Messages

31

General / Re: What Are Your Top (Four) Consoles Right Now And Why?

« on: August 22, 2023, 08:24:44 pm »

If we're talking which systems am I hot on right now, instead of an all time favorites list... that's something a bit different. Right now, I'm into...

- OG Xbox. This system has aged well. So underrated by the retro scene, but the games still look and play so damn good! The support for 480p might not have meant much back then, but it sure is appreciated now.

- Dreamcast. Hard not to be charmed by it, and just the magical feel of most of the games that belong uniquely to this system. Like having a late 90s arcade machine in your home.

- PS2. Difficult to argue with the plethora of games available. The graphics aren't always the prettiest, but guaranteed your gonna find something cool to play that no other console has.

- Wii. I doesn't matter to me if few others see the value and fun in it, I think the motion controls are a welcome feature. I also think the depth of the library is much greater than popular opinion credits it for.

32

Modern Video Games / Re: Are "triple A" games dead?

« on: August 05, 2023, 10:00:49 pm »

I think some of the output has been toned down abit, but there's plenty of AAA releases coming out on the regular.  Dead Space, Resident Evil 4, Tears of the Kingdom (It's AAA, just not on the level of current gen releases) and Final Fantasy XVI are just ones I personally played this year.  God of War Ragnarok came out just the end of last year.  I know coming up we have Armored Core VI, Spider-Man 2, and Starfield (Which could very easily have a bad launch, we'll see) off the top of my head.  I think we have more flops or mishaps nowadays, but I have so many games to play from the biggest to smallest, I don't have the time for it all lol

I forget about remakes, but I'm not a fan so I tend to overlook them. I guess the fall is usually the biggest time for games to drop, and it looks like there will be some stuff. I forgot about Immortals of Aveum which is coming soon, then there's The Crew Motorfest, Lords of the Fallen, etc, coming fairly soon.

33

Modern Video Games / Are "triple A" games dead?

« on: August 05, 2023, 07:01:32 pm »

Maybe a bit dramatic to say, but maybe not.

I'm still unwilling to jump on the bandwagon of those bashing the PS5 as having no purpose to exist. Some like myself, certainly appreciate the spec upgrade compared to the PS4... the problem is, and I'm sure you're aware, what are developers doing with it? Hardly anything. Because it's starting to feel like triple a game's are dead. They barely come out anymore, and when they do, they're broken and completely burn all enthusiasm on day one.

Even putting that issue aside, it's like the triple a scene never recovered from the pandemic. The attempts made are very few, and far between now. I guess the last $70 game to drop was Final Fantasy, fair enough it wasn't that long ago. But what came before that? I think there's been maybe two or three major releases this year that even caught my eye. Granted, it's difficult for me to recall any release that I just had zero interest in. But I think it was just Forespoken, that's about it for me this year. I don't think Atlas Fallen will be a $70 game. Indie games far, far outnumber larger project on PS5.

I dunno, it's weird. Last gen, it was like some major release was hitting shelves every month it seemed. 7th gen, the better part of retail games were all mostly consider major releases aside from the shovelware. Here we are ten years later, and major game releases are almost non-existent, and 9/10 of them bomb spectacularly.

34

General / Re: VGC's Anonymous/"General" Topic:

« on: August 05, 2023, 06:35:24 pm »

Just got back from another retro gaming convention. I've got to say, these things are on a steady decline. Maybe it's just me, but I've noticed less and less of a selection of games at these places, which is telling given than many of the vendors come from near and far to attend. The selection is just at a point where a lot of those big ticket, sought after titles, common or not, just aren't there much anymore. I kept overhearing people in search of those same high profile titles that I was hunting out more than 10 years ago. Folks still want to find that stuff today, and collect it.

Luckily I'm no longer looking for those sorts of games, as I have most of them. I guess that's the point, they've been put into collections. I'm mostly scoping out oddities and obscure hidden gems which fit into the category of not too rare, or valuable. I found a handful, not a lot.

Anyhow, I think the enthusiasm for these events is waning. A lot of collectors fighting against one another for what little is left in stock, I think it's indicative of the state of game collecting. Supply running low, while yet even more people become enticed every day to jump into the hobby. The level of collecting is outgrowing the supply from golden age of physical media, and yet they're desperate to stop producing physical media with today's games.

