Messages

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Is Adol selling up?]

So someone bought it already?

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: WTT // have: PCE games - seek: Atari ST stuff]

I'm not "selling" anything. Nor am I intending to give up the PCE.
I just found out, that I guess I'm a home computer kind of guy after all, no use denying that. As in: not a consoles kind of guy.

As wonderful as the PCE might be (and judging it at what it is, and for when it was I think it is the most awesome thing there ever was!), it is a very "passive" hobby. I lack the active messing with things that programming on  home computer gives me.

The collection linked above was started with the intention to collect the games completely in chronological sequence of original publication. Which was a stooooopid approach, because I had to buy titles I kew to suck, often on short notice, as I wanted to "get on with it" and hence knowingly overpaying some of these games even.

Suffice it to say, I abandoned that approach after the first 40 games ...

Amiga is just not non-conformistic enough for me. I mean that's like going Nintendo, in a way ... ;)

[Buy/Sell/Trade / WTT // have: PCE games - seek: Atari ST stuff]

Hi there!

I'm looking for stuff for the Atari ST, and figured I'd trade some PCE games for it.

Primarily, I'd be interested in books on topics around programming, or in users' magazines for the ST.
Preferrably in English or German, but even French will do. (As long as it's not translations of German originals.)

Games I'd be interested in least of all.
If games alright, then please only in English or German. Only complete in box, and no budget label re-releases, please.
Preferred genres (in that ranking): wargames, strategy games, rpgs, adventures, puzzles, platformers, ....., shoot-'em ups.

Here is what you might want to choose from:
http://www.pcedaisakusen.net/1/34/475/show-collection--0-0-100-name-asc-0.htm

Only one of these games is loose (Shubibinman). All others in the box with manual. Generally in good used condition. Not all CD-ROM games still have the spinecrd, though.
Let me know what you have, and what you'd be interested in, then I'll make photos of these games for you.

My location: Vienna, Austria.
If we trade, everyone pays the shipping cost of what he gives up.

Thanks!

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Original purpose of Spine Cards has me baffled ...]

I absolutely love this guy, and I don't mean this as a snide remark!
Check him out making coffee:

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Original purpose of Spine Cards has me baffled ...]

I always was curious about the purpose of spine cards. I read the Wikipedia article on them, and I still don't see the point (not with video games, anyway).
Having closely examined some of the spine cards I have for my PCE games, I must say that most of them seem pretty redundant. As in: they don't give any useful information that isn't on the inlay anyway.

Did people in Japan ever do something with these?
Like, if a buddy of theirs had a CD they wanted too, did they borrow the card, go to the store shoving it under the clerk's nose, and say: "order me this"?

Or what ...?

Because I wonder, if they could have any actual use to me I might be currently oblivious of, and if I should bother going for games with them rather than without them. (I see how they fetch higher prices, and I don't intend to argue that.)

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: PCE, SNES and Genesis, screen comparison.]

Please, don't anybody get this question wrong (I truly appreciate the time and effort such comparisons take!):

Why does everybody always do these comparisons with Megadrive and SuperFamicom?
Even in Japan these platforms were released a little over two and three years (!) after the PCE respectively.
And yes, comparisons there go to show how well the PCE was able to stand its ground in its latter days, but until late 1989 there was no alternative to the PCE. (Not that there is these days, 25 years later ...  )

But what is usually neglected, is how extremely the PCE graphically wiped the floor with 8-bit Sega and Nintendo at the beginning, and how it could conquer such a large market share in the first place.

I would love to see more such comparisons with the 8-bit systems mentioned, especially for games published in the first three to four years of the PCE life (fall 1987 till 1990/1991).

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

That Shawn of the dead: self defense looks interesting... Could you let me know how it is

Well I just sat through it, and it was a real meh!-experience.
"Zombie self defense force" was nothing like "Shaun of the dead", really. It was not scary, it was not good, and it wasn't even funny, this side of a single good joke in the whole thing.
They had obviously no budget beyond lunch for the crew, and sadly they don't act it quite badly enough to be fun.

I've been spoon-fed with really bad flicks like this in the eighties, so I could sit through it, and not "want my money back", yet I doubt I'll ever watch it again.

"Izo" on the other hand rocked!
Took me a few minutes to get into the film, but once I understood what it was about, I felt this movie had been made with me personally in mind. Great thing, truthing all the way, great inescapable nihilistic anger-fest. Add to that the fact that it guest-stars every other Japanese movie star out there.

