First NES game in a Faria long time

As with most things in life, sometimes hobbies and interests will take a back seat while other more engaging or pressing matters and diversions take the wheel. Such was the case with my Nintendo Collection. Once I got the home arcade bug, my retro gaming focus shifted to 3/4 scale machines and creating an 80s themed Arcade at home and the quest for NES games ground almost to a halt.

In fairness, I had reached a point in my collection several years back where adding new cartridges was becoming more and more daunting both because of cost and availability. At that time I chose to change lanes rather than crash and burn and started to pick off some of the more affordable game manuals before the market on those items went through the roof as well. At last count I have amassed almost 500 accompanying booklets for the games in my collection but these artifacts, too, have reached a point where the deals are fewer and farther between.

That brings us to today. More than three and a half years have passed since the last game I added to my collection and in a stroke of coincidence I obtained Faria through another trade with Shayne. My routine Facebook Marketplace visits led me to one of his game posts that had this game nestled among other more common titles. I reached out because several months back I had put some of my doubles aside for a later trade that he was interested in. After resending a picture he came back with a trade request that we fulfilled. The trade allowed him to fill some of the holes in his collection and I came home with Faria and a bonus map for the game Shenigen the Ruler.

The game itself was not one that I experienced in my youth and perhaps did not get the recognition it deserved because it existed during a timeline that spawned several genre-defining titles such as: Dragon Warrior, Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy. I look forward to trying this game out in order to determine if it is worth the value that it consistently sells for on Ebay and other sites.

The addition of Nexoft's Faria brings the overall collection to:

Licensed Games: 630/677

Unlicensed Games: 66/90

Total Games: 696

Co-op with Coop

On April 1st, I had a visit with the benefactor of my longest friendship Mark Cooper or “Coop” as I called him back in the day. It was April Fools, but this is not a prank and the only fool was me for not snapping a picture to mark the occasion.  Coop and I met sometime around 1979 on the neighborhood streets of what was then called Lakeview Heights.  Growing up in the late 70s and early 80s was one of those amazing times that, looking back on it, I feel so fortunate to have been a part of.  Our upbringing in those days has become solidified in modern pop culture by way of memes, pictures and stories from those who survived that time.  Depictions of kids jumping their BMX bikes over a rickety, hand-made ramp while 6 or 7 hapless friends lay prone beside the warped, plywood slope-- like decommissioned school busses in an Evil Knievel motorcycle stunt-- resonate with our generation on a deep level.  How about the memories of what water tasted like coming out of a garden hose and the reminder to let the water run for a good 30 seconds on a hot day or else you got a mouthful of 90 degree plastic hose-flavored H2O? Mark lived one street over from me in those days and the shenanigans we found ourselves in never ended. We honestly didn’t stop from sun up to sun down (except for the occasional dinner bell or call of nature).  All the kids in the neighborhood had each other’s phone numbers memorized back then there were no smartphone contact pages.  The prefix was all the same and Mark’s # and mine were only 14 numbers apart. His number ended in 5-7-1-1 and mine in 5-7-2-5 and it wasn’t uncommon in those days to know your best friend’s number better than your own. From street hockey matches with anyone that walked by and wanted to join mid-game, to playing tag and kick-the-can in each other’s yards, knocking the pickets out of our fences when we used them as make-shift soccer nets, to pranking unsuspecting families with nicky nicky nine doors and running onto the road and mooning oncoming cars -- there was never a lack of crazy things for a bunch of 6-10 year olds to do back in those days.  We would ride our bikes everywhere we could and usually that was to the local corner store, Grant’s Market, or a little further down the road to the laundromat or video store.  Westside Video Classics was THE place to rent all the latest movies and games back in the day.  

If it wasn’t movies or wrestling, Coop and I bonded over hockey cards (playing scramble,  knock-downs and closeys), making comedy tapes on our cassette recorders (we thought we were a regular Bob & Doug McKenzie duo) and later on playing video games.  At my house I introduced him to the two full-sized arcade machines my dad had bought from a co-worker and put in our rumpus room as he liked to call it:  Super Soccer and Wild Cycle and then later games like Raid on Isram and Cosmic Cruncher on the Commodore Vic-20.  

At his house we played endless rounds of Ring King and Super Mario Bros. 2 on his NES as well as countless hours of board games like Crokinole, Rummoli and Crossbows & Catapults. We had the definitive 80s childhood: trick-or-treating together in our shared neighborhood for years at Halloween time, sleepovers almost every other weekend, birthday parties and endless summer nights of hi-jinx.  We shared in common younger siblings that tried to do everything we did at that time and rivalries with our respective kin that gave us even more to relate to.  Sometime in the early 80s, Coop tattooed the drywall on his bedroom wall, in permanent marker no less, with the inscription:  Best Friend Bobby since 1980.  An homage to a friendship that, at that time, was a few years on but looking back now has been a friendship that has endured nearly 45 years.   To take a page out of his playbook, I mocked my 7up sign to display the following:

I am getting away from my story. All of this to say that Mark came by to meet the family and check out my game room, but became quickly overwhelmed with it all.  He was audibly giggling from the moment I greeted him at the front door to the moment we made our way down to the ‘Arcade’ and then back up to the kitchen to sit and catch up.  His energy was infectious and I knew that we would likely not be doing a lot of gaming on this visit but rather getting reacquainted and spinning shared experiences from those good old neighborhood days.  