I've noticed this too, however I don't think it's because it's harder to find rarer/more sought after titles due to being locked up in collections. Sure, that is part of it to a degree, but I think it's mostly that retro video game collecting has about run its course.


Around the time I got into collecting, NES was all the rage, and most retro stores I visited barely had any NES games and when they did, it was either your ultra common stuff, or stuff they'd literally got in that same day, and would likely be gone in a day or two. This lasted until 2014 or so when SNES replaced it as the retro console to collect for, then Genesis, then N64, then PS1, and so one and so on. My point is that people who grew up with this stuff reach a certain age where they can go back and rebuy this stuff, however after a while, the amount of people who haven't already got into collecting for a certain console(s) dramatically drops off. I'd venture to say that 98% of the people who had any interest in NES collecting have already done so, meaning that pool of people who will enthusiastically want games like Ninja Gaiden or Batman is quickly being outnumbered by the amount of available copies. And each year I see more and more people downsizing their collections, or just flat out selling everything off for one reason or another. Eventually in another 10-years or so, nearly every person who wanted to collect for a console that came out in the 80s or 90s will have done so.


I knew this day would come as it has with more or less every collecting craze over the last 30-years. People that grew up with something reach their peak earning years, want to rebuy their lost childhood, prices go crazy, then these same people start losing interest while very few new people are jumping in due to that lack of connection to said collectible. It happened with Baseball cards, it happened with vintage comics, it happened with vintage toys, and now it's happening with retro video games. Genuinely rare games like Little Samson or Hagane will always be valuable and they will never be sub-$100 games ever again, and many of them might even continue to go up in price. However, anything that isn't at least an 8/10 in terms of rarity will either stagnate or drop in price from here on out.


So I think the lack of stuff or vendors at the convention you went to was less to do with a lack of inventory, and more to do with people leaving the hobby, both as sellers and collectors.

The reason this theory doesn't make sense to me, is that these days, all I see is veteran collectors getting out of the hobby and selling off their collections. You'd think that means more on the market and a decrease in value, but it's not.

I think sort of like you mentioned, generations do go through phases of trying to re-buy their childhood, but then instead of just bottoming out when that gets old, it just transfers into the hands of speculator types more and more. The folks who got into collecting back when I started and before, I think genuinely just wanted to own and experience the games. They collected for the love of old school gaming. These days, it's dominated by the resell types and the speculators. Retro gaming on YouTube use to be chalk full off people nerding out about their collections and their pickups. A lot of that kind of content is gone. Now most retro collecting oriented stuff is like Pheonex Resale "Oh my God bro, I just found this box of games worth $1000 profit", as well as sealed game grading, "rare" game worship and just like people going for "full sets" for the hell of it (I would say probably as an investment).

So I think that's where classic games are largely ending up. Gamers getting rid of their collections, and going into the hands of people stashing them away as future investment projects, with full sets, rare games, sealed games, just anything they think will be worth a fortune some day. So a lot of that stuff is not recirculating. Anyway, that's my cynical take.

35

General / Re: VGC's Anonymous/"General" Topic:

« on: July 23, 2023, 10:36:35 am »

Just got back from another retro gaming convention. I've got to say, these things are on a steady decline. Maybe it's just me, but I've noticed less and less of a selection of games at these places, which is telling given than many of the vendors come from near and far to attend. The selection is just at a point where a lot of those big ticket, sought after titles, common or not, just aren't there much anymore. I kept overhearing people in search of those same high profile titles that I was hunting out more than 10 years ago. Folks still want to find that stuff today, and collect it.

Luckily I'm no longer looking for those sorts of games, as I have most of them. I guess that's the point, they've been put into collections. I'm mostly scoping out oddities and obscure hidden gems which fit into the category of not too rare, or valuable. I found a handful, not a lot.

Anyhow, I think the enthusiasm for these events is waning. A lot of collectors fighting against one another for what little is left in stock, I think it's indicative of the state of game collecting. Supply running low, while yet even more people become enticed every day to jump into the hobby. The level of collecting is outgrowing the supply from golden age of physical media, and yet they're desperate to stop producing physical media with today's games.

