N64 Diddy Kong Racing

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And now, for a bonus Christmas update - Diddy Kong Racing! This was one of my favourites back in the day, and an annual Christmas tradition. This is an especially polished video, I race all 20 tracks in succession and win every last one. It's a Christmas miracle - or maybe I just practiced it a lot.

NES Ninja Gaiden

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More Gaiden this week, but a significantly more famous one this time. In order to prove I haven't gone soft, here's one of the hardest NES games, Ninja Gaiden. This was a pretty stressful one to record, if you die on any of the last bosses, that's it for the run.

SNES Tetris Battle Gaiden

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Since everyone loves puzzle games, here's another one that you probably haven't heard of. Tetris Battle Gaiden is a Tetris spinoff focused around competitive battles. With both players drawing from a common pool of pieces and using special powers to attack each other, you can expect a lot of hard-fought battles and general zaniness.

SNES Demon's Crest

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Gargoyle's Quest is a heavily underappreciated series. It combines solid platforming and some interesting hover / flight mechanics with Adventure and RPG elements. Demon's Crest, the third (and currently last) game in the series, is definitely one of the most impressive platformers on the SNES.

This run took me a lot of tries to record because I insisted on completing the game without dying. Nevertheless, here it is.

GEN Knuckles Chaotix

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And to conclude this run of Sega games we have Knuckles Chaotix. This is an extremely crazy game, which are always the type I like to record, but it's also very long. I probably shouldn't have tried to do this in one sitting.

SMS Wonder Boy 3: The Dragon's Trap

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I don't usually do two games in the same series so close together, but the connection between this game and Wonder Boy in Monster Land is too cool to ignore. Wonder Boy 3 begins right at the end of Wonder Boy 2, complete with a remake of the final stage and music. But the similiarities to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night don't end there, this is also a very early Metroidvania that was very advanced for its time.

I probably didn't need to break this up over three weeks, the first part of the game went much faster than I expected. It's a lot shorter when you don't die. At least it gave time for my next game to arrive.

SMS Wonder Boy in Monster Land

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Even more Sega goodness, this time on the oft-forgotten Sega Master System. The SMS didn't get nearly as many games in total as the NES, but it was more powerful from a hardware standpoint and some of the games it had were pretty far ahead of their time. This game is a good example, it's a platformer / RPG from 1988, and it's also probably my favourite Master System game.

I don't actually own a Master System, this is recorded via the PS2 "Monster World Complete Collection", which also explains why it's in Japanese. There's also an Arcade version of this game which is much the same (also included in the collection). It's too bad the arcade game never left Japan, it would have been neat to play a game like this in an arcade.

Tero's Top Ten - GC

I was sick this week and spent most of my time trying to catch up on sleep rather than playing games. Not that I haven't given up sleep to play games before, but I prefer to do that when I'm healthy. So it's time for another one of these top 10 posts. Gamecube videos will likely never be on this site, but I have played the system extensively and it gives you a look as to where my tastes in modern games lie.

Although the GC is, in my opinion, the weakest of all Nintendo consoles, you wouldn't really know it from the top 10. I suppose it's probably the case that all systems can field 10 very strong games, and the real test is what they can do beyond that.

1 - F-Zero GX
2 - Super Smash Bros Melee
3 - Tales of Symphonia
4 - Pikmin
5 - Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
6 - Sonic Adventure 2 Battle
7 - Need For Speed Underground 2
8 - Phantasy Star Online: Episode 1 and 2
9 - Super Monkey Ball 2
10 - Mario Power Tennis

This was actually somewhat harder to make than I thought it would be. The GC essentially served two major functions, which were to play a limited number of spectacular exclusives, and to serve as one of the best party systems ever created. It's sometimes hard to know how to rate predominantly single-player games against multiplayer ones, but I've done the best I can here.

