The Grand Emperor's Retro Video Gaming Blog

Over just the past few years the entire identity of Black Friday has been a bit muddled and lost. It use to be about getting up in the dark and fighting the cold out to some store to possible get a good deal. Now days Black Friday doesn’t even take place of Friday, as stores such as Walmart, Best Buy and others open their doors while most folks are still chowing down on Turkey. It’s weird to say this but it seems as if the concept of Black Friday is now retro too. Don’t worry this blog post isn’t about me bitching about the lost meaning of Black Friday, so don’t worry. What I actually want to talk about is video game memories of Black Friday, you see I have many myself some of which aren’t that old. I hoping you have some memories about video games and Black Friday too. So here goes. My favorite Black Friday memory is when I bought Command & Conquer: Red Alert on PC in 1996. I was a huge fan of the original Command & Conquer and had been waiting long for a seque...

We left off examining the potential downfall of the WiiU, and maybe even Nintendo in part one. We also established that in the in the less then 40 years of the video gaming industries history, that every decade had has its tribulations and victims knocked from the hill of success and into an oblivion of mediocrity. So as we sit here on the cusp of Gen 8 consoles who will be the victim(s) of the 10's? We've covered WiiU's flaws, so let us look now at the XBOX ONE. The XBOX ONE has been stirring up controversy since we (and that includes Microsoft) knew the prototype as that XBox 720. Unlike the 360 the ONE comes with the Kinect as a standard feature, but unlike the 360 the Kinect on the ONE gets the creepiness factor of being on all the time. Meaning the f$&*ing robot is always watching you. Now if that isn't enough to potentially turn you off to the ONE, here are a few more WTF factors Mr. Gates and Microsoft want us to swallow. The ONE has to be connecte...

Video gaming whether modern or retro always has its 800 pound Gorilla in the room, usually multiple ones. There are the bad things we don't want to talk about like the whole Custers Revenge thing, and then there are the good things like educational gaming we don't want to talk about either. It's strange to think that in retro circles the unspeakable is a game like Math Grand Prix, or that Big Birds Egg Drop is on the same level of being shunned as Beat Em' & Eat Em'.  But the fact of the matter is that we all have fond memories of educational games, whether we want to admit it or not. For instance I actually liked Math Grand Prix , and I have very fond memories of Oregon Trail, and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego , as I was wrapping up my 8th grade year. Of course lets be honest looking back the only thing educational about Oregon Trail  may have been its title.  Nowadays, educational games still exist and cover a wide range topics that extend fa...

I have a pretty good memory, but there's games in my collection I don't always remember. This is particularly true in collecting Atari 2600 games, especially when you can pick up whole lots of 10+ each on e-bay fairly inexpensively. Having just revived my collection, remembering all the titles I had was a bit of a mystery. So looking through e-bay I held off on getting some lots out of fear of getting games I already have.  To help me through this I decided I had to catalog my collection somehow. Luckily, there's an app for that and I want to share it with you. Above are two examples of apps from Sort It Apps , the simply names Video Games , and Music are two examples. Each can be found on the iTunes Store for free and allow you to track your collections of video games, music, movies, apps and other items. This is the sort screen here I can see all my games, on any platform. This video game app allows you to search you collection by platform too. ...

You know the video game industry as a self contained unit is a fascinating thing. It's an industry that is totally driven by consumerism and it's products are purely  the purchases of those with disposable income. Meaning consumers can abandon the game market with little impact to themselves. It's like this perfect little example of monopolistic competition. With that being said though is definitely a place of economic Darwinism and once a decade some competitor gets knocked off the the top of the hill. In the giant video game industry crash of 82' for instance many of Atari's clone making competitors disappeared and Atari itself almost lost everything. But Atari would only be king of the hill for so long as the American market became open to the likes of Nintendo, and Sega to name a few.  In the 90's Atari would finally be knocked from the hill after the failure of the Jaguar and Lynx. And in the 00' Sega would be knocked from the hill after ...

If your new to retro gaming then you are probably not aware that there two ways of retro gaming. One way is the traditional way and what is considered the most lagitimate way, that is getting an old counsel of your choice, the games you want, and playing them as they where originally meant to be played. Like getting an NES, getting Super Mario Bros 3, hooking it up to your tv and just having fun.  The other way is emulation.  From NESticle in the mid-90's to the new Ouya game emulation has been around for a while, comes in a lot of varieties, and more of it is to come. Essentially emulation is using some other system by which to play games of another. I know that sounds vague but emulation opens to door to vague. For instance if you own a Wii, WiiU, or 3DS then you know about virtual counsel through the Nintendo store. Here you can buy titles from the NES, to NeoGeo, to N64 and then play them right there on your modern Nintendo system. This is emulation but this is ...