"Ashura" I liked way more than I thought I would. The ending was stretched and broke with the mood of the whole movie, but I really liked the leading male actor's performance. The guy came from theater/musical stage background and had never been in a movie before. He completely ignored the camera, and played to an imaginary audience instead, and the director got that to actually work in this film. Remarkable. 


EDIT:

Oh, and as of the PCE games I bought:

CD Battle was a real let-down. I didn't expect it to be much of a game in the first place, as I knew its background as barcode battler rip-off. But the randomly generated characters don't make any sense. You get characters with so few HPs, they almost die all by themselves, without the enemy side having to do much. Sometimes you get characters generated that have awesome spells, but they are randomly generated to not have enough MPs to actually cast these... How dumb is that?!
Plus, I went through like maybe 20 audio CDs, and I only got a "hidden" character out of one of them.

Avoid this "game".

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: fat single jewel cases ?]

Very pleased to hear that. I've seen Monster Maker offered dirt-cheap, and 1552 always made me sort of curious to get it one day. Thanks!

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

June so far ...
Bottom right is for Win95-XP @640x480res  (Still got an XP-partition on my iMac, used for gaming sometimes.)

/buys201206.jpg

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / fat single jewel cases ?]

The case of my copy of Wizardry I/II is seriously cracked. I had never really noticed it before, but the case is fatter than a standard jewel case, making it hard to replace.
The only other fat cases I have in my collection are the Ziria re-issue (with the red toad on the cover), Arunamu の Kiba, and the ArcadePRO card's case.

Which games came in such a "fattie"? Maybe I can find a cheap replacement online, if a lesser-loved (and cheaper to buy) game shipped like that.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: The Kung Fu - Printing on back of HuCard is upside down!]

I seem to have a later Bikkuriman, because on my copy it's the right side up. My Kung Fu and Shanghai are "upside down" as well.
My Bikkuriman has a little hologramm sticker on the cover of the booklet; did all versions have that? Top of my head I don't remember seeing that on another game.

While on the topic of such "oddities":

I was somewhat baffled to notice the ArcadePRO Card saying "CD-ROM²" on the narrow side of the case, the inlay tab. I understand that it says that because it is for such systems, yet it seems odd to me as it is a HuCard.

I guess it says "Super CD-ROM²" with the ArcadeDUO Card ???

Kind of illogical then for it to say "HuCard" on the TenのKoe Card, isn't it?

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Any german members here?]

Vienna, Austria - but never been to Munich, unfortunately.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Not another screenshot quiz...]

yep

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Not another screenshot quiz...]

It's Mesopotamia. I'm not sure you understand the concept of this game.

It is, and I didn't, obviously ... 

So how about this?

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Not another screenshot quiz...]

Since nobody continues ...

here's a screenshot (with the sprite layer disabled)

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Energy]

No way near the worst PCE game ever.
It is way too easy (once one knows how to operate it, like switching through the items, etc.).
In other ways it is way too hard, like the friendly monster in Level 1. I died a million times down there walking off the ledge into the water, before I figured I had to jump into the water and it would lift me up and carry me to the other side.
Not suggested for people who don't read manuals on principle.

[Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread]

justsaypictures.com/images/the-80s.jpg

images.dailydawdle.com/epic-family-portrait.jpg

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: 3 and 6 button controllers?]

マーシャルチャンピオン

I think that (Martial Champion) is a three button game, no?

[Off-Topic / Re: Word association thread]

Dokken

[Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread]

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Is there a Turbo/PCE price guide floating around out there?]

I also detest price guides on principal, especially since they always come with some motarded condition system, at which point it becomes utterly subjective and self-deluding.

Basically I believe in free market deciding over the price. If there is demand, it will fetch a high price, if there is none it won't.
Admittedly, sometimes that works against me. Shooters (even the bad ones) are usually overpriced, but therefore really nice obscure games can be had for little money again and again.

Having said that, I don't have "issues" over insane prices people demand on eBay. Most of the time they don't even suffice to make me chuckle. I've been on eBay for some 12 years now, if memory serves, and have witnessed the nature of the game (and its players there) change and change repeatedly.
The only people getting rich are the eBay owners. But they get rich at the expense of these rabid profiteers, so no biggie to me.