Fast forward a week and we got together again and this time we ended up spending a good hour re-living some of those nostalgic times down @ 8bit Bobby’s.  Coop’s one pre-visit request was that he wanted to play some Raid on Isram.  To make this possible, I had to hunt through various backups to find my rom files for the Vic-20 and then figure out how to interface it with my current Hyperspin setup on my M.A.M.E. Arcade machine.  After some tweaking I managed to get it setup and somewhat playable.  The game itself is nothing earth shattering and is essentially a watered-down clone of the popular game Scramble, but, to a couple of 40 somethings reliving the times when they were likely in the 10 and under category, it was pretty neat to play again.  The object of the game is literally survival. You shoot a laser cannon and drop bombs on enemy ground-to-air missiles and fuel refineries. It starts out scrolling left to right in a pretty wide open playfield but as the game wears on the air-to-ground missiles begin taking off and you begin to enter narrow tunnels with what can only be described as flying spiders coming at you.  You can shoot off the stalactites that make the caves a tight squeeze but if you are too busy contending with them you are sure to get hit by the unpredictable and weird trajectory of these squiggle-like arachnid creatures.  Raid on Isram is a “one and done” game meaning you have one life to get as far as you can and then that’s it.  No extra lives, no continues, nothing. THIS was the epitome of gaming back in the days before infinite lives, cheat codes and save states were a thing.  

From here we moved on to some co-op games starting with Golden Axe.  We got swiftly through the first two stages cracking heads and laying the boots to the little magic-stealing gnomes that appear between checkpoints only to have the game freeze without warning.  I have played through several of these games and never had this happen before. It was a definite headscratcher but we were undeterred.  We continued our co-operative game play with the Midway classic, Rampage.  Just like back in the old days when we used to stomp around the neighborhood, we joined forces to destroy buildings, smash tanks and defeat digitized army men as George and Ralph the giant, Kong-like Ape and Wolfman respectively.  We played through 19 “days” or cities and after each one we wondered how long the game went on for.  After a quick Wikipedia search it would appear that the game has 128 days that, when completed, repeat 5 more times. It was good to know that this was a game we were not likely to finish in one sitting. Maybe a future stream event or something?  Pictured below are our two protagonists: Coop & Bobby and in true fashion I am showing my age and lack of tech savviness by being unsure as to where I am supposed to be looking at the camera. I suppose a goofy picture is better than no picture at all.

This game room of mine and friends like Coop remind me how much of a role nostalgia plays in my life.  The way certain sights or sounds can just transport a person back in time.  I know we are not the same kids who hid in the willow trees on the neighbor’s property, cut through a field and hopped a fence into each others’ backyards with the ease and agility of an Olympic vaulter, and had water balloon fights while eating home-made popsicles to beat the summer heat, but for the hour or so that we connected tonight, we were transported back to a much simpler time. I leave you with the meme pasted below (which came up in conversation during his visit and I think really hits in the gut). Even though we can’t go back to that moment and give it the recognition and closure it deserved we can at least reminisce about what it was like just hanging out and teaming up against whatever was out there.  Co-op with Coop 4 EVA.  

My Journey with Arcade1up - Part II: Star Wars

It didn't take long for me to 'catch the bug' so to speak with these mini cabinets.  Just a short 2 and a half months after my first purchase, Pac-man, I was shopping around for the next one.  In early June during the E3 Electronics conference Arcade1up announced 3 more cabinets that were being released that fall.  Of the three 'second generation' cabinets the one that blew my mind the most was the Atari classic Star Wars.  The moment this one was available for pre-order I went into my local EB Games (now doing business as Gamestop) and slapped down a deposit.  

As the receipt stated, the date was:  August 8th, 2019 and now I had to figure out what to do for the next few months before the cabinet shipped.  What was great about EB Games was that they only required a small deposit for pre-order unlike other retailers who wanted the full purchase price up front (even if the wait was several months).  

The E3 offerings in 2019 tugged at the heartstrings on many fronts. Of course any kid born in the mid to late 70s grew up with the Star Wars universe, but the other two games: Marvel Superheroes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles garnered a lot of nostalgia as well for our cohort.  Of the three I think I was most influenced by Star Wars and that is why it was an easy choice for my 2nd cabinet.  I have fond memories of playing the sit-down version of this cab at my local Scandia Golf & Games in the early 80s.  At the time I think that they had it right inside the door as you came in and it was the biggest game in the place at the time.

 Fast forward 3 months or so and on November 12th I got the call from EB Games that my cabinet was ready for pickup. Just like Pac-man before it the distress signal came while I was at work and so I had to finish my shift before making my way over for pickup.  I felt like Boba Fett arriving to collect my bounty and upon finishing the transaction hurriedly making for my escape pod before enduring any "Imperial entanglements".   The drive home was akin to Han Solo weaving through the Asteroid field as I attempted to navigate my way back through rush hour traffic in the quickest and safest way possible.

