I finished my playthrough of Policenuts this past Sunday and have uploaded the entire collection of videos to my Youtube. You can check out the videos here:
I’m trying to get better at archiving my Twitch videos, so if you missed watching the stream live or if Twitch deletes the videos at least there’s a backup on Youtube. It will be fun revisiting this game in the future now that I have played thru it once, but for now, I want to focus on looking at other games and explore more Dank fun on the MSX. I do want to go back and look at a few of my favourites on the system such as Penguin Adventure, so stay tuned for more Dank Streams.
Back Issues
The last three issues of my Dank Zine are in my Dank Shop for those who have been asking. There are only limited copies of each one so if you are missing one in your collection get your orders in soon. Once I sell out of a zine’s run, it’s challenging to reprint them on demand so order them fast before they are gone. I’ve also updated things such as mugs and T-shirts if you want to grab those and help support the Dankness.
I’m using my time to get caught up (store update should have been a give away) as I have been quite sick over the last few months. A lot of my time has been eaten up with doctor appointments and work, so it’s been a bit of a struggle to get started on the massive backlog of updating all my sites with my work as I refuse to quit doing art when I am sick.
Check out the streams: LordBBH, Aquas, Zallard1, Retrograde Tom, Macaw45, Omnigamer, PJ, Duke Donuts, Tondagossa, Goati, SQPat, Chuboh and CapnClever.
Indiana Jones for DOS
Comic Zone Sega Genesis
Star Wars SNES
Turtles in Time Arcade
Ken from Street Fighter II Arcade
Castlevania NES
Black Tiger Arcade
Earthbound SNES
Sub Zero Mythologies
BatMan NES
Yoshi’s Crafted World
Ninja Baseball Batman
Megaman
Dick Tracy Sega Genesis
Mr Driller Arcade
Poison Final Fight Arcade
Snake MGS2 MSX
Mike Tyson’s Punch Out NES
Snake MGS2 MSX
Metal Gear MGS2 MSX
Snake MGS2 MSX
FoxHound MGS2 MSX
Red Alert PC Engine CD
Snake MGS2 MSX
Fishing Games on Dreamcast
Addressing the Elephant in the room
I have made a few hints to my current health status on my streams and in my Discord. After months of visiting doctors and specialists, I now have a clear answer to what is going on with me. If you have been watching my streams, you might have noticed that I have lost an insane amount of weight and I have been a bit more absent from a lot of events, meetups and social activities. I have been struggling with Graves Disease since I was diagnosed back in 2010, which is an autoimmune disease that causes the Thyroid gland to be hyperactive. Though I have undergone medical treatment in the past and had everything under control, things started to become unstable again beginning in March. I’ve lost an astounding amount of weight and was having significant problems with my blood pressure, which resulted in a few hospital visits.
Medical stuff is tricky. You don’t always get an overnight answer to this stuff, and often you are left waiting and wondering what’s going on between visits. It’s not like you can check into a hospital and someone says “yeah you got this and were going to use this quick fix” and then forget about it. You get put into the system, and you wait your turn like everyone else. When I started to notice things were wrong, I focused on what made me happy, and that was making art for my friends and the people I follow to keep my passion going for the Zine. It was the grounding force that kept me sane for those months, so I need to thank the communities I am apart of for being there. Some of the best comments I get are “Your art makes me smile” and “Your work adds to the experience of this stream”. I believe in healthy communities, so I am glad I can give back to the ones who make me happy.
Now that I have an official answer to what is going on I’m starting my treatment and getting control over this stuff so I can get back to 100% again. Thank you for being there and understanding.
Stay tuned for more art, more Dank Streams and continued adventures in retro games!
I finally finished MXS2 Snatcher two weeks ago checking off another game in my classic Kojima game playthroughs. I had been trying to play the MSX2 version for a while, but due to limitations to my setup, the translation patch would always breakdown mid-game causing large dumps of garbled text. With my new set up I wanted to see if this same issue would come back and I am happy to say I have fixed all the problems retaining to my MSX emulations.
