TransmitHim

"Sensing that the game was worth far more than the $17,000 it had sold for, Kiro cancelled the eBay sale"

So he broke eBay rules and screwed over a buyer and we're supposed to applaud him? If he was happy enough to list $17k he should have gone through with it. It's on him that he didn't know it was worth more.

@Mrakey There's a fan made fix which makes it runnable. Far from ideal of course.

I'd definitely echo the recommendation for their Toy Shop On Tour series on YouTube. It's a lot of fun!

I had one, possibly two of these, as a kid (years after they came out) and they were a lot of fun. I remember losing one when Mario (or Luigi) got turned into a hamster. Let's see the games match that.

@RupeeClock In the 80s, game data was broadcast over the radio for people to record on cassette and play on micros with tape drives. Well, maybe. My 6th form Computing teacher told my class this and I'm still not sure whether he was saying it actually happened or was theoretical.

To be honest, I'd forgotten Game even still do trade-ins. I never consider it against trading to CEX or selling on eBay. And it's not like I don't go in Game - my local one is now in House of Fraser and really nice, I stop by most times I'm in the area.

I care more that they advertise a disc cleaning/resurfacing service on their website but if you actually try to use it there's this bizarre conspiracy of silence and unhelpfulness to stop anyone actually using it or knowing which stores even have it.

Oh a Sparkster collection. Cool. I've been after the SNES game for a while, but at a going rate of ~£60 for a loos cart, it's been hard to justify.

Listing the games or directly linking to a source with the list of games might have been helpful.

"Genius"? For ports?

I don't remember these but a friend of mine was into something similar in the late 90s I think - some sort of monster fight game where you scratched off to reveal attacks or damage amounts. Even as a kid I thought it was a pretty terrible idea for a product: essentially a trading card game where you could only use each card once before having to dispose of it.
This Zelda one is possibly worse, really, given it's only for a single player adventure. It's essentially you vs random chance for money with no reward or replay factor.

Feels like it'd be more impressive actually learn to play the church organ.

Less an "Evercade" and more a "Tempcade" then.

RetroSix have a really terrible reputation in the console modding community with some shocking behaviour. I won't be buying anything from them again.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Gameboy/comments/ktbgnf/retrosix_is_stealing_other_peoples_work_and/

Mad. Absolutely mad.

@YANDMAN Yeah, it costs money, but you're still required to do it. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-and-overseas-goods-sold-to-customers-in-the-uk-using-online-marketplaces

Some businesses, including Limited Run, just hire someone else to sort it for them. They got back to me and said tax rates are set by their "International Shipping Partner" and denied any knowledge of or responsibility for the rates being wrong.

@kakoro Alright, pipe down lad.

Kickstarter has been a glorified pre-order platform for years now. Pretty much any video game project on there that has offered a physical version has put that cost up-front in the relevant reward tier. If he doesn't know what that's going to cost, even as a rough estimate, don't list it as part of a reward tier. A "reservation" is nothing, especially as it says it's for a "standard edition" so it's not even a limited edition that'll sell out quickly you're pre-paying for access to.

I'm really sorry my desire for a boxless cartridge so disquietens you. I hope you're able to recover your senses and move on with your life without it adversely affecting you more than it apparently already has. Stay strong, little buddy, stay strong.

This feels like an article you write when you get the response from Sega, not before.

The game looks good. The Kickstarter looks a little dubious in that no-one of the tiers actually buy you a physical copy of the game, just a "reservation" to buy one when they're launched, which is a bit weird.

I also wish people doing new unlicensed games for classic systems like this would offer loose cart copies. All my GB games are reboxed in DS cases with custom sleeves. I'd have no placed for an elaborate cardboard box.

I was of that age of the time and it wasn't something I was consciously aware of, but yeah, Pokemon totally ate GW's lunch with the younger end of the teen market it targeted at the time.

StarTropics is a lot of fun though it makes the very weird choice of saving a load of lovely pixel art illustrations of events from the game for the end credits, where a significant portion of players wouldn't have seen them, rather than using them when they actually happened.

@BionicDodo Agreed. Absolutely stunning.

@KainXavier Ok but so what?