Immediately after opening the box I could tell that this cabinet was something special.  The build quality seemed to be light years ahead of the previous generation cabinets and with the iconic John Williams soundtrack playing in the background I got to work assembling this soon to be "fully operational" battle station.  From the replica fight yolk controls to the light up marquee to the beautiful side panel artwork this cabinet was (and still is) a sight to behold. Pre-loaded with the 1983 vector classic, Star Wars, the 1985 follow-up, Empire Strikes Back, which was released as a conversion kit for the original game and Return of the Jedi which was an isometric raster game from 1984 the lineup on this cabinet ran the gamut of scenes and scenarios from the beloved Original Trilogy.  The irony is that ROTJ actually was released the year BEFORE ESB was offered as a software upgrade to the original Star Wars game.  

Assembly of this cabinet was much the same as Pac-man with a few exceptions.  It all went together with some wooden dowels and a screw driver in under an hour.  It was the first cabinet that I owned that came with a custom matching riser and a light-up marquee right out of the box and even though the gameplay is not as varied on this cabinet as it is on some of the later ones it will always have a place in my home arcade if for no other reason than the pure nostalgia it generates when you look upon it and hear the digitized voices and music from the films.  I could have never imagined that when I was 7 or 8 years old playing with the Kenner action figures in my back yard and creating trenches and planets out of mud and snow and gravel to re-enact my favorite scenes that I would be able to bring home a replica arcade cabinet in my adult years.  

As with Pac-man, I added a matching stool to this cabinet the following July from The Source.  It was the official Arcade1up licensed stool that matches the side art of the machine with Darth Vader's visage figured prominently on it.  

The finish on this cabinet truly puts this one ahead of all the ones that came before it and even some that came after.  New to this cabinet was an upgraded monitor that was more vibrant and colorful than the first generation screens a proper volume toggle that allowed you to turn the volume up and down 15 levels instead of the 3 position: off, Loud and OBNOXIOUS settings of the older cabinets, and if I'm not mistaken the software was emulated by Code Mystics for the first time and they did a fantastic job of bringing these games to the home market by offering a settings menu for each game that allowed you to change the difficulty as well as add scan lines.  Switching between games was also made unique by the sound cues of Artoo's whistles and the hyperspace starfield effect that transitions from the game menu to each chosen game.  Another highlight of this cabinet is that the 'attract mode' has sound so you can turn this game on and leave it running to get that arcade ambience even when it is not being played.  There is nothing like turning all the lights off and just seeing the glow of the machines and hearing Ben Kenobi's famous dialogues from the movies or hearing selections from the soundtrack.  The Atari Star Wars Arcade1up cabinet is one for the ages.

My Journey with Arcade1up - Part I: Pac-man

I could never spin a yarn quite like Sophia Petrillo but I suppose I should start at the beginning. In about the fall of 2018, a new company announced a product coming to the home market that would take the gaming world by storm:  Arcade1up.  Their 3/4 scale cabinets would allow the average Joe an experience that hints at the nostalgia that many of us were aching to return to (if even for a short time).  Much like a trip to Ikea, these cabinets are sold flat-packed for the consumer to build at home. Fully assembled, the product stands roughly 4ft. tall (without a riser) and weighs between 50-70lbs.  This smaller footprint allows for easy movement around a game room and is aided by the original CRT monitors of the day being replaced by 17″ flat screens as well as the 3/4inch plywood shells giving way to lighter composite wood materials.  For a retail of roughly $300-500 (at the time) you could get a standup machine with a PCB (printed circuit board) containing anywhere from 2-4 games from the same publisher. Finishing the look was side art, marquee and a bezel resembling the original graphics of the game, as well as clone joysticks and buttons to give you the feel of the original arcade.  

No matter how good a company or product is, however, if you cut costs to bring an expensive hobby to the masses at a lower price point there will be issues and these Arcade1ups are no exception.  The first ‘generation’ of these cabinets, of which the Walmart Exclusive Pac-man was a part, suffered from no light-up marquee, riser or deck protector.   It didn’t take long until players complained that their control panel artwork had been reduced to a worn out smear of what it once was due to hours of gameplay.   To remedy this, the company sent out free replacement artwork and a plexiglass cover to go over the controls to protect the printed graphic surface to anyone who requested it.  This addition was one of the first instances where the company listened to it’s consumer/fan base and made corrections and improvements based on feedback. Since their humble beginnings, the company has run the gamut of early 70s quarter munchers, to the great fighting games of the 80s and 90s, all the way to the introduction of shooter and driving cabinets. 

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Okay sorry for that detour let’s get back on the road.  In May of 2019, after several  months of watching and reading reviews I decided it was time to jump into this pastime and ordered my first Arcade1up 3/4 scale cabinet off of Walmart’s website.  Since it was the inaugural piece I thought what better one to start off with than one of the most iconic games of all time, Pac-man.  Before I pulled the trigger on this purchase I decided to visit my local store and lo and behold they had a few units for sale.  I showed them the advert on their website asking if they were willing to price match because the website was $40 or $50 cheaper than the store.  I figured it was a win/win because I got a little break on the price and they got to sell an item off the floor to make room for something else.  Unfortunately they wouldn’t match the online price and so (being the cheap bugger I am) I decided to just wait out the week or so for delivery. 

