Power Blade (sealed)

I decided to pick up another awesome NES action game: Power Blade.  I actually rented this once before as a kid because it looked similar to Shatterhand.  It was pretty fun as I recall.  Plus it was made by the same developer: Natsume.

I found a sealed copy on eBay, so I picked it up fast.  The seal was broken in places, and the box had some wear, but who can argue with new old stock?

Luckily, the insides were still mint.  I'm glad I got this before the prices could get out of control.  However, I'll be lucky if I ever manage to acquire the sequel.

2015 Gaming Setup

I've made a few changes to my gaming setup since my last post, which I think was in 2012.  Three years sounds like enough time for an update, so here are the changes.

The CRT TV stand on the left is new.  I got tired of my Jerry-rigged TV stand that I was using before (it was just an old-fashioned ice cooler-style wood chest), so I went looking for a real stand and found this cool thing online.  Now the CRT TV is up higher, the DVD recorder is no longer sitting on top of the TV, and I don't have visible cables going everywhere.

The DVD cabinet is the same, but there are some new Wii U games and movies.  I moved the Wii Remotes inside the cabinet since that's better than dealing with the constant dust.

There aren't many retail games coming out this year that I want (it's basically just Project Cars and the Wii U Zelda), but there are several downloadable games that I'll be picking up later on.

The HDTV stand is the same (I love this thing and won't be replacing it).  The Wii U and satellite box are on the top shelf.  The Wii U is now permanently hooked up to the TV via HDMI.  I don't have to swap out the component cable with the Wii anymore, which is much nicer.

The lower shelves have been slightly reorganized.  I no longer have the VCR hooked up since I never use it, and I replaced the DVD player with a Panasonic Blu Ray player.  This allowed me to move the middle shelf down a notch, creating more room above and making it easier to swap games in and out of the GameCube.  The GameCube and Wii are separately hooked up with their official component cables, and the GameCube has a Game Boy Player attached.

My HDTV is a 32LG70.  It's a 1080p, 60 Hz model with 3 HDMI inputs, two component inputs, multiple composite inputs, VGA, S-video... they just don't make TVs like this anymore.  Nowadays you're lucky to get component or composite support at all.  It has a game mode to reduce input lag and it can pass through a Dolby Digital 5.1 signal to the receiver (it seems all LG TVs do this).

The sound system is still the Panasonic HTB-15 sound bar.  But hanging to the right side in the background there is my new Elgato HD60 capture card.  This is why I no longer have to swap the component cables with the Wii.  Every system aside from the Wii U is recorded with the Hauppauge HD PVR.

The sound bar supports a variety of 5.1 surround signals (Dolby, DTS, LPCM), and it accepts HDMI inputs directly, so when I want surround sound out of my Wii U, I can just connect the HDMI cable directly to the receiver.  However, since the Elgato doesn't accept LPCM 5.1 (nor does Youtube support it), I just use stereo when recording footage.

The CRT TV is a 25" Philips Magnavox from 2001.  I'm the original owner.  It makes a bit of an annoying humming noise when it's on, but it's great for retro gaming.  I've discovered is that pre-GameCube systems don't work well on HDTVs for two reasons.  The first problem is input lag.  Old games often require fast reflexes, and HDTVs introduce display lag because of how much they process the incoming video signal (deinterlacing, scaling, etc.).  The second problem is frame rate loss.  I've noticed that old 60 fps games get their frame rate cut in half on HDTVs because the TV deinterlaces the 240p signal as if it were 480i, destroying the smooth image.  So I do most of my NES, SNES and N64 gaming on the old TV.

One nice thing about the new CRT TV stand is that the cabinet below is large enough to fit one of my console organizers, as well as the distribution amplifier.  So whenever I hook up a retro system now, I can keep it off the carpet and avoid a lot of dust.  Now that's nice!

I'll be needing to update my pictures of my boxed game collection soon.  There have been all sorts of additions (which I've noted on this blog), but I haven't taken complete pictures of each entire collection for about 3 years now.  One of these days I'll need to upload some videos of the collection as well.

New Stuff

I don't have many games for my Game Boy Advance, so I've been on the lookout for some good titles to add to my collection.

After completing Wolfenstein 3-D for the SNES, I started looking into the SNES port of Doom.  However, I didn't like that version's lack of a save feature or even a password system.  That's just ridiculous when Wolfenstein at least had a password feature.  Also, I read that there are certain glitches in the game that prevent you from getting 100%.

So I passed up on that idea, but I didn't give up on Doom entirely.  I just decided to go with another port: the Game Boy Advance one.  I also picked up the sequel.  Both games have save features.  Hooray!

I got both games off eBay for an affordable amount.  They weren't sealed like some of my other purchases from last year, but they were complete and in fairly good condition.  I hear that the Doom II in particular can be hard to find.  There's no SNES version of that game, so I had to go with the GBA version if I wanted it on a Nintendo system.

