The Grand Emperor's Retro Video Gaming Blog

The Sega 32x is one of the most unusual consoles to have ever been on the market. First of all the system wasn't sole supportive like any other consoles, and required the Sega Genesis (Maga-Drive) to operate. As strange as it may sound though for the time it wasn't out of the norm for many systems of that era. The Genesis, Atari Jaguar, TG-16, and later on the Nintendo 64 (but only Japan) all had CD-Rom add-ons that required the base console to function. The odd part about the 32x unlike those other add-ons, was that it was a cartridge based system and not a CD-Rom add-on, making it all the more unusual. Hooking up the Sega 32x up to the Genesis via it's cartridge slot is the easy part. After that it also an S-video to S-video connection between the 32x and the Genesis. It also needs it's own power too, separate from that of the Genesis, and must be directly connected (via it's own RF switch) to the TV . It's a quick and easy installation projec...

Four years ago I wrote an article about a collector's app I was using to keep track of my gaming collection, and since then I have used the app pretty extensively . In my 8-bit Friday's and Backlog's articles when I talk about "checking-in" a game, it means adding the game into this app after it's tested . To me once a game is added to the app it's officially part of  my collection. My gaming collection has expanded exponentially for many reasons since the first article, and this app has been part of that . Through eBay auctions, gaming stores, and even gaming conventions, this app has proven to be a solid resource as a collector . It's saved me from buying stuff I already own, and helped me add titles I thought I owned but didn't. On top of all that the wishlist section of the app has helped me track the games I want for my collection, and provided me with "next buy" guidence . The point of this app is that it thinks about y...

At this point I can easily say I’ve been through just about all the Star Trek series at least 3 times on Netflix over the past year and half. Now days when it's on it’s mainly as background noise, and a kind of mental comfort food in the late evenings before bed, with revisits to Enterprise and Voyager. More or less I’ve reached the point where I need to take a break from it so as to not loose my appreciation of this great franchise. It hasn’t been easy finding something else to watch though, especially when this has been my go to programming for a while. Among one of my favorite newer TV shows is Disney XD’s Star Wars: Rebels an animated series following the exploits of a small cell of rebels in the early stages of the rebellion against the Empire. It’s an interesting series that takes place within the 19 year period between Revenge of the Sith , and Rogue One/A New Hope , and often pulls from the character pools of both the original and prequel trilogies. Even though the...

Well, welcome back to my old school “Diaries” edition, which is where I started off on 8-bit Fridays and like returning too. This Weeks Buy’s: It’s been a week of lost auctions so nothing to report this week. This Weeks Plays: Damage Inc (PS3) - Ok, so this is actually a game that admittedly has been hanging out there for a while. When I played through a bunch of PS3 games about a month back I intentionally skipped this one. The reason being is that I didn't want to put the joystick together or find a place to it store it after. So the other night in preparation for this weekend I opened it up to take a look and was pleasantly surprised, the joystick is designed to be put together and taken apart as well as stored in the original box. So this weekend I decided to hook the joystick up and put Damage Inc in the PS3. Hooking it up was easy (being USB) but it took a bit more than that to coax the joystick into working with the game. After some plugging and unplugging ...