Seven long days later I got an email that my cabinet was ready for pickup and so off to my local Wally World I raced.  Pickup was an even stranger experience then than it is nowadays with all the craziness going on in the world.  Nowadays they have a specific area to pickup items ordered online but back then larger items were picked up in the photo center.  The process was hampered by the fact that the photo lab had different hours than the rest of the store and so when I came to pick it up after work it was all locked up.  After about 10 minutes of waiting and wondering if I would have to go home empty-handed and come back during open hours, a night manager appeared with keys and opened up the photo section.  I did my best to describe the box but the words echoed strangely in my ears. “It will be a big, bright yellow box with a Pac-man arcade on it”.   After a few more moments the employee managed to find my box amongst the countless appliance and other electronic boxes and dragged it out to me.  I don’t really recall the ride home but if memory serves I snapped a shot of the box leaning against our sliding glass door in the kitchen/dining room at about 10:30 at night.  Unfortunately I wouldn’t get around to assembling my 1up until after work the following day.  

Once built, it became clear quite quickly that this first generation cabinet would need a matching stool, a riser and a light-up marquee to complete the investment.  These items as well as a deck protector would come in the months following.  

Sat upon a makeshift riser, Pac-man is still dwarfed by my homebuilt M.A.M.E. cabinet but despite its shorter stature, this iconic yellow side panel pops and immediately calls back to the smoky arcades of my youth. A fitting beginning to my latest game-related addiction.  It is said that all roads lead home and even though I am on a different road right now I am sure I will come back to the NES collection at some point.  

Final thoughts on this cabinet:  Despite it being early in the lifecycle of this company and void of all of the bells and whistles we’ve become accustomed to in more recent Arcade1up offerings it is the original. Many variations have been released since but I will always appreciate this first foray into the home market and will probably never sell this one.  I rarely play Pac-man Plus (the additional game on this cab) but I go back to the title game all the time. I’m not very good yet and at the time of this entry’s writing I have yet to break the 100K point barrier. One day perhaps.   

I completed this cabinet (for my purposes) over the course of the next couple of years by buying a generic riser for it in December of 2019, a matching stool from Today’s Shopping Choice in July of 2020 and a 3rd party lit marquee kit the following January. I was even sent a deck protector by Arcade1up (long after my warranty period) to protect the artwork on my control panel when I submitted a ticket asking when they would have one available on their parts page and what the cost for one would be.  It was definitely nice of them to go above and beyond for this arcade game fan.   

For the past 40 years Pac-man has been synonymous with video games and there is probably not a better example out there of a game more known, celebrated and commercialized than the big, yellow dot-eating creature.  I can’t think a better game to be the origin point of this journey for me.  I’m not sure how far I will travel on this endeavor but this first stop was extremely memorable for me. Thanks for coming along for the ride and join me for future installments where I discuss the stories behind my other 3/4 scale pickups. 

My Journey with Arcade1up

I realized recently that it has been a long time since I had made any kind of entry into this personal journal.  That said, there have been plenty of things happening behind the scenes even if my Nintendo collection has slowed to a crawl.  

I thought I would shift gears and introduce a new series to my channel called My Journey with Arcade1up.  It will be at least a 10 part series that will detail my acquisition of 3/4 scale arcade cabinets from the past few years.  Like any good road trip there are hills and valleys and the odd pothole in the road to watch out for but an enjoyable and worthwhile trip in the end.  So grab some road snacks, crank up the 80s tunes and hop in shotgun for a taxi (of sorts) through my ups and downs of home arcade collecting. Strap yourself in, this could be a bumpy ride.   

Quickup #10

Another quiet few months for the NES collection but my Arcade1up obsession is thriving and I am currently in the midst of closing in my garage to properly host a game room.  That said I ordered a few manuals from DK Oldies and Lukie Games several weeks back and both envelopes have arrived.  From DK Oldies I received Muppets Adventure, King’s Knight and Soccer and from Lukie Games I got Yo! Noid and Circus caper.  

Manuals:  473

Lukie what made it through the lockdown.

Not much to say about this.  Obviously with the literal lock in/shut down of most non-essential services, game collectors and enthusiasts are relying more and more on online retailers to fulfill their quarantine needs.  If memory serves I think I ordered this package from Lukie Games just before the world, for all intents and purposes, went dark.  

The highlight of this mini-package was the Roadblasters manual which completed that game for me. All told I received 7 manuals all together:  the aforementioned, Roadblasters, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance, Archon, Bo Jackson Baseball, Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge, Might & Magic and Spellunker.

Because local shopping of NES related games at thrift stores, etc. is off the table, I have gotten into the hobby of Arcade1up cabinets in recent months.  I look forward to putting together a post on my collection to date sometime in the near future.  

Manuals:  468

CiB games:  79

Makin’ manual magic

Last Monday I stumbled upon a Facebook marketplace listing of 24 NES manuals and thumbing through the listing photos I saw 6 or so that I didn’t have in a lot of what I though was a dozen.  Each pic showed 6 manuals and in my haste I only clicked through to the 2nd picture.  Little did I know that there were twice as many manuals and another 2 I didn’t have.

It wasn’t until after I contacted the seller that I realized that I would be getting 2x as many booklets.  Not a moment or two after I reached out the listing was removed and I didn’t even get a chance to commit to memory which items the lot contained so I asked if the pictures from the listing could be sent to me.  The seller was nice enough to forward them on.

