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2018 in Games

Saturday, December 15th, 2018

I know you love them, and I know you were waiting with baited breath, so it’s time once again for the year in review of my game buying!

Overall the year was down in spending, but up in aquisitions. Here’s the beloved plots, in a shiny new format to silence the haters…

First, by total games purchased:

And secondly, by total dollars spent:

Some interesting information here. For instance, who would have thought I would have bought more games for the (Sega) Game Gear than any other console in 2018?!? What about the Genesis, or NES or even PSP? And from barely being on the charts last year now the Switch is #1 in dollars spent? Let’s unpack these a bit…

Firstly there was a definite retro trend in my buying in 2018. Of the $936 I spent on games this year, over $200 was for dead systems. And since I’m not buying the pricey games (I own most of them already!) this translated to a lot of purchases – over 30 – for ‘dead’ systems. Much of this was boosted by a mega-haul of 12 Game Gear games picked up in a Scottish CSX for under US$20, but I also wandered out of the occasional retro game store over here with NES and Genesis games this year and even found (for only $3!) a sealed copy of a UK PSP game at – of all places – a NY City street vendor stall!

Secondly the handheld market collapsed. In 2017 I spent almost $750 on 3DS and Vita games alone. In 2018, I bought 80% fewer games for these systems and spent under $120. It’s entirely possible that in 2019 I buy nothing for either system. This is melancholic, since I have always been a big fan and booster of handhelds and don’t personally feel the Switch is the replacement. A good thing therefore that I have approximately 875 handheld games in my collection to keep playing for ever 🙂

Thirdly the Switch roared into first place, backed by an amazing lineup of games, a beautiful piece of hardward and a very promising future. There’s a lot to love about this system, not the least of which is that it is cartridge based, but for me the migration to the Switch of many iconic Japanese developers bodes very well for the future in terms of the sorts of games I like.

Deciding on my favourites in 2018 was very difficult because there were so many great games I played. I considered the copout route of doing one per system as well but even that was hard. So I’ll do the cop-copout route and talk about franchises, and in 2018 it boiled down to two for me:

Monster Hunter Series

Amazingly 2018 saw two MH series games released. The first and most important was Monster Hunter World for PS4 (first pic) which came out early in the year and took over my life for weeks. It’s a magnificent tour-de-force of a game, absolutely worthy of the many accolades it has earned and I eagerly await the expansion due next year.

In the middle of the year Nintendo finally got around to translating the Switch version of Monster Hunter XX (second pic) and once I had uploaded my save file (from the 3DS prequel) and set foot into the new G-Rank content I was giddy with joy. After the changes of MH World it was like visiting an old friend and coupled with some amazing new opponents – the final mantis boss in particular – this may have been the most fun I had ever had playing MH. Alas, I fear World had stolen the fanbase though, and online play was barren. Perhaps this was because I was at the very edge of progression (I broke the HR barrier I think the day after I got the game) and there were very few players at my level? Either way I beat all the content mostly solo and once Nintendo required payment for online play put the game aside to play everything else.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Series

I played the third and fourth Xenoblade Chronicles games in 2018, both on Switch. The first (Xenoblade Chronicles 2) was a 150-hour massive open world RPG with incredible gameplay, amazing graphics and finely detailed ‘systems’ that would dazzle a statistician. Just my sort of game in other words. But did it surpass Xenoblade Chronicles 1 or X? Hard to say: it was at least as good and maybe better. The series is remarkable for it’s consistency though, and every game is well worth playing.

Later in the year a ‘DLC’ was released that was basically an entirely new game. Titled Torna The Golden Country this reused a modified version of the XC2 engine to tell a story set in the same world only many thousands of years before. And this game was astonishing, to the point of perhaps being the single best game experience I had in 2018. Highly recommended (although you’ll need XC2 to play it…)

So once again Xeno and MH games bubble to the top, but I have to add that these were simply the brighest sparks in a year full of excellent games. From the Vita (Danganronpa), 3DS (Etrian Odyssey 5), PS4 (Hollow Knight) to Switch (Super Mario Odyssey) there were countless other games that could have made the top list any other year.