I now only have the PC-88, PS1, Saturn and PC Engine CD versions to play through. One of the most significant variations you’ll find between games would be the musical arrangements between each system. I own the vinyl record release of Snatcher, but hands down the original PC-88 has the best sound despite the PCE CD arrangement having that CD sound quality. Check out a few differences here:
The translation I was playing was a bit broken (funny at times, but still broken) however, if you want to see a better-translated version of MSX Snatcher I recommend watching Awesomebrand’s video of his playthrough of Snatcher to get a feel of how this game played out on the system.
But hey- enough Snatcher for a few weeks. It’s only natural after playing a lot of Snatcher that one would dive right into Kojima’s other classic Sci-Fi drama Policenauts.
Policenauts
Policenauts is another game that has eluded me for years due to my at-home setup and the fact it never got a proper English localisation. It was initially released in 1994 for the PC-9821 in Japan after four years of development and conceived when Kojima was working on Snatcher. It’s got a high-cinema style production, and it’s got a lot of throw-backs to American Buddy-style cop dramas, mainly Lethal Weapon. There were plans to make a Saturn localisation for the Sega Saturn but cancelled due to technical limitations. Policenauts came out for the PC-9821, 3DO, Playstation and Sega Saturn in Japan only, but if you want there is a fan translation for the game made in 2009 for both the PS1 and Sega Saturn.
If I had my way, I would play the PC-982 version; however, there doesn’t seem to be a translation for it yet. I have also seen that emulating this game is a bit of a trick in itself, though Macaw45 recently played thru the game on his stream using updated patches in Mame to get the sound/mouth events working. Still, there were a few audio issues and crashes that did seem to break the game in some areas, however hopefully in time many of these issues will get cleaned up so people can enjoy how this game.
I’m playing through the PS1 version which has many differences from the original PC-9821 version and added animated cutscenes. It has a different look and feel to it, and some would argue it’s a tad uglier vs the original. For me, I am obsessed with playing thru fan translated games just for a glimpse of what these games had to offer and to share in the fun of experiencing the game’s story.
Playing Policenauts has been a two-year desire for me, but yet again, my at-home set up was holding me back. I wanted to play thru the game way back in February after I finished SD Snatcher, but I couldn’t get the disks to work. As I have switched to windows set up, I got help from my buddy Fantasic_Plannet and was able to get things moving forward.
I plan to write a full review/feature about Policenauts in an upcoming article after I finish the game, so tune in Sunday morning when I dive back into the game and see if I can finish it!
Zine Updates
Oh boy. Where do I even start?
The zine is going to be late this month due to the worst customer service from the new printers. I stress that WAS part as I never want to work with these people ever again. What happened was I submitted my order July 16th and asked for three-day shipping to my place, and they kept ignoring and dodging my phone calls, emails and instant messages in regards to my order. TL;DR I had to escalate my frustrations with Paypal to get them to either finish my order or refund my money. This whole thing took an entire month, and I am beyond enraged. Good news! I have zines, and they are shipping out this week, so thank you so much for your patience.
This issue features a story by the fantastic Giby who was at Combo Breaker this summer and his adventures taking part in the event. He got to meet up with a lot of great players, people and checked out a lot of awesome games. I also started featuring a new segment where I dive into unboxing of older games, so be sure to check out the images from that. I also have some great art by Dasyati and yours truly, and overall it’s a good issue despite the lateness of the printing.
Dank Art
Missed the Dank Art? Check it out here! I’m always sketching and working on art from the games streamed by people I follow on twitch. As always, I enjoy people who play retro, classic and obscure PC games, and I try to promote everyone I follow. Check out the streams: LordBBH, Aquas, Zallard1, Retrograde Tom, Macaw45, Omnigamer, Duke Donuts, Tondagossa, Goati, SQPat, Chuboh and CapnClever.
