Category: Video Game Musings

Retron 5 Head David Hu Interviewed By Retroware TV

http://retrowaretv.com/retron-5-interview/

There’s a nice little interview at Retroware TV with Hyperkin Marketing Director David Hu regarding the upcoming Retron 5 system, an Android-powered clone console which emulates functionality for NES, Super NES (and their Famicom and Super Famicom equivalents, respectively), Genesis/Mega Drive, and the Game Boy line. It’s actually a nice little read.

The Retron 5 is due out December 10 with a suggested price of $99.

Old Wii Wii Go Bye Bye… And That’s Too bad

So in case you haven’t heard, Nintendo is planning on shutting down production of the original Wii soon, thus bringing the chapter of their all-time best selling console to a close.

No word as to whether this’ll affect online services like Virtual Console or that sort of thing… not much of a surprise, really. The console is pretty much retired at this point and the Wii U can pretty much do what the Wii could and more, so really, you knew it was going to happen eventually, if it hadn’t already.

The thing is… Nintendo sucks at this kind of thing. You have the best-selling console of the current generation and you toss it under the bus to focus on your new console that isn’t up to par in terms of numbers or content or whatever. Why not support the thing for another year or so before axing it?

I’m not saying producing a shit ton of games, but a handful, you know? Go for compilations or something. That kind of stuff will always sell for good prices. The PS2 has a massive library of games and pretty much lasted more than a decade in service… best-selling console of all time. Indisputable. That’s factual. PS2 is the best-selling console and it was supported for a good long time even got games years into the current generation.

It is the modern-day Atari 2600, just in terms of the longevity because the 2600 also had a long life span, from 1977 to 1989-1990 when the era of Nintendo and Sega was in full swing. And Nintendo has their best-selling console in the Wii… and they drop it. I understand that it’s a underpowered machine; you’d rather go for the HD console, but your HD console not is doing the numbers you’d hoped for. I don’t know… yeah…

Not quite sure where I was going with that, but in any case, there you go.

So What's The Deal With The Irate Gamer Game?

I’ve been trying to find information on that thing, but it’s a bit difficult at the moment.

The Irate Gamer website or blog, as it is now, only had a couple previews and has seemingly forgotten about the game because nothing else was mentioned. No promo, no announcement that it’s available, no BUY HERE link… nothing. It seems like the guy played the game and wasn’t pleased with the game that bared his name or something… I don’t know. Why wouldn’t you push your product? Just to show that you give a shit about the product? Because it seems like this was just slapped together on a whim and released to the masses.

Looking at the screenshots, I’m not gonna lie; it looks like shit. It looks like somebody fired up a copy of Multimedia Fusion for the first time in their lives and put together a bunch of random crap and voila, new game. I don’t know if that’s the case because I’m not able to try it, but it seems like nobody is going to take the plunge either because I have not seen one writeup or proper review on the thing.

The only place that I’ve seen anything close to a full review is on that Irate Gamer Sucks blog, but I found anything out of that site to be a bit skewed and somewhat biased, given the title of the blog. And I know people are going to defend that site and say it’s supposed to be objective look at… but the title says it all. It’s anything but objective. And trying to post any semblance of positive or going against their favorites will result is some rather nasty responses… and I agree trying to find something positive about Bores’ output is a bit difficult, to put it mildly.

But it is possible to enjoy what he does… I mean, I watch some of his stuff, I enjoy it for the most part… even if it’s for reasons totally contrarian to his intentions. I don’t think his stuff is good, I enjoy because sometimes it’s fun to watch someone act like a complete fucking moron when playing these games and it’s something I find he does rather well, whether it’s intentional or not. So… bit of a backhanded compliment, I suppose…

Ericmansuper's Terrible NES Games – Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom

This is an assembled version of Youtuber Ericmansuper’s three-part Terrible NES Games review of Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom for NES.

Perhaps the best critical overview of the NES game that deserves to be seen in one uninterrupted sitting. The review has even been praised by James “AVGN” Rolfe himself, earning Eric the Nerd Seal Of Approval… back when such a seal actually meant something.

Ericmansuper’s YouTube channel can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ericmansuper

Three Gamecubes At A Thrift Store For 40 Bucks A Pop

Originally aired on DTM-Cast Episode #12 (September 29, 2013)

I actually wanted to talk something I saw last week at the thrift store a couple days ago, because I thought it was really funny.

So I’m going to the local Value Village – a thrift store up in Canada – and I’m checking out what they have on sale on their display case. And what I see are three Gamecubes, all lined up, all black Gamecubes, and all of them have a price tag of $39.99… plus tax, obviously. Now here’s the kicker – and I wish I had my camcorder or at least my fake flip video thing to catch this on video, but I didn’t and I figured they wouldn’t let me anyway – there’re three Gamecubes, all of them cost about forty bucks plus tax.

One of those Gamecubes had a Game Boy Player underneath. Game Boy Player is the peripheral that lets you play Game Boy games, Classic, Color, Advance… Game Boy.

So you had this one Gamecube equipped with a Game Boy Player, and it’s marked at the exact same price as the other two Gamecubes with no GBPs installed. I thought that was funny… of course, I didn’t say anything because I figure if I did they’d mark up the price even more and it has happened once or twice… there’s weird inconsistent pricing policies at these thrift stores. Such as one time where I saw they had a couple Nintendo 64s on the shelf and they were both the same model. Both came with a/c adaptor, none of them had the jumper pak… which is the thing that’s in that expansion port of the N64 and was basically a placeholder for an ram expansion pak… but if you’d didn’t have the jumper or the expansion, the N64 was essentially a brick; it wouldn’t work.

And I didn’t know that at first; because I bought an N64 from a Value Village, had all the cables, and the controllers… and I couldn’t get it to work because I thought it was broken and it didn’t work. So I brought it back, got a refund, but when I bought another N64 from the usual vendor, I saw that that console had a jumper and the other didn’t. And that’s when I figured that the jumper was necessary… so if you’re hunting for N64 consoles, check the expansion port. If it’s empty, you’ll need to get a jumper or expansion pak… there’s a little hunting tip right there.

So where was I? Oh yeah; I see these two N64s at the Value Village; no jumpers, no A/V cables, no controllers, just the power… one N64 cost 12.99… the second N64, and I shit you not, cost 19.99. Whether that was a typo or not, or a mislabel, I don’t know, but I thought that was fucking hilarious. Just absolutely hysterical.

Again, I said nothing because I didn’t want to give these clowns any ideas… but yeah, Value Villages and thrift stores in general, lots of hidden gems and fun stuff to be found there at times, but be weary because those are usually the scourge of game relics… the flea market, I find, is a much more reliable source of retro tat, especially when you’re familiar with the vendors and you have that nice buyer/seller relationship. It’s a nice thing to have sometimes.

Post-Script 2018
These days, Value Village and other thrift stores have gotten smarter when it comes to selling old video game tat, as some of them are much more pricier compared to when this story was told. Nowadays, a Gamecube with Game Boy Player and all the usual accessories would probably sell for about sixty bucks.