Video Game Collecting

Hey there, I’m currently working on a very involved video about the ColecoVision – specifically my experiences with the system.  So far it’s coming along really well but there are few games I need to complete the story.  They include:

• Front Line
• Lady Bug
• 2010
• Q*Bert
• Tarzan

There are other ones I need, but these will complete the major part of the story.  I also need the ColecoVision Expansion Module 1 (the Atari 2600 adaptor), and a registration card that originally came with the system.

If you stumble on any of these items for cheap please let me know!

Altered Beast for SEGA Master System is an interesting port.  I’ve never understood the draw of Altered Beast on any platform (arcade or Genesis) but it was popular enough to make it the launch title ans pack in for the Genesis originally.

This version looks great but its slow and suffers from flicker.  Its almost as if the frame rate is cut in half because some animations seem choppy when the shouldn’t.  These gripes are minor as the game still retains it’s arcade feel to it.  The music is decent but the aound effects like many Master System games sound like bursts of static.

If anything the most endearing quality to thia game is the box art (which I failed to take a photo of.). It looks like a mix of oils and water colours and it has the Altered Beast arcade logo on it in bright blue.  It’s a welcomed departure from the typical Master System box with generic text and child like doodle.

Enjoy my video review of Food Fight for Atari 7800. This game is incredible!

There are those occasions where you are united with a memory of a long for gotten video game.  Bosconian is a perfect example for me.  I’ve been playing it recently but rediscovered it around 1997 on the Namco Arcade Classics volume N for the original PlayStation.  But previous to that I played Bosconian in its native form: arcade cabinet.

The location was a VFW Post.  And I was six or seven at the time.  It seemed like the appropriate place for my grandparents to take me to.  Between the bar the pool table and the drunken dismembered vets I pumped my fair share of quarters into Bosconian.  The game is as fresh today as it was almost three decades ago.

Fly your ship in eight directions and kill.  It really is that simple.

Here is my video review of Mario Bros. for Atari 7800

It’s been ages since I’ve posted about my progress in video game collecting but money has been tight and there has been slim pickings at thrift stores anyways.  It seems everything has gone up on eBay as well.  However as I type this six emails have just come in on offers I made on six Atari games, and I got to tell you that the price was right for all six.

Putting collecting on hold isn’t that bad at all.  It has forced me to get re-acquainted with games I already own including the ColecoVision I am restoring that I mentioned in an earlier post.  It let me fix the Phoenix for Atari 2600 that a mystery animal had chosen to eat.  But best of all it has allowed me to look forward to this coming weekend.

I recently read about a study about happiness where it was discovered that planning for a vacation rather than actually taking the vacation brought the most happiness and I believe it to be true.  Planning my four day weekend has been a blast.

I’m going to the swapmeet for sure and I’ll be hitting up the thrift stores as well.  The last part I need for the ColecoVision will arrive any day now and like I mentioned earlier I just won those six Atari 2600 games.  There is going to be Pepsi and Pizza.  But no PlayStation.  Maybe I’ll Red Box Tron Legacy or stare at a campfire in my backyard and reflect on simpler times when a video game convention wasn’t necessary to announce the forth sequel in a series.  Or maybe I’ll just sleep.

Two more days.  T-Minus 48 hours and counting…

Anyone who has played Moon Patrol, particularly in the arcade back in the day must have been stunned.  Parallax scrolling.  Addicting beat.  The moon!

Moon Patrol is one of those games that cannot afford to be screwed with.  If your company is going to port it than it better do a good job.  All I can say is holy crap! 

This game is near arcade perfect.  The music is off a little bit but the beat is still there.  The resolution is a little bit smaller but the sprites are identical to their arcade counter part.  If you play it on a Game Boy Advance than you’re playing the arcade dream.  Super Game Boy doesn’t recognize the extended palette.  The original Game Boy has struggles with being blurry and enemy missiles are hard to see.

All in all this game is perfect and is probably the best you’ll find outside of that MAME filth.  If you’re not familiar with the game it takes place on the moon.  You’re a security guard on patrol and you’re attacked by ufos.  Press the kill button to fire missoles about you and infront of you.  Make your moon buggy leap over craters and blast rocks out of your way.  MAKE THEM PAY!

This is what an arcade game ported to a portable system should feel like!

I’ve finally decided to repair my ColecoVision!