Since I got Windows working on my Mac I have been going back to some of the translated versions of games that I love for the MSX, mainly Snatcher. When I was trying to play thru this game before on my Mac set up I was using an emulator called Coco things were running smoothly until the text started to muddle and layer all over itself. Guys. pro tip: the easy fix for a lot of emulation problems on a Mac is to run Parallels and play games using Windows. For years I have been pulling my hair out trying to get older games to work on my Mac with not great results so breaking down and getting Windows was my last resort. I’m not even mad.
The first game I am re-looking at on the MSX is Snatcher which came out in 1988 by the infamous Hideo Kojima. Earlier in the year, I played through SD Snatcher on my Mac and talked a lot about the JRPG mechanics and differences between that and the later Sega CD port. Playing the game now I get to share how the game was originally intended to play as a dramatic film noir visual novel. When you compare MSX Snatcher to the later ports there are a lot of similarities as it was an almost direct port however a bunch of things were changed or censored due to graphic violence, overtly sexual themes and copyright violations.
I’m playing a strange translation of MSX Snatcher that really needs a re-edit. You might think that’s a high negative, but the Engrish is a whole new level of entertainment when I stream it. It’s unfortunate that this game will most likely never see a re-release and get a proper translation so that means its emulation and fan translations all the way.
Another interesting thing we discovered in my playthru of the game is the arcade gun tests modules the human faces look exactly like my pal and speedrunner Zallard1. Now I have more incentive to not shoot the humans as I don’t want to shoot my buddy Zallard1.
Dank Art
Lots of older stuff with newer stuff this week! I’m scanning in a bunch of these for the next issue of the Zine and touching up a few of the pieces where I rushed thru to get them done for the chats.
I try to share everything that I make for streams the best I can, so if you don’t see something here it’s because I have most likely forgotten or I just make so much Dank Art I’m saving it for an upcoming post.
Night Slave PC98
Alens vs Predator SNES
Burning Dragon PC98
The Tick SNES
The Tick SNES
The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse SNES
Alens vs Predator SNES
Giga Wing
Bonk III for TG16
Zavas 2: The Prophecy of Mehiltae PC98
Thunderforce 4 Sega Saturn
Bouphe plays Dizzy Games on Amiga
Strider
Comando on snes
Knights into Dreams Sega Saturn
Punch Out King Hippo
Squirtle sqPat
Air Alert 2 PC98
The Death and Return of Superman
Quest for Glory
An adorable Pokemon wants to snuggle! Hug it!
Old Japanese PC98 Computer Games
Rags to Riches for C64
Plok! for snes
My Hero on arcade
Tugboat for Arcade
Beasts of Horrors
Pocky and Rocky SNES
UnBoxing Boyz!
A strange yet wonderful package arrived this week with a lot of cool gifts. Thank you so much to the anonymous gifter for this wonderful surprise package full of everything that I love. For those who are not in the loop, I have not been in the best of health the last few weeks and I have been in and out of the hospital. When I went to go check my mail this week I almost fell over with excitement at the sight of a strange package in there. I cannot thank you enough and I will make good use of it in future streams and feature a lot of the contents in future UnBoxing photo features in the Dank Zine.
For those who don’t know, I’ve started a new feature in the Zine where I feature photo spreads of some of the cool stuff in my collection that I have acquired over the years. It’s almost like doing an exciting unboxing online but 2D (lol).
UPDATES
It’s the long weekend which means I’m stuck working this Sunday. Don’t worry, my cosy Sunday stream will be moved to Monday and I should be going thru a bunch of fun games that day. I do want to go thru and play a bunch of stuff from my actual systems so if you have the day off Monday, come spend it with me and we will go thru a bunch of fun stuff in the comfort of my cosy apartment.
