RH

That one's a classic.

At this point, I'm just not into newer consoles but from time to time, I get the itch to consider doing a modern upgrade. That said, I'm just not super-impressed with what I've seen from this era of games compared to the PS4 era. There's a chance I'll get a PS6 once it's been out for a few years (which means, this will likely be around 2030) but I do intended to try and get the 3x Final Fantasy VII games, assuming they are all out and accessible then. Certainly, after they release the 3rd game and let it make it's profits, they will release a 3-in-1 package deal for the PS6. Even if I don't buy too many more games for it, it will likely be enough to motivate me to get a used model and (hopefully) used copies of the trilogy.

Obviously Remake spanned the time in Midgar. What is the full span of the story for this portion? Through Gold Saucer, or do you actually make it all the way to the space launch?

Below are most of the CRTs I’ve found and stashed. So far I’ve not paid any cash and I’ve found all of these on the side of the road. These have been harder and harder to find around here but occasionally you can get lucky, which we will see. First, this is my late model 24” Trinitron. This is my go-to unit for PS2/Xbox and later gaming. This next unit was my go-to unit for everything else. I prefer bubble CRTs over flat ones and I was really, really happy to pick this up. I actually saw the guy walking it too the road so I pulled in and talked to him. He was a shop teacher at the area High School and he had this unit in his personal shop. When I picked it up, it had some type of brown tar like substance and it smelled weird. You’d think it was cigarette smoke/oil but it wasn’t I honestly didn’t think it was salvageable but I took it apart, gave it some good cleaning TLC and it had been an excellent Trinitron for NES/SNES gaming for years. But as you can see, it’s been relegated to a work bench. I love that CRT too much to get rid of it, but I had to move it somewhere because a month ago… I found a replacement. One I have been looking for locally for yeeeeears. I don’t know what it is about this brand but JVCs seem to not exist in my county. I’ve seen several Sony Trinitrons but JVCs have 100% eluded me. About a month ago, some neighbors of ours were cleaning out there home. Specifically, the matriarch had passed away about a year, and the older daughter came to move into the house a little bit before then to take care of her Mom and Dad. I know the father has dementia and they had a big house cleaning to make room for their needs. Anyway, most of their stuff they donated but the “trash” they set out by the road. On top of bags of old make up and expired dry food goods was a CRT. My son enjoys looking at any CRT we come across and since I have long-promised to not bring in and keep another one of these things, I was expecting my son to see it and read off something like “It’s a Magnavox”. Well, he called out “it just says JVC.” I had a minor flip-out. Half excited, half shocked I just said “Don’t lie!”, to which he responded, “No really. Is that good?” Well, I flew over there, lifted it up and sure enough, 100 yards from my own house was a late model, 18” JVC! Bingo! I was a little worried because as you can see, this is a TV/VCR combo unit. It’s been my experience that combo units usually have broken VCRs and lesser-quality tubes. I got this home, I did my typical inside and out cleaning, I hooked it up to a DVD player and boom, worked like a charm! Next I tested it with a VHS tape, which I don’t have photos of, but to my surprise, not only does the VHS player work perfectly, the tape I had worked so well that I could have sworn it was DVD quality, which is something I’ve never seen! It’s only “flaw” is that it’s a flat screen. So, now I have 2x flat screens and my gaming area is missing a bubble. That’s a real bummer but this thing is so beautiful and better looking than Trinitron tech, I can accept this as it is. And the old Trinitron on my work bench, well, it replaced an old run-of-the-mill, 12” Panasonic. It was perfect for testing. I couldn’t get rid of it so it’s going to find a corner to be tucked into under the steps in a closet of mine.

Really nice! I thought a thread like this existed on here but I couldn’t find it about a month ago when I got my latest road pick-up. I’ll hold off talking about it, but I’ll make a follow-up post showing my CRTs and show the latest find.

I like really clean games. I definitely will remove price tags and stuff but I am getting to the point where that if I find a game with a rental label, I’d rather put it in the FS/FT pile rather than clean it off and put it on my shelf. I may want sticker free games, but I appreciate the history and would rather pass it off to you guys who like those things.

I’m going to give noobs a big allowance for obvious questions if they seem to get involved in the hobby. A large part of many hobbies is getting involved in a community. It feels different on the web, but imagine you had a young kids who wanted to get into old cars and restoration so you took him to a car show. If he spent half his time, walking from car to car, talking to the owners, but asking “obvious” questions about makes, models, engines, etc. and other simply questions, sure, he could just Google search some questions but by engaging the community, he’s networking, making new friends and might meet someone who live close by and could help him get started. When young people pop in and ask the obvious questions, sometimes it’s not to get us to “do their homework” but instead, it’s their way of walking in and being like “hey, I’m interested in this stuff but I’m young and don’t know where to start.” I am like this and my son is 10x more than I am since he’s a mega-extrovert. I would much rather ask someone in an establish community obvious questions because sometimes you bump into experience that also understands nuance where those early guides you find online miss details every one else wishes they knew when they started a new hobby or skill. Getting a knowledgeable community is far superior than good Google-fu but, unfortunately, that often starts with a string of “dumb” questions. I mean, take even that “why no? Gold Zelda rare?” joke. If it’s a really young kid, that could explain the bad grammar. Annoying but let’s give it a pass to start. However, you can give a canned answer of “because all original cartridges were gold, and a lot of people bought it, so it’s common but it does look cool. The grey carts came out much later. They aren’t rare but are less common.” That’s the standard answer, and is fine. But if someone wanted to throw the kid a bone and see if they are interested in more, they could continue the conversation talking about the nuance to label seals, box types, maybe region variants and after sprinkling a few additional facts, see if the kid asks more questions. If someone is inquisitive, there’s a small chance you’re talking to a 10 year old that in 20 years could be as passionate about this stuff as you are today, but if you treat him like an idiot he’s not going to stick around long enough to probably ever get there.