36

General / Re: VGC's Anonymous/"General" Topic:

« on: July 18, 2023, 09:25:53 am »

I don't consider myself to be a movie collector, but this year I've decided to start picking up movies whenever I see them (which is all the time), and it's amazing how cheaply they can be had right now. Especially when you compare it to what most of the streaming services want in order to buy or even rent the same movies. Most of the stuff I've picked up this year has only been $1 per title. I have a rule where I don't go over $2 unless it's something I think is hard to find. I wonder if someday down the line, this stuff will go crazy in price like video games? All I know, is that it can't get any cheaper than right now.

So now I've got this pile of movies sitting on my floor, and I've spent almost nothing in the past few months accumulating it. It reminds me of the good old days of video game hunting. Although, I am considering throwing out the plastic cases, and keeping the artwork. I was thinking I'd get a binder or maybe just some CD spindles. Otherwise I'll need to tub them and put them all into storage. I just don't have the room for another collection. But it is kind of addicting to come away with a stack of movies each weekend for a few dollars.

37

Classic Video Games / Re: Croc is coming back apparently.

« on: July 13, 2023, 02:32:23 pm »

I want a new Croc game, not just a rehash.

38

General / Re: Best Video Game Rental Memories

« on: July 13, 2023, 02:25:58 pm »

Not 10 minutes after we've started playing his mom comes downstairs and freaks out once she sees what's happening on the screen. Even though she'd the one who paid for the game and let us rent it, she goes off on my friend and I, makes me go home, and my friend is in tears.

Never could grasp the insanity of such helicopter parenting. What do they think? A kid plays a goofy ass game like Bio Freaks and his soul is lost? It sends him down a dark path of destruction and evil, all because he played some absurd arcade game? Grown ass adults walk around with such lack of logic and reasoning. I've often seen it, but I can't understand it.

Me neither. It was during the late 90s, so it was still in that period of the older generation wondering if "realistic" video game violence was causing violent behavior in kids and teens. I think more than anything though, his mom was just very awkward to be around and she always had this seriousness about as if she was trying to find something to scold you for while also being incredibly judgmental. It's too bad because he was one of my best friends in elementary school, and unfortunately due to this incident and him going to a different middle school than me, that was sort of the end of of friendship sadly.

Yeah, well my own parents were sort of cautious about the media we were exposed to as well, although they didn't monitor the games we played much. I still know I would have gotten into trouble with anything that had suggestive themes, or use of profanity. Of course, grotesque violence didn't matter at all. Just make sure there's no bad words or nudity.

Come to think of it, I believe they did go over-the-top monitoring my music choices as a kid. One time I got into trouble just for being interested in the music of a band called "Suicidal Tendencies", just because of their name. I guess they thought it was music focused on convincing kids to off themselves? That's 90s parenting logic for you. I reality, I didn't care what their name was, probably didn't understand a lot of the political themes, I just liked the music. Ironically, they had no problem allow me to by CDs from another band "Suicide Machines" just like maybe a year later. I think I heard about both these bands from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. I wasn't interested in being edgy or suicidal, I just liked the music. I think one time my mom threw away one of my Slipknot CDs in disgust of the band. Probably did me a favor in that case, but still. Albums like Nirvana's Nevermind would be deemed inappropriate just because of a naked baby on the cover, and I certainly couldn't have any albums with a parental advisory sticker on them.

Apparently, they believed music was the devil's avenue above all else. There had been a lot of nonsense in the 80s and maybe 90s about how music was influencing or brainwashing violence and bad behavior in the youth. Everything has been the scapegoat, aside from the parenting itself. Sheltering children is always the answer to all of life's more complicated matters, and we see that theme continuing to this day. "Kids are too young to understand this or that, we must keep them away from it", yeah I kinda think that's a time-tested crap philosophy.

39

General / Re: Best Video Game Rental Memories

« on: July 11, 2023, 10:49:19 pm »

Not 10 minutes after we've started playing his mom comes downstairs and freaks out once she sees what's happening on the screen. Even though she'd the one who paid for the game and let us rent it, she goes off on my friend and I, makes me go home, and my friend is in tears.