It was an absolute bonus that the 8 manuals I needed from the lot were, at least according to my calculations, worth as much as I was paying for the whole lot.  The other 16 were perfect for trades down the road.  I think with the exception of about 2 all of the others were upgrades as well.  All in all the $60 investment (shipping included) was a good one.  

The seller was awesome!  He kept in touch the whole time to ensure the manuals reached me safely and curated them beautifully in plastic covers.  After 30+ years these books looked as glossy and crisp as the day they were released (with one small exception:  someone had cut off the head of one of the characters on the cover of the G.I. Joe pamphlet). These are some of the nicest manuals in my collection by far. 

By virtue of this transaction I added the following books to my binder:  Castle of Dragon, G.I. Joe: the Atlantis Factor, Darkman, Hudson Hawk, Kickle Cubicle, Toki, Trojan and Qix.  

Manuals:  461

The Mighty & Magical meeting of the minds.

Just a quick entry to make mention of the meetup and subsequent trade between Shayne and I.  He has been probably my longest and best bartering buddy since I started networking to find games for my collection.  To date I have traded for or purchased almost 60 games from him.  If I ever complete my collection I know I owe a huge debt to him as he is the reason for some of the really hard to find games I now own.  

The acquisition of Might & Magic is no exception and I have a malfunction of his collection tracker to thank for this one as he ended up purchasing a double of this game.  I haven’t seen this one in the wild even once and here he was, a mere block away, with 2 near mint copies in his possession. 

During a routine check on the latest Facebook Marketplace posts for my area I came upon a collage picturing about 60-70 games for sale and along the bottom of the picture one particular cartridge cried out to me.  Fast forward two days and I traded some of my doubles off for this uncommon gem of a dungeon crawler.   

I also picked up (free of charge) a 52-in-1 multicart that he couldn’t get to work on any system he tried it on.  Even though it is a pirated cartridge I have never known these wonderful chunks of plastic to be anything short of bulletproof so I have faith that I will get this game to work with a little bit of cleaning and some elbow grease.  I haven’t really had a chance to delve into the titles that are on it but the original Goonies (which was only released overseas) is one of the selections.  We got a sequel game called Goonies 2 which is very similar in terms of mechanics.  

Might & Magic by American Sammy brings the collection to:  

Licensed games:  629/677

Unlicensed games: 66/90

Total games:  695

A jettisoned Jetsons jewel

Jettison is a verb meaning: to (throw or drop) something from an aircraft or ship or to abandon or discard something that is no longer wanted.  Even though I can’t imagine someone wanting to rid themselves of this game it is a fitting word given the fact that the main game mechanic in The Jetsons: Cogswell’s Caper is to throw boxes at enemies.  

Jetson is the family name of George, his wife Jane, daughter Judy and son Elroy.  They are the space-age equivalent of The Flintstones and flew their space crafts onto our prime-time small screens in the 60s, syndication in the late 80s and finally a movie in 1990.

Like the aforementioned cartoon The Flintstones and many others like it such as Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouse, Tom & Jerry, and the Simpsons, The Jetsons lent its IP to Nintendo and, nearing the end of its life-cycle, a game was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System entitled:  The Jetsons: Cogswell’s Caper.  

January is the month of my birth and my wife put the icing on my cake this year (so to speak) by giving me free reign to strike one of my games off of my want list.  I pondered and wrestled with what I wanted to add and finally came up with a choice between:  Duck Tales 2, Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers 2 and The Jetsons.  I tried, unsuccessfully, to create a poll but all it did was muddy the waters with each game getting the same amount of votes.  After some careful consideration I came to realize that the first two games were merely sequels of games I already had and neither was better than its predecessor in my opinion, but with the case of Cogswell’s Caper I was given the opportunity to add a game to my collection that offered something entirely new.  I’ve always been a fan of Hanna Barbera cartoons and absolutely loved watching Captain Caveman, Scooby Doo, The Flintstones and of course the Jetsons as a kid growing up in the 80s.  This game represents my childhood even more than Disney’s Rescue Rangers or Ducktales could and, by George, the choice was obvious.  

Playing through it today for essentially the first time justified my decision quickly.  It is very colorful and the music and graphics are both true to the source material and border on Super Nintendo era complexity.  Being another late release for the system by Taito, the mastery of the NES’s hardware is on full display.  The amount of textures, backgrounds, and sprite animations that they crammed into this cartridge is space-age technology at its finest. 

This game is something of a milestone because even though it is the 694th game in my NTSC collection it is the 700th unique game when you include some of the outlier cartridges I have such as multicarts, repros, pal exclusives, flashcarts and the like. The addition of this jewel also leaves me with less than 50 games remaining for a complete North American licensed collection. A quest that once seemed like light years away is slowly coming into focus.

As a quick addendum I also recently received a back ordered copy of Shatterhand from DK Oldies earlier in the month. Yet another title that is getting harder to find in the wild.

Licensed games:  628/677

Unlicensed games: 66/90

Total games:  694

Fruits of my Labor (day)

I don’t recall if it is a yearly thing or something done on a semi-annual basis or what, but DK Oldies had a back to school sale of sorts on its books. All manuals and game guides/books were on sale over the holiday weekend and so I took advantage and picked up a bunch of new manuals for the collection.  In the mail was a box chock full of paper goodness.

