Gaming Purchases - Juni 2020

Juni 2nd:

Visited my mom again today. She had another good day and we walked a full lap around the entire hospital, great weather yesterday too, and on the way home I visited GameStop again.
The Wii U console and all games were pre-owned/used (unless otherwise specified), and the collectibles were all new.

DS:
WinX Club Rockstars

Wii:
Kororinpa
Monster High Ghoul Spirit

Wii U hardware:
a black Wii U Elite 32GB console (with tablet controller, Wii sensor bar, power cable, HDMI cable, charger cable for the tablet, charging bay for the tablet, a regular stand for the tablet and two small clip-on vertical stands for the console)

PlayStation 3:
Call of Duty Black Ops II (disc only)
Crysis 2 (disc only)
Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate (disc only)
Saints Row IV (made sure to pick up the correct game this time!)

PlayStation 4:
RIGS Mechanized Combat League (new)

Xbox 360:
Colin McRae DiRT (disc only)
Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 (disc only)
Skyrim (disc only)
Race Driver GRID (disc only)
Rise of the Tomb Raider (disc only)
WarTech Senko no Ronde (this was the PAL version, I originally got the NTSC version back in the day and it's nice to finally have the proper PAL release as well)
Yaiba Ninja Gaiden Z Special Edition (sadly missing the Special Edition comic book, but the soundtrack CD was included)

Collectibles/Other:
a StarLink Pilot Pack - Razor Lemay
two more Crash Bandicoot keyring figure blindbags (containing Aku Aku and yet another Crash)
and two more Lara Croft Temple of Osiris Totaku figures

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Juni 11th:

Went ahead and ordered some games, mainly for my recently purchased Wii U since I didn't have anything to play on it other than regular Wii games.

I placed orders from two separate places a few of days ago (Juni 8th) and the first package arrived today. The games that arrived today were all new and sealed copies.

PlayStation 3:
Ultimate Action Triple Pack (Just Cause 2, Sleeping Dogs and the Tomb Raider 2013 Reboot)

Wii U:
Art Academy Atellier
Call of Duty Black Ops II
Legend of Kay Anniversary
LEGO Batman 3 Beyond Gotham
LEGO Star Wars The Force Awakens
The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild

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Juni 12th:

Second order of games arrived today. All of these were used copies.

UPDATE: Two of the four games didn't work! Zelda Wind Waker HD was damaged on the data side of the disc so it didn't work at all, the Wii U didn't even recognize it as a Wii U game, and ZombiU was the american release, which doesn't work on my european Wii U system. It should've been labelled as an import but they hadn't noticed and sold it as a regular game by mistake.
LEGO Batman 2 and Super Mario 3D World both worked, but there was extensive water damage to the Super Mario 3D World cover so the paper was all gross and nasty, and the LEGO Batman 2 disc has some rather worrying looking scratches on it.
The scratches on LEGO Batman 2 were on the outer part of the disc and the game starts up without any issues. Hopefully they're shallow enough that it will remain fully playable without any noticeable issues, but until I've played through the entire game 100%, I can't say for certain.
I contacted the store about this and because these were all Wii U games, they didn't have any more copies to replace them with.
I am to return the two games that didn't work and then I would get a 10% discount on the order for the remaining two games as "goodwill", as they phrased it in their reply.

Wii U:
LEGO Batman 2 DC Super Heroes (some scratches on the disc, only playing through it and 100%-ing the game will tell if it will have problems later on or not)
Super Mario 3D World (game was fine but the cover had severe water damage and looked gross, grimy and nasty as a result)
The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker HD (didn't work at all, there was damage on the data side of the disc and the Wii U didn't even recognize the disc)
ZombiU (american release, unplayable on my european Wii U)

Gaming Purchases - May 2020

May 31st:

Today was Mothers Day in Sweden and I went to visit my mom who's been in the hospital recovering from surgery for pancreatic cancer for about a month.
We were allowed to see each other outside only due to the corona virus. She's well enough now that she could walk outside with a stroller holding her drip thing, and today the weather was very warm and sunny so it worked well.
On the way home I took a little detour to the only GameStop store still open in Sweden (they're open until 18th July), and I found some stuff!
All games were second-hand/pre-owned/used. Other stuff was new.

DS:
Elements of Destruction
MechAssault Phantom War
MTV FanAttack (already got a copy of this recently, but it was the cheapest DS game they had so I picked it up for the case)

Wii:
Baroque

PlayStation Portable:
Beaterator
Championship Manager
Football Manager Handheld 2010
Gunpey
NBA Live 07
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08

PlayStation 3:
Atelier Rorona Plus The Alhcemist of Arland
Cabela's Dangerous Adventures
Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 3
Saints Row The Third (I already have this, when I meant to pick up Saints Row IV, I accidentally picked up the wrong damn game! D'oh!)

PlayStation Vita:
Aegis of Earth Protonovus Assault
FIFA 13
FIFA 14

Xbox 360:
Need for Speed ProStreet (Classics)

Collectibles/Other:
three Crash Bandicoot keyring figure blindbags (two were Crash, the other was Coco)
two Coco Bandicoot Totaku figures
a Lara Croft Temple of Osiris Totaku figure
two more packs of PlayStation themed decals (same type as I purchased recently)

Gaming Purchases - November 2019

November 5th:

A day of shopping resulted in some nice finds. GameStop has 50% off all older secondhand games so I picked up everything of interest, including some games for alternative reasons than the game itself, the DS games especially are mostly to use as GBA boxes as I still have some loose GBA cartridges in need of boxes.

DS:
Astrology
Camp Rock The Final Jam
Jonas
MTV FanAttack
Prince of Persia The Fallen King

3DS:
Epic Mickey Power of Illusion
LEGO The Hobbit
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate

Wii:
Barbie Jet, Set & Style!

PlayStation 3:
Dead Island (Special Edition)
GTA Episodes from Liberty City
The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim (including map)

PlayStation Vita:
Fate Extella The Umbral Star
Little Big Planet Vita

also from a hardware store

PC:
Trust USB optical mouse

Other:
Menuett mini fridge (fits exactly a six pack of 33cl soda cans)

also got some other stuff from another store

Diecast Cars:
Hot Wheels 1966 TV series Batmobile (2019 blue flames edition)

Magazines:
2x My Little Pony Friendship is Magic (#11 2019) with polybag containing Trixie Lulamoon with hat and cape

Other:
Halloween clear plastic skull filled with candy

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November 29th:

Went shopping today. Visited the local GameStop and some other places. It was Black Friday but I didn't find that much of interest that was part of the Black Friday sales.

At the local GameStop I got

3DS:
Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers (new)

PlayStation 3:
Grid 2 (no manual)
LEGO Star Wars III The Clone Wars
Sports Champions (2 manuals)
Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
Wet (no manual)

PlayStation 4:
Lumo

PlayStation 4 accessories:
a red GameStop wired PS4 Dual Shock 4 controller (new and sealed)

And at some other places I got

Diecast Cars:
Hot Wheels Justice League Batmobile (2019 blue chrome rims edition)

Decorative Items:
3x 80mm colored diamonds (green, pink, purple)

Collectible Figures:
3x My Happy Horse (blue, pink, purple)

Building Blocks:
Sluban Construct-ion A Tractor
Sluban Construct-ion B Excavator

Other:
alcatel 2003D Dark Grey (mobile phone)
a pair of winter boots

Game Purchases - Juli 2018

Juli 2th:

Starting this month with another movie purchase.

Bluray:
The Emoji Movie (2017)

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Juli 5th:

Got a tip from a friend that a secondhand shop downtown had a bunch of games from the game store that closed down last year, so I took a trip downtown and did some browsing, most were new and most were still factory sealed.

Game Boy Advance accessories:
Logic 3 GBA Fun Pack (3x thumb pads that you put on top of the d-pad, rubber grips for the back, screen protector overlay and a wrist strap)

GameCube Wii:
Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed
Funfair Party
Minion Everyday Hero
Sprint Cars

PlayStation 2:
Alpine Skiing 2005
Army Men Sarge's Heroes 2
Artlist Collection The Dog Island
Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter
Destroy All Humans! 2
Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires
Everybody's Tennis
EyeToy Kinetic Combat
Mercenaries 2 World in Flames
Mercury Meltdown Remix
Naruto Ultimate Ninja
Naruto Uzumaki Chronicles
Pipe Mania
Pool Shark 2
Project Eden
SpongeBob SquarePants featuring Nicktoons Globs of Doom
Tak and the Guardians of Gross
The Sims 2 Castaway
Transworld Surf
Volleyball Challenge

Xbox 360:
Syndicate

I also went to the other second hand shop I go to regularly and picked up a ton of comics and also another game.

