Random Retro Anecdotes

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

When my chick and I were first dating, she had a friend that worked at Toys R Us (this was back when games were kept in a separate booth and you had to grab the slips and pay for the game, then hand the slip off at the booth where a worker would give you the game. Her friend was one of those workers) and one day when I bought some dumb $20 game, she asked if there was anything else I wanted. I saw Tales of Destiny sitting near her and said, "I'll take that!" She threw it in the bag and off we went.
She got fired not long after that. Apparently she was quite fond of giving TRU games away.

It's not stealing, but it kinda is. I've taken advantage of Walmart's no receipt needed return policy here and there. The best one was K-mart was closing out a Golden Tee plug and play for $2. Walmart was selling it for $30.

I've never been much a thiefy person. When I was very young I stole one of those dumb plastic parachute men from Kay Bee. On the way home, my dad noticed me playing with it in the car. He asked where I got it from. I told him. He turned the car around, went back the mall, and made me apologize to the people at Kay Bee.

[Yoshi]

I can cherry pick lots of specific examples of good European games, but there is zero balance in that magazine. They made 20% or something of the good vintage games and manage to spend 60% of the space talking about them over and over, while dicking up facts on the other 40%. Maybe anyone would do that out of homerism, but that doesn't make it right.

[Brisco Bold]

I can cherry pick lots of specific examples of good European games, but there is zero balance in that magazine. They made 20% or something of the good vintage games and manage to spend 60% of the space talking about them over and over, while dicking up facts on the other 40%. Maybe anyone would do that out of homerism, but that doesn't make it right.

This is sort of what you do with everything you like ever.

Keep in mind, I agree about Retro Gamer (I'm so sick of hearing about Jet Set Willy!), but glass houses man.

[Yoshi]

This is sort of what you do with everything you like ever.

I'm a fan; I'm not running a "journalism" business. You can typically tell when I am trying to be objective versus posting as a fan. You have to be able to separate the two if you're going to write anything.

[Brisco Bold]

• I first played Return to Zork back in 1994, and I would always get stuck in that stupid forest where you'd gradually lose your ability to see. Around 2003, I finally had the internet at home, so I decided to use a FAQ and try and finish the game. After all that, after all those inane puzzles, the ending is a video of everyone waving goodbye to you. I don't think I've ever been so disappointed.

• Street Fighter 2 was my life back in the day. I was obsessed with it. But I was terrible, mostly due to the fact that I did not have the game and didn't have access to the arcade. People would bet on how quickly they could beat me. I finally got an SNES and Street Fighter late in its life and played the shit out of it. I became untouchable on the consoles. I never lost against anyone. We had it in the SAC room at high school, and randoms would come in for a daily ass-whopping. So one day, toward the end of high school, I meant this guy who had the same first name as I did, was also black, and shared my infatuation with Street Fighter. My buddy started throwing shade at Bizarro Me. Bizarro Me accepted the challenge, and we agreed to play at his place. We drive to this guy's house and instead of going toward the front door, we head the garage. The guy pops open the garage door to reveal a Street Fighter 2 Turbo arcade machine. And right then, I knew I was going to have bad time. It wasn't only the fact that this guy was fucking legit; I couldn't use an arcade stick. He beat me so bad that when I woke up the next morning I forgot what week it was; he literally beat me into next week. (I later found out his kryptonite was console controllers, but really, who cares about console controllers).

• I had this Thanksgiving tradition of borrowing my friend's copy of Super Mario World and beating all 96 stages over the long weekend. I did this because a) it was fun, and; b) his little bratty cousin would show up every year and delete all the files on every game he owned when he visited. Also, I think he stole his Famicom > NES adaptor, rendering all his NES games useless. Fuck that kid.

• I think I had a handshake that included a Shoryuken at some point in grade 6. I deserved to be beat up.