As pictured above and below I received 26 new manuals (as well as a few that were replacements for some that were a little bit tattered and dog-eared in my collection).  This grouping also put me over 450 manuals so far.  I can remember saying to myself that as I got to the point where finding new games was becoming less frequent I would concentrate on finding some manuals to feel like I was still chipping away at the collection.  Never thought that in just a few short years I’d have more than half of the available titles.  One of the highlights is that the Star Tropics manual (which was a replacement for one I picked up recently) came with the letter still attached.  If I understand it correctly this letter required the player to immerse or spray it with water to reveal a special code to help with the game.  The other manual addendum I’d love to find one day is the letter that came with Mike Tyson’s Punchout from the champ himself.  

In addition to all of the new instruction booklets I also added another game to the collection and drew closer to 700 total games.  This game I had in my sights quite some time ago and snoozed on an Instagram claim sale and missed it.  So glad to finish the Lolo trilogy with this one!

Licensed games:  626/677

Manuals:  453

Retro fun in Oregon

Last week the family took a holiday before the kids went back to school and we drove down the Oregon coast as south as Florence, OR and then came back up a little more inland through Salem, Portland, Seattle and Everett. With the numerous stops along the way came many opportunities for thrifting, antiquing and stopping at the many retro game stores that dot the states of Washington and Oregon.  

I struggled with writing this entry as I was also working on one that delved deeper into detail about the various places and landmarks and so some of the highlights might be hazy here.  

On the first leg of our journey we stayed in the famed Astoria area of Oregon which was the setting for the movie The Goonies.  While there we went through the Oregon Film Museum and I saw the display of Goonies video games (including Goonies 2 for the NES).  One of the activities gave patrons a chance to make a short movie using props and sets from movies that were filmed in the area.  After filming you had the opportunity to email the finished movies to yourself in an editing room.  I suppose in the excitement of seeing all of these artifacts I totally missed the VS. Goonies Nintendo cabinet in the room as we walked in.  

Thank goodness someone pointed it out to me or I would’ve missed a cool photo op.  Unfortunately the machine was not plugged in but it was still nice to see. This stop was about the only retro game related point of interest on this day.  

The first 4 or 5 days were spent taking in all of the sights, sounds and smells of the Oregon Coast.  We drove from Astoria to Seaside to Newport to Florence (and many small beaches and stops in between).  During this time we visited the famed Sea Lion Caves, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, Cannon Beach and drove past the lighthouse made famous in the movie The Ring.

On Friday we visited CD*Gamexchange in Portland and there I picked up the game manual for Paperboy. Saturday was spent visiting garage sales in the Gresham area and we picked up a Ms. Pac-man mug from one such sale. We also managed to get to a Good Will bin location (or “the Bins” as some call it).  It was essentially a facility where the donations have not been sorted and are just dumped into huge gray bins for people to dig through. The caveat here is while you are rifling through heaps of unknowns and mangled messes of wires you may encounter things you wish you hadn’t.  You can tell the regulars there by their latex gloves and paint shirts. It was an experience to be sure and really gave you a cross section of humanity.  People were almost coming to blows while waiting for new bins to be rolled out.  I heard a few of the workers yell at people to stay in line or face being removed from the building.  

This was also the day I made my trek to visit a newly opened store in Miwaukie, Oregon named Side Quest Games.  Here I scored a pretty nice lot of manuals (22 in all) as well as my first PAL region game (Konami Hyper Soccer) which also came with its manual. I also picked up a guide to Zelda: Twilight Princess for Ashton here (as if there are any secrets left in that game for him to discover). The store owner, Josh, is someone I’ve followed on social media for a bit so I was aware of the store recently coming into being.  While there we talked a bit about collecting and the like and he showed me a couple of really cool things you don’t see every day.  First is a WATA graded Caltron 6-in-1 complete in box game and the other was 2 sealed boxes of the SEI version of Impossible Mission 2.  Each box contained 6 sealed versions of the game.  It was really neat to see artifacts like this up close and even though he threw a pretty nice deal my way on the sealed box of impossible mission games I had to pass.  I would’ve been tempted to open it up and I imagine that would’ve lost a fair amount of the value of such a rare find. 

Sunday we visited Video Game Wizards in Portland.  It was quite novel to find a game store open on a Sunday.  My only fix at home would be our flea market but it is usually dried up in terms of retro game finds.  At VGW I bought Ashton Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the WiiU and while we were waiting to pay I noticed a fresh lot of NES games behind the counter waiting to be re-priced.  A blue one stuck out and I asked what it was.  It was a clean copy of P’radikus Conflict and the price tag on it was obviously not up to date (as it was way cheaper than what it is going for lately).  They gave it to me for the reduced price so it was a nice score!

This would’ve satisfied me (and my Nintendo appetite) already, but as the sun started to set we made our way from Oregon into Washington and raced for Redmond and the site of Nintendo of America’s headquarters.  Reaching the building just before the last lights of day, I was able to capture some awesome picture and footage of the sign in the parking lot as well as some interior shots of the building through the glass doors and windows.  On one of the upper floors the silhouette of Donkey Kong can be seen.  It looks like Kong is putting in some overtime trying to figure out how to keep Mario from rescuing Pauline.  The lights inside were brilliant blues, reds and greens and they look really striking in the pictures.  It is a shame that tours are no longer open to the public but I am really glad that we arrived on a Sunday as the parking lot was empty and we had the place all to ourselves. 