F-Zero GX and Super Smash Bros Melee are, I think, the obvious top 2 picks, it's just a matter of ordering for them. While I undeniably spent longer playing Melee and it probably had greater impact at the time, I just can't overlook the insane labour of love that is F-Zero GX. They're both 10.0 games for sure either way.

The next three games make a clear second tier to my mind. Tales of Symphonia almost definitely comes first, its scope and replay value significantly exceed the other two. The choice between Pikmin and TTYD isn't obvious, I feel that Pikmin has the better atmosphere and is more innovative, whereas TTYD has better polish. In the end I went with Pikmin because I felt it was slightly more memorable.

Now we come to the parts of the list that were hard to make. Sonic Adventure 2's placement on this list is undeniably controversial since it's a very polarizing game, but I feel that it's a good example of a game where the whole is more than the sum of its parts, the game has good pacing and flows together well. It's also singlehandedly responsible for convincing me to buy every other 3D Sonic released since then, even though none of them have been as good.

This was a great generation for racing games. In addition to F-Zero GX, there was also NFS Underground 2 and Burnout 2 (which I debated for a long time, it would probably be the 11th pick on this list). Both of these games were very well polished and really showed how the newer technology could make racing games a lot more intense.

Phantasy Star Online is a remarkable game in that even when played offline it still manages to edge out most of the GC's RPGs. Definitely one of the best MMOs ever.

The last two games on this list are classics of multiplayer. Of the two, I think Mario Power Tennis's multiplayer is actually better, but Monkey Ball 2 has far better single player to make up for it. Actually, Power Tennis being on this list at all is a bit surprising, initially there's no way I would have put it above its compatriot, Mario Golf Toadstool Tour, but over time I've come to appreciate just how much staying power this game really has. It's multiplayer is easy for anyone to get into and endlessly entertaining, almost to the same extent as something like NBA Jam. Precious few games hold their appeal like this.


A couple other games that narrowly missed the list were Burnout 2, Baten Kaitos, Kirby Air Ride, Beyond Good and Evil, and Nintendo Puzzle Collection. And no, I didn't forget the Metroid Prime or Zelda titles, I've just never been a fan of either 3D Metroid or 3D Zelda. Well, pre-Other M 3D Metroid, anyway.

GEN Castlevania Bloodlines

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I've been doing these videos for a rather long time without ever doing a Castlevania game, so it's time to rectify that situation. Castlevania Bloodlines is probably my favourite of the "classic" Castlevanias, while still old-school in design it doesn't control nearly as stiffly as the other games.

This had all the makings of a phenominal run, but my old "last boss" curse comes back to haunt me yet again, and I come within inches of blowing it all. I've actually cut out a solid 10 minutes of failure at the last boss, so you can't really tell, but you can see that I go from having lots of lives to having none. Still, there was no way I was starting this over again.

GEN Rocket Knight Adventures

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Well, here's the game that was hinted at last week, Rocket Knight Adventures. Unfortunately, I still wasn't ever able to convince my capture card to work with it, I just had to settle for using an emulator. It doesn't help that my keyboard skills have gotten rusty.

Oh well, it's a good game anyway and well worth checking out.

The best laid plans of men and possums

Well, I was going to record something this week with my shiny new Genesis (see the Photo post, below), but unfortunately my Genesis and my Capture Card have taken an immediate dislike to each other and refuse to cooperate.

I'll probably try to fiddle around with the capturing software some more to see if there's any way I can make it capture the signal properly but for the moment there is no run to speak of. Which is annoying because I was all practiced and everything.

However, I have taken some new pictures of my gaming stuff, including a new picture of my more decked-out entertainment center. You can see the new pictures in the post linked below:

Gaming Collection Photos

(You can also probably guess what the game was going to be)

N64 Sin and Punishment

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Sin and Punishment is a shooter from Treasure, which means insane action and non-stop explosions. This is a playthrough of the game's normal mode, which is still pretty grueling.

