DefaultGen

I'm a fan of keeping the badges limited to things I would at least say "Oh, cool." about. The community participation ones are great too course. Just as examples: Not "Oh, Cool." worthy badges: Facebook/Twitter (Lame!) Club Nintendo Platinum member 100 accessories (Unfocused "achievement", virtually meaningless?). SOCOM series award (A set of zero collectible or interesting items. Sorry for this harsh truth VGS SOCOM collectors) "Oh, Cool" worthy badges: Rare/unique thing, test cart, kiosk, etc. Console/series/publisher sets Can beat Ninja Gaiden without dying World Record holder in Marble Madness Makes box art for homebrew games Jive Turkey My 2 cents anyway. Or we can tier badges like Playstation trophies. Club Nintendo Platinum is a bronze trophy. World Record in Marble Madness is a platinum trophy!

I'm officially a crusty old man, because I see a Half-Life side story with a bunch of gimmicky motion controls. I mean, I'll play it, but I'm not flipping my lid. Valve made this to cash in on a VR platform, it's not the "passion project" Half-Life 3 we'll never see because all the Half-Life guys are already gone.

Developed, published, licensed? Would Link Faces of Evil or Mario Teaches Typing 2 count? I'd be interested in whatever list too, but I think there's wiggle room in what a "Nintendo game" is. You gonna get them all?

Oh boy this wailing "Ahhh Ahhh" is going to be great for parents. But the song is no Let it Go or the How Far I'll Go. You gotta have a "Go" in there.

For anyone who's been watching stupid bootleg clips, the real clip is on Pawn Stars Facebook now https://www.facebook.com/PawnStars/?__tn__=kCH-R&eid=ARDOiCNqddcpz4rfpIi11Yf8pUmUbskCGMpHqJVCIbfrddM3jDUfb-lVorKljBz9LzLQAz-eZS83pqj7&hc_ref=ARRobJrH1t5DUBN2mATroG9ui66fUPX4UcEocSMC2EJRH65ln-OP3jeCEur6HuaDtmQ&fref=nf

I might be slightly opinionated on this topic as noted in the title. As far as I know, Wata sends you an email if you send a game with incorrect components. @Archon 1981 got an email that his DKCC had the wrong back, and was given a chance to correct it before grading (this was before things got crazy, but I hope it's still the same now). So now if you say "No, just go ahead and grade that wrong pile of stuff" you get slapped with the big fat IMP you deserve, you dingus.

Do we know if there's going to be a new infectious song all the kids will be singing?

My experience as someone stuck in the convention desert of North Carolina: Small, local retro gaming cons can be really weak. A corner of like 5 mediocre arcade games, vendors made up of a bunch of Craigslist flippers and local stores you can go to anyway, local college kids showing off bad indie games (no offense local college kids, do your thing). A lot of the bigger stuff I know about near the Southeast (MAGFest, Southern Fried, Freeplay Florida, Dragon Con) is a little more arcade/pinball/music/general fandom focused than vintage games. Especially in terms of vendors, nothing matches the big vintage game expos. I'd say find something local and check it out, but if you're going to fly/travel just go wherever the most interesting looking convention is and don't restrict yourself too locally. I'm jealous of people who live near stuff like MGC and PRGE.

I was wrong to doubt you. Can I add this to the list of Wata typos.

Agreed. I don't give a crap about that. Slopestyle on the other hand, now there's a gem!

I like the increased activity and better forum. I still miss the stupid little things like transactions, badges, the style/layout I'm used to. NA was dying though, it's nice to have this place being actively worked on. The dead bookmarks and links are killing me. I didn't realize how many site:nintendoage.com searches I made to bring up an old thread I know has good info in it. It was A LOT.

Great article. Good to see there's a clear trend and it isn't random. RIP to that VGA 85 that crossed over to a Wata 7.0 / A. Ouch. Your first chart has a typo of = where 9.0 should be I think FYI.

I’m finding Final Fight pretty tough and SoR2 I think is one of the easiest beat ‘em ups (if only because forward forward punch is SO broken). If FF2 and 3 are that much easier maybe my noob ass should try those.

1985-1995 for me. I'd say it starts at Super Mario Bros. and ends at the launch of the Playstation when games moved firmly to 3D (essentially the lifespan of the US NES) Over the lifespan of the NES we got not only the biggest recognizable characters in video games, but the prototypes entire genres have since been based on: Super Mario Bros The Legend of Zelda Metroid Tetris Dragon Quest Sweet Home John Madden Football Doom Double Dragon Civilization SimCity Street Fighter II Fire Emblem Herzog Zwei / Dune II (although truly Starcraft is probably still the most important game in the genre) King's Quest, Pole Position, and Xevious miss my Super Mario Bros. cut off date, but I'll take a dozen of the most important early games in their genre if I miss a handful. I'm not saying the games above are the absolute genesis of their genres, but they are the usually games that cemented the norms for the genre going forward. Just like Superman wasn't the first superhero, but Action Comics 1 is what really kicked off the genre. I'd put Odyssey, Atari, early computer, and golden age arcades into more of a "Platinum Age" if comparing it to comics. While there was lots of important stuff, I think it's the primordial ooze that set the stage for the golden age. Then I'd broadly say we had the age of 2D genres ('85-'95), the age of 3d genres ('95-'06), then the current age where games have largely shifted to story-based and online experiences ('06-now)

I think that way about rhythm games. Beatmania is literally just a bunch of falling bars and you press the button when it gets to the bottom. It does not get much simpler than that, and it can infinitely scale in difficulty. It's perfect.