The next day (ironically a Monday) we picked up a mini Q*bert arcade machine at a store called Tuesday Morning in Lynnwood.  Tuesday morning came and we visited the Funko headquarters in Everett Washington. Though we didn’t see any game related Funkos (we have Pac-man and Ms. Pac-man) we found almost every other Funko known to man.  We dropped a good amount of dollars in that store and rounded out our collection very nicely.  I think the highlights for me are the newly acquired Wayne and Garth Funkos from Wayne’s World, a Slimer one from Ghostbusters and probably Space Kook from Scooby Doo.  There were so many awesome displays including life-sized Chewbacca, Luke, and Darth Vader Funkos as well as a batcave complete with the Batmobile, Batman and Robin.  

Before we headed home I walked from the Funko building around the block to Next Level Games and picked up another lot of manuals (11 in all).  I realized after we got back that I visited that store a few years back when we last went on vacation to Washington. The highlight of that visit was the Nightmare on Elm St complete in box I bought there. 

When we returned home I had a few packages waiting for me including the games: Chubby Cherub and Krion Conquest from a Facebook group as well as some doubles I got from Lukie Games with my points.  In all I got 4 new games and 35 new game manuals.  Very successful trip in terms of rest, relaxation and retro goodness.  

Licensed games:  625/677

Unlicensed games: 66/90

PAL Format games: 1 (Konami Hyper Soccer)

Flashcarts:  1 (Everdrive)

Reproduction carts: 2 (Sweet Home & NWC 1990)

Famicom multicarts: 1

Licensed compilation carts: 1 (Data East Collection)

Unlicensed multicarts: 3 (31-in-1, Action 52 & Maxi 15)

Nintendo Power Magazines: 19

Manuals:  427

Boxes: 92

CiB games:  78

Blackbox Games 29/30 (missing Stack up)

Total games:  691

My collection got the Royal Blue treatment!

Yesterday a package arrived for me from JJ Games of Colorado containing a boxed copy of the RetroZone produced reproduction of one of the Nintendo Entertainment System’s most sought after artifacts: The Nintendo World Championships cartridge.  Two different varieties of these were dispersed after the 1990 US Nationwide contest which pit the greatest Nintendo players against one another in a timed challenge of the games Super Mario Bros, Rad Racer and Tetris.  There were approximately 90 gray carts awarded to the finalists after the contest and another 26 or so were made in gold and given away as prizes through Nintendo Power magazine. 

Realizing that Nintendo fans the world over would love to have the thrill and excitement of playing this same challenge on the original hardware but not willing to part with upwards of $15-25k to do so, RetroZone created a repro cartridge in translucent royal blue (so as to never be confused with the original cartridges) that can be played on the original system.  The look and feel of the original trophies but without the remortgage on a home. The game comes complete with a printed label and functioning dip switch that changes how long the challenge lasts.  The game comes boxed with a high quality glossy manual, a replica poster of the original championships and a clear RetroZone dust sleeve. 

It is a great addition to any Nintendo collection and very well done.  The production value is very high and the color really helps it to stand out from the other games in any collector’s library.  At last check they were still available on the Retrozone website for about $75US, but I was lucky enough to get this “like new” copy for about half price through JJ Games.  

As more bloggers, YouTubers, and social media personalities are coming forward sharing their struggles with collection depression, burnout, and indecision as to whether they wish to continue collecting it is humbling and probably healthier mentally to come to the conclusion (before such an investment) that I am not going to be a collector that will have EVERY game ever produced.  Long ago I told myself that of the licensed library I am likely not ever going to own a Stadium Events, Little Samson, or Flintstones Dinosaur peak game. Frankly, I am okay with that.  I realize that it is also unlikely that I will finish the unlicensed library when games such as the adult trio of: Bubble Bath Babes, Hotslots, and Strip Poker continue to rise in price.  This is where the fringe world of emulation, reproductions, etc. come into play.  They are clearly not for everyone and an argument can be made for both sides.  My thoughts are this:  if I am buying a reproduction game for my personal collection and have no intention of later passing it off as a real game I think it is fine.  I feel like every collector and fan of the system should be able to enjoy the games as they were intended.  Emulation, rom dumping  and reproduction carts make the games more accessible.  As far as game preservation goes I would rather see people enjoy the games than have them collect dust on an elitist’s shelf or in a box in someone’s attic.  The original games upon which an reproduction is being made have long since been discontinued and the source of revenue for the original creator has dried up and so, again, as long as you are not trying to pass a counterfeit off as the real McCoy then I see no harm.  The existence of reproductions in and of themselves should not lessen the value of the originals any more than a PDF copy of an original comic would lessen the real, tangible version.  I don’t count this game as part of my collection, nor do I count my Everdrive, Data East collection, or the 31-in-1 multicarts I own.  Any compilations, homebrews, or multicarts made after the system ran its course in about 1994 will also not be counted. 

