TDIRunner

Not familiar with this one at all.

I never deliberately try to dunk on new collectors, but at the same time, I can understand why some people can get annoyed by it. If you've been collecting long enough, it can become tiresome to see the same first time collector questions over and over again. They obviously don't mean any harm by it, but you can only answer those same questions so many times before you start to lose interest. But in those cases, it's better to just ignore the questions rather than act hostile. One possible exception is new collectors who are actively causing harm to the community. I specifically remember a thread at the old PC Engine forums (before it imploded) about a new collector who had a long introduction explaining how he had started at zero and purchased about 95% of the US TG16 set over the course of about 6 months. He then explained that once he realized that he would never be able to own every game in the set, he immediately decided to sell his collection and wanted to unload it on the forum for top dollar. That forum was already well known for being fairly hostile towards new collectors, but they really went off on this guy. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little entertained by the backlash.

While playing the remastered version of Tomb Raider I, I managed to hit my 1,000th trophy. I'm not a big trophy collector. I've only acquired 4 platinum trophies and I've only collected 100% trophies for about 6 or 7 games. So most of these are just collecting random trophies across multiple games over many years. However, depending on the game, I sometimes really get into the trophy hunting. Horizon Zero Dawn and MudRunner were the only two games I can think of that I went out of my way to collect the obscure and difficult to achieve trophies. The Tomb Raider remastered games have some absolutely insane trophies, so I know I won't get the platinum trophy for any of those games.

Welcome. I'm technically a 5th & 6th gen collector as well, although I mainly focus on PS1.

@RH This is an excellent channel with a lot of great content and he explains the copy protection much better than I can. On a side note, if you have any interest in lacerdisc, he has several videos about the subject which are absolutely worth watching.

I believe they use similar methods, although I'm not as familiar with the Saturn's copy protection.

Well, I bit the bullet and purchased the remastered collection of Tomb Raider I, II & III. As I mentioned with the Dark Forces Remaster, I rarely buy digital only games if they cost more than $5 or $6, but these games were too big a part of my childhood, and playing the exact game again in high resolution graphics has been really nice. If either of these games get a physical release, I will certainly pick it up. I started with the original Tomb Raider, and it's been very enjoyable. Some minor changes were made to add a few TRII features to the original which are nice additions. They offer both tank controls for those who played them originally, and "modern controls" for people new to the series that don't have the muscle memory. Unfortunately, despite retaining the tank controls, they are still slightly different from the original, which is throwing me off just a little bit. Also, the game has small, split second freezes to load when new music starts, or big enemies appear. This never occurred in the original and is really annoying on such a small game on a modern system. Still, it's probably worth it for the upgraded visuals and added features. I'm thinking about trophy hunting for this game. The developers went crazy with the amount of trophies included.

Funny to think that if Kraid had just kept his mouth shut, Samus could have have never defeated the Space Pirates. It reminds me of Wart from SMB2. The only thing that can kill him are vegetables, and he keeps a machine in his lair that generates and infinite amount of them. I feel like if I were Wart, I would get rid of that machine. I guess people do strange things in dreams.

The "copy protection" is the wobble itself. Even professionally made CDs are not perfect, and the laser reading the CD is designed to move around or "wobble" (left, right, up & down) while it reads the data on the disc. Official PS1 discs had their data pressed in a way to specifically make the laser wobble in a pattern that the PS1 would recognize. In nearly all cases, this only occurred during the startup. Once you are into the game, this check usually no longer occurs, which is why the "disc swap method" works with most burned games. When people burn their own games, their CD burner attempts to make the CD as perfect as possible, and therefore attempts to burn the disc with as little wobble as possible. Of course, since the CD burner isn't perfect, there will still be wobble, but it won't be the same wobble that the PS1 is looking for, and the PS1 will know it's a fake. As mentioned, the black disc had nothing to do with the copy protection, other than the fact that most people didn't have access to that type of disc. However, there were officially licensed games released without the black disc, meaning you can't always use the black color as a way to identify real games. I'm tempted to buy one of the repros, just to hold it in my hands and see just how good or bad they are.

The latest visual compendium from Bitmap Books is out. This is part 8.

There is absolutely NOTHING in Breath of the Wild that is integral to the game that is exclusive to the Amiibo lineup. NOTHING. In fact, there aren't enough armor inventory slots in the game to hold all of the armor items from the game, DLC and Amiibo all at the same time. Therefore, you aren't intended to have them all anyway.