People (even corporations) are allowed to own something and not do anything with it. Bill Watterson hasn't done any Calvin and Hobbes in nearly 30 years now, that doesn't mean anyone is allowed to turn up and make their own strips of it without repercussions or permission. My friend's had a classic car off the road for about four years now. Just because he doesn't want to drive it, doesn't mean some kid down the road is entitled to turn up and take it for a joyride.

Maybe Interplay are waiting for someone else to come and buy the property off them. That's their choice. Copyrights are not trademarks, they don't expire through lack of use.

Everyone knows the deal with fan projects now, to go crying about "copyright abuse" (which is not at all what this is - it's standard copyright infringement action) when you get the inevitable C&D is pathetically entitled.

@YANDMAN No, it's applying the rate of tax for the destination country (the onus is on the business to pay this up-front now, rather than the customer paying import VAT on delivery): 20% for the UK and when I changed my region and delivery area to Canada, it dropped to 2%, the Canadian VAT/sales tax rate. Books are VAT exempt in the UK, so Limited Run shouldn't be charging any tax on them for UK orders, but seemingly are.

Has anyone in the UK bought a book from Limited Run? Because I just looked at doing so and it was adding 20% VAT at checkout even though books are VAT exempt. Do they refund that after the order or are they just pocketing it?

LMAO at the guy claiming this is "copyright abuse".

I've been burned too many times buying from CEX online. Not just bad condition items (a Law & Order DVD boxset turned up with all the discs scratched and the case barely holding together) but bootleg games too. The Final Fantasy VI Advance I ordered off their website turned out to be a pretty obvious fake, as I had to explain to the staff in my local branch when I returned it.

I've not had any similar problems in store, because, obviously you can look at the item first and avoid the many trash condition copies (and fakes) they have in.

The reprinting covers is absolutely taking the piss though. For, say, a DS game, if it's got a reprinted cover and no manual, it's just a loose copy of the game they've tried to tart up. It's mad that they think it's acceptable to sell those, let alone at the same price as a properly boxed copy. And it's not just for cheap games, I've seen copies of the DS Pokemon games, priced around £50-100 with "reprinted" covers. It's especially galling given they don't take loose games (or DVDs/Blu-Rays) like that for trade in, but they'll happily sell them. The silliest I've seen is one of the recent Dr Who Collection blu-rays, which are nice season boxsets of original Who that come in a thick blu-amray and a slipcase. They had one of those with a "reprinted cover" where they'd shoved all the discs into a thin blu-ray case and butchered a scan of the inner box sleeve to fit. Who is going to buy that for full price?

Supposedly, they're not meant to supply those copies with "reprinted" covers for websales, but I'm not surprised you ended up with one.

I was surprised to see Bab's Big Break on the list. Not that I think it's bad, it's just not a game I've ever seen anyone talk about much at all. It was one of the first four GB games I had as a kid (and for years I only had those four) and I really liked it. Some impressive sprites in it, looking back.

Unfortunately my copy disappeared years ago. I really should get around to replacing it.

All these fan translation but not Treasure of the Rudras?! A fantastic JRPG from Square that is practically Final Fantasy 6.5, with a deep plot (ending a cycle of armageddons threatening to wipe out humanity as they did their predecessors, along with eco-warrior elements), a brilliant interwoven three-strand structure that you can jump between whenever you want, great graphics and music and the innovative mantra magic system where you construct spells freely using syllables or just random words.

A staggering bit of translation work by Aeon Genesis too. Definitely worth any JRPG fan's time.

@echoplex As I recall, the extra characters in multiplayer code came out pretty early, but it was a few years before the rest came to light (I suspect Rare eventually gave them to a magazine). Same with Banjo-Kazooie and most of the cheats you can put into the pirate level's letter grid.

The Terranigma entry is wrong in one of two ways, depending how the ambiguous wording is intended to be read. Either it's saying the only English release was in Europe, which isn't correct as it was released in Australia too, or it's saying the only release in Europe was in English, which isn't correct as it was also available in French, Spanish and German.