So what does 2019 hold? I expect the trend of less spending will continue, especially as I am becoming increasingly likely to delve into my collection and replay games I already own. However the Switch is the big unknown. I’ve already purchased two retro collections for the system (Namco and SNK), two more are on the horizon (Capcom and Taito) and if the trend continues and the old Japanese arcade companies release more and more of their content for the Switch then who knows how much better the console will get? In another year you can find out… 🙂

Posted in Collecting, Games, Otaku, Tech | Comments Closed

My Collection: Playstation

Tuesday, November 20th, 2018

The Playstation, Sonys first video game console, was released in the US on September 9 1995. I bought mine that very day and it quickly became my favourite console. While it wasn’t the first CD based console, and was even arguably weaker than the Sega Saturn released a few months earlier, the Playstation (PS1) was an immediate success, and in the months and years ahead would change the video game industry from a hobby aimed at children to a hobby for all ages.

That’s the third Playstation I owned, the ‘PSOne’ model that was released late in it’s lifestyle (in 2000). My first two Playstations had died in the intervening years, both due to laser failure which was a common problem for the system. The above photo shows a portable screen attached to the unit itself, but it also obviously can be used with a TV.

I bought about 150 games for the system during it’s active years, but I traded in more PS1 games than for any other system and only own about 75 today. It was a fantastic system for role-playing games, and most of what I keep to this day is in that genre. It was also the console that helped ‘3D’ games (polygon based) mature, although this was in part coupled with a detrimental effect on 2D games that took years to subside.

That said, the graphics are very crude by todays standards, and as a result many PS1 games have dated poorer than the bitmap-graphics games from the previous generations:

The console had a long lifespan though – about 6 years – and developers learned it inside out by the end. Comparing a late-generation game to a launch game is like comparing two different consoles, and some of the late 90s releases still impress today.

The system used black discs more for marketing than effect (piracy was still rampant) and while in those days we were astonished by the larger amount of content (and voice, sound and video) games could contain the drive speed was slow and this was a very common part of the PS1 experience:

It makes playing games from disc a somewhat tedious process these days, at least on original hardware. But while fun to poke fun at, it wasn’t so bad 20+ years ago assuming the game itself was good, and thankfully many of them were.

The above are three of my favourite games of all time: complex, lengthy and rewarding dungeon crawls each with a different style. Symphony Of The Night and Valkyrie Profile has since been released (in fact I purchased the PS4 port of Symphony Of The Night just two weeks ago!) but Vagrant Story remains a system exclusive. This game is notable for many ways, not the least of which is it was set in the world of ‘Ivalice’ which would eventually become the setting for FF12 many years later. It’s a true masterpiece, and I wish Square would have decided to remake it instead of FF7.

Speaking of Final Fantasy the system was also home to three main-series games (FF7 through 9), an incredibly good spin-off (FF Tactics) and a multitude of rereleases of the earlier games in the series. I bought, played and still own them all.

Few people remember that the PS1 is where the ‘Souls’ series began. The above are the first three games in the series, and while of a different genre (1st person dungeon crawls) are every bit as bleak and punishing as the Dark/Demons Souls series. King’s Field is the earliest PS1 purchase I still own, being bought a few months after the system was released.

I was writing for Working Designs during the PS1 era, and they were a somewhat prolific company known for the lavish packaging of their games. This was the early glory days of the translated RPG in America, and they rode the wave to great success.

Many of the games I own – including most I have shown – are worth a pretty penny these days. Some of the ones in my collection are valued in the hundreds of dollars and every time I do a post like this I briefly consider selling my collection. But as usual I won’t, and they’ll go back into the box for another indeterminate amount of years.

The PS1 sold over 100 million units, was successful all over the world, and spawned a legacy that has continued through 3 other consoles (PS2, PS3, PS4) and two portables (PSP, PSV). Over the years I have bought over 700 games for Sony systems, and while they’ve moved away from the portable console market now, I don’t see the Playstation brand ending any time soon.

