Had An Awesome Time Hangin’ With My Retro Collector Friends From Colexions.com

My buddy and fellow Retro Gaming fanatic Corey Buckner has put together a great community of fellow minded collectors over at colexions.com. Well, not only has he put together a great site to show off your own collection and geek out over fellow collectors treasures, he also hosts a monthly “Show And Tell” on Google Hangouts. What it is is a group of us collectors having a great time, showing off our stuff and talking about retro gaming and what ever else might come to mind. This was the third monthly get together and boy did we get to see some amazing stuff. We represented five different countries and three different continents but the distances just made the conversation better. It’s really cool to be able to meet like this. We had Corey Buckner (of course) from just outside Chicago and indie game developer Gary Brafford in West Virginia and lifespiller79 from…um sorry man, Texas (I think), all three in the U.S. of A,  We had Gabo representing Argentina, Mark in the U.K, Paul in Australia and little ol’ me up here in Canada. Everyone pulled out all the stops and showed some real stunners from our collections. Checkout last Saturday’s get together below:

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Another Let’s Play Video Arkanoid

The folks at Gaming History Source posted another great Let’s Compare video for the game Arkanoid.

Arkanoid is fantastic breakout style arcade game that was ported to what seem every system ever made. An exaggeration, of course. Enjoy the video and make sure you subscribe to Gaming History Source’s Youtube channel. 

Master Everdrive Flash Cart for The Sega Master System

Just posted a quick video demonstrating the Master Everdrive flash cart for the Sega Master System. The cartridge came as just a board and I had to cannibalize a case from an American Baseball game I had laying around. I had to cut a slot out of the case for the SD card to fit.

Bought Two Astrocade Games – And Now I Find Myself With a Decision to Make

So I find myself lucky enough to have acquired two more Bally Astrocade games,Bally Pin (Pinball) and The Incredible Wizard. I relly pumped to have these games, especially the incredible Wizard (my favourite home version of Wizard of War). The Incredible Wizard is basically the reason I got an Astrocade. There’s only one problem: both games are still factory sealed. They made it all the way from 1979 to today without being opened.

Damn.

I really want to play The Incredible Wizard on my own Astrocade.

I am so close to opening them up.

So close…

What would you do? Also, stay tuned to find out if I did or I didn’t.

 

Bally Astrocade – I Finally Have One!!!

There are few classic consoles that I lust after. One of those systems has always been the Bally Astrocade, and now I have one.

The Astrocade was released in 1978 and was very poorly marketed. At first only available through mail order and then later marketed poorly in small computer stores (though I saw it at a super drug mart called London Drugs in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada). It didn’t help that it was marketed more as a home computer than a gaming console, which it really is.

A contemporary of the original Atari 2600/VCS and Intellivision, it surpassed both in graphic and sound capabilities. The Astrocade got very few arcade ports, though it had a few great clones of classic games such as Galactic Invasion, a Galaxian clone, and The Incredible Wizard, a spot on clone of Wizard of Wor and Astro. The only true arcade port that I’ve seen is Space Fortress and is almost spot on. The Astrocade’s controllers were unique in that they resembled a revolver pistols handle with a small orange nub at the top that works as the joystick that can also be twisted to be used as a paddle controller. They are both unique and comfortable to use. The cartridges look surprisingly like audio cassettes, though they are solid state cartridges like other systems. There is a compartment at the top end of the system where you store the cartridges. And, being a console of the late 1970’s, it sports a great fake wood finish!

I acquired my Astrocade through a trade done on reddit.coms retrogameswap page. The guy I traded with, Chuck traded his Astrocade with a crap load of games for my NEC TurboDuo. I know the TurboDuo is worth more if I were to sell, but the Astrocade is worth more to me as a collectible. The system was clean and in perfect working condition. All the game, except one work perfectly, and the one that isn’t working is a math game so I am not upset. The one game I really want, The Incredible Wizard was not part of the haul, but I have purchased a copy via Ebay, and am eagerly awaiting it’s arrival and this evening I also added Pinball to my Ebay purchases. I’d also love to get a copy of Muncher, an amazing Pacman clone that was released for the system, but the only times I’ve seen it on Ebay, the seller wanted a lot more than I’ve been willing to pay. There are also a few home brew games out there, including absolutely amazing versions of the arcade classics, Crazy Climber and War, a Warlords clone.

I am so happy with this trade.

Here is a video of me demonstrating the games that came with it:

The History Of Hockey Video Games

I found this on a fellow classic gamer’s Youtube Channel, Atarileaf. It’s a history of Hockey video games by a Canadian gamer. Funny stuff and you should watch it!

My Q*Bert Tabletop Game!

Hey folks, hope all is well.

About 6 months ago I picked up a Parker Brothers Q*Bert Tabletop game. I have a number of these mini arcade machines, most being released by Coleco. This one is a Parker Brothers game and is surprisingly good when you take into account the limitations of these machines.

Check out the short demo video I made, below!