Even my O^2 console came with the box. Collecting cardboard isn't super exciting to me, sure, I have my fair share of boxed game stuff but I collect to play and boxes aren't required.

So I had printed off this neat checklist of O^2 games to help me keep track of the games I needed. Adding new games to that one website I do with all games that come in but for quick reference I kept the printed O^2 checklist nearby. As time went on I would add games in by hand to the list as well as notes on how much I saw other games sell for and how much I paid for games I got. At one point I highlighted the games I didn't yet own. This piece of paper has been well used over the last year.

Somewhere along the line I bought a lot of several boxes and manuals. Now you're calling me out on whether I collect CIB or loose. Well, yeah, maybe I was confused with what I was doing but this lot was too good of a deal to pass up. It was, for the most part, boxes and manuals for games I only had loose and a couple I had yet to get. And was super cheap to boot. One of the manuals was for Monkeyshines! (remember this was earlier than the Monkeyshines! I just got) so I marked down on that checklist for one manual on Monkeyshines!

I think that catches us up to a week ago.

So I had it in my mind and on the checklist paper as still needing Monkeyshines! although the manual was in my possession. I saw one on ebay for a nice CIB one and did the buy it now thing. Then I checked that one website (RFGen of course). The website said I owned Monkeyshines!, game and manual though my head and checklist did not. So then I had to go to the source, the Odyssey^2 collection. Fortunately with the US collection only being 49 games it doesn't take long to go through. Sure enough, I already owned Monkeyshines!! How did this happen? I think I just bought it with several other games and forgot to mark it down on my sheet.

So now we are caught up on that story.

I guess the lesson is to keep track of your collection to avoid buying the same game twice. But I was doing that! See, I have a list! Clear as mud, right?

[img width=658 height=800]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8345/8214465286_23287989d1_c.jpg[/img]


Were do I go from here? There are now (as there had been, haha) 6 games left for me to get. Here is a quick rundown:

Atlantis and Power Lords! - These two are the spendy ones. The O^2 doesn't really have rare games, but we call these two "rare" compared to the rest. These two come up several times a year on ebay and other places. They range in price from $60 loose for Atlantis to ambitious $150 buy-it-now's for CIB Power Lords! I'm not going to spend that much, so unless there is a garage sale find, I'm content with not owning these two. The other option is to get these games from a different region then the US, they don't show up as often but are a little cheaper.

Killer Bees! - This one is all over the place on price. I've seen it for $9 loose and about $60 for a boxed copy. It's regularly available for $30ish CIB on ebay. I'm just waiting on a good deal.

The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt! - Also regularly available, but for more than I want to spend. This game is only a couple of dollars loose but is one of three O^2 games you need to get CIB because it is also played in conjunction with a board game. I've seen a very nice copy sell for $10 plus $4 shipping. I'm waiting for that sort of price again.

PT Barnum's Acrobats! and Keyboard Creations! - These two are only worth a couple of dollars. Even CIB they don't sell for much. Less than $10 or even around $5. The weird thing is they are just not showing up lately unless it's exorbitant buy it now prices. Actually, Keyboard Creations! hasn't come up much at all. I see it in lots on ebay and picture-less on amazon for too much $. Keyboard Creations! is one of the least valuable games, loose I wouldn't be surprised to see it for $1.

So those six games are what I have left. I'll probably try to get the cheaper four CIB, just because the price won't be that much difference. In the case of Keyboard Creations! I don't really want to pay $4 shipping on a $1 game. So now it's really just a waiting game.


Here is a picture of nearly all  the Odyssey^2 games I own (four more are waiting to be scanned and entered into the DB). They are stacked two deep and there are some O^2 games from other regions as well:

[img width=700 height=525]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8480/8214448780_0f08866445_c.jpg[/img]

Why collect for the Odyssey^2 instead of putting that time and effort into a more prestigious system like the NES, Vectrex or Casio Loopy?

Price. This could be the cheapest console to acquire all the games for. Nearly all the games are only worth a couple of dollars loose. Even if you want to go CIB the cost isn't too bad as long as you have patience.