I only started understanding the sports market when I realized that most of the big, big money cards are players who left a serious impact on the game or still hold records (possibly ridiculous records that virtually can't be broken now since the game has changed). I didn't realize that Ty Cobb and Mickey Mantle weren't just "some great players from the olden days", but if you look at modern day record books they've both been holding multiple records for decades, and are on top lists of many stats. So if you're a 10 year old baseball stats nerd you're still coming across their names. So I totally understand their legendary status, even if you've never seen a single game from them. Whether a small piece of cardboard with their picture printed on it is the end all be all way to own a piece of that legendary history of the game I'm not sure I agree with, but different strokes

It's too late to change to the narrative I think, especially considering lots of new people specifically crossing over from comics. At least one reason, maybe not the main reason, is that comics have a longer history of collectible value and collectors who didn't grow up with them. I'm not going to pretend to know toy markets, but when I think of tin robots and cowboy toys, I think of nostalgic old men. I haven't met many 22 year olds who collect 1950s tin toys, or GI Joes, or Lionel trains. I definitely see lots of millennials and gen X collecting old comics on social media. The people who collect things like TMNT and Transformers usually grew up with them. Golden/silver age comics are desired by people who certainly weren't alive when they were printed though, whether it's because the franchise is still around, interest in the history of the medium, or just cool art. And I realize there are parallels with toys too, not everyone collecting Kenner Star Wars figures was alive for them. Does that speak to the longevity of toy collecting, or the longevity of Star Wars though? I don't think this is the best reason to use comics as the analog, but if you want to push games as this evergreen collectible for investors, comics is a better narrative to push, especially if you're pushing that narrative to comic speculators. It also doesn't hurt that I can think of multiple comics that sold for $1,000,000+ and I don't collect comics. I don't know any toys that sell for that, maybe something really antique or boutique and obscure? Remember, I want to feel like I'm gonna be rich!!

Have you guys been really "into" shooters since you were kids in arcades or did something bring you into the genre? Besides single screen and multidirectional shooters, which are kind of different genres, I only really got interested in shooting games when my friend got Ikaruga for Gamecube and we would play it laughing at how hard it was. Then I got more seriously interested when I started collecting games when the Wii came out and learned Ikarua's predecessor was so highly prized by collectors, which led me down the rabbit hole.

Buy Black Box Challenge while it's available. It's a very long and good homebrew RPG. You'll regret missing it if it goes out of print IMO (I know someone here was looking for a copy in their signature for a long time ) https://www.infiniteneslives.com/blackboxchallenge.php Good luck with the search, but with the exception of consistently longtime available homebrews like Battle Kid and the occasional game that slips through the cracks on Ebay, they rarely sell for too much less than the original price. There's low demand, but low supply too.

Not thrilled with a bunch of out of touch old government people trying to subjectively decide what's "for kids". Deciding that something like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is for kids is like saying that candy flavored vapes are for kids. I don't think I watch many channels that would be adversely affected but it's not like I'm going to trust the US government or Youtube, fuck 'em.

FWIW I'm sure Deniz has more copies of Super Mario Bros than 99% of people here

Piecing together games sucks, both in terms of availability of components and effort. I've bought so many Xbox and Genesis games that were "good deals" incomplete (like 30% of CIB price) but nearly always ended up just having to upgrade to a CIB copy later on because I couldn't find a loose manual. Even if you find orphan boxes and manuals you have to figure out the little inserts if you really want everything 100%, and it's so much easier to just spend a few extra bucks on a 100% CIB game from the get go. For Nintendo (cardboard) games though I often buy a loose and CIB copy because I don't want to be handling my boxes every time I want to play the game. This isn't super intentional, it's more that I already have loads of loose Nintendo games, then when I upgrade to CIB I never sell my original copy.

I don't have cable but can't wait to find a bootleg clip of this It's funny that Rick's buddy to call is Deniz from Wata yet he "doesn't know enough" about Mario. I know it's just infotainment, but I wonder how many similar ridiculous scripted encounters there are on Pawn Stars in hobbies I'm not familiar with now.

Ikaruga, RSG, Gate of Thunder, Battle Garegga. Lots of other stuff in this thread.

You have a sealed OOT? WYD later, hmu.