PlayStation 2:
Sniper Assault

DVD:
Jurassic Shark

Manga:
D-N-Angel (paperback, volumes 1-11)
Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne (paperback, volumes 2-7)
Time Stranger Kyoko (paperback, volumes 2-3)
Vampire Game (paperback, volume 1)

Comics:
Asterix Caesar's Gift (vol 21, 1977)
Asterix in Belgium (vol 24, 1979)
Asterix in India (vol 28, 1987)
Captain W.E. Johns' Biggles Den Hemliga Eskadern (vol 7, 1984)
Comics 6 Den Stora Serieboken (vol 6, 1974)
Fenomenala 4:ans Äventyr (Les 4 As et l'Aéroglisseur, vol 2, 1964)
Johan och Pellevins Äventyr 1 Vilden i Klippiga Skogen (Le Lutin du Bois aux Roches, vol 1, 1973)
Superman 25th Anniversary Special (1974)
Superman Revenge from the Phantom Zone (1980, printed 1981)
W.I.T.C.H. (volumes 2-3 and 6-11 2002, 7-10 and Halloween Special 2003, 4-9 2004, 5-6 2005)
Yoko Tsuno The Curious Trio (vol 1, 1972, printed 1981)

Toys:
Matchbox Specials Chevrolet Camaro (1:40, 1983)

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Juli 5th:

and some more movies

DVD:
A Ghost Story (2017)
An Inconvenient Sequel (2017)
Jurassic World (2014)
Unknown Soldier (2017)
WarCraft The Beginning (2015)

Bluray:
Jurassic World (2014)
WarCraft The Beginning (2015)

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Juli 11th:

Was out shopping a little today and picked up some stuff.

PC hardware:
Trust GXT 155 Gaming Mouse
Trust regular mouse without "cool" name with numbers and stuff

Other:
a pack of various electrical parts

What really made today special was the fact that I got stopped and asked to show my bag before I was allowed to leave the store in two different stores, it's never happened before ever and now twice in one day, I dunno maybe I looked unusually criminal today? I don'ät know, all I know is I won't be going to Jula och Net on Net anymore, they think so lowly of me that they treat me like a common criminal then they have lost me as a customer, I've been going to both those places since the 90s and this has never happened before, they know me, I've never shoplifted or stole anything in my life, I was honestly shocked and offended and even more so that it happened twice like this, I'm still in shock over it.
If this is how they choose to treat their longtime customers then fuck em, I'm out, no more, I will take my business elsewhere, I won't force them to take my money ever again!

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Juli 16th:

The first of two online orders I placed last Friday arrived today. All items are new and sealed.

DS:
Transformers Dark of the Moon Autobots (toy car bundle)
Transformers Dark of the Moon Decepticons (toy car bundle)

PlayStation Vita:
LEGO Batman 2 DC Super Heroes
LEGO Batman 3 Beyond Gotham

PC:
AquaNox Collection (AquaNox and AquaNox 2 Revelation, Nordic Games)
Big Mutha Truckers 2 Truck Me Harder (Medallion)
Guilty Gear X2 #Reload (Medallion)
Monster Madness Battle for Suburbia (Games for Windows)

DVD:
Independence Day Resurgence

Bluray:
Independence Day Resurgence

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Juli 17th:

The second order arrived. All items are new and sealed.

PlayStation Vita:
LEGO Jurassic World

Xbox 360:
LEGO Jurassic World

Amiibo:
Samus Aran (Metroid Samus Returns)

Bluray:
Independence Day 20th Anniversary Attacker Edition

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Juli 26th:

Long day today, went out for a long walk early in the morning, then walked downtown and checked two secondhand stores and found a whole bunch of games among other things, and lastly I met up with a friend I hadn't seen in ages and talked to him for 2½ hours.

at the first place I got:

DS:
Ellen Whitaker's Horse Life

Wii:
Cruis'n
RTL Winter Sports 2009
Top Spin 4
Wheelspin

PlayStation 2:
Smash Court Tennis Pro Tournament 2
WALL-E

PlayStation 3:
Bodycount
Stranglehold

Xbox 360:
Dragon Age II

PC:
LEGO Star Wars II The Original Trilogy

and at the second place I got:

Xbox:
Over The Hedge

Xbox 360:
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3
Forza Motorsport 2 (in a bundle with Viva Piñata)
Forza Motorsport 3
Iron Man
Juiced Hot Import Nights 2
Jumper Griffin's Story
Kinect Adventures! (disc only, hidden in the Juiced 2 box under the Juiced 2 disc, found it the day after)
N3 Ninety-Nine Nights
Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands (Special Collector's Edition)
Sonic The Hedgehog
Spider-man Friend or Foe
Viva Piñata (in a bundle with Forza Motorsport 2)

DVD:
Barbie in The Nutcracker
Barbie of Swan Lake
Biker Mice from Mars (vol. 3)
Bratz Pampered Petz
How To Train Your Dragon 2
My Little Pony & Friends (The Glass Princess, Sweet Stuff and the treasure hunt)
My Little Pony Tales (vol. 3, )
The Black Cauldron (Special Edition)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Noble Entertainment)

Bluray:
TMNT (2007)

Comics/Magazines:
24x Disney Princess with cardboard folder to store them in
W.I.T.C.H. sticker album with some additional posters
Bizarro (Vol. 5, 2004)

Other:
Disney's Cinderella wooden wall plate

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Juli 30th:

Some more secondhand finds today.

Game Boy Advance:
MadCatz MagLens SP (screen magnifier for Game Boy Advance SP)

DS:
Cooking Guide - Can't decide what to eat? (new and sealed)
Rubik's Puzzle World (Bakugan Battle Brawlers box, no manual, just a standard Nintendo health and safety precautions booklet)

Wii:
Pocoyo Racing (RTL Winter Sports 2008 box and manual, no manual for Pocoyo Racing)

PlayStation 2:
Jetix Puzzle Buzzle (new and sealed)

Books:
Fräcka Fredag!

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Juli 31st:

Went on another secondhand binge today, 25 more games where of a whopping 22 were dupes of games I already had, several even being multiple dupes of the same game. I've definitely never bought this many copies of the same games at the same time before.

PlayStation 2:
Artlist Collection The Dog Island (new and sealed)
3x Bakugan Battle Brawlers (new and sealed)
Ben 10 Alien Force (new and sealed)
6x Bratz The Movie (new and sealed)
2x Crescent Suzuki Racing
2x Everybody's Tennis (new and sealed)
2x Jetix Puzzle Buzzle (new and sealed)
Madagascar Escape 2 Africa (Platinum, new and sealed)
Mercury Meltdown Remix (new and sealed)
Rayman Raving Rabbids (new and sealed)
Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow
SSX
Stuntman
Thunderhawk Operation Phoenix

Xbox 360:
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (infamous german version, altered for censorship and with no language options, german speech and text only)

Game Purchases - Juni 2018

Juni 6th:

No gaming purchases yet, just a movie.

DVD:
Rock Dog (2017)

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Juni 8th:

A couple more movies.

DVD:
Godzilla (2014)

Bluray:
Smurfarna Den Försvunna Byn (The Smurfs Lost Village, 2017)

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Juni 14th:

Finally got some new games purchased today!

Wii:
The Simpsons Game (no manual)
Welcome to Animal Crossing: Let's go to the City

PlayStation 2:
Rollercoaster World (no manual)

PlayStation 3:
Ratchet & Clank Tools of Destruction (no manual)

PC:
FlatOut (Medallion)

DVD:
6e Dagen (The 6th Day, 2000)
Den Onda Dockan 3 (Child's Play 3, 2001)
Fruits Basket - The Complete Series (6 Disc Exclusive Collection)
LEGO Ninjago Masters of Spinjitzu Vol. 2
LEGO Ninjago Masters of Spinjitzu Vol. 3
Transformers (2007)

Bluray:
Jack Frost (1996)

LEGO:
Mini Taurus (buildable board game, the yellow playable microfigure character was missing, otherwise it was complete in box)

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Juni 25th:

And a few more movies.

DVD:
Bamse och Häxans Dotter (Bamse and the Witch's Daughter, 2016)
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Bilar 3 (Cars 3, 2017)
Den Stora Nötkuppen 2 (The Nut Job 2, 2017)
Dumma Mej 3 (Despicable Me 3, 2017)
Leatherface (2015)
The Emoji Movie (2017)

Bluray:
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Justice League (2017)
Sing (2016)

Gaming Purchases - Januari 2018

Januari 9th:

A shopping trip resulted in some nice finds today.

3DS:
Lego Star Wars The Force Awakens (new, sealed)
Yoshi's New Island (new, sealed)

Wii:
Star Wars The Clone Wars Lightsaber Duels

PlayStation Vita:
two Vita 2000 Slim model protection cases (new, sealed)

Xbox 360:
Lego Batman 2 DC Super Heroes
Lego Marvel Super Heroes

Hot Wheels:
Aston Martin 1963 DB5
Batman Live! Batmobile
Dragon Blaster
Flash Drive
Ford Shelby GR-1 Concept (orange with black stripe)
Howlin' Heat
Knight Draggin'
Lamborghini Countach (Tooned series)
Mad Manga
Ratmobile
Speedy Pérez
Steer Clear
Turbot

Transformers:
Dickie Toys - Transformers Robots in Disguise - Metal Series 1 - Sideswipe

Hot Wheels Star Wars:
Boba Fett's Slave I
Millennium Falcon
Rebel Snowspeeder
Tie Fighter
X-Wing Fighter - Red 5
Y-Wing Fighter - Gold Leader

tools and stuff:
several different sizes of extendable/retractable utility knives
a set of pocket sized precision screwdrivers


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Januari 16th:

some second-hand finds

PC:
American McGee's Alice (SoldOut!)