• I had an odd love with underdog or unpopular systems that were on their way out. This explains my love of the TG-16, Dreamcast and 3DO. But what's weird: I never really was interested in a Saturn until years later. It should have been right up my alley. And it would have been cheap. I never understood this. The decision in 96-97 was between the Playstation and N64, never the Saturn. So weird. I actually really regret this now. Had I bought a Saturn, and had it die. I still would have been able to sop up all the cheap, amazing Saturn games and still been able to purchase a Playstation late in its life. It's so puzzling. The Saturn is the one system I wish I had a bigger collection for.

• Music/sounds drives a lot of my purchases.

• It may have been a buggy, pain in the ass that first year, but my Packard Bell 486 DX2 66 was one of my favourite consoles. The point and click adventures. A very very slow C&C Red Alert. BioForge. Doom. Civilization. So much! What a machine.

[Brisco Bold]

I'm a fan; I'm not running a "journalism" business. You can typically tell when I am trying to be objective versus posting as a fan. You have to be able to separate the two if you're going to write anything.

I have a lot of these magazines, and I don't mind them (meaning, I don't mind owning them). But I've decided to avoid the urge to splurge on them from now on. There is a regional bias, and we would have one, too, if we made a retro-themed magazine (and I'm quite sure they'd be upset about it—the NES was simply not as important to them because Nintendo was and is retarded when it comes to European advertising). But they cover the same shit over and over again. I liked learning about the Speccy and Amstrad, but a feature on the console every few months is just overkill. Especially considering how much more is out there.

One issue of Retro (which is a compilation of Games's retro section features), argued that the definitive Shinobi port was not the PC Engine version, but the C64 version. Um, are you kidding me? One looks like the arcade, plays like the arcade, sounds like the arcade. One happens to retain all the stages, but pales in comparison to even the Master System version.

Right now I'm looking at two different issues of Retro Gamer (one about the NES, the other the SNES), separated by a year. They share the same cover hed: "When Grey Mattered." They even recycle their headlines.

[Bojack]

The cart was probably Japanese (rounded) and the adapter let you play it on your Gaijin console.

What the hell was it doing at a Block Buster (I think) in Connecticut?

[A Robot Bit Me]

My sixth grade "girlfriend" was coming over on my birthday. It would be the first time a girl had been in my room. I had no idea what to do or what girls did. I was freaking out.

The day before the big day, the phone rang. It was Blockbuster calling to tell me my reserved copy of the recently-released Mortal Kombat II had just been returned. Kismet! My what-do-I-do-with-a-girl problem was solved!

She broke up with me a month later and moved shortly after that.

A few years later, I was surprised to pass her in the hall on my first day of high school. She was wearing army fatigues and big black boots. I would find out that semester that she was a lesbian.

[Joust Williams]

[Melf]

I was a huge fan of Mega Man as a kid but never played the original, until I was attending this day camp and a kid lent me a copy. He tried to lie to me later about some stuff in the game (like Roll being playable or some nonsense) but I called him on his bullshit because I actually beat it. Then I kept forgetting to bring it back to him until the last couple days, when I brought it with me like two or three days in a row but he never showed up.

I still have it somewhere.

Find it and sell it to me.

Yeah, it would focus on Japanese games.

That would be a hard magazine to produce monthly, I think, unless it had major circulation. Japanese developers (with the exception of a few) don't seem to desire or be able to talk about their careers. While western developers are quite eager to talk and contribute, the Japanese are a lot more secretive/uncooperative.

When my chick and I were first dating, she had a friend that worked at Toys R Us (this was back when games were kept in a separate booth and you had to grab the slips and pay for the game, then hand the slip off at the booth where a worker would give you the game.

All the TRU stores here still work this way. You go to the game aisle and take a coupon with the price, then you pay for it and go to the separate booth to pick up your game. None of the games are actually on the store shelves for you to take.

What the hell was it doing at a Block Buster (I think) in Connecticut?

Was this after the Genesis launched? I remember some Blockbusters getting import versions of some Saturn games before the U.S. ones were released. Maybe the same thing happened with the Genesis games?