As I mentioned earlier, I have been quite sick. Many of you might have noticed that I have dramatically changed in a very short time. It is a little scary, but a lot of it has to do with my thyroid and I have been working a lot with my doctors to figure out what the next step will be. I will keep you all posted on what is going on as I don’t want to alarm anyone if I have to step away for a bit. All I can say is please don’t worry because it is what it is and I’ll do my best not to let it slow me down.
The Zine should be arriving Tuesday so stay tuned for giveaways, updates and chances to get free Dank stuff!
I’ve been shaking a fishing rod at my Dreamcast for three years now with the goal of 1CCing the arcade mode and having a lot of fun in the process. Going for a Wolrd Record never even seemed like an afterthought because I just really like playing the game. If you’ve caught any of my streams where I’m fishing I’m usually just cracking jokes, yelling at polygon sharks and screaming “ITS HUUUUUUUUGE” when I get the big fish. I decided to look up the World Record and was stunned to discover that my time was around a good minute and a half faster than the current ranking time.
The thing about World Records is as soon as you go for one there’s going to be several other people who are going to try and crush it. I held the record for a good day before someone else took it away from me. I knew though that I could get a better time if I just focused more on the game instead of joking around and goofing off. Sure enough, my current time is now 5:29 and in the lead. One of the best things to come from all of this was clicking into IcKY’s stream when he was doing runs and finally meeting someone else who was playing this game. One of the best things about playing games in this community is making friends along the way and I am hopeful other people are hungry enough to want to go for the World Record themselves.
Also props to Dasyati for making this amazing Dank Sega Marine Fishing Art for me! Dasyati does Dank Art for the zine as well and if you want to submit your work, please email me your stuff to agento@hotmail.com and it might get in!
Dank Zine Update
You’ll be noticing a change to the format going forward with the Zine as the company I was printing with before closed and I had to find someone else local to help with production. To help cut down on costs its worth for me looking for a company that is as local as possible as shipping a box of Zines from another country costs way more then me having to go pick it up. Hopefully, things should be a bit smoother with this new company.
This months sticker was ultra-cute featuring the Poochy and his pupper crew. I have stacks of stickers still available so I will be including more stickers in the next instalment of orders. If you want a sticker, pick one up in the Dank Shop soon before they are gone.
Dank Art
Extra Power Star Resistance
Clocktower
Ninja Gaiden
Earthbound
Neo Turf Masters
Android Assault
Phantasy Star
Shubibian 2
Extrapower the Giant Fist
Fray
Bouphe playing Amiga Games
Revolution
Cotton
Gateworld
Jet Set Radio
Ganryu
Gaiapolis
King Arthur & the Knights of Justice
Dimahoo
Dragon Spirit
Dragon Spirit
Dimahoo
King Arthur & the Knights of Justice
Ganryu
Jet Set Radio
Gateworld
Cotton
Revolution
Bouphe playing Amiga Games
Fray
Extrapower the Giant Fist
Shubibian 2
Phantasy Star
Ninja Gaiden
Clocktower
Extra Power Star Resistance
As always, I’m up to making lots of Dank Art to numerous streams for your enjoyment. If you back the zine at the right levels you get a chance to grab one of my originals or even commission me to make some personalized Dank Art. Check out this amazing piece I made for Volwrath that he recently got framed. I love it when my work is framed :3
New Dank T-Shirt in the Dank Shop
Get the new Dank Zine T-Shirt and wear it when you watch Dank Streams- or at work… if your work is easy going like that. You can grab the new shirt up at the Dank Shop here. All funds collected from the Dank Shirt go right back into making the Zine more wacky and fun (and possibly my UberEats spending).
Huzzah! The big double stuffed issue is out and already mailed to backers of my Patreon. If you want to get your copy, make sure you visit the Dank Shop and get yours as it’s a special two in one issue magazine full of interviews, articles and of course Dank Art. This month’s cover is a nod to Crystal Castles, a rather unique Atari arcade game that used a trackball. Check out gameplay from this gem here:
Stay tuned for the next issue coming out soon with all fresh content and art.