Lego:
Lego 3855 Star Wars Battle of Hoth (board game set)

Toys:
Wonder Woman figure (McDonalds 2016)
Super Mario Kart Mario figure

CD:
Basshunter - Now You're Gone (singel)
Reel 2 Real - I Like To Move It (singel)

DVD:
Barbie presenterar Tummelisa (Barbie presents THumbelina (2009))
Black Beauty (1971)
Disney's Talespin Vol. 1
Haja Läget 2 (The Reef 2)
Kungen och Jag (Anna and the King (1999))
Milo mot Mars (Mars needs moms)
Moses Nilens Prins (Prince of the Nile The Story of Moses (1998))
Sagan om My Little Pony (My Little Pony The Movie (1986))

Anime DVD:
Porco Rosso
Rurouni Kenshin Samurai X Vol. 1 Trust
Rurouni Kenshin Samurai X Vol. 2 Betrayal

Bluray:
Haj Fajv (Seefood)

Books:
Disney's Klassiker Törnrosa
Disney's Tjuren Ferdinand
Det Var En Gång Askungen

and some outlet movies from a movie rental store

DVD:
Monster High Electrified
Spark

Bluray:
Monster High Boo York, Boo York A Monsterrific Musical


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Januari 17th:

picked up some more outlet movies at the movie rental store today as they stocked up with some new ones

DVD:
Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice
Colossal
Ghost in the Shell (2017)
Hostel 3
Husdjurens Hemliga Liv (The Secret Life of Pets)
Kong Skull Island
Monster High Scaris Skräckens Stad (Monster High Scaris City of Frights)

Bluray:
Ghost in the Shell (2017)


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Januari 19th:

Ordered a bunch of games online, it's friday today so they should arrive some time next week if everything goes as planned.

from one place I ordered (these arrived the following monday, the 22nd)

Mega Drive:
Battle Frenzy (German, no manual)

Saturn:
Virtual On Cyber Troopers Operation Moongate (Japanese)

3DS:
Skylanders Giants Booster Pack (new)

GameCube:
V-Rally 3

PlayStation:
Aironauts
Cybersled
Firebugs (no manual)
Roswell Conspiracies

PlayStation 2:
Garfield Saving Arlene

Dreamcast:
Tomee High Definition VGA Cable with separate composite RCA plugs for stereo audio (new)

Amiibo:
Splatoon 2-pack - Callie & Marie (new)

and from another place I ordered (these arrived on the following thursday, the 25th)

DS:
Disney's Kim Possible Global Gemini
Lego Batman The Videogame
Lego Star Wars II Original Trilogy (no manual)

3DS:
Lego Star Wars III The Clone Wars

PlayStation:
Colin McRae Rally 2.0 (Platinum)
Syphon Filter 2 (Platinum)

PlayStation 2:
WinX Club
Lego Batman The Videogame
Offroad Extreme!
OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast
Rally Championship
Saint Seiya The Hades
Sonic Mega Collection Plus
Sonic Unleashed
WRC 4 (Platinum)
WRC Rally Evolved


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Januari 23rd:

No games today, just some other second-hand finds.

CD:
Darude - Sandstorm (single)
N.G.3 As Nasty As We Wanna Be

VCD:
Mickey Mouse (Chinese)
Tom & Jerry (Chinese)

DVD:
Disney's Princess Stories Vol. 2 Tales of Friendship
Hocus Pocus
Monster High 13 Wishes
Pixar Short Films Collection Vol. 1
The Fairytaler Vol. 12 H.C. Andersen's The Snow Queen

Bluray:
The Hobbit Smaugs Ödemark (The Desolation of Smaug)

Comics:
Bugs Bunny #1 1995
Carousel #1 2009
Carousel #3 2009
Asterix and the Vikings
Asterix Rose and Pedal
Berts Dagbok
Berts Dagbok
Lilla Fridolf
91an Karlsson
91an Karlsson
Min Häst
Tom & Jerry
Bamse

Books:
Bolt
Peter Pan

Lego:
a Lego bucket with assorted Lego Friends content

Other:
a miniature crystal stone guardian lion figurine


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Januari 25th:

went and picked up the second order of games today (listed above) and also bought some other stuff at a second-hand store

PlayStation 2:
EyeToy Play Astro Zoo (Platinum)

DVD:
Disney's Frozen
Lego Star Wars The Yoda Chronicles Vol. 1
Mamma Mu & Kråkan The Movie

Books:
Barbie on Ski Vacation
Disney's Robin Hood the big ambush
Disney's Aristocats on the run

Other:
glass marbles and stones

and a movie rental store

DVD:
Baby Boss (2017)
Monster Trucks (2017) they had one copy left of the Bluray version of Monster Trucks but my friend saw it first, so I could only get the DVD, maybe I'll find another copy of the Bluray version some day

Now Playing - Januari 2017

Started off the new year with Aladdin on Master System.



Aladdin (Master System)
Longplayed it for YouTube.
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EREcLNavbVY
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fYwVHPGSh8
part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKo_Tz0RMSg
part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sWWYRwkZhY

GoldenEye 007 (Wii)
Awful controls with Classic Pro Controller, unplayable with Wiimote and Nunchuk, overall generic modern FPS garbage with shitty modern Daniel Craig pretending to be James Bond.

Retro Force (PlayStation)
beat it on easy with 3126600 points, 12 januari 2017

Mercury (PlayStation Portable)

Armorines Project S.W.A.R.M. (Nintendo 64)

MTV Snowboarding (PlayStation)

Fade to Black (PlayStation)

Syphon Filter The Omega Strain (PlayStation 2)

Syphon Filter (PlayStation)
This game holds up so good even today, I love it. Tasing enemies til they burn and die is endlessly satisfying. Great controls, great visuals, great gameplay, great characters, great voice acting, great music, just a great game.

Overboard! (PlayStation)
I'm not big on pirates in general but this game is fantastic, probably as it focuses on the vehicular combat part of pirates and plays more like a mix between GTA and Twisted Metal on water with pirate ships and cannons instead of cars with machine guns, like a top-down pirate themed Blood Wake, simply brilliant.

Tomb Raider Anniversary (Xbox 360)
Imagine the Wii version with a lot more glitches but with slightly better controls and running at a higher screen resolution with a better framerate.

Virtua Racing Deluxe (32X)

Virtua Racing (Mega Drive)

Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes (PlayStation 3)

Gaming Purchases - December 2016

December 5th:

Finally the online orders I placed during November arrived.

Wii:
Tomb Raider Anniversary
Tomb Raider Underworld

Mega Drive:
Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker

PlayStation:
Retro Force (Rental Copy, no instruction manual)

PlayStation 2:
Gumball 3000
Lego Drome Racers
Midway Arcade Treasures 3
Need for Speed Underground (Platinum)
Runabout 3 Neo Age
Scaler
Star Wars Racer Revenge
Star Wars Jedi Starfighter
Stock Car Speedway
Syphon Filter The Omega Strain
Syphon Filter Dark Mirror
The Secret Saturdays Beasts of the 5th Sun
Tokyo Road Race

PlayStation 3:
Baja Edge of Control
KillZone Trilogy

Xbox 360:
Moto GP 08
Moto GP 09/10
Moto GP 10/11
Tomb Raider Anniversary

Hardware:
4x Third Party PlayStation 2 Dual Shock 2 controllers (black)
2x Third Party Wii Classic Pro controllers (black)
2x Third Party Wii Classic Pro controllers (white)
PlayStation 3 PS Eye camera

Now Playing - December 2016

December started with a new EDF game!



