The Grand Emperor's Retro Video Gaming Blog

My son asks, “Hey Dad, why is it called the Nintendo 64?” To which I reply ,  “Because it came out in 1964!” being a smart ass . At first he accepts this answer but about 5 seconds later he bounces back with, “No it didn’t,  what’s  the real reason?” Essentially ,  this  line of questioning  open ed   a door on  comput er  and video game history  that w ould take  a great deal of explaining .  T o be honest u nless you lived back then th e whole 64 -bit  thing is lost on you,  a fter all we  live  in a  world of   where  consoles  “ bits ”  no  l onger matter This is the era of  the  PS4, and XBOX One, not the XBOX 512 or the  PlayStation  512.  Now days it’s more about what  the  console can do besides playing video games ,  rather they how they play or look.   So how do you explain the relevance of the   ” 64 ”   in Ninten...

Here in 2014 with nearly 40+ years of home console and other consumer based video games behind us, we have seen a lot of really odd things. Some made sense, some didn’t, and still some leave us saying “WTF!”. For instance here in 2014 the thought of someone playing a video game on their telephone is both common place and common sense, but could you imagine the thought of playing a video game on your telephone in 1987? It would have not only been odd, but nearly unimaginable. Yet 1987 yielded one of the oddest ways to play home video games we had ever seen. In a world of DVD and Blu-Ray players having movies that are interactive at home is a norm. In-movie commentary, supplementary camera angles, trivia, and mini-games are all common. But in the world of VHS tapes your only options where play, fast forward, rewind, stop, and pause, no games or bonus material here. Yet in 1987 the toy industry gave us VHS video gaming. Yes 1987, in the height of Nintendo (NES) fever, and with other c...

I have to admit August has been a tough month for me in my personal life, there’s just a lot going on and my stress level has been at 11 most of the month. The worst part is there is no end in sight for a few more months.   But……………….. This month has had its up sides with regards to gaming. I have had a very lucky month thanks to a few podcasts I have mentioned previously, as well as my favorite retro gaming store.   Lucky Break Number 1 I have been listening to The Retro League podcast for a while now, and I am a huge fan of the show, and I even wrote a blog about the show some months back. Now, if you are unfamiliar with the show, let me first of all say you’re missing a lot so start listening but I digress.   Every week the hosts Rob and Hugues pick a question of the week at the end of each podcast that is put on Facebook, Twitter, The Retro League Forums, and that can answered via e-mail. The questions are always really fun and usually create some gre...

I’m always amazed at how quickly I have grown my Atari 2600 collection. A year ago I didn’t even own a 2600, by New Years I had 90 games, and now 6 months later I have +/- 200. Of course the rest of my video gaming collection has grown by leaps and bounds as well, but the Atari 2600 has a special place in my heart. When I wrote my first article about my Atari collection after the first of the year I had to ask what it was that separated a casual collector from a serious one. What was it that would take me from someone simply dabbling in an old tech to someone who knows the system and its games with some authority? I was actually somewhat surprised by the reaction I got when collectors operating in the 300+ range told me that 90 games meant I was pretty much already there as a serious collector. This let me know I was going in the right direction andat this point the serious or casual collector question no longer concerned me, but the future of my collecting did.   A...

Tom Arnold would be impressed! I always find podcast after they have been on for 6 months or more, with 2 years somehow being a magic number. Not, this time though not with 2 Dudes and a NES I managed to find them a month after they started the podcast which made catching up on past episodes really easy. But, I’m getting ahead of myself aren’t I? After spending the first few months of this year building up my Atari 2600 collection, and I got my NES fixed and decided it was time to start building up my NES collection a little more.   Having a gotten a lot of guidance on Atari 2600 game collecting   from the Atari 2600 Game by Game Podcast I decided to poke around the Throwback Network a little more to see if they had any podcast on NES collecting, and they did the 2 Dudes and a NES. Seeing how the podcast was only about a month old I decided the first episode I would listen to would be the podcasts first episode as well Super Mario Bros. The first episode...