Dank Art
I have been focusing on a lot more larger pieces these days as I have needed to get my art fix going. The best is when someone starts to play a longer RPG or puts more effort into a game where that gives me a bit more time to come up with something brilliant.
Adventures in Collecting
Two Sunday’s ago, Old Buddy Greg and I went to a retro gaming convention located in Mississauga for a good time and to check out what deals people were bringing out. Greg has told me before that his list is near 99% these days, so his enjoyment is now just on checking out the atmosphere and seeing what’s out on the tables. As for myself, I still have an active list going and I’m always trying to go out to events like this to heckle and find deals but mainly to meet new people and open new doors for friendships.
This was also our first retro show in almost 4 months due to a lot of changes going down for me at work and my availability. That and being limited to finding a lot of the shows on Facebook and social media means that often we’ve gone and missed an event because of poor promotion. Still, social media is way better than posting a flyer up on a pole and hoping for the best.
Crazy bootlegs!
The biggest story I have from the event was finding two major wants off my list of games. The first one was Danan the Jungle Fighter for Master System. I made sure by telling Greg that I was looking for the Master System game that sounds like a brand of Yogurt cause he looked at me like I was nuts when I said: “Yo dude- keep your eyes peeled for Danan!”
Danan is probably one of the more sophisticated games for the Sega Master System coming out in 1990 and developed by a company called Whiteboard. It stars a barbarian warrior on some sort of mystical hack and slash quest who has magic animal elements to assist along the way. Eventually, you go on to meet a bunch of crazy characters who you battle and befriend along the way and ultimately Danan goes on to fight Nazis in a war submarine. Did I say this game was interesting? It’s an absolute must for your Master System collection and worth the high price tag. I still can’t believe it though when the more gimmicky and horrible obscure games for the Master System such as ALF fetch higher prices- you couldn’t pay me to put that game into my collection.
The other major pick up I got was Snatcher for Sega CD. Yes. I found my holy grail of games and almost died when I saw that the seller had two copies. When looking for a copy of Snatcher to buy always check the CD and feel it. The ink should be raised which will rule out a mass-produced stamp as well as serials on both sides of the inside CD ring. There are a lot of really convincing counterfeits out there which is why I prefer going to shows like these where I can feel and inspect things before buying. I’m not the best myself when it comes to spotting a counterfeit game so it’s always best to trust your own gut and check out the seller as well. The guy who sold it to me was straight up professional, had a lot of unique things at his booth and was patient with me to firm up the sale after I transferred my money to him. I will admit that in that time I was waiting for the transfer to go thru I was walking around the place sweating buckets in some sort of half worry if I was doing the right thing. I was relieved though when I got the game in my hands and it dawned on me that I finally owned a copy of Snatcher.
When I was a little kid, Snatcher always dazzled me. If you’ve seen my streams in the past I always fall back on playing Snatcher around Christmas and most recently I explored SD Snatcher for the MSX2. The first time I saw Snatcher as a little girl was a preview in Mean Machines Magazine when they were doing these huge 3-4 spread pictorial reviews for Sega CD Games back in those days and the thought of having a cyberpunk-noir thriller game seemed sexy and dark.
My pickups from the day
It wasn’t until I got home and put the CD into my Sega CD that I noticed that something was off. My Sega CD wasn’t working. Oh Shucks! Of course, I finally get a working copy of Snatcher and as soon as I get home I’m faced with this crushing blow that my Sega CD is busted. FYI- the Sega CD is not the best-made game system out there and common problems range from leaking capacitors to worn out CD belts to the laser and even internal wiring going. I was so irritated because only a few weeks ago everything was working alright as I keep going back to Shining Force CD, one of the few Sega CD games I own. My collection of Sega CD games is rather low mostly because Sega CD games are hard to come by and you really have to have a love for the system or be crazy rich to invest in collecting for it. Many of the games I want for the system cost well over $300 each and I find myself in disagreement with people on buying ripped CDs for it. What’s the point in that? I can simply emulate and skip all the pointless frustration of wires, cleaning and dealing with complications with rotting AV cables if I just want to play a bootleg. There’s a reason people like me go for collecting retro games and yeah emulation and everdrives are alright in some cases, but there’s always going to be a few games we all would love to own that are just out of reach.