Honestly, that's why I like it.

I like it, but I would prefer each number having a different equation all around the clock (like using 3² for the 9 o'clock spot).

All four were easy picks for me, but all choices are enjoyable songs.

Playing an original Neo Geo Pocket Color game on my HD TV for the first time ever.

Some good news and some bad news. All of the Analogue Pocket adapters work well with their respective games. Playing original Neo Geo Pocket Color carts on my HD TV has been a dream for a long time, and they look absolutely fantastic with the Analogue Pocket. Lynx also works well, although I'm not as into those games compared to NGPC. Everything seems to work well with ORIGINAL game carts. Please note, that you will need updated firmware for the Pocket to recognize the new adapters. Each adapter has different settings for audio, video, controls and everything else. The quality of the adapters themselves seem on par with previous releases. Unfortunately, the bad news is that I've having mixed results with my flash carts. NGPC - My flash cart was working great. No issues so far. Game Gear - My flash cart was working great. No issues so far. TG-16 - My flash cart would only play the game that was currently flashed to the flash cart. The game plays perfectly, but I cannot find a way to get back to the Everdrive menu. Hitting the reset button just goes to a blank screen. If I close out the cartridge from the Pocket menu and reopen the game, it goes straight into the game that was previously flashed. I could always put my ED into my Duo R and flash a different game, and then put it back into the Pocket, but obviously that is not ideal. Lynx - My flash cart will not work at all. I'm only getting a screen that says error. To clarify, it's playing original Lynx cards just fine. It's only the flash cart that isn't working. I also put the flash cart into my model 2 Lynx to confirm it's working, and it plays just fine on the original hardware. So two flash cart work perfectly. One sort of works, but not in the intended way, and another doesn't work at all. I've confirmed that I have the latest firmware, but outside of that I haven't done much troubleshooting yet. I have a feeling that the issues with my Turbo Everdrive are related to the fact that it's a very old version (possibly the original) and that ED doesn't work on my Analogue Duo either. I have no idea why the Lynx GameDrive doesn't work, and I haven't had any time to check into the forums to see if anyone else if having the same issue. If I learn anything else, I will update here. Anyone else tested these yet?

Analogue Pocket adapters arrived today. I have a nice little collection of Analogue adapters now.

Don't people know that voting counts towards your user rank? We got to pump those numbers up.

Most of the Krikzz brand flash carts have x3/x5/x7 versions to represent the different levels and features. It's not unique to the Genesis flash carts. Stone Age Gamer sells many of the models, and they offers ways to compare the different models. I haven't been to Krikzz's website or forum in a long time, but I'm assuming he would have something that compares the differences.

I can't tell you much, because I purchased all of my flash carts before there were different "versions" to pick from. The only exception for me was the SD2SNES which was an option over the Super Everdrive at the time. All of the different versions came about later. However, I can tell you this. When Krizz starting selling different versions, he compared it to the automobile market with each version being a step up from the previous with the x3 being the entry level and the x7 being top of the line. So I would guess that the x7 would be the superior model. But again, that's just a guess on my part without looking anything up. Since your x3 appears to be a little newer, it could possibly have additional features that were added after that x7 was sold. Hopefully someone who knows more can give you a better answer.

It has never happened to me, but I suppose anything is possible. I keep all of my files on a hard drive (along with a backup). But within those folders, I always have a copy of the exact layout of my SD card for each of my flash carts. That way, if something happens to my SD card, I can recreate it in a matter of minutes. I spend a lot of time setting up my SD cards because I just want to include the files I want to play. I usually include a folder for "cheats" with separate copies of the ROMs with the cheat codes built it. I also sometimes include separate folders for imports or hacks. I definitely don't want to rebuild any of those, so having a copy or backup is a good idea.

This meme probably could have been its own thread.

I used CompuServe's IM service which worked with everyone's AIM. When I got to college, I was able to use their high speed DSL for the first time in my life, and I eventually signed up for an AIM account (I had almost forgotten about that AOL account). I had AIM and MSN Messenger running in the background of every computer I owned for a period of almost 20 years. I even remember the very last conversation I had on AIM sometime around 2008 or 2009.

I had CompuServe instead of AOL (because it was half the price), but other than that, I've done everything on the list. Edit: I remember now that I later had a AIM account with an AOL address, so I have in fact done them all.

It wasn't a scam. I bought well over 100 CDs through them (maybe 200) and my average cost per CD was never more than $5, which at the time, made it the cheapest way to buy new music.