Earth Defense Force 2025 (PlayStation 3)
While not as good as the other games in the series it's at least better than Insect Armageddon. The framerate is abysmal, some of the worst I've ever seen, it also suffers greatly from immense slowdown and is extremely unresponsive. I don't like the two new classes you can play as in this one so I stick to the two classics, Ranger and Wing Diver as they're called in this one, equivalent to Storm 1 and Pale Wing respectively. I don't like how slow the Wing Diver is, she gets stuck in minor animations a lot forcing you to wait until you can input commands to do other things, Pale Wing was fast on her feet, extremely mobile and tons of fun to use in Global Defence Force on PS2, Wing Diver is simply not on Pale Wing's level. The enemies now have some more attacks they can use, like biting hold of you and thrashing you around for massive damage, this I have to admit sucks, you can shoot them while being bitten to break loose but the damage you take during this is completely disproportionate to everything else you're up against in the rest of the entire game, and this is something even the weakest enemies can do, it becomes nothing more than a reason to stay away and only use long range weapons as the risk of being bitten to death in mere seconds even when at full health is too great, this renders all close range weapons in the game a lot less attractive and I found myself after only a couple of levels using long range weapons only, not even bothering to read about the new close range weapons I had acquired, it literally broke the game for me and made it a lot less fun as short range weapons in the past were awesome as you could find yourself in a huge clusters of enemies swarming you and actually put up a fight and come out alive with nothing but the piles of dead enemies to climb over while looking for pickups afterwards. This is a scenario that will never happen in this game due to the enemies' new and wildly overpowered biting mechanic. Also the armor pickups are far less useful now, instead of like in the previous titles where if you pick up one armor pickup you get +1 armor for your character you instead have to pick up 4 armor pickups to get +1 armor in this game, and as such you have to grind 4 times more to reach the same result of previous games, forcing you to play the same levels over again a lot more in hopes to get more armor pickups, this breaks the game even more and something as simple and fundamental of advancing through the game like getting more armor to withstand more enemy attacks becomes a chore of legendary proportions. I also don't like the visual design of the Wing Diver, she looks like a Pale Wing that got a bunch of random polygons sprayed all over her, her design is cluttered and ugly, and nothing like the clean and stylish design of Pale Wing. All that said it's still nice to play a new EDF game and like i said, it's at least better than Insect Armageddon.

Burnout Legends (PlayStation Portable)

Killzone HD (Killzone Trilogy, PlayStation 3)
I love Killzone on PS2 and this is a slightly better version in just about every way. Everything was either left the same as in the original or made better as far as I can tell, which is exactly how a perfect remaster should be, nothing changed or ruined with only improvements to be found, literally perfect. I was a bit uncertain if buying Killzone 2 and 3 again as part of this Trilogy was worth it just for the HD remaster of the original PS2 Killzone, but now when I'm playing it I can say it was totally worth it. I already have the original PS2 Killzone and Killzone 2 and 3 separately for PS3, but the HD remaster of the original PS2 Killzone for PS3 was only ever released as part of this Trilogy and as a downloadable from PSN, and my policy of paying for downloadable content made it impossible for me to get this version in any other way then to cough up the dough for this rather rare and expensive Trilogy, but yeah, as I said, it was worth it, it was a great game originally and this is an even better version. It needs to be said though that the original on PS2 still measures up no problem to the HD remaster when played on a CRT SDTV, aside from the slightly worse framerate of the PS2 original they're virtually indistinguishable until you compare them on an HDTV and get the full effect of the 720p upgrade of the HD remaster, so if you're like me and you play on a CRT SDTV because you have tons of older games that HDTVs ruin then this Trilogy may not be worth it just to get the HD remaster, you're not really missing out if you have the original game on PS2 until you want to play it on an HDTV, only then is this truly worth it, unless you find it cheap enough like i did, it wasn't cheap but it was about half the price I usually find it for, otherwise I still wouldn't own it.
UPDATE:
Killzone HD Remastered is an on-disc install that takes up 3036mb and requires the disc to be in your PS3 while starting the game up for authentication, it then stops spinning shortly thereafter and the entire game is run from the internal HDD. It's on the same disc as Killzone 2 while Killzone 3 gets its own disc, so it's easy to switch between Killzone HD and Killzone 2 if one wants to do that.
The Killzone Trilogy is the only way to get a physical copy of Killzone HD Remastered as it was only ever released as a digital download on PSN. I am a fan of the original Killzone on PS2 and this is basically a nice but minor upgrade to that, it has a slightly better and much more stable framerate and runs at a higher screen resolution (720p according to online sources) with a much richer color palette, so everything looks sharper and nicer overall, however unlike Black on Xbox compared to the PS2 version it doesn't lose the grittiness because it has a really nice noise filter and such manages to not become sterile and too artificially clean looking in the process, I like this a lot.
Sadly I've ran into just about every single glitch the PS2 version has so it doesn't seem they ironed out the game at all, which is a shame. I've had to restart from checkpoints because the game glitched and refused load the next scripted event allowing me to advance more times that I can count, those damn beach levels are shit and I remember that happening a lot in the PS2 version as well, easily the worst part of the game, they're also repetitive, boring and not visually interesting so yeah, definitely the worst part of the game, they're quite short though so it's not a huge deal, it's just a shame nothing was done to fix this now that they had a real chance to do so.
Beside that it's a great game still and a better experience overall thanks to the minor upgrades over the PS2 original. At first I was uncertain is I should buy it as I already own Killzone 2 and 3 separately and the Trilogy is a bit rare and thus more expensive than the three games it contains if purchased on their own, given you have both a PS2 and a PS3 to play them all on already, but after having played it I feel it was worth it, Killzone is still great.

Baja Edge of Control (PlayStation 3)
Baja Edge of Control on PS3 is notably choppier than it is on Xbox 360, the menu framerate especially is really low, I'd say in the single digits when selecting your car, it runs at a stable framerate during gameplay but lower than it does on 360 with an overall choppiness present at all times, it's glitchier and has crashed on me forcing me to restart, they both run in 1080p as far as the internet is concerned but the visuals on PS3 are uglier with more jaggies due to the lack of AA making them look a lot more low res, the motion blur is so weak you don't even notice most of the time and I'm not sure but I think the colors look a bit muted and washed out compared to the 360 version as well.
The custom music option of playing music from the PS3 HDD is disabled (as is tradition on PS3, the only game I recall having it enabled is SuperCar Challenge), so there's no custom soundtrack option like the 360 version allows you to enjoy.

Bonanza Bros. (Master System)
I'm not a fan of this series but this version I really enjoy, the controls are much more reactive and useful, not stiff and slow like in other versions, and the game is very good looking and sounds great too. I don't really have any complaint about this one beyond how impossibly hard it gets in the last few stages. As far as I know this version lacks a 2 player split screen mode but it more than makes up for it with the best singleplayer version there is.
I've put up a gameplay video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgXuZgopHwY

Miniplanets (Mega Drive)
A homebrew game with 3D-ish top-down graphics, gameplay similar to a mix of JumpingFlash!, the Meteor Herd level in Sonic Adventure 2 and the Super Mario Galaxy games. You jump around on small planets and solve puzzles to reach the end while avoiding obstacles and enemies. It's free to download and plays on emulators and original hardware if you have some sort of flash-cart or equivalent.
the version I'm playing can be found in this thread:

Lyle in Cube Sector (Mega Drive)
Another homebrew game, originally for PC but now also being ported to Mega Drive. It's an open-world platformer where you pick up blocks and use them to jump higher and take out enemies etc. much like how Klonoa would capture enemies to use in a similar way in the Klonoa series.
the version I'm playing can be found in this thread:

Retro Force (PlayStation)
A PlayStation and specifically PAL exclusive release, Retro Force is a 3D shmup by Psygnosis released in 1999. It's mostly top-down but it also changes to a behind-view during certain segments of major boss battles.
The story goes something along the lines of in the year 2999 some aliens come and steal a holy time-travel artefact and four Retro Force pilots set out to stop the aliens and retrieve the holy artefact, chasing down the aliens throughout the ages gathering pieces of the holy artifact one by one, or something, I have the rental version of the game which didn't come with a manual and the in-game story is not presented in much detail, but I'll give it kudos for even having a story to follow as most shmups seem to not bother with more than a short basic backstory written in the manual with no hint of story at all in the actual game.
There are 4 playable characters, their ships look different from each other but all play the same, and you can play multiplayer with 2 players simultaneously, there are also 4 player modes but I have yet to try them out.
You can do elevation changes by climbing or diving to reach alternate paths, destroy bonus containing structures or dodge incoming enemies or their attacks.
You start off with a selection of 6 weapons, three types of blasters and three types of bombs, you can cycle through these and use the one you think best suits the type of targets you're attacking and situation you're in, you shoot the blaster type weapons forward and the bombs are dropped down on enemies below on the ground, much like the homing lasers work for background enemies in games like RayStorm.
There are color coded upgrade pickups for your weapons that permanently increase the respective weapon's power throughout the rest of the game, these are usually obtained from defeating mid-level bosses or found hidden in structures you can bomb or shoot open. There are also other special weapon pickups that grant you ammo for a third type of weapon, like 10 rockets etc., there's also a shield and health pickups as you have a health bar and can take multiple hits before you die in this game. When you die you start from checkpoints, which you have to hit in order to activate them, if you miss one and get killed you'll be sent back to the previous checkpoint you hit instead and any upgrades you've gathered after the last activated checkpoint will be lost and has to be obtained again.
The game is balanced rather nicely with the fact that you have so much you can do with simply forcing you to utilize all of it in clever ways, you have to dodge large enemies in tight corridors using the diving and climbing mechanics, you have to attack waves of enemies both on the level of elevation you're on and also all over the ground and the enemies are all over the place and they're quite fast, as you are too, so even if you have a lot of tools to use to fight them all with you won't be allowed to take it easy just spamming one attack, that'll just get you overwhelmed with all the other enemies that aren't being taken care of from other places where one attack alone can't reach. You have a smart-bomb too that explodes and kills all the enemies near you but it's not a screen killer like in many other games, it only affects a quite large but still limited area around your ship.
You go through time and each time zone has a few stages (I think 3 each), before you face an end-of-the-level boss and then an additional special boss, this is where the camera changes during key moments of the boss' attack patterns to behind.view and you play the game more similar to Space Harrier or Galaxy Force II, instead of moving around on a horizontally flat 2D plane moving "up" on the screen to go forward (with the ability to elevate up or down by climbing and diving respectively) you instead move on a vertically flat 2D plane across the screen with a big boss in front of you. I like that it takes advantage of the nature of 3D graphics like this with the elevation, camera changes and even slight gameplay style changes like that.
The music is typical late 90s beats, breaks and jungle similar to what can be heard in other Psygnosis games.
The visuals are impressive and look good with just about every graphical trick the PlayStation can pull off, like textured polygons, dynamic lighting, transparencies, motion blur and particle effects all at once with tons of enemies, explosions and fired shots all over the screen, you can tell it's a game made by talented programmers that know the system as it pulls it all off with a smooth 50fps framerate (it's a PAL exclusive after all so there never was a 60fps version released) ~99% of the time with a crispy high screen resolution, there are just no notable technical drawbacks in this game to be found, very nice.
The visual designs however can be discussed, some enemies blend into the background far too well and can be near impossible to make out, and having entire waves of enemies crash into you as you get more frustrated trying to see them can be argued as a negative, but on the flipside I have to admit I enjoy having enemies that aren't stupid and paint their ships with bright vivid colors that stand out and make them obvious targets.. so from a realistic point of view I respect their battle tactics, it makes them a pain to fight, but that makes sense, enemies that aren't putting up a fight aren't as fun to fight as those who do. So if you can't tell, I'm divided in my opinion over this.
Something I noticed when playing on PS3 though, a thing I don't think is up for debate whether or not it's bad is how dark the visuals were overall, making it harder to see said camouflaged enemies among other things. There is no setting to turn up brightness so I had to turn it up on my TV instead. That works fine I guess but had the game been slightly brighter it wouldn't have been needed. It's admittedly a nitpick, but still worth a mention. It's not as bad when playing on a PSX or PS2 though, and the texture smoothing on PS2 makes it an even better looking game so I strongly recommend playing this on a PS2 first, a PSX second and PSP/PS3/PC emulated/other emulated last, it's a game that really works best when played on original hardware.
Then we have the characters, and I for one like their odd mid-to-late 90s futuristic anime style. The enemies have cool designs overall and I like the look of the environments a lot.

Race Drivin' (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
I love this game, especially on Mega Drive, but this version doesn't do the original arcade game justice, it's stuttery and jerky, it runs smoothly in the 3D but the controls, 2D visuals and sound are all messed up, it's said to be poor emulation as it's not an actual port of the game, just emulation of the arcade rom. It's still playable and I still like it, but it could and should've been a lot better, it's not exactly an advanced game these days, being one of the earliest 3D polygonal games ever and all so why they didn't do a better job than this is beyond me and a damn shame. Then again most games in this collection have glitches and issues. Hell, I can't even get it to save properly, it just makes a corrupt save file every time!

BadLands (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
One of the oldest vehicle combat games ever and I still think it's great, it runs like it should and I have no complaints other than not being able to save my scores due to the save file corruption problem I keep having. Oh well, scores aren't that important anyway when you have the option to have unlimited credits and there aren't any real overall settings to save either, so I can live without it. I don't know if it's because I have a third party 64mb memorycard or because it's programmed by a retarded monkey (the latter seems more likely and closer to the truth tbh) but I don't have a Sony original 8mb memorycard with any free space on it to test right now so it matters not.

Hydro Thunder (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
Runs smoothly and I don't think there are any issues (besides not being able to save). I believe it actually runs better than it does in Midway Arcade Treasures 3 on Xbox because I remember that version being a little choppy and glitchy at times and I haven't noticed any of that here.

San Fransisco Rush 2049 (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
Runs smoothly and I don't think there are any issues (besides not being able to save).

Need for Speed Underground (PlayStation 2)
An excellent version of the game with only some minor choppiness in the visuals at times, but seeing as it maintains the visuals quality of the Xbox and PC versions almost perfectly that's not much to complain about as it looks fantastic on PS2 and actually overall performs better than the Xbox version does at the worst of times and infinitely better than most PCs out there seeing as most PCs aren't strong enough to play this game with the highest graphical quality settings. Honestly unless you have a high end gaming PC this is the best version, with the Xbox version as a close third.

Need for Speed Underground Rivals (PlayStation Portable)
Fantastic and easily my favorite in the series. It has all the parts of the two first games I love and throws out the stuff that didn't quite work, like the disappointing and mostly annoying open-world city from the second game. It looks great, runs silky smooth and has tons of cars and more customization than ever before.

Lego Drome Racers (PlayStation 2)
I've had the Game Boy Advance game for years but never actually played any of the stationary console versions until now. I have to say I like the Game Boy Advance game more than this, it's a better game overall with more interesting visual design and better gameplay. Not saying this version is bad, it's very nice looking and has slightly more content than the portable port, but it has some rather severe problems, especially in the physics department, you see it has rather good physics during gameplay but they're soo good it becomes almost realistic in the way you control the vehicles, and seeing as they're not really designed as cars but as Lego vehicles they also end up controlling like Lego vehicles, there are also powerups that screw you over with more physics like a hover powerup that allows you to go much faster but as with real hovercrafts it's almost impossible to control, even more so in a racing game with weapon pickups and unbalanced opponents that can be just as braindead as they can be surgically perfect. You can win a race or lose a race entirely depending on how randomly good the opponents are and what random pickups you and they pick up during the race. There's also drag racing which I have yet to even grasp how it works, I can't even finish a single race without the engine blowing up, so fuck that mode entirely.

FAST Racing League (Wii)
After having finally acquired some Pro Classic Controllers for Wii I decided to give this seemingly impossibly hard game a try and it turns out with proper controls it's actually quite fun, I like the phase shifting idea but it's underutilized and ultimately becomes a hindrance of the fun you could've had with the game instead of an enhancement making it end up a bit more shallow compared to other similar games like WipEout where the racing is enhanced by excellent weapon pickups. Though even with better controls it still gets too hard too quickly and you need to perfect how you play it through every turn with every ship on every track in every class in order to unlock the entire game piece by piece because it's literally entirely locked away to the point where before I got this new controller I had only ever played the tutorial and the first race because I could never get any further and unlock anything else. I'll never understand why they didn't just allow the use of GameCube controllers for this seeing as the Pro Classic Controller is almost identical to a GameCube controller, at least on a technical level.

CastleVania Rondo of Blood (Wii)
Originally a PC ENgine CD game, this is the Virtual Console version and it's a perfect emulation/port as far as I can tell. I love this game but it's so damn hard I never really get very far. It's a very impressive game for a 16-bit title, very well made, huge and filled with content, branching paths, secrets to unlock, even a new character to play as, if only it wasn't so brutally hard it would've been perfect.

Tomb Raider Anniversary (Wii)
I also have this on PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and I can safely say this is the worst version in all aspects but visuals, the PlayStation Portable version is ever so slightly worse in that department. This version is slightly below the PlayStation 2 version in visual quality. What really makes this by far the worst are the motion controls, they're not just inaccurate and unresponsive but also incredibly badly placed out on the Wiimote and Nunchuk and poorly implemented in the use of motions, shaking the Nunchuck for example shoots out the grapple hook and you have to hold down a button and aim with the Wiimote to look around otherwise you have no camera control, but as you do that other things can't be done until you let go, the problem is this game wasn't meant to have those restrictions so it doesn't fit the gameplay and ends up getting you killed far too often. There are some added motion control puzzles but they're offensively simple and only serve to waste your time.
It's also an incredibly shitty Tomb Raider game seeing as Crystal Dynamics can't make a good Tomb Raider even with the direct help of Lara's creator it seems. These new Tomb Raider games play like the newer Prince of Persia and Uncharted games, only not as good and with fucktons more glitches and problems. Their version of Lara also sucks and is at best an insult to what the character used to be when the series was still in the hand of Core Design, so far the only developer who knows what makes a good Tomb Raider and who Lara Croft is and what she's suppose to be like.