Original PS1 hardward these days is arguably useless. The followup console – the PS2 – was fully reverse compatible and provides a much better way to play PS1 games than on original hardware. Furthermore the hardware problems (mostly, as mentioned, the laser) and issues connecting old models to new TVs mean it’s not in particular demand. However many of the games still are worth playing, and in a couple of weeks Sony is released a ‘Playstation Portable’ plug-and-play device similar to those Nintendo has had such success with recently. I personally think the game list and choice to forsake analogue controllers leaves a lot to be desired and have little interest in this new device, but I hope that it succeeds and is for many a reminder of the history of one of gamings most important ever releases.

For me, I’ve still got my 2000-model PSOne and screen, as well as a big box of amazing games. I reckon I’ve got at least another playthrough of Vagrant Story awaiting me some time in my future…

Posted in Collecting, Games, History, Otaku, Tech | Comments Closed

My Collection: Neo Geo Pocket Color

Saturday, September 8th, 2018

Neo Geo was well known for high-end and arcade quality home game consoles when it decided to enter the handheld market, and expectations were high for the Neo Geo Pocket Colour when it launched in mid 1999. I bought mine later that year with six of the launch games. I immediately fell in love with it.

That’s my original handheld – I chose the ‘anthracite’ color – in it’s box. I hadn’t played it for many years before preparing this post, and had forgotten just how much I loved it.

The system is smaller than the original gameboy, and very lightweight. Though entirely plastic it feels very solid and professionally built. Special mention must be made of the tiny 8-way joystick that utilizes microswitches than click when used. It’s extremely satisfying. Oh and if you wonder about the specs, they’re printed right under the screen!

The screen is reflective rather than backlit, which was fine in those days but is charmingly old fashioned now. The contrast however is excellent and there’s almost no blurring. Here’s a shot of the bioryhtym calculator included as part of the basic OS:

The games came in cardboard boxes (as did gameboy games in those days) with the cartridge itself in a tiny plastic box. Manuals were full colour.

The cartridges are on the small side. Of course compared to Switch and Vita games they’re not but in those days these were quite a bit smaller than the competitors games:

The Neo Geo Pocket Color failed as a system, due mostly to the financial woes of the parent company. It was demonstrably a better system than the Gameboy and was priced competitively but poor management coupled with competition from the juggernaut known as Pokemon helped seal it’s fate in less than a year. As the months passed games became increasingly difficult to find (this was before such things were easily purchased online) and I recall it was a bit of an effort to buy games into early 2000.

All in all I managed to obtain 14 games:

Most are boxed; some are not. All were purchased new. The reason for the lack of boxes is that there were games that had been produced but not distributed when the system was pulled from stores in early 2000 and boxes for those games were never made. I bought them online (for almost nothing) years later.

As you can see there are many Neo Geo arcade ‘ports’. These have been mostly redesigned to fit the different style of control and display, and are almost without exception excellent. The Metal Slug games in particular play very well, and Gal’s Fighters is probably the best handheld fighting game I have ever played. The standout game though is Card Fighters Clash, a strategic collectible card game with astonishingly good graphics. I loved this game to death, and am strongly considering (yet) another playthrough from scratch for old times sake 🙂

As with most of my games, my NGPC collection is in virtual mint condition and is complete with all boxes and manuals. I don’t think much about it though, and was surprised in preparing this post to see how much this once-clearanced and mostly forgotten system has appreciated. Consulting my database I see that I paid a total of $389.71 for the system and the 14 games I bought (the system cost $70, the games averaged $22 apiece). And yet these days the boxed system alone is ‘worth’ about $180 and one of the games (Evolution) may even fetch more than that! A brief tabulation at one of the internet price charting sites values my collection at just shy of $1000 so I’ll be sure to keep it safe and sound for many years to come 🙂

Posted in Collecting, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Retro, Tech | Comments Closed

Air Port Panic

Sunday, July 8th, 2018

In Inverness, a quick search on the information superhighway led me to a used game shop only a few hops and skips away from where we were staying. Of course we wandered over, and found a most intriguing and messy little shop full of records and games.The walls were decorated with album sleeves, mostly examples of 1970s Top Of The Pops ‘cover girl’ compilations like this:

There were loads of records and singles, and even a few cassettes. Disorder was the name of the game, and actually finding anything specific would have been a matter of luck. And yet I reckoned there were treasures in the boxes, and had I not been overseas I may have dug a bit through the vinyl.