I got the Sega CD to work eventually as it turns out it was just a bad combination of rotting AV cables and poor shielding, but I got a lot of help from the kindness of friends, so shout out to Lou, The Enforcer, Krazlin, Puri and especially Old Buddy Greg who eventually saved the day with just his own quick wit and smarts.
Cool Finds
Check out this new book that just dropped from the folks over at Bitmap Books: The Art of Point-and-Click Adventure Games. It’s a visually stunning hardcover book with over 460 pages featuring all your favourite point and click games from back in the day. It’s got contributions and interviews from a lot of people who used to work on these games too so it’s a must want book for my collection.
Two years? Get out of here. That’s right- I’ve been making Dank Zine’s for two years now and to help celebrate making the world Dank I have made a special two-in-one issue which is coming out this week. It’s been a wild ride of ups and downs, especially in the last few months where I have been victim to the vices of the Christmas postal strike in my country. Whatever. The post can’t keep me down and I have been hard at work behind the scenes to ensure that things get fixed, found and sorted. Here are a few things that have been going on since 2019 started.
Omnigamer’s book, Speed Run Science, is dropping this late April and you can pre-order your copy of the book at Fangamer. I sat down with Omni last month to talk about some of the ups and downs of publishing a book about Speed Running and the interview is featured in the Jan/Feb issue of Dank Zine. You can pre-order the book HERE and features the fantastic artwork by the very talented Kari Fry. I’m personally excited for this book as the design by Tony Kuchar is bang on and the sheer amount of information in this book goes beyond my expectations of what a book on speed running is all about. We all had to wait a while for this one, but as we know good things come to those who wait so make sure you pre-order your copy today to add to your collection.
Fire Lancer
I have been watching Trap (aka Alex Marshall) tinker away at what I jokingly called “Trap Game” for almost as long as I have known the guy. This winter he finally made an official launch of his game, Fire Lancer, that is available for download HERE. It’s for (of all things) the SwanCrystal/WonderSwanColor. Trap is an amazing guy and has managed to make a fun shoot-em-up with a collective team of equally talented friends so check it out and read up on the interview in the upcoming issue.
DANK ART & DANK LIVING
I have been going back and forth between watercolours and digital work depending on where I am working as I am finding myself not in front of my desk as often as I would like in 2019. A lot of heavy life stuff went down as soon as 2019 started so I guess I’ll address what happened.
January was a month-long depression of me going to a lot of funerals, wakes and other unpleasant things that got me thinking hard on my own morality and the things that are important to me. I was also questioning my living arrangements around the end of January as a lot of weirdness was happening around where I live and something very creepy and weird was happening at my building where I live. I would tell you to not sweat it as I was able to find a positive solution in the form of my weeb neighbours who have been super supportive thru this time. They also like anime and make slime and fight each other with tiny plastic swords so that’s awesome.
My long term solution for this is to look towards moving though I have very mixed feelings about this. Setting a huge goal to “escape” is going to take a lot of time, money and hard work and to get there I have taken on more projects to plan this out though I am still unsure where I would go. Lots of things on my mind these days and a good chunk of me doesn’t even want to deal with this negativity. I’d rather just play video games…
…Like SD Snatcher. Yeah after months of struggling with emulation on my Mac I was able to get some help from my chat and got SD Snatcher to work. One of my huge gaming obsessions is Kojima’s Snatcher which was released for the MSX2 computer way back in 1988. SD Snatcher was released in 1989 and is a retelling of the original “unfinished” Snatcher game but with super deformed chibi characters and as a JRPG with interesting battle mechanics.