Tomb Raider Underworld (Wii)
I also have this on PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC and again I can safely say this is the worst version by far.
Most of the problems Anniversary has on Wii can be said about this game as well but for some reason this is not the same version as the HD consoles and PC got, instead they made a different game for PS2 and Wii and both consoles got a slightly different version of that game, and as a result they're infinitely worse in every aspect, they look worse, have a LOT more glitches, are significantly scaled down in size in the areas, have much simpler puzzles and overall are just much worse in every way. The PlayStation 2 version's worst problems are the framerate and the glitches, this game has slightly better framerate and slightly higher resolution textures but the bugs and glitches are even worse and the controls are total shit, despite being improved over the horrid controls in the Wii version of Anniversary. I managed to play this game up to the final showdown with the final boss but that entire level is just awful and in this version it's borderline completely unplayable even at the best of times and I just don't want to play it anymore.

Race Drivin' (Saturn)
A really neat version of this arcade classic and I have to say it's become quite a favorite.

Stellar Assault SS (Saturn)
A great upgrade from the 32X game but I can't help but feel closer to the 32X game than this one, it's more nostalgic and my soft spot for flat shaded polygons is too strong to ignore. Still, this is a fantastic game, one of the very best Saturn has to offer.

Super Tempo (Saturn)
Not as good as the 32X game but a good game in it's own right.

Cyber Troopers Virtual On Operation Moongate (Saturn)
Not as good as the Arcade Machine or the excellent PC port but an excellent game nonetheless.

Rush The Rock Alcatraz Edition (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
It's okay I guess, just mid 90's generic arcade racing.

Rolling Thunder (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
Much less glitchy than the version found in the Xbox version of Midway Arcade Treasures 3 but has a lot more slowdown and framerate drops instead, still it beats having tons of glitches so a slightly better version overall.

Tokyo Road Race (PlayStation 2)
Originally an arcade machine part of a long running drift racing series of arcade machines, PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games in Japan, this remains the only game in the series that ever got a release outside of Japan and it's a European exclusive. It's a perfect arcade port down to the fact that you have to use a link cable and hook up two consoles to two TVs to play two player mode. It's brutally hard and requires old school arcade perfection. I've been able to unlock most of the tracks but it's just too hard for me as such a novice to win the later races and unlock the rest. Great game though ,plays silky smooth and handles perfectly, every mistake is my own and my lack of skill is the only reason why I can't win, I admit to nothing less when a game offers such high precision controls.

Bonanza Bros. (Sega Mega Drive Collection, PlayStation 2)
After having fallen in love with the Master System port of this game I wanted to try the Mega Drive version again and yeah, I remembered correctly, it plays poorly, is very stiff and slow and the jumping just sucks. Nope, this is a better game on Master System, plain and simple.

Phantasy Star II (Sega Mega Drive Collection, PlayStation 2)
The original on Master System was better than this, enough said.

Phantasy Star III (Sega Mega Drive Collection, PlayStation 2)
What said about II applies to III.

Phantasy Star IV (Sega Mega Drive Collection, PlayStation 2)
This was slightly better than the previous two but I'm not impressed, these three are not among the better 16-bit RPGs I've played, that's for sure.

NiGHTS Journey of Dreams (Wii)
Not the game I had hoped, I got it and played it years ago and wanted to give it a second chance now that I have the Pro Classic Controllers but it's no better than it was when I played with a GameCube controller, it's still a bad game with constant low framerate despite very average visuals. The story is pretty bad, the voice acting is questionable and the gameplay is all over the place with very varied styles of gameplay but that also means you'll only occasionally get to play in the classic style of the Saturn original, and those levels aren't even that good either so it's all just very disappointing and not a very good time at all.

Altered Beast (Master System)
Like Bonanza Bros. I'm not a fan of the Altered Beast games either, but this version I really like, it controls well and has really nice visuals for a Master System game. It's a bit choppy in how the visuals animate but it's consistent and easy to get used to.

Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II (Master System)
Not a great racing game but for the 8-bit generation it's easily better than everything the Nintendo Entertainment System had to offer.

Battletoads Battlemaniacs (Master System)
Honestly I prefer this version of the Super Nintendo one, it's faster and very impressive and well made for being on the 8-bit Master System, it's leaps and bounds above Battletoads on Nintendo Entertainment System in the visuals and that game was one of the most impressive games on that system. I do prefer the original Battletoads on Entertainment System because of my nostalgia toward the levels, enemies and music and such but the quality of everything found in this game is technically superior, there's no way around that fact, and had I grown up with this game instead I'd probably be more nostalgic for it and have a stronger attachment to it than the Entertainment System classic.

Super Off Road (Master System)
A very good port of a pretty good game, not a favorite of mine but I respect the quality of this port at least, it's very well made and maintains the technical qualities of the 16-bit versions, very impressive.

Kawasaki Superbike Challenge (Game Gear)
Another example of a racing game that isn't that great but still manages to wipe the floor with anything the main competitor the Nintendo Entertainment System had to opper back then.

Vampire Master of Darkness (Game Gear)
A very good CastleVania clone, also available on the Master System where it's called simply Master of Darkness. Honestly this beats all the 8-bit CastleVania games and it's only the 16-bit CastleVania's that are any better, that's how good this game truly is.

Tempo Jr. (Game Gear)
A great Tempo game and tons of fun, maybe not quite as good as the 32X original but for an 8-bit portable it's fantastic and very colorful.

Sonic Triple Trouble (Game Gear)
A great 8-bit Sonic game and possibly the one that maintains the 16-bit quality the best of all the 8-bit Sonic games I've played so far.

OutRun Europa (Game Gear)
Because OutRun is an arcade racer rather than a simulation racer it's aged better than Monaco GP and Kawasaki Superbike, and its' honestly a good game still.

Primal Rage (Game Gear)
Technically impressive but not a very good fighting game, definitely not the best version of Primal Rage but for a portable 8-bit version it's not really that bad either, it sadly lacks a lot of content, that's really the worst part, the lacking characters and stages make it a very short and shallow experience.

Battletoads (Game Gear)
An okay version of the classic, some parts are better others are worse, I'd say it's overall as comparable to the original as the Game Boy version is.

Aladdin (Master System)
A superb game that really shows off some impressive technical effects, we have 3D scrolling, parallax layer scrolling, great use of color, highly detailed sprites with good animation, tons of story and cutscenes, great music and sound effects, good controls, great and perfectly varied gameplay, forgiving difficulty with unlimited continues, no timer and even a password system. This game doesn't just take on the beloved 16-bit classics, it beats them. No small feat and I am at awe when I play it, I constantly have to keep reminding myself it's an 8-bit game I'm playing.

Galaxy Force (Master System)
Somehow better than the Mega Drive port of the sequel, Galaxy Force II. It runs better, had better visuals with more detailed sprites and better scaling and it's more responsive and better designed making it more enjoyable and fun to play.

Gain Ground (Master System)
A good version of the game but it fades in comparison to the 16-bit versions on Mega Drive and PC Engine CD, still a valiant effort and just as much fun to be had.

Syphon Filter Omega Strain (PlayStation 2)
A game sadly held back immensely by the fact it was heavily designed for online play. What is there for offline play is still good and reminds me a lot of the original games on PlayStation.

Syphon Filter Dark Mirror (PlayStation 2)
A great game for PlayStation Portable but sadly only an okay port on the PlayStation 2, with a few too many glitches and downgrades, along with some half-assed upgrades, it's still a good game on PlayStation 2 and it's nice to play this game in high resolution on a big TV screen and with proper dual analog controls but ultimately I can only really recommend the PlayStation Portable original version.

Gaming Purchases - September 2016

September 6th:

A trip to the local GameStop the day after my birthday resulted in some nice finds.

Xbox 360:
Fuse
I've had this on PS3 for ages but haven't even taken off the plastic wrapping of it's case yet. I'll probably end up playing this version first now as the PS3 game is tucked away somewhere in a box full of other PS3 games I got but never played as PS3 just isn't a very good console despite having all the potential in the world to outclass and outperform Xbox 360 in every conceivable way, if only Sony didn't work so hard to ruin it it could've been the only console you needed, instead they gave away the entire market to Microsoft and kept doing so until Microsoft screwed up so badly with their brand that PS4 was the only thing left to buy unless you want to go back a generation or two and pay for overpriced Nintendo garbage, and I think the sales for Wii and Wii U in later years have shown just how willing the market is to do just that.
Shadows of the Damned
I've been meaning to pick this up for a long time but it just never happened until now. Better late than never.
The Bureau XCOM Declassified
I'm not a fan of the XCOM series, I've played an older MS-DOS game in the series called UFO and it was alright if a bit boring and visually uninteresting and every newer game in the series I've tried has just been the same thing with better visuals and presentation, still too boring though. This seems to be a spinoff that set out to fix most if not all the issues I have with the series so if done right I may like it as I'm a fan of the setting in the games just not the execution.
Transformers Dark of the Moon
I recently got hold of the Wii version of this game, it didn't have robots, just vehicles, it was motion control only and the visuals were really weak, so this will probably be a lot better having robots, nice visuals and proper controls.
The Wii version came with a toy car though, this version does not, still I think this version has the Wii version beat in every other way and because I already have the Wii version and the toy car that came with it I really have nothing to complain about! Except of course how shitty these new Transformers movies are and how the series is dead to me because of them and all that, but hey, at least the games based on these new shitty movies are endlessly better than that Devastation garbage Platinum games regurgitated onto the market not long ago, fucking worthless PS2 budget bargain bin level crap.

