Startyde

I'm late but the new VGS logo is fantastic. Really elevated the entire forum imo, well done.

1 hour ago, MeganJoanne said:

I dunno if any are obscure, but of the games I owned back then, some of the games I had that were not high profile (my brother and I were the only ones of others that we knew that had these games):

8 Eyes
Amagon
Astyanax
Battle of Olympus, The
Blaster Master
Conquest of the Crystal Palace (perhaps the most unusual and least known of those I owned)
Dynowarz: Destruction of Spondylus
Guardian Legend, The
Legacy of the Wizard
Low G Man
RoboWarrior
Snake, Rattle 'N Roll
Werewolf: The Last Warrior

As for ones we didn't have:

Mystery Quest (a friend had this, and it always struck me as something odd, that if I had known much about the famicom back then I would think it more appropriate on that than something for the US market, not sure really why, because it sorta reminded me a little of Milon's Secret Castle yet felt even more obscure and I never recall ever seeing Mystery Quest for rental back then)

Prior to the NES we had the 2600, but nothing out of the ordinary. Anything after NES and I was already an adult, I was a teen during the NES era, so sorta still a kid.

 

I remember going into a toy store in late 80s and my brother and I each got to choose a game. He chose Ninja Gaiden based on the cover (he was 6 or 7) and I chose RoboWarrior because I thought it would be like Transformers.

Guess whose still regretting it 30 years later?

Anyway, the most obscure game I think I've played in general has to be Sentient for PS1. I still have no idea what was happening.

Shame, the GVN UI is great and I really liked the collection tracker. This speculative investing really disrupted the communities they were trying to target. 

19 minutes ago, Sumez said:

Are people actually excited for these whacko pieces of emulator cardboard?

Yes

Just now, Gloves said:

House of the Dead when? 

OMFG Yes. Also Soul Calibur III Arcade Edition, I would give anything. 

And Capcom Vs SNK 2 ...gawd I can dream

Burger time is already on Preorder on their official site. $399 though, ouch. 

https://arcade1up.com/collections/cabinets/products/burger-time-arcade-machine

1 minute ago, trj22487 said:

That's BS once you get past the first wave of cabs they released. I can pull off any fatality/friendship/babality on any of the Mortal Kombat's at will
This photo also shows a brand new 40th anniversary Pac-Man with 6 games and an angled screen that not a lot of people seem to be picking up on.
Also the X-Men vs Street Fighter/Marvel vs Capcom cabinet, and there seems to be a Konami cabinet with yellow trim under one of those curtains....

That MK Cabinet is a thing of beauty. Some clever Etsy stores have made some impressive displays for it listing all moves. 

The Golden Axe: Revenge of Death Adder is huge, it was never ported off of arcade. That is so dope. 

Happy Space Year 2020 All! May the future be as anime inspired as the 70s and 80s fortold!

It's definitely in a death spiral. It's like those pop up Halloween Stores that show up around Oct, GS is a seasonal entity, and the season of buying nearly full priced used physical games is coming to an end. They may be able to survive as a more intimate retro game store with a much smaller footprint, but I don't know.

My GS of 14 years in Woburn MA is closing. When I was last there in Dec, they proudly advertised a corporate award for excellence on the front door. I went there this weekend, place is in shambles and the owner looks catatonic. It's a damn shame.

1 hour ago, Jim Jimmer said:

Does anyone know how long theye’re backlogged still?  My speed run order has been there for a month (meaning so far twice as long as advertised), with pre grading photos uploaded for 8days with no grades. 
 

This is frustrating as i thought they would be quicker post the reopening of lower tier. If i’m getting turbo service for a speedrun order, i’d expect to pay turbo prices, not speed run.

Perhaps Wata could have 2 processes with 2 different backlogs, one for sealed and one for CIB?  That would help them turnaround sealed quicker as cib grading must take wayyy longer...

 

/end rant

 

I was debating posting anything here but I feel like certain things need to be said.

I submitted a Speed Run order for a friend in Nov when it was still five business days turnaround. The order was received and scanned on the 7th of Dec. In two days it will now be a month, or 400 percent longer than their advertised time.