I have several neat memories about the ColecoVision but I’ll save them for later.  For now let me get you up to date on this beast.  About 5 or 6 months ago I won this ColecoVision on eBay.  I knew full well it was broken but it has only been recently that I have decided to repair it.

The original auction explained that the system turned on but it wouldn’t read games because of a broken pin in the edge connector.  Easy peasy right?  Well sorta, I did a McGyver manuver and soldered a tiny wire from the bottom of the pin connector and bent a thicker piece of wire where the missing pin was.  It worked, but it was only a temporary solution.  I knew the edge connector would have to be replaced.

Since I decided to take the steps to repair it, I decided to do two other things.  The first would be to clean the rust off the RF shielding.  The first time I opened the system I was really disappointed by the amount of water damage the unit had suffered.  Not only was the RF shielding rusted but the mother board had some rust as well!  The games that came with the system had water damage on the labels as well.  I don’t think the unit was submerged, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was left in a damp dank basement.

The second thing I did was to install an AV composite video and audio mod.  The traditional RF plug is fine but is not convinient for newer TV’s.  Benheck.com has a nice and easy ColecoVision video mod.  I used Ben’s mod on three Atari’s and they came out great, so I figured I couldn’t go wrong by him.

Anyways this is the ColecoVision with the top part of the shell removed.

You can see plenty of rust in the shielding.  You can also see the temporary fix for the edge connector.

The guts of the system.  Under the lid of that silver box rests the RF modulator.  Here is where the mod occurs.

I decided to drown the rusted shielding in sme CLR.  It didn’t remove anything, but some Comet cleanser and a sponge did quite well.

And kablammo!  The AV mod works.  It didn’t at first, but suddenly it started working for no apparent reason.  I therefore have nothing to complain about.

And finally here is some footage of the mod in action.  The edge connector is coming this week so hopefully I’ll get this ColecoVision back together soon and play some Front Line!

The chances of me mentioning a newer videogame on this blog was slim.  But I must take exception with Red Dead Redemption.  By definition the game is the anti-christ of what I feel ruins a videogame: a story crammed down your throat with mission based activities that seem more like busy work than anything else.  But you need to understand that Red Dead has something different going for it.

Made by Rockstar the gameplay is similar to Grand Theft Auto.   But that is where the similarity ends.  In Grand Theft you walk around the city engaging in crimes that are glamorized in the media and celebrated in various genre of music.  A hundred years from now schools are not going to teach how street gangs were founded and how crack houses littered the American landscape.  Red Dead however represents life in the United States in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s and does so fairly accurately.

I know this to be fact for I have lived in Las Vegas for 34 years.  I can tell you what Native American Tribes lived in the area.  The extremes that the settlers had to endure.  And just like the plot in Red Dead Las Vegas was formed during the cusp of the dying American West.  In 1905 civilization was moving in and nothing was going to stop it.  In Red Dead it’s 1911.

So there you have it.  If you’re going to invest several weeks of your life into a game make it worth wild with Red Dead.  Instead of blow torching the Triads try breaking a wild horse.  Avoid the slums and the projects and travel a very realistic landscape where each pebble, grass, and tree was carefully placed.  No one will be able to view and explore every area during all of the hours of the day under all of the weather conditions.  It’s impossible.  Traveling in the game by foot, horse, wagon or train is a surreal experience.  Sometimes you can only hear the environment with only a subtle hint of appropriate music.

But the game isn’t just a walk in the park.  There is plenty of killing, side missions, and ogrish story telling about cannibals and grave robbers.

If you are lucky to make it to Mexico you become wanted just for looking at someone weird.  I opened a chest in a room and I got a bounty.  My horse ran into a chicken and I got a bounty.  I looked at the map and I got a bounty.

There are also random events that do not advance the plot but are interesting nonetheless.  People randomly pee on stuff.  A weeping woman shoots herself in the head when she finds her dead husband.  A movie about cocaine powders costs two dollars to watch.  The list goes on and on.  You can even read newspapers with funny ads about Pinch Brand Toilets and an editorial about a woman doctor who moved to town.  “Apparently this is common place back east.”

I knew I could buy stuff and I knew I had items but never bothered to try them until several months into playing the game.  There never was a need.

The list of possibilities with this game goes on forever and I almost wish I didn’t skip ahead through most of the cutscenes.  Red Dead is truly for everyone unless you really hate Westerns then you are probably screwed.  But if all else fails and you want Red Dead Redemption on a budget then let me recommend Outlaw for Atari 2600.  Which is a close substitute.  Sorta.