PlayStation 3:
Binary Domain
I've played the demo on Xbox 360 and thought it was okay, I don't know how i'll be able to use the voice features in this game on a PS3 as I don't have a PS3 compatible headset with mic but I guess I can always buy the XBox 360 version to try that out some other day. For now the PS3 version was so much cheaper than the Xbox 360 version it even made up for all the shortcomings PS3 games have by default. Make no mistake though I'm buying this for Xbox 360 as soon as I find a cheap enough copy out there.
BioShock Infinite
I've heard a lot about this game so I was very reluctant at buying it, but because I got it for free this time I felt it was acceptable to at least give it a try. It froze after only a few minutes of gameplay and the overly convoluted story at the start of the game made it an extremely bad first impression, but I rebooted, installed an update for the game and replayed to the point I was and kept going, it hasn't frozen again yet and the story has become a bit more focused and less all over the place, it's still glitchy as fuck with enemies losing track of you when you're right infront of them and Elizabeth getting stuck because her AI is retarded and broken but at least it's playable and I like the variety of things you can do even if I would've strongly preferred being able to carry more than two weapons at a time. Seriously, this is a massively retarded limitation and needs to fucking stop being allowed to exist in videogames.
Brink Special Edition
I got this as cheap as is physically possible without getting it for free, so even if it sucks that's kind of okay. Actually I've looked it up and know it pretty much sucks as there aren't even female characters to play as in a game that prides itself on having customization options for the playable character.
[sarcasm]Yeah, really impressive having a whole one single character type to pick from, excuse me while I sit down as the sheer amount of options is making me lightheaded.[/sarcasm]
Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes
I've played this on Xbox 360 and though it was so so, only one small area but at least you get a lot to do in that small area so it's okay, I guess, for the right price. The PS3 version was the cheaper of the two, otherwise I would've gotten the Xbox 360 version where I have my save file, obviously. I'll pick up the Xbox 360 version as soon as I can get it as cheap as I got this one.
Midway Arcade Origins
I don't know much about this. It was cheap and contains a small collection of really old arcade games.
Not exactly making use of the Blu-ray format as I imagine the disc space used for these old games can't possibly even reach double digit megabytes let alone the double digit gigabytes the disc they're on has to offer.
Saint Seiya Soldiers' Soul
I was really looking forward to this game but turns out I can't play it unless I take my PS3 online and downgrade to a newer official firmware, I'd rather just take a screwdriver and force it straight through the console than do a thing like that as the last time I did I permanently lost PS2 emulation, my Linux installed OtherOS and all my respect and trust to Sony as a company.
SuperCar Challenge
This is the first game on PS3 that when I've tried to play custom music in it it actually allowed me to do so, making this the first game on PS3 that actually takes that fundamental step in the right direction of being almost as good as all Xbox 360 games are by default as even the very worst games on Xbox 360 still all allowed me to play custom music without any objections, unlike all PS3 games I've tried doing so with until this one broke that trend, now if only there was a way to make PS3 not limit all games to PAL50 on an SDTV and to allow me to install games to the harddrive, then I wouldn't even need an Xbox 360 except for all the awesome exclusives PS3 never got and all the countless multiplats that run like ass on PS3 but run silky smooth and with a lot better anti-aliasing on Xbox 360.


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September 13th:

Today's second hand finds include but are not limited to..

PlayStation 2/PlayStation 3:
Buzz! USB Buzzers

Wii:
GoldenEye 007
CD:
Dr. Bombay - Rice & Curry

DVD:
Dennis The Menace Volume 4
Happy Tree Friends Volume 1 First Blood
Ice Age 4 Continental Drift

Figures:
2x Princess Peach (from Super Mario) with.. wait for it.. an umbrella! ACTION FEATURE IN YO FACE SUCKA BOOM SHAKALAKA RAMA LLAMA DING DONG BLAM!!!!
Yoshi (from Super Mario) with egg laying action feature (it's weirder than it sounds as after the eggs have been hatched from this big cum colored lump Yoshi's sitting on you twist a wheel and THEY GO BACK IN!)

Other:
Vinyl Records
POGs
a giant oversized novelty pencil
more figures (examples: Smurfette, Minions, Snoopy characters and Bloom from WinX Club)
other random stuff (examples: an old McDonald's Angelica Pickles in racing kart toy from 1998 and My Little Pony face masks of Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Rainbow Dash)


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September 27th:

Today's second hand finds include but are not limited to..

DVD:
The 3 Wise Men
WinX Club 3 Vol. 3
WinX Club 3 Vol. 5

Gaming Purchases - Juni 2016

Juni 7th:

My first purchase at a brand new local gaming store downtown with focus on retro gaming. An appetizer before they get more interesting stuff in stock.

PlayStation 2:
Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli (new, sealed)


Juni 13th:

Ordered a 4TB external USB 3.0 drive for my PC, it should arrive in a couple of days. (Update: a couple of days later it arrived and it works with no problems.)


Juni 13th:

Today's second hand finds.

Gaming related:
a handheld portable Sudoku LCD game

DVD:
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic - A Pony Party

Comics:
multiple Agent X9
multiple Magnum

Household stuff:
different nozzles and stuff for my sink and shower etc, nozzles you can aim and an LED shower thing that changes color while you shower, also some electrical outlet plugs to keep out dust when left unused.


Juni 23rd:

Due to recent health issues gaming has been a bit on the low activity side but today I went to the retro store again and even though they still don't have any Sega stuff in stock I picked up a couple of other things.

Wii:
Transformers Dark of the Moon Stealth Force Edition (new, sealed)
It's the collector's edition with the little Bumblebee transformer toy in the box.

DVD:
Alien Tripleup Collection (new, sealed)
It contains three sci-fi b-movies; Aliens Vs. Avatars, American Battleship and Alien Origin

Now Playing - February 2016

Some recent purchases dominate the playlist at the moment.

Offroad Extreme (Wii)
A game released on PlayStation 2 in Europe by infamous publisherPhoenix Games, the Wii port offers as far as I know the same game only with forced motion controls.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster of epic proportions, right? Yes, yes it most certainly does, but alas it's a moderately entertaining racer and the motion controls are honestly pretty good, they're responsive and do what they need without complications.
I usually hate motion controls but in select few games I can tolerate them depending on how detrimental they are to the game. In this game I felt they were minimally detrimental, so kudos for that.
It's hard to tell if this was better on PS2 using normal controls without having played it myself, but I had little to no problems winning races and staying on track even when maneuvering through tricky thin mountainside roads where you could easily fall off the side down bottomless pits having to reset to the track costing precious seconds.
Hell, there are plenty of games I have problems staying on the road in even with normal controls let alone in other motion controlled atrocities, yet somehow this super low budget port of a PS2 Phoenix Games release manages to pull it off rather nicely. Colour me vaguely impressed, I guess.
It falls short in other apartments, of course, the visuals for example are rather unimpressive even by early Dreamcast and PS2 standards. They might've been passable as good on the generation before that but it's a budget game so I won't tear it a new one for such shallow reasons.
It has some minor bugs as well, like glitching through or getting stuck in the scenery, nothing major as you'll reset back on track and get back in the race fairly quickly, but it can become annoying if it happens frequently, say during moment when the AI gangs up on you.
There is one thing the game does that baffles me though, in the Time Trial mode it doesn't save your lap times or ghosts, so everytime you go back to beat your old times they've all been reset to 0 and the ghost is nowhere to be found.
On PS2 this would've been bad enough seeing as memory cards were pretty much an industry standard at that point, but on Wii they added the internal memory, and the game saves other progress like money earned and what you've unlocked, so clearly they knew how to program an autosave feature! I started writing down my lap times on sticky notes I put on the inside of the game box, old school style, because of this.
It's not something I would say ruins the entire game, it's a minor inconvenience I doubt most people will care that much about anyway, but it could've easily been fixed and personally I care a lot more about that in racing games than any championship or career mode, so it's a shame.
The game's been panned and scored pretty low by online reviewers (IGN gave it a 1/10) and youtubers alike, but I feel it deserves better than that, it simply isn't that bad, I'd give it a genuine "good" rating, say 3-3.5/5. I'm having fun playing it, I like the tracks and the gameplay is good enough to keep me entertained.
You have a damage bar and repair pickups so offensive and defensive gameplay styles matter, there are nitro pickups as well as speed strips for extra speed and it's even playable in 2 player split screen, which is more than can be said about most racing games these days having singleplayer and online modes only.
So in conclusion I've been positively surprised by this game, it had everything going against it being a good game but somehow I'm having fun with it. I even paid a pretty hefty price for it, 11 dollars and 59 cents apparently (roughly converted to US dollars using xe.com).
A youtube video mentioned they had purchased it for just a couple of dollars brand new, so I really overpaid for a second hand copy when compared to that. I wouldn't say I overpaid though, I was fully willing to pay the asking price and I feel got my money's worth, it made me dust off my Wii after several months of neglect after all.