The year was 1988 and “Nintendo Fever” was kicking into high gear. I guess I was slightly oblivious to this since in my school we were arguing about Commodore 64 vs PC, and the joys of Micro Machines. Some of my classmates had NES’s, and some didn’t, but no one care. Yet, history seems to tell us that the country was ablaze with Nintendo, and kids seem to obsess about it. In November of 1988, ABC’s longtime news program 20/20 ran a story called “Nuts for Nintendo” by John Stossel. For retro gaming enthusiasts and NES devotees alike, the “Nuts for Nintendo” piece has become somewhat immortalized, and a point of contention ever since. Love it, or hate it, it exist but I say it’s not all that bad. Now, to be honest unless I was reminded about the piece I never would have known about it, I mean heck there is a chance I even watched it live and just forgot about it over the years so to say the least I was oblivious to it either way. So when various podcast and internet articles see...

I will openly admit that I have a lot of interests, as many other American men do. So with that said as long as I am going to spend 8 hours a day behind a desk unable to partake in those interests I would at least like to listen to podcasts on them so I can be informed and have fun that way. For some of my hobbies there aren’t any really good podcast, or in some cases any podcasts at all. But, when it comes to retro gaming there are a lot of really good ones, some of which I have covered in previous blog entries. About two months ago I began to learn a lot more about DOSBox, the DOS emulation program that can be used to access DOS based programs on Windows XP and later computers. I decided to do this after I picked up a bunch of DOS based games at a local thrift shop. It was at that point I began to wonder if there were any podcast out there that concentrated on old PC games. I searched iTunes and found nothing, using PC games, DOS, and a number of other search terms, so I ...

Perhaps this would have been more appropriate to do on June 1, or June 30 th , but now is as good of a time as any to make sure I am on track with my New Years resolutions. Well at least the gaming resolutions, I didn’t right the rest of them down so the heck with them right?   #1 Play a Final Fantasy game: NOT YET I haven’t done this one yet, but I decided of all the Final Fantasy games, I’m going to buy and play the first one. That’s right the original NES version. Now, I know what you’re saying “what there are so many new and better versions, so why?”. Well, you have to think I’m coming into a series that has been going on for a while, and let’s be honest even though the parts don’t link up you still lose something not starting from the beginning.   #2 Finally Finish Super Mario Bros. 3 NOPE I bought in a lot of new games and systems this year and sitting down to tackle this classic just hasn’t been possible, maybe in the fall.   #3 Fi...

If you follow my blog you know I am always hunting for new podcasts on retro gaming to help occupy my days. After you have listened to, and are fully caught up on all your favorites you end up have a lot of time to fill. So I end up hunting again. About a month ago I was looking for something new to listen too, and I was in the mood to play F-Zero on the SNES, but it was 10AM on a weekday and I was at my desk working. So I decided to put F-Zero in as a search topic in iTunes hoping to find an SNES podcast, or hear a podcast about F-Zero ’s development. My search bought back a few results some of which I already knew about, and some others that where irrelevant, but I did find this one that sounded really interesting. The podcast was named the Retro Rewind Podcast and as I looked into what the podcast was about I found that it was something that I might actually like to listen to. So I decided to give the podcast a try with the F-Zero episode, and very quickly found that I liked t...

Check out this link, about blowing in NES catridges from the Science Channel and PBS  http://sci2.tv/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ScienceChannel/#!/videos/943  

Gen 7 & 8 Gaming and Gen 4.5 & 5 Fighters We live in interesting times both for home consoles and jet fighters, due to the fact that generations of both are overlapping and the replacement of one over the other is coming slowly. For Gen 7 in gaming the only loss so far is the generation’s best known platform the Nintendo Wii, replaced by the somewhat tenuous WiiU. Meanwhile the Xbox 360 and Xbox One as well as the PS3 and PS4 stand toe to toe with only limited replacement of one over the other. The recent release of Watch Dogs for instance is proof that all four systems are still very much alive. In the world of jet fighters we are beginning to see Gen 4 lingering on as Gen 4 staples see upgrades that make them as high tech as the Gen 5 fighters set to replace them. Advances in CAD engineering, radar, communications, weapon systems, and avionics have developed faster than aerospace engineers can design aircraft to embody them all. With that said the high price of d...