N64 Super Mario 64

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It's my 60th run, so it's time for a classic - Super Mario 64. I suppose 64th might have made more sense, but I also wanted this to be in time for the comparison with Super Mario Galaxy 2 to be relevant. I really prefer this game, because it gives you a lot more freedom in how you want to accomplish the tasks it gives you. Watching the way I go about things should make that obvious.

SNES NBA Jam TE

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And now for what is easily my favourite sports game ever, NBA Jam TE. This game can pack more fun into 12 minutes than most games can fit in several hours, so it seemed like the perfect choice after a long week. My capture card was being a pain in the neck, too, so it was nice to do something I wouldn't have to attempt many times.

This is also kinda done in celebration of the upcoming NBA Jam for Wii. I hope it's as good as this game is.

Bust A Move 99 updated

I've added a second part to my run of Bust A Move 99, showing the Win Contest Mode.

Click here to jump to the entry

NES Double Dragon 2

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Here's an old favourite - Double Dragon 2! This is a great example of old-school gaming, it's just you, 4 lives, some nasty jumps, and a mountain of badguys in an all out war for beat-em-up supremacy.

Actually, I had kinda forgotten how tough this game was on the hands. This game is a gauntlet in more ways than one.

SNES Sparkster

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So, I finally decided to check out a recommendation from an old friend, and I really should have done so sooner. Despite looking like your average 90s Mascot platformer, Sparkster (for SNES, the Genesis game is totally different) is an awesome high-speed platformer with great play control.

There's one part of the game I really don't like (and you'll see why), but this is otherwise a very solid game. I'll have to ask my friend if she has any more obscure platformer recommendations the next time I see her.

Photo thread updated again

Click to see the update


It was a crazy week which left me little to no time to play classic games, but I figured I could update the photo thread with a few pictures of new stuff.

Still nothing from GB or GBA, mostly because of how the games are stored.

PSX Snowboard Kids Plus

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Those who've been following this site carefully may have noticed that I've mentioned the PSX version of Snowboard Kids a few times. For a while, I was intending to do a run of this game for comparison with the N64 version (which is already up), and here it finally is.

You'll notice that this version is much easier than the N64 version, and that the frame rate isn't nearly as good. Still, I like the fact that there's a lot more content to the game, the N64 game is a lot of fun but it's pretty short.

SNES UN Squadron

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A while back, I posted a run of the game "Biker Mice From Mars", a hidden gem I found through a thread discussing Capcom vs Konami on the SNES. This was the other game I bought from that discussion, a relatively unknown shmup made by Capcom.

I don't do shmups often, because I'm not as good at them as I am at some other genres, and there's a lot of people out there who dedicate their entire lives to shmup games and make the rest of us look like complete hacks. So enjoy this run while you can, who knows when another game of this type is coming.

NES Widget

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After that extremely long last run, I wanted to do something real short, so I went for a game I had picked up and beaten recently, Widget. It's a vaguely metroid-like platformer that not a lot of people have heard of.

PSX Spryo 2: Ripto's Rage

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After a long gap between them, here's another PSX game. And it's a fairly famous one, Spyro 2. I've always liked this game, even if it isn't quite as involved as some other 3D platformers on N64. Perhaps I'm biased because I always thought Elora was a cutie.

This run is finally complete. That was a long haul, eh?

How to Buy Retro Games

Some stuff came up this week and I didn't have time to record any videos, so I thought I'd write kind of a sister article to the one about how to clean games, this is about how to get them in the first place. This seems kind of obvious, but this topic comes up surprisingly often.


Step 1 - Know Your Prices

The most important thing when it comes to buying retro games is to know how much they're worth. The easiest way to do this is to go to EBay and search for the game (include the name of the system in your search if the game has a generic name), and look for auctions that have a "Buy it Now" price listed. Assuming that you find a bunch, the game's value is going to be roughly equal to the low-end prices it's being offered for.