Happily the games were sorted, but unfortunately 99% of them were 16 bit or older. I spied a few old Spectrum and CPC computer games, and may have even purchased them if they hadn’t been lacking their sleeves. There were no signs of actual 8-bit computers, or magazines from the 1980s. It looked like I would depart without making a purchase.

And then I saw this:

Its an LCD handheld from 1982! The last game in Bandai’s LCD Solarpower series to be precise, and one of the very few released outside of Japan. I’d never heard of this series of games before, and was intrigued to find that they rely completely on solar power to run.

The Japanese box (mine didn’t come with the box) also shows how it has two layered screens for a very subtle 3D effect. This works well and makes the screens look busier than in the Game & Watch units from Nintendo.Unfortunately the technology requires actual solar power, and doesn’t function at all under artificial lighting!

Furthermore, it’s incredibly difficult to get good photos due to how reflective the screen is, but here’s my best attempts:

Air Port Panic is ridiculously difficult to the point where I suspect it’s slightly buggy. The action seems to lag the processor slightly and you seem to die moments before being hit by a projectile. But this can be accounted for somewhat, and success – reaching the hijacked plane in screen one and reaching the terrorists in screen two can be achieved with practice.

Sadky it’s not much fun, and not just because of the stupid difficulty. You also need to be standing in direct sunlight to play, and even then can hardly see the screen. I can see – impressive tech aside – why Bandai didn’t beat Nintendo in the early 80s handheld wars 🙂

I paid a mere £15 for this gem, which is considerably less than I see then for on eBay. As a game I’ll rarely return to it, but as another for the collection it was a happy find!

Posted in Collecting, Games, Miscellaneous, Music, Otaku, Retro, Tech | Comments Closed

Videogaming Illustrated (Issue 4, Feb 1983)

Sunday, April 8th, 2018

At a convention a few weeks ago for the princely sum of $5 I bought this:

It’s one of the very earliest video game magazines, dating to before the ‘crash of 1983’. It’s from the same publisher of the old sci-fi magazine Omni, and the format is very similar (silver pages, yellow pages with fiction, somewhat pretentious tone).

This was very much a magazine without an audience. The inclusion of fiction, the monthly news round up heavy on business content and the (repulsive) interview with Don Imus suggests they were going for the Playboy approach. So much so I’m surprised there’s no cheesecake photos!

That said it’s also an interesting curio from the earliest days of my favourite hobby! For instance I was surprised by the lavish adverts for Atari 2600 games:

(By the way I’m ripping off Ashens here and taking photos of the magazine on a couch rather than scanning it. Hey I’m lazy!)

And the lengthy strategy sections – which take up a decent amount of the magazine and cover arcade and 2600 games – are charmingly low-tech:

The middle one is a four page guide to the arcade game Kangaroo which was probably mostly forgotten even when this issue shipped!

There’s also a guide to third-party 2600 joysticks, a lengthy but superficial article about pinball machines, too much fiction and a lot of uninteresting (even then I suspect) ‘monthly news’.

What isn’t well-represented though are advertisements. I’ve shown some above, but there are very few in total and many of them are clearly there as part of some paid-content promotion:

That’s just one of two ads for Cosmic Creeps, an Atari 2600 game profiled and given a strategy guide in this very issue…

The other element common to today’s magazines that is almost entirely absent are screenshots! In fact, in the entire issue, there is a grand total on one real shot (as opposed to drawings of the screen) and this is it:

Can you name the game? (And yes, I suspect it may also be fake…)

Anyway this mag was sold at the con by a guy who flogs old magazines of many kinds, and at the same time I got some very old Dr Who magazines as well as a bunch of cheesecake horror mags. Why was he selling this one issue of a 35 year old gaming magazine? The cover!! It features a preview of sorts of Revenge Of The Jedi (tied to an article about the 2600 Jedi Arena) which includes this gem:

It was all mostly true, if a bit off with the date estimates!

Anyway a curio from the dawn of gaming time. This magazine would run another year and change names twice before becoming another victim of the crash that almost sunk the US industry, but from what I see here I struggle to wonder who bought it even then?

Posted in Games, Movies, Retro, Tech, Time | 1 Comment »