OH SHUCKS I DIED!!!
I did a huge feature on SD Snatcher in the January issue of my Dank Zine and got a lot of fun Dank Art from people in the chat. If I could get any of you to play a MSX2 game, PLAY SD SNATCHER. It’s a fun JRPG that has a lot of cool elements and follows a slightly different story to that of the other releases of Snatcher floating around out there. It will get you thinking about the MSX and what that little computer can offer. I’ll make it easy on you and ::cough cough:: post this here if you want to try without bashing your head against your desk trying to get the emulation and language packs to work.
COMING UP
I have a bunch of wild stories set up for 2019 along with a pile of new content creators who are working hard documenting their own adventures in the gaming community to share in the pages of Dank Zine. Next month I have a story with Kevin DDR and Aperturegrillz who are moving to Japan and who will be documenting the local arcade scene there thru photos and writing exclusively for subscribers. If you have ever dreamed of going to Japan then you will see it thru the eyes of these two Tetris Grand Masters as they discover the beauty which is Japan’s arcade scene.
If you are big into fighting games, Game Goon Giby is now on board writing from his experiences at all the exciting tournaments coming up. It’s going to be a rare behind the scene look of what is going on with the games, the people and how events like these happen and I am overly excited to be featuring these stories.
We are also looking into making a DANK BBS for my fam who’s into the old days of computers so if you want to come and post on our BBS and play Food Fight then you gotta keep checking in and seeing what we come up with.
I’m also looking at that flippin’ Dead Flip guy and what that pinhead pinballer in Chicago is up to cause he’s always working on so many crazy projects that even he can’t keep up with all of them.
KEEP US DOING DANK THINGS! Back the Zine and keep the writers writing, the artists drawing and help make the retro community special. We want to go to your event, we want to play the Dank Games, we want to make physical things that you can hold in your hands and enjoy that speak to the stuff that you love. Back the zine and be part of the Fam and help make things DANK in 2019.
No, I don’t have any Bowser-ette fan art here, but instead, I have all the Dank Art I made to streams last week. It was a bit of a challenge due to how destroyed my hands were from work, but I still managed to paint a few pieces. It seems I have developed an allergy or strong reaction to something I’m touching at work and I had to start using this intense medicated cream. I have to apply this stuff and wear a glove on my hand for a few hours which bites into my drawing time considerably. I put on this adorable knitted green glove with a bow on it to wear, channel my best 80’s MJ and try to suffer thru it for a bit.
I’m excited because the weather is changing to cooler temperatures after a gruelling summer I am welcoming the sudden change. Thanksgiving is next Monday here in Canada and I am looking forward to seeing my parents.
Adventures with Comic Books
Greg & I drove out to Kitchener to go to one of my favourite places to get pulls on Saturday. This place is like a warehouse of comics with an upstairs showroom and a basement with THOUSANDS of back issues of everything from comics to magazines. I like this place as I can always find a few Heavy Metal and obscure gaming magazines when I go.. They also have a Dirty Harry Pinball machine in the basement that I have been taking a liking to.
I always find amazing inspiration material when we visit this comic shop as part of the reason I collect comics and magazines is to expose myself to different styles and other peoples art and writing to improve my own. I also get excited when I find something that heavily inspired me in my own childhood.
The X-Men Annual Shatter Shot Part One was a huge deal comic book for me as a youngster. I would wake up at 5 am every day for school and stack my backpack for a day of survival and this book was always in there. I usually carried 5-6 comic books bagged and boarded in there along with my floppy disks and Magic Card Decks (you never know when someone is going to throw you a loop and pop down a Blue/White mess). The cover alone made me fall in love with Jim Lee’s style and quickly saw how this one cover went on to define the look of the X-Men for years.
Every electronic department store had this game as their Sega Genesis demo at the time too
I think I was a kid at just the right time to really get into the 90’s boom of Video Games and comic books and it was at a time when it was transitioning into a more digital and technology-based industry.