Never could grasp the insanity of such helicopter parenting. What do they think? A kid plays a goofy ass game like Bio Freaks and his soul is lost? It sends him down a dark path of destruction and evil, all because he played some absurd arcade game? Grown ass adults walk around with such lack of logic and reasoning. I've often seen it, but I can't understand it.



I don't really have any super interesting stories about my rental experiences. Most were just pretty standard. I remember being super excited to rent games like Cruis'n and GoldenEye 007, and just the excitement of seeing copies available there on the shelf, at a time when it was kinda hard to find certain games in stock at retail. I remember first discovering Driver at BlockBuster, just taking a chance on it. Ended up loving that game, and later owning it. I think one day I kind of just randomly discovered Yoshi's Story N64 at BlockBuster, and they were selling a copy so I bought it as it was kinda cheap.

In the early days I had a local mom'n pop rental store near my home, where we'd go and just pick out games based on their cover art alone. We had no other knowledge of what games were like. I did end up finding an NES game (P.O.W.) that came from this store, now in my collection. I've forgotten what a lot of my rentals from that era were. I remember renting Mario Paint from there, also Snow Brothers, and I think Pac Man The New Adventures the SNES version. It was just sort of random.

After the N64 / PS1 era, I think I stopped renting games. Don't recall ever renting Dreamcast or PS2.

40

General / Re: VGC's Anonymous/"General" Topic:

« on: July 11, 2023, 12:30:13 pm »

Makes sense, as collectors we are OCD as hell. But my OCD doesn't extend to in-game factors, at least not that extent. I've learned not to feel bad about whether I complete a game, or not. If I'm forcing myself into playing something, that's a waste of my precious short time on this planet. I need to be really engaged with it, and want to come back out of a true desire to see what's next, or face the next challenge. If that's not there, it isn't worth it. I tried, I played it and maybe even liked it but I had my fun with it, and that's well and good enough.

41

Modern Video Games / Re: Like a Dragon: The Game Without a Disc

« on: July 09, 2023, 11:21:04 pm »

There's no snowball's chance in hell I'll ever buy a console game without a disc. At that point, I'll make my purchases from Steam or none at all. If they want to move this way, I'll guarantee you the PS5 is the last dedicated gaming console I'll ever buy. Even Nintendo, the lazy, greedy sub-par rehash machine know as the Switch has been utterly dry and disappointing for me. It's my indie games machine, mostly. So I probably won't be in the market for their next hunk of plastic either.

I predicted it would be the larger publisher pushing to abandon physical media first. Fug em, I don't need the games.

42

Classic Video Games / Re: Should I build a windows xp or windows 7 retro gaming pc as my primary gaming pc

« on: July 09, 2023, 11:04:42 pm »

OP always has me cracking up. I needed that.

43

General / Re: VGC's Anonymous/"General" Topic:

« on: July 09, 2023, 11:01:47 pm »

My thing is, why feel obligated to beat every game? Unless the game is compelling enough to keep bringing you back to the point that you reach the end. There's no sense in trying to beat it. Is it just to say that you beat it?

If any game collector was honest, there's very few games probably worth the time to beat within our massive collections. My ambition is to play the games. Not necessarily to beat.

44

General / Re: VGC's Anonymous/"General" Topic:

« on: June 08, 2023, 12:26:44 pm »

So I renewed my GameStop membership and opted up to start getting the physical magazine again. This was like in April, and they never sent me a May issue, and so far no June issue. So I actually went and purchased a back issue from their website. It's been folded to the point of creasing twice across the entire book, edges all gnarled up. No evidence it happened in transit either. They don't have to be perfect, but damn. Is it so much to ask they actually send me what I pay for? I want my $5 back on the sub if they're not going to do it.

45

General / Re: Your Top Video Game Franchises

« on: June 04, 2023, 09:11:36 pm »

Mario
Doom
Need For Speed
Cruisin'
Banjo
Double Dragon
Tomb Raider
Half Life
Bomber Man
Sonic