@aducky84 Yeah, there's no ambiguity about the first game being Simon's first time in the magical world. And this description "a riveting tale of an unruly and irreverent young man thrust into a world brimming with magic." just describes the first game.

The art on this looks nice but as a general package, I thought the failed Kickstarter project by Story Beasts a few years back (which had an alt reality Simone meeting Simon, who has been stuck in the magical world for years) looked better.

@gojiguy Even if it is private, at least she's not coming begging for our money to fund it like Ashens et al's gamer bar in Norwich.

It says it's the US English spelling edition. Does that mean there's a UK English version?

I bloody loved Tetris Attack on the SNES, which I picked up as a kid. I have to admit though, I probably wouldn't have bought it if it had had Lip et al instead of Yoshi and the Tetris name.

Who told you there's a secret in the lid in of my GameCube?! I don't know what you're talking about! It certainly isn't hiding three tightly folded sheets of poetry dedicated to a certain celebrity popular in 2003!
Oh, the black bit pops out? That's the secret? Right, ok. Wow, I didn't know that. Crazy.

I've not had any issues with my games collection in a while (though some of my console fronts have sun-burnt and some carts back in the day). But as a toy collector, I really feel this pain.

@RupeeClock yeah and the one of Link isn't even from anything official, is it?

Tangential to the actual issue of this article but man, Guybrush does not come off well in the Sea of Thieves art style.

I don't think you can just boil the issue, here represented by Croc vs Banjo down to just pure numbers. Croc may have sold as many copies, to a larger user base, but it didn't have anywhere near the cultural impact Banjo did. Partially that's because it wasn't as good a game and partially that's because of that userbase proportionality.

Banjo was important to the N64 because a big chunk of people who owned the platform played it. That was reflected in the way it hung around in what we'd now call "the discourse" in gaming mags for a good few years after its release (helped by good reviews and lots of secrets, like the Treasure Trove Cove cheats that only came out months if not years after release). Croc was nowhere near as significant to the Playstation, even if it did sell a respectable amount of copies (which I'd argue was going to a young skewing audience than even Banjo). The fact it can't even get mentioned in the same breath as other PSX platformers like Crash and Spyro is pretty damning.

This is a bit like moaning that no-one considers Blue a more important musical act than the Smiths or the Sex Pistols even though they've sold more albums.

15 years was a long license period.

No Jeff Goldblum and Isabella Rossellini in Goosebumps: Escape From Horrorland?

@ralphdibny Hmm, yeah, I forgot about that element.

@ralphdibny It's pretty easy to check sold prices on eBay though. Doing so suggests that orange Pikachu N64 in box goes for about £300. A NES Action Set about £200-300. The games about £75-100 a pop.
Even allowing that the store has to underpay to make a margin (and even then, given he's trading in rather than selling, they could cut him a bit of slack there) and the convenience of trading in vs selling yourself, he's been done. His gear was about three times the value of the OLED.

BS Zelda no Densetsu: Inishie no Sekiban [Ancient Stone Tablets] is more than a "soundlink reimagining of Link to the Past". It's basically a sequel story using the original game's assets and the audio narration.

@-wc- You have to make an account and give your email address, name, physical address (which needs a valid post code, you can't just spoof one) and phone number to complete the "order". That is excessive for a demo.

I went to download the demo but bailed when I saw you have to essentially "purchase" it through their online store, even though its free, which is utterly ridiculous.

I had a go on this and while it's a nice idea, the execution is horribly lacking. The hit detection is spotty, there's no immediate sense of contact when you do hit and the reach of the wand is disorientating (when wielded it appears about half a body length ahead of Zelda, unattached to her) making combat pretty much impossible. Having to press a button to pick up hearts and rupees is bizarre and it kept crashing for me.
Maybe that level of jank is authentic to the original, but seems a bit pointless to replicate it. It'd been nice if any of the outlets covering this demake had played it first to see if it was worth reporting about, frankly. Because at the moment it's just "guy makes broken version of bad game".

But isn't the current iteration Atari just Infogrames renamed? So why is it having to acquire Infogrames games?

In the suit, she should definitely be over 6 feet. It should be a somewhat imposing thing. Without it... upper end of 5 foot, I guess?

Voultar's a good guy.