Ridge Racer Unbounded (PlayStation 3)
I'm disappointed in more ways that I can express in words. It's a game from a series I expected more from and it's by a developer I expected more from.
It's got an unstable framerate, there's only one car and one track to use and the unlocking is brutal and made specifically to be drawn out, slow, grinding, tedious and arbitrarily difficult, there are tons of load times and they all feel longer than general for the same kind of things in other games, the controls are pretty bad and have little to no options for change, the AI is cheating, overly perfect and brutal, there's no multiplayer at all (it has singleplayer and an online mode but from what I've read it never took off and had severe issues that didn't get patched for ages, I don't do online so I can't report on the current state of it) and the custom mode where you get to put together your own track still doesn't have anything more to use than what is unlocked in singleplayer, so again only one car and parts of one track are available.
It's a shame all these issues break the game so completely as it also has some stuff other games in the series lack, like track destruction somewhat similar to Split/Second and MotorStorm Apocalypse.
It also has nice visuals overall, it's just too bad the framerate isn't able to show them properly.

Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots (PlayStation 3)
I'm not a fan of the series in general but some of them have been alright; the original on PSX, Portable Ops and Peace Walker on PSP and Ground Zeroes on 360 all had their moments.
I didn't really like 2 and 3 at all and I haven't had the opportunity to give Phantom Pain a go yet, from what I've seen from Let's Plays however it doesn't look like I'd enjoy it, so I'm not in any rush to play it.
I'm rather indifferent toward the GameCube remake of the original, Twin Snakes or whatever it was called, I haven't had much exposure to it in later years so my memories of it have faded.
4 holds up well though, for such an early PS3 game the only technical complaint I have are the many low res textures.

Race PRO (Xbox 360)
Won some more races in the career mode.

LEGO Drome Racers (Game Boy Advance)

Truck Racer (PlayStation 2)
A budget game published by Nordic Games where you drive different types of trucks, like a semi, a pickup, a monster truck, a fire engine, a hummer and even a van, so it's at least varied in the types of vehicles you get to drive, almost a little like MotorStorm or something.
I like it, the framerate isn't super solid but it hasn't dipped too low, it seems to at least be able to stay above the 25fps mark, which is perfectly playable.
I like the handling of the cars, you can do some nice powerslides and the turbo is very similar the one you have in MotorStorm where you use it as you please and it fills back up, though in this game you don't explode after using it all up, it just refills again like normal.
Visually it's not too bad, you have real time damage on the cars and they all have enough detail to at least look like what they're suppose to be even if some textures are low res and stuff like trees and other background object are copied and pasted a lot.
I like the way you unlock new trucks and tracks, you actually get to manually pick what you want to unlock, then you get a challenge for it, for trucks you have to use the truck you want unlocked against a similar truck and win in a one on one race to unlock it, as for new tracks you need to beat a set time trial, you get infinite laps to do it but unless you've unlocked a suitable truck first it can be very hard to get around the track fast enough. I'm not a fan of stuff being locked away in racing games to begin with and even less so when there are no cheat codes to unlock everything with either, but I can be merciful in my judgement if the game at least makes up for it somehow, and I feel this game made unlocking stuff enough of my choice as a player that it's not a big deal. If I want a specific track or truck I can race for it without having to go through some arbitrary championship or something similar like so many other racing games force the player to do, here it's just go for it and get your reward for the work you put it, it's more direct, less diluted, and I welcome that. Games like Gran Turismo, Forza, MotorStorm, Ridge Racer and the like could learn a lot from games like this. Not bad for a little budget title, not bad at all.

Super Mario Bros. (Entertainment System)

Super Mario Bros. 2 (Entertainment System)

Super Mario Bros. 3 (Entertainment System)
Been playing a lot of new games lately so decided to replay the classic Super Mario Bros. trilogy on Entertainment System.

F1 World Championship (Mega Drive)
I love old games with 3D graphics so I've been playing a lot of different games on [mostly] Mega Drive that had flat-shaded polygon or other types of early 3D graphics.

Newman Haas IndyCar Featuring Nigel Mansell (Mega Drive)

Kawasaki Superbike Challenge (Mega Drive)

Sega Sports Formula One World Championship Beyond The Limit (Mega CD)

Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker (Mega Drive)

Thunder Blade (PC Engine)

Super Thunder Blade (Mega Drive)

Steel Talons (Mega Drive)

Gunship (PlayStation)
Also been playing a lot of old helicopter games.

Sega Arcade Gallery (Game Boy Advance)
I'm only playing Space Harrier in this, I was never a big fan of Hang On, OutRun or Afterburner.

Gaming Purchases - January 2016

January 17th:

Ordered some games online again.

Saturn:
Ghen War

DS:
Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars

PlayStation 2:
Battle Engine Aquila (promo)
Operation WinBack
Red Faction
Smuggler's Run 2 Hostile Territory (promo)

GameCube:
Pro Rally 2002

Xbox 360:
Burnout Revenge (new, sealed)
Burnout Paradise (new, sealed)
The Legend of Spyro Dawn of the Dragon (new, sealed)


Janurary 31th:

Bought some games and stuff at the local GameStop.

Wii:
Offroad Extreme!

PlayStation 3:
Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots
Ridge Racer Unbounded Limited Edition

Skylanders:
Chill (Swap Force)
Cynder (Giants, Series 2)
Drill Seargeant
Drobot
Hex
Hex (Giants, Series 2)
Stealth Elf

Other:
Pac-Man keychain with authentic Pac-Man sounds!

Also some other stuff not bought at GameStop.

DVD:
An American Tail Fievel Goes West
Family Guy It's A Trap!
Hello Kitty Classic Tales
My Little Pony Tales Vol. 2 Masquerade!

Other:
Crazy-Stuff.biz Fox girl head bike bell
Crazy-Stuff.biz White Rabbit girl head bike bell

Gaming purchases for November 2015

Due to a death in the family my gaming (along with pretty much everything else) has been on hold recently, but I did get to order some stuff online and shop for some stuff locally and ended up going on a minor shopping spree as far as videogames go, also some other non-gaming items but I'll just cover the gaming stuff here.

In total so far during the first half of November I've bought over 30 games and some additional gaming related stuff, most for Xbox 360 and PS3 but also some for Wii and even a couple for PC and one for PS2, well kinda, the one for PS2 was an old demo disc I didn't have with some games from 2001 to 2003. It was interesting to see demo versions of some of those games that I've had the full version of for so many years.

Here's what I got so far, November's not over yet so I may update this again if I end up with anything else before the month is over.

PS2:

*a demo disc

Wii:

Cursed Mountain

Dead Space Extraction

Disney Princess Enchanted Journey

Monster High 13 Wishes

Monster High Skultimate Roller Maze

Xbox 360:

Armored Core V Verdict Day

Killer is Dead Limited Edition

Section 8

Syndicate

The Darkness

The Darkness 2 Limited Edition

Winter Sports 2011 Go for Gold

PS3:

Battlefield 3

Deception IV Blood Ties

FIFA 08

Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Classics HD

inFamous

Killer is Dead Limited Edition

Mindjack

MotorStorm Pacific Rift

MotorStorm Apocalypse

**PlayStation Move Starter Disc

Sly Cooper Thieves in Time

Split/Second Velocity

The House of the Dead Overkill Extended Cut

The Shoot

The Sly Trilogy

PC:

Need for Speed Porsche 2000

Riverworld

Other:

Disney Infinity 3.0 Inside Out Disgust figure

Skylanders Drobot figure

Skylanders Stealth Elf figure

*Among much else the PS2 demo disc contained demos of for example Ratchet & Clank, a This if Football game, a WRC game and Stuntman and also video trailers of for example Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness and an Ape Escape game.

**The PS Move Starter Disc is a demo disc of PS Move games that usually follows the purchase of the PS Move Starter Pack.


UPDATE from 19th November

I went ahead and ordered some more games online.

PSX:
*B-Movie
Star Ixiom

PS2:
Dragon Rage
Gift
Headhunter
Wreckless - The Yakuza Missions

PSP:
Invizimals Shadow Zone (incl. Go!Cam)

GBA:
Madagascar
Star X
Tomb Raider - The Prophecy
**V-Rally 3 & Stuntman

GameCube:
XGIII Extreme G Racing (Extreme-G 3)
Shadow The Hedgehog
Sonic Adventure 2 - Battle (Player's Choice)
Wreckless - The Yakuza Missions

Xbox:
Rally Fusion - Race of Champions
Shadow The Hedgehog


*known as Invasion from Beyond in USA

**V-Rally 3 & Stuntman was a double pack with both games on one cartridge


I'm planning on making one more online order soon, maybe before November ends, otherwise it'll be part of the December purchases.