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Licensed games:  623/677

Unlicensed games: 65/90

Flashcarts:  1 (Everdrive)

Reproduction carts: 2 (Sweet Home & NWC 1990)

Famicom multicarts: 1

Licensed compilation carts: 1 (Data East Collection)

Unlicensed multicarts: 3 (31-in-1, Action 52 & Maxi 15)

Nintendo Power Magazines: 19

Manuals:  391

Boxes: 92

CiB games:  76

Blackbox Games 29/30 (missing Stack up)

Total games:  688

A sign of things to come

2 entries yesterday and another one today.  It has been a solid week of pickups.  Today I received a box from a Loomis courier with two wooden, hand-cut signs bearing the Nintendo Logo.  The listing advertised the sign (6″x24″) and a boxed copy of Bible Buffet and when the item was about to be shipped the seller noticed the sign had a flaw so instead of swapping it out he just sent me a second sign at no extra cost.  He also only charged $15 for shipping which led me to believe it was coming via regular Canada Post so I was pleasantly surprised when the box came for me today (days before expected).  I can’t believe how awesome the signs came out and even though I am a cartridge collector the signs are the highlight of the package.  

A little later today a package I had been waiting on for awhile came (remember the ebay bidding blunder story from a previous entry?) and I received 2 new manuals: The Immortal and Vice Project Doom.  In addition to the two I didn’t have I also replaced 3 other manuals from my collection with better copies.  

Licensed games:  623/677

Unlicensed games: 65/90

Total games:  688

Manuals:  392

CiB games: 76

Quickup #9

I know I posted earlier today but after running some errands I returned to another envelope on my doorstep.  This time it was a small package of manuals from DK Oldies.  Added to my collection were: Athena, City Connection, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Legend of Kage, Starship Hector, and Tom & Jerry. 

Licensed games:  623/677

Unlicensed games: 64/90

Total games:  687

Manuals:  390

CiB games: 75

Awe-gust Acquisitions

The month is only a week old and already I have amassed some pretty amazing antiquities and have some other items still arriving anytime now.  A not so funny story on one of the lots... I bid on a grouping of 12 manuals a few weeks back that had 2 that I needed and some that appeared in better shape than those currently in my collection.  Just before I was set to finish bidding I had to rush out of the house so I had the eBay app open on my phone with the intention of placing a bid when I got in the car.  In my bearish, clumsy way, I had my hands full of things (including my phone) and sometime between my front door and the car I placed a bid totaling $9,440.  It is really a good thing that this particular item did not have much chance of going over $100 (let alone $1000) otherwise that would have been some very expensive paper artifacts. The bidding ended under $50 but that could have been really bad.  

Alright back to the aforementioned action.  A few days back I got the manual for Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest and a better copy of Paperboy from SW for a future trade (probably once that lot of manuals arrive). Today I received 3 boxed games from a facebook group seller in Victoria named Sean.  In the box was Volleyball, Excitebike and Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu.  Even though I didn’t have the game or instructions for Master Chu before today, the highlight of this purchase would have to be Volleyball and Excitebike gamepaks.  Being that they are original Black Box games it was absolutely amazing to add them to my collection (complete in box).

Licensed games:  623/677

Unlicensed games: 64/90

Total games:  687

Manuals:  384

CiB games: 75

Bonzai July

This has been a pretty crazy month so far for game related pickups. It has helped my cause (but I suppose hurt my wallet) that I have been on vacation since the 10th (back to work tomorrow).  The month began with a package of game manuals from Quebec.  In the envelope I received:  Cybernoid, Dance Aerobics, Metal Mech and Spiderman: Return of the Sinister Six.  

Fast forward about a week and on the 9th of the month I received a package from Alberta with instructions for:  Battle of Olympus, Caveman Games, Karnov, Little Mermaid and the Road Runner. The stand out from this mini lot is probably Karnov because I have the game and box too so this one is now complete!

The next day Melissa and I went to Value Village and I had a pretty good day there in terms of retro related goodies: I picked up a metal container which looks like it could double as a coin bank.  It is emblazoned with a classic D-pad nes controller and measures approx 7″ x 3″ x 2.5″. In the media section I found the PC games:  The Evil Within and Evil Dead: Regeneration.

Along the back of the store nestled between a bunch of other bagged household items like mini ice cube trays, playing cards and crafts I found a small LCD handheld game that was released in 1983 by Casio called Mogland.  I remember the days of handhelds like these by Tiger Electronics, Mattel and the like.  Never owned or had heard of Mogland but it is a pretty curious little creature.   

Skip ahead to last Saturday (July 13th) and we went out to the local garage sales and though I didn’t find any NES games we did come across a Zelda Puzzle and what turned out to be a pretty good Nintendo Wii lot.  In the lot I picked up 8 games, 3 nunchucks, 3 wiimotes, a dance pad, the system and all of the hookups.  

Finally today another awaited addition arrived in the form of some bubble-wrapped baubles from Lukie Games.  This mail day brought me 4 new manuals (6 in total as 2 where replacements for ones that I have that are damaged) and 2 new games.  I obtained bookets for: Bigfoot, Break Time Championship Pool, Tecmo Baseball, and Ultimate Basketball as well as the cartridges:  Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and the unlicensed game Trolls on Treasure Island.  

Licensed games:  623/677

Unlicensed games: 63/90

Total games:  686

Manuals:  381

CiB games: 72