In the event that you're searching for a game that not many people are selling (perhaps you only found one or no copies), the price can be harder to determine. The next step is to look for "completed listings", which you can find in the Advanced Search link on Ebay (do note that you require an Ebay account to see these). Here you can see what kind of prices this game has actually sold for.

If this still turns up nothing, you'll just have to use your own judgement. Clearly, the game you are looking for does not show up often and you may not be able to shop around anyway.

There's also the issue of complete prices (complete refers to having the box and instructions). In general, cart-only games are worth about half as much as complete games (disc-only games are worth even less), but for very rare games the complete price skyrockets. You can use this simple rule of thumb to determine if a complete game is a good buy or not.


Step 2 - Decide Where To Shop

Retro games are sold at a lot of places. Now that you know the value of the games that you're looking for, you are adequately prepared to shop for them.

By far, the best deals on games to be had are found at garage sales, flea markets, craigslist, and pawn shops, because the sellers here frequently have no idea what the games are worth and often sell rare games way below their true value. Of course, the downside is that you are in no way guaranteed to find what you want, so you've got to do a bit more searching, but if you're looking for a ton of games this is a good way to start out. Do be aware though that not every bargain will be good, but generally if games are super cheap ($2 or less) it's usually worth it regardless of system because you'd pay that much in shipping costs anywhere online.

Your next best option is probably online auctions or online stores, such as Ebay and Amazon Marketplace. Here, you must be very savvy when it comes to prices, because most sellers are aware of the value of their games and will purposely overcharge the unwary (or in the case of auctions, people may bid them too high). Still, there are still bargains to be had, and you can't beat the conviencence of having almost every game you could want right at your fingertips.

As for Ebay, a good way to get bargains is to buy a lot of games from the same seller, as most offer discounts on shipping or other goodies like free dust covers on bulk orders (don't forget to make sure the prices are acceptable on each game that you buy). You can also look at buying lots (multiple games bundled together), these can be helpful if you want all of the offered games, but make sure the combined price is a good one.

Another rare, but great opportunity to load up on games is when a collector dumps all of their stock on on auction site. You see this once every few months or so, when checking a auction listing you may see someone mention they're selling off their whole collection for whatever reason. This is an amazing time to load up on common or moderately common games for well below their standard prices, because other bidders will be too busy fighting over the rares. Collectors also generally keep their games in great shape.

Oh, and don't forget to check the seller's feedback when buying from online stores. I've only had problems once or twice in all of the time I've been buying games online, but bad sellers are out there and you want to avoid them. If someone has a ton of positive reputation, it's simply not worth it for them to screw you over and so you're pretty safe.

Of course, your last option (and it should usually be last) is to shop in a traditional game store. First of all, the number of stores selling old games is quickly decreasing, and those that do generally charge ridiculous prices for whatever games they do have. I almost never hear about good bargains coming out of game stores.


Step 3 - Purchase the Game

Okay, this is easy when you're dealing with any kind of store, but when using an auction site there is some work to be done here. The trick to auction sites is always to bid late (within the last 30 seconds if your connection can manage it), and bid the entire amount you're willing to pay. This way, people have very little chance of beating you before the time runs out (particularly because most people will just try to raise the price by a dollar or so). If you have to bid earlier for some reason, you'll just have to hope no one else wants the game as much as you do. Thanks to bid increments, people may leave you alone on a common game if they would have to pay more than the next cheapest option to take it from you.


Hopefully with the aid of these tips you should be able to find some great bargains on classic games. Just don't forget to keep an eye on your wallet, online shopping can be dangeously addictive.

SNES Biker Mice From Mars

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And here to celebrate the New Year, we have a game that's a real breath of fresh air. I recently discovered this game, and I was really amazed by how good it is. Everyone should watch this video and give it a try.

Much thanks to whomever it was at the GameFAQs SNES board who recommended this game, it's a real hidden gem if ever there was one.

I've now put up a second run using a different character so you can see how they differ.