If you are looking for major inspiration, find a comic warehouse in your community and pick up a few $1 back issue comics in those bins. There are decades of great material just waiting to be found and the fun of finding them makes it all more the adventure.
Playstation Classic
Mini classic systems are trending enough that Sony is launching their own mini classic system of the PlayStation 1 this December. They’ve already announced a few titles for the system such as Final Fantasy VII, Tekken 3 and Wild Arms and you can preorder now online or at your local game shop.
It’s still a shock for me to see this product on the market because I can always find a solid wall of Playstation games when I visit retro shops. Not just that, there are a few titles available thru the online Sony store making more popular/classic titles still accessible.
Who will buy this?
Well, besides the hardcore Sony fan, I can see a collector such as myself going for this as it is a cute little system I can plug easily into the cheap LCD TV I have via the HDMI cables. There are no game cases to fuss with, and I can pick it up and go to the cottage (if I was one of thoooooooose people) or bring it on trips with me, so I don’t need to go 5 minutes without games.
There are so many amazing classic titles for the PS1 that it would be impossible to put all my favourite games on one tiny system. I would love for there to be a legit way to add more games to these systems, something that I feel was horribly overlooked in the design feature of these games which will push people to hack their classics just to have that convenience of a mini rom machine. However, some might argue that’s a sure fire way to kill collecting physical games and bottom out the market, but I digress.
Will the PlayStation Classic cause the retro collecting market to bottom out? Will classic mini systems keep people away from collecting games? Is collecting retro games dead?
Not even once.
I really don’t think so. I honestly don’t see a PlayStation 1 under every tree this Christmas, and I don’t see people pushing down their own grandmas to preorder this either. You have people like myself who are all “If Parasite Eve isn’t on there then it’s hot trash” or “I already own all those games and still play them sooooo…”. But driving down prices of retro games? I highly doubt it. That’s set by the collectors and their own bars IMO.
I don’t buy as many retro games today, but that’s because my collections are near complete to my satisfaction and also because I need to think about my own habits and physical space where I live. For me, it’s now a conquest for the odd and bizarre where I’m chasing down leads on MSX computers and sitting here tongue in cheek look at the Japan auctions for alternatives.
I can see mini systems being an excellent way for casual enthusiasts to get into collecting by inviting them to experience classic gaming in an accessible format that isn’t downloading a bunch of roms from illegal rom sites. I see a way that the big names like Sony and Nintendo can offer their classic games in a new format that can act as a door crasher into retro gaming for people not wanting to pay crazy prices on a retro system without the fear of hooking them up, hunting down games, and dealing with an oversaturated bootleg market.
I still hunt down physical media in all its forms from books, games and movies. The likelihood that there will be changes to your beloved games is high each time they get rereleased. Even if those changes are for the better, such as the anti-epilepsy effects on the SNES Classic, they are still changes to the original format. It’s that obnoxious “Star Wars” effect; When Lucas changed and added scenes to Star Wars from its initial theatrical release, there were fans who hated it as it wasn’t really needed or took away from some of the scenes original flavour. The first time I noticed this with games was with the releases of Final Fantasy Anthology on the PS1 and saw that the text was different. You gotta think that they will make changes to something when they rerelease it, may it be for a bug fix or for changes to a translation or to fix graphics. The simple fact is you are not playing the original game as it was released when it first came out and though that’s not a huge deal it matters to some fan and collectors. This is what drives some people into the collecting market and if anything I see that as another way prices will stay healthy for collectors.
Love them or hate them, mini systems are invading the market, and only the test of the actual hardware and quality of the games will make or break them.
GDQ Lists are up!
The game list for this years AGDQ have been announced and you can check out the list here to see if your favourite streamer made the cut. The next round of tickets will go on sale this October so make sure you bookmark the page if you are trying to go in person. The first wave of tickets sold out in less than 10 minutes, so if you are planning on going you still have one more chance.