It doesn't end there. Two weeks ago I emailed support (who replied promptly which was excellent) if they could update me. They said they would work on it that day, and obvs two weeks later it didn't

Last week on the advice of another friend, I DMed one of the employees directly. They were also prompt and indicated to check on the order for grading last week. It also wasn't.

I DMed said per again this weekend, and received a somewhat stressed reply that they are extremely backlogged and working weekends and even Christmas and New Year's to catch up. There has been no point in my replying at this point.

Take aways: 

1. Noone should be working holidays. People are human and need to rest with family. I'm also against working weekends unless aptly compensated.

2. There is no indication on the Wata site there is a backlog and to expect delays.

3. As of November they were taking payments for turnaround times they seemingly had zero intention of honoring, which Im fairly sure is illegal to knowingly advertise goods and services you cannot provide.

4. Communication as a whole has been much better recently, though everything I have been told in regard to timing has been a fabrication, to the point where I'd prefer a general "within X weeks" timeline and some compensation for completely missing my tier time by several magnitudes.

I can't wait for the CE to be released. Blasphemous was a top 5 game of mine for 2019, and the set LRG came up for it is so sexy.

MK9 - Kompletely redeemed the series from a generation of mediocrity

Spec Ops - The Line: One of the best narratives on gaming I've ever seen.

Diablo III - for Consoles - One of the best examples of how streamlining for a console actually improved the game by ridding it of its awful auction house and paving the way to fixing the PC port as well. 

The Evil Within - A game that got completely lost in the shuffle, but is one of the most creative and well constructed survival horrors ever made.

Uncharted 3 - The pinnacle popcorn action game imo. Just beat after beat of ridiculousness and I love it. 

Heavy Rain - Perfected the idea of the interactive story game. Some of my fondest gaming memories were playing this game while my brother was at the same time and discussing how our stories were different. Also of note the two weeks I took to plat the game, it rained every single day where I was living. 

Honorable mentions:

Muramasa Rebirth: The most beautiful and addictive handheld game I've ever played

Blasphemous: Imo, a more successful kickstarer than even Bloodstained in how polished, and gorgeous it's medtroidvania world is, serving as evidence that kickstarter can indeed work. 

GTAV: I havent played too much, but noone can deny the impact this game has had. The most successful piece of media in human history, that cemented how gaming as the apex medium.

Must haves:

Tatsunoko Vs Capcom: one of the best Vs games ever released that will almost certainly never have another port due to the resiculous licensing involved. This game paved the way for MVC3 but in many ways, I like this better.

Muramasa: my favorite Vanillaware game. Superior port on Vita but unless you're gonna shell out $300+ for a legacy system, the Wii port is economical and the gameplay and presentation is so gorgeous.

Sonic Colors: probably the best modern Sonic game, even over generations. An entire game of fast, awesome Sonic action and level design with some killer graphics and soundtrack.

37 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I was wondering this too. Even with the issues that have been brought up, it seems like almost everything that comes up is WATA now.

I only imagine ppl trying to bump up silver and lower VGA grades would ever regrade to Wata, or if they just wanted to standardize the look of their collection for some reason. It's a waste of money otherwise as the game condition doesn't change, only the scale. 

It's also not like VGA is going anywhere. They are the toy grading authority, and they can grade and fabricate games of any size, a market Wata will likely never be able to accommodate. I don't even like the Wata cases for SNES or N64, anything horizonal is kinda hideous (I genuinely think they need to go to the drawing board and redesign the cases for horizontal games, they just look bad), hense why many of these are still sent to VGA.

Edit: While I'm here, I'll post this guy. Hard as balls to find sealed these days, and was my fav Xmas pres of 97. Happy Holidays all!!

Raw rankings of the movie releases

1. Empire Strikes Back (10/10) - Flawless Sequel that ups everything

2. Return of the Jedi (9/10) - Near Flawless conclusion that ties up everything

3. Rogue One (8.5/10) - Very interesting backstory on the significance and sacrifice involved with fighting an empire with unlimited resources. Adequately detailed the effort involved in making a super weapon, and doesn't just effortlessly pull them out of thin air like latter movies.

4. New Hope (8/10) - Imaginative start

5. The Last Jedi (7.5/10) - Pretty mature and interesting direction to pull SW into. Opened up some truly heinous plot holes, but at least tried to deviate from shamelessly plagiarizing previous movies.