Another problem I recently saw was an item was marked as “Out for Delivey” and it was like that for 3 days, supposedly at my local PO. Another time it was marked as delivered and didn’t show up for an another 2 days. I have no clue why this happens.

Alleyway, it’s a super common, basic game but it will take effort to beat this one. It’s fun for the first few hours but then it can get monotonous. My vote is to get a few games like that out of the way, for your long term success and sanity.

I voted Alleway in your GB post and here I’m going with STTNG. It’s be easy to pick the good games but I’d like to see either the simpler, or less often played and discussed games. At least for a little bit. Also good job. Have you already finished several of these games weeks ago and you’re trickling in your thoughts, or are you finishing them and then posting 1-2 days later?

I think someone has already guessed this game?

Hmmm… I’ve referenced MECC games a couple times this week so they are on my mind. Any chance it’s one of those. That white/blue/green look is very Apple IIe.

Well, that's not obvious to me, lol. On an unrelated note... how old are you?

How complete are these items? Cartridge/Manual/Boxes or do they also include the flyers? Also, you think you'd be interested in a trade? I think I could be interested in Dynowarz, Life Force and Crystalis but it'd have to be a trade, or mostly a trade.

Hmm, I'm not sure how the refurbishment process worked but maybe if you sent in the broken game, case and all, you got a complete copy. However, if you mailed off just a disk maybe this is what they sent back? I'm spitballing. I've been fascinated with the refurbishment variant of these games (though I've never bought any.) I've definitely never seen anything like this before.

I think all stages shine in their own way, but there's something about that 3-to-5 stretch of worlds that are just perfect SMB 2D design. But world 4 was insane as a kid. I remember playing that for the first time and being blown away by how novel and awesome the concept was.

Ah, well the real question is did it look like this: I know the game did get multiple updates, because I think the original might have been strictly Black and White, or rather, Light-Green on Dark-Green. But, I think they did keep porting it and updating it for several years. Heck, there's a version on the Switch now, all though it is quite modernized. My kids and I played it for a bit.

It amazes me how that game had such longevity. I know you're in your 20s so when we all were playing it OG in 1988, we had no clue that kids 20 years later would STILL be playing it in schools. Actually, how did you play it? Your school wasn't still using Apple IIGSes in the 2000's, was it?! Or did they have an updated version?

I assumed carts like this existed, but I never searched for them. It's been a dream of mine (which I doubt I'll ever do cause I have 1,000 dreams like this) to make a special Genesis Homebrew where you have a midi plug-in on the cartridge (or maybe just use a Miracle Piano) and create a Genesis Synth. I love a lot of chiptunes but there's something about that Yamaha YM2612 that I love.

Oh, I'd love to one day hear... "Welcome to the T-Pac Arcade and today we're playing, uh... The Oregon Trail!". I am curious, though. There's not a single, more iconic edutainment game than The Oregon Trail. Did it ever cross your path?

Though not a cartoon, I always felt what set the stage for this, and other "edgy" Nick shows was You Can't Do That On Television. Nickelodeon really floundered in it's early days and, if I recall, I'm not even sure it started out as a kids channel and it had to pivot a bit to take off. The execs found their niche when they sat down and eventually asked "If I were a kid, what would I want to see" rather than asking themselves "How do we make a kids channel." So they licensed a bunch of stuff that was cheap from around the globe and got to work building an appealing brand. One of those licensed shows was YCDTOTV and that specific, edgy, slime-dumping, irreverent humor from Canada was what gelled most with American children and they sort of built their brand off of that vibe. After having success with their old format of mostly licensing shows, plus filming a few, cheap live-action shows, I recall that they made a big marketing push where they released their first three in-house made cartoons--Rugrats, Doug and Ren and Stimpy. All three were a success, but I can see how Ren and Stimpy paved the way for the edgier content. Sponge Bob was after my time and I don't think I've ever seen an entire episode. Maybe I've seen about 5 minutes here or there when it's happened to be on at someone's house I've visited but Sponge Bob is what Nickelodeon is today. It's easy to see that it's kind of an amalgam of all that they got right in the past and, somehow, it's now remained relevant for about 25 years.

I remember the vignettes like "Everyone wants a log" where they declared "Tell your Grandmother to go suck on an egg." So edgy. So 90s!

You know I attempted this already, right? Twas an utter failure on my part.

Isn't that the guy who got sued for knocking off Maher--the greatest internet meme legend before 2000?

Is it a Command & Conquer game? I'm going to guess Tiberian Sun, though that one came out in 1999.