I'm hoping to upload the first Doom soon.  Maybe in the coming months.

I don't think anybody really noticed, but I also got a new capture card for the Wii U.  The Elgato HD60.  After Youtube upgraded to 60 fps in October, there was no way I was going to waste money on a 1080p30 capture card like the Hauppauge HD PVR 2 or the prior version of the Elgato.  I would just end up being stuck with 720p60, which the Hauppauge HD PVR can already do.

Luckily though, I didn't have to spend money on this thing at all.  It was a Christmas gift.

I already uploaded some Mario Kart 8 footage and it definitely looks better than my 720p60 Hauppauge captures I was uploading before.

However, this thing doesn't work with my other systems.  I can't feed old systems into the Elgato by routing them through the DVD recorder's HDMI port because that just throws on HDCP protection and blocks the signal.  And I'm not wasting money on component to HDMI converters for the GameCube and Wii when there's absolutely no quality upgrade involved.

Besides, the entire point of my channel is to show what the games look like on the actual hardware without modifications (save for deinterlacing where necessary.  But HDTVs deinterlace footage anyway, so if you play all your old games on an HDTV, my footage will look just like that.).

Some people might point out that I'm upconverting 240p footage to 480i with a DVD recorder so I can record the signal, but the truth is that it's not a true upconversion.  The reason is that 240p always displays at a 480 resolution with half of the lines blank.  The DVD recorder doesn't change that.  It just standardizes the refresh rate so that the capture card can read it as an NTSC signal.

So this will be my new Wii U capture device, but everything else will still be recorded with the Hauppauge.  Both capture cards are high quality, so I have no complaints.

New Old Stock

There's nothing quite like getting a brand new old game.  I picked up a new copy of Gauntlet Legends for the Nintendo 64, which I haven't played in a very long time.  The price wasn't too bad either.

I remember playing this game in the arcades when it came out, and I also played the N64 version as well.  I can't remember if my friend owned a copy of the game or if I just rented it, but I know I played the N64 version.  However, I never beat it.  It was a huge game and really confusing.  But I'm looking forward to beating it now, hopefully with four people.

I picked up the strategy guide as well to help me do that.

One of my GameCube controllers has been acting up recently (ironically, it's the newer of the two that I own) by not properly detecting the neutral position on the analog stick when I start up the system.  The stick itself looks and feels fine, but when I go to play a game, the system always has the neutral position set to up or something like that.  I don't know how to fix the problem, so I said screw it and just bought a brand new controller. 

I tried a third-party knock off controller before, and it was terrible.  It just felt cheaply constructed and not at all like an official controller.  So I had to go official for reasons aside from collecting.

I've already tried it out and the controller feels great.  It's amazing how much controllers change over time.  The sticks (including the rubber grips) wear out and the plastic starts becoming smooth.  Plus they get filled with grime.  New is the only way to go!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project - Complete

And with this I now own all four major Ninja Turtles games that were released on Nintendo's home consoles back in the 8-bit and 16-bit era:

Just like with TMNT IV, I had to acquire the inserts separately from the box, manual and game.  But it wasn't too difficult to do.  I never knew about this game as a kid even though I had played TMNT II on the NES and TMNT IV on the SNES.  I'll enjoy playing this game for the first time.  I hope to get a two-player playthrough posted on Youtube.

Here are some more shots of the awesome box.

Contra III: The Alien Wars - 100% Complete

I picked up my prior copy of Contra III for the SNES back in 2012, but the condition wasn't quite what I wanted, and it was missing some inserts.  I found a deal that I just couldn't pass up, so here's my new copy.

This copy is incredible.  It has everything - even the plastic bag for the cartridge.  Just look at that box.

But that's not all.  It includes the original receipt and price tag from 1992. 

How can I possibly top that?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time - Complete

Keet has reminded me that I still need two Turtles games for my Nintendo systems (III and IV, respectively), so I finally got around to picking up Turtles in Time for the SNES.

This game was not cheap.  It cost me $130 just to get the box, manual and cartridge with no inserts whatsoever - not even the inner tray.  And even at that price I got lucky.

I then had to assemble the remaining inserts from various auctions to create a complete copy.  But the effort was worth it.

I now possess a 100% complete copy of this amazing game (well, minus the plastic bag which I could still easily acquire).  This is probably the second or third most valuable game in my collection right now across all systems.  Based on current ebay prices (as in, what people are actually paying), this copy has a value of more than $200.  Retro game prices are getting out of control, but I knew I had to get the game before it gets any more ridiculous.

I played this game at least once as a kid.  I think my brother and I rented it, and as I recall, we beat it.  It's not a very challenging game, but it is fun!  I look forward to uploading a two-player playthrough this year.