6. Revenge of the Sith (7.5/10) - Delicate balancing act between being a movie for kids and adults. Some very dark moments, and while not executed well, served it's purpose in tying together 6 movies. 

7. Phantom Menace (6/10) - Some of the best characters and fight scenes in the franchise, all under the umbrella of a live action cartoon. 

8. Solo (5/10)- Moments of brilliance, in a movie that didn't have to and should not have existed. It's okay to be a just okay movie, it's another when you take away from other better movies with your writing and retcons.  

9. Force Awakens (4/10) - Said the moment I walked out of theaters people would see what a corporate carbon copy empty shell this trilogy was starting off as once the hype died down. Set the trajectory for New Star Wars.

10. Attack of the Clones(4/10) - Jango is cool, interesting to see Yoda in action, and Scum baggio is legendary. Everything else is wtf. 

11. Rise of Skywalker (3.5/10) - Complete cluster f that simultaneously shows a lack of respect for fellow writers and directors, as well as the intelligence of audience. Obvious scenes reworked around who was still alive and who wanted to see what, making it come off as a corporate crash grab rather than some vision with meaning. Points for having the audacity of being a 2 hour fetch quest with half a dozen crammed McGuffins.

The only grades worth noting in a pop report are the highest for any given item, everything below is subject to wild inaccuracies for the reasons mentioned. 

2 hours ago, zeppelin03 said:

I'm looking forward to seeing what this console is all about.  Have a coworker who is tempted to jump to Xbox after this gen. Xbox has a lot of momentum with back compat, game pass, and exclusives in my opinion.  They may have a huge e3 coming up.

Anyone who jumps to Xbox after this gen isnt a fan of history. PS4 has dominated the generation with an onslaught of some of the best exclusives of any generation, as well as investing in budget friendly VR.

By comparison, Xbox seemingly abadoned the generation years ago, having a trickle of lackluster exclusive anything, and even going to far as releasing a $600 super Xbone but not making any actual games to warrent the purchase. I'm sure all those ppl are happy they ponied up just for Scarlet to be announced a year later.

PS5 is rumored to be BC comparable with PS1 to PS4, giving it potential access to one the best libraries in existence. Between that and Sony's consistently incredible 1st party lineups and VR investment, I don't think it'll be a contest next gen either. The fact that all major Xbox games are also coming to PC shows owning an Xbox is a redundant venture at best. 

Won't say the title, but three years ago I sold three VGA gold graded copies of a certain game for super cheap on open auction. I know it was three years ago because it's the last time a sealed copy was ever listed on eBay. Who would have thought it was that rare, doh.

Was a member of NA since 2008, rarely posted, just lurked. I don't she'd a tear, all empires fall. People lost a truck load of Web 1.0 history when Geocities was needlessly obliterated. It's the natural cycle of things, and the world moves forward, with a wiser nostalgic eye.

I do think Dain gets a more generous pass than is justified from my casual perception of the events here. As K said above, Dain helped foster a community that benefitted him and his brand for years, which was in turn sold out without any guarentees of it's future. What a waste.

Even a top 25 would be hard. There are games so unexpectedly stunning they change my perception of the medium.

Some off the top of my head:

SotN, FF6, Riven, MK9, Spec Ops the Line, Arcana, MGS3, Heavy Rain, CvS2, Guilty Gear and Muramasa.

The thing is the greatest game of all time changes with time as it specifically influences a certain generation.

You can tell the age of ppl based on whether they prefer FF games before or after FF7, for example.

Pong, PacMan, Asteroids set the bar for one gen.

SMB, Zelda, Sonic another.

FF7, MGS, SotN another.

Meanwhile PC's were redefining what games were with WoW, Myst and later Minecraft.

In conclusion, human beings are too diverse and too shaped by personal experience to definitely agree on the best game ever made, no more than you could get people to agree on what the best salad is. (Spoiler, it's taco)

Small midnight bump. No story here, just love Raystorm, and this copy was so hot the printer didn't wanna touch it.

Goki, or Akuma as Western edgelords like to say. What a overhyped, copy paste shoto that should have stayed in the 90s.