It's unusual. Everyone that reads this is already in that small fraction of the population who considers themselves "game collectors" Why not be part of an even smaller group as well? You could imagine having conversations like this:

O^2 collector - "Nice to meet you. What do you like to do?"

Regular person - "Oh, you know, watch TV, play with the dog. How about you?"

O^2 - "Well, I like to collect old video games."

RP - "I used to have a Nintendo Cube. I gave it to my nephews."

O^2 - "Yeah that's a good system."

RP - "So you collect old games? Like for the Nintendo and Playstation?"

O^2 - "Well, yeah, but I also like collecting for the Odyssey 2."

RP - "Odyssey 2? Never heard of it"

O^2 - "It's pretty old, it came out in the late 70's"

RP - "We had an Atari when I was a kid."

O^2 - "Oh yeah? The Odyssey 2 was a contemporary of the Atari"

RP - "....was it called Intellivision?"

O^2 - ".....yes.....it was called the Intellivision."



What's Inside a PSone
Posted on Nov 19th 2012 at 03:52:11 AM by (nupoile)
Posted under psone, playstation, ps1, sony, inside

Sometimes you have to open things up to clean them. It doesn't really take much to convince me to do this. Even though my knowledge of circuit design is fairly low, I enjoy looking at the little cities laid out in solder, resistors and ic's on that green board.

This is a PSone, model no SCPH-101, made in December of 2000. It really wasn't that dirty but there was some dust and hair I couldn't get to without opening up the case.

Six screws hold it shut, one of them under a warranty seal. These were actually tough screws to loosen, they require a small phillips and a bit of effort.



[img width=700 height=525]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8200/8197831613_8f4c3f7495_c.jpg[/img]


Continue reading What's Inside a PSone


Portland Expo 2012
Posted on Oct 1st 2012 at 03:36:07 AM by (nupoile)
Posted under expo, odyssey, arcade, game show, portland

I went to the retro game expo in Portland this weekend. So much to see and do, I ended up with tons of pictures. I thought it would be better to blogify the whole thing rather than clog up some thread.

PRGE has been going on every year for the last several years. Last year was the first one I went to, it was great. This one was as good as last year, with even more added. The first few pictures are a little bit from the show, the ones at the end are of things I bought.

[img width=700 height=525]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8171/8041890791_4b531c98df_c.jpg[/img]


Continue reading Portland Expo 2012


Hunting for Games in China
Posted on Sep 26th 2012 at 03:21:07 AM by (nupoile)
Posted under china, hunt, games, ds, ique

My wife and I just got back from China. It was a great trip, got to see some old friends and new places. Learnt some new things, not the sort of things I was expecting to be surprised by but odd, small things. Breakfast is really hard for me to eat in China, the kinds of food they have are what I would expect to eat for dinner. Early in the morning my stomach isn't awake enough for thick sauces and bold flavors.

Mostly I want to tell you about the video game related stuff I found in China, so that's in here, but as I didn't find too much I'm going to pad this blog with other things you may find interesting. Lots of anecdotal evidence ya' know. Don't worry, there are lots of pictures and media, this is going to be long, don't feel like you have to read it all.


Continue reading Hunting for Games in China


Rock Band or real life?
Posted on Aug 22nd 2012 at 03:38:02 AM by (nupoile)
Posted under music, concert, rock band, guitar hero




This weekend I was out taking a walk. After a while I decided to sit down and relax. Fortunately there were lots of chairs around. I picked one out and sat down.





[img width=700 height=525]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8288/7835342572_59d281ff9a_b.jpg[/img]










Thinking to myself, I realized this was a funny place. There seemed to be way too many lights....


Continue reading Rock Band or real life?


Meanwhile back at the world of Odyssey 2 collecting...
Posted on Aug 11th 2012 at 11:44:30 PM by (nupoile)
Posted under Odyssey 2, collecting, game stores, old games, magnavox





I told my wife as I was opening the latest box of Odyssey^2 games, "It would be better if I could say, 'I was only 12 games away from having the complete, regular US released set of arcade cabs.'"



[img width=700 height=525]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8429/7756426372_e9b8e98393_b.jpg[/img]




Continue reading Meanwhile back at the world of Odyssey 2 collecting...


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