I left off part 1 with finding Sega Genesis systems trending for lower prices then normal on eBay, and finding a system with everything I wanted, for $1 plus shipping. As I mentioned this Genesis had 2 controllers, 6 sonic games, the RF adaptor, and of course the counsel. I had to take a chance, I e-mailed the seller. "Does it work?" but to reply back. Two days passed someone else started bidding on it low bid was $1.25, I waited till the day of the auction and at last minute bid in. It closed at $5.25, I sent another e-mail to the seller "before I pay does it work?", no response. Finally 2 days later "yes it did work when I last plugged it in a year ago, I will check it again tonight!" the seller replied. That was good enough for me, I paid and with my eBay Bucks, it came out to $15 out of my pocket. But, was the seller telling me the truth?  I paid for the system on a Friday and got it by the Wednesday following. Pretty impressive co...

I have to admit in the short time I have been involved in the retro gaming community I have been impressed. There is a lot of love out there for old games, and a lot of really passionate people who pass the bug of collecting on so easily. I'm writting this series of blogs about podcasts, because podcasts for me are how I came into the fold. There are a lot of really great retro gaming podcasts out there too, and I want to pass a few of them on to you to give a listen to.  This first show I am reviewing is not the first one I started listening to initially, I'll cover that one later. But this podcast to me is true embodiment of the retro-gaming community, the shows how that love of this hobby shines from those who are into it. The Atari Game by Game podcast was started back in February by the host Ferg. In each podcast he usually covers to Atari games, giving a brief synapsis of both games. For each games he provides a brief history of its development, the names of ...

If you have read any of my past articles you will know that I buy most of my systems off eBay. Yeah I know, when it comes to retro gaming I should save a little dough and hit garage sales, resale shops and rummage sales. But I work out of town and by the time I get home from work each day you can be assured all those places are picked over, if they are open at all. I think you all also know that I have been trying to add consoles to my collection, and two of the prime targets on my list where an SNES, and an N64.   You see I managed to get a hold of a Super NES and N64 the week before last on eBay from two different sellers. And I have been anxiously awaiting the SNES, since I have so many fond memories of playing it. I even bought an extra controller, as well as some of my favorite SNES games like Starfox, Pilotwings, and F-zero, as well as a Super Gameboy adaptor.  So let me put this next part to you this way you see I was one for one with eBay, my Genesis was ...

Do you have more then one hobby? I do, I have several, and sometimes I wish I didn't so I could just be really awesome at one in particular. But, sometimes I'm glad I do have more then one, because sometimes your hobbies teach you something about yourself especially when you have a few of them. What I find most interesting though is that two of my hobbies interconnect in a way I never thought they could. In a way dabbling in both of them is about reaching the same end, and appreciating what once was. And what are these two hobbies that can do this? Vinyl record collecting and retro gaming. I know its odd to connect the two but you will see what I mean in a bit. See I got into vinyl record collecting back in late spring, but I had an interest in it for a long time. For me Vinyl record collecting is about really listening to the music. It's about the analog sound, the sound that represents analog music made by musicians going to my analog ears. Not perfect and ...

If your like me and your digging deeper and deeper into the retro gaming community you will eventually come accross one particular ongoing argument, "Whats a Retro system? And what isn't?". I know for instance that you should never suggest the PS2 is retro, yet. The PS2 and first XBOX are seen as the start of the modern gaming era. Even though the first XBOX no longer has games made for it, and the PS2 is just barely hanging on with 1 or 2 games per year still made for it. But are they the cut off? In some circles retro gaming is seen as anything cartridge based. The logic is somewhat flawed though since the N64 was a cartridge based system yet, the N64 is a fifth generation system and shared the market with its CD-ROM based contemporarys and competitors the Playstation (1), and the Sega Saturn. That then sparks other debates on retro being a particular generation, or being a certain amount of bits.  The most convincing argument is that the ...

You know in the short time that I have had this blog up I have been asked by a few folks, what is a mid-core gamer? Mostly the question is asked by those who don't know that there are different types of gamers, or those who know about the types but have a totally different definition for mid-core gaming. A friend of mine who asked me this question thought mid-core gamers where folks who only played really well known games. His thought was gaming was like music there are folks who only listen to Pop Music, and hard core people who like the lesser known stuff. So to him mid-core was Pop Gaming.  Actually here is how to explain it. The video game industry, and various publications on video gaming are always trying to figure out who players are, how much they play, and what games fit them the best. Basically, by doing this they could more clearly define thier customers, and ways of marketing to them. In the last few years especially with the proliferation of smart phone gaming th...

When it comes to counsel gaming I pretty much dropped out of that world between 1994 and 1999. I outgrew my NES and got into the wonderful world of PC gaming. Of course had I known the pitfalls of constenly having to cut open the PC to upgrade this that or that next thing, I might have stuck with counsel gaming. So basically I was around when the SNES arrived on the scene. My brother in law had one and I spent hours playing F-Zero, Super Mario, Pilot Wings, some sort of Football game, and Star Fox on it. But I wanted flight sims and strategy games and the only way to get then was on PC.  I was always aware of the whole Sega vs Nintendo thing going on. I didn't really care though, I was a PC gamers I was above it all. But, at the same time I had to admit there where some pretty cool games coming out on both platforms, and 16-bit had a lot going for it.  Flash forward to 2013, and I get into retro gaming. I want to get an SNES but as significantly cheaper then...