One of the main reasons I dared take the plunge to get back into the PCE was that I was very happy to see that (on European eBay at least) there are plenty of stores where you can get games for sane prices. No, these items don't show up in the regular listings or searches, but they are there.

That is/was not so with some other potential candidates for topics of a collection. 

What I would like to see instead of a price guide is a simple but statistically accurate and well-founded rarity list.
Daisakusen mentions rarity on some games, but oftentimes their categorizing is NOT AT ALL what I see on eBay. In the sense that I see games that are "rarer" by their declaration on eBay all the time for dirt cheap, and others they call common hardly ever show up.

I have also learned to leave the "sealed" people alone. If I could snip my fingers and work magic, I would give the sealed fellas a priceguide for their sealed stuff only, but moved them into a pocket universe with padded walls where they can't hurt themselves or others.

[Off-Topic / Re: Word association thread]

Yoshimitsu

[Buy/Sell/Trade / HAVE: controller extension cables -- SEEK: games]

Okay, I know that extension cables for PCE controllers are just regular mini-DIN cables. But this is for the people who might find it hard or too much of a hassle to get these elsewhere.

I'm in Europe (Austria) and seek to trade within Europe only.

The way I imagine it is that you get one of these cables and I get two (I'm not gonna stop you from sending more than two) of your game doubles or unwanted games.

The cables are grey of colour and loose (i.e. not packaged), but they have not been used before. They were originally intended as oldskool mac printer-cable extensions, but they don't cross over the pins, so they work perfectly fine as extension cables for PCE pads. (In fact I use two of them for that purpose myself.)

I have a total of four of them to give away.

The idea is that I send you one of them in a padded envelope, and you send me two of your "unloved" games in return. I pay postage of the cable, you pay postage of the games. Simple, isn't it?

I only seek complete (and obviously functional) games, where "complete" means all inlays, manual and plastic bag for the card (if card games). I don't need any spine card with the cd-ROM games, nor do I need any registration cards.
I don't mind if the outer halves of the jewel case are damaged, but the tray of the jewelcase should not be damaged.
I don't mind if the manual has seen (ab)use and has creases or somesuch, but it should be complete and not have any handwriting in/on it. Nor should it be bleached by the sun.

I don't really care what games I get, as long as they are for the japanese PCE.
(Okay, that was a lie ... No baseball games, no Peach Boy games, and no Mahjongg games, please.)
Beneath is a link to my (small) collection on Daisakusen. Anything not yet on the list there is welcome.

http://www.pcedaisakusen.net/1/34/475/show-collection.htm

EDIT: they are a little over 180cm / ca. 6 ft. long.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Big in Jap-- errrrr ... France?]

I've been wondering these last few years, why exactly the PCE is so unproportionally big in France.
Looking through European eBay, I note almost every other article comes from France. They have tons of french stores on eBay, too.

Is it retro gaming in general that is bigger in France than elsewhere?

Or was there any "logical" reason in the past, that explains the PCE situation today?

Or am I only imagining things?

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Am I doing something wrong? - POWER SPORTS]

 ... use the other button to speed up the crosshairs ...

(Which is less intuitive than it sounds. You don't need the other button at all except in the 4-seconds-run. And just pressing it once doesn't do anything, so I thought it had no function. One must stay on it while D-padding the crosshairs, then they'll move faster.)

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: How many anime were based off PCE games (or vice versa)]

Sol Bianca - ソルビアンカ

First there was a 60min Anime (one "episode"). (April 1990)

Then came the PCE game based on it. (June 1990)
http://www.pcedaisakusen.net/1/28/400/1/Sol-Bianca-jp.htm

Two years later they did a second 60min "episode". (May 1992)

Years later they did a re-imagination/re-design kind of thing on it as Manga. (dunno the release date - don't care much for manga)

Based on that manga they did a 6-episode series (30mins each) called Sol Bianca: The Legacy.

I'm a sucker for the franchise. Even though the PCE RPG is nothing to write home about, if you don't care about the franchise. (Me myself, I'm biased, obviously: I saw the original Anime on a laserdisc (! LOL) waaaaay back when. It may well have been the first Anime I ever saw. And few I saw since then I liked as much.
The setting with the all female cast just had some magic chemistry to it.)

I like both the original as well as the legacy anime loads. They are very very different, yet obviously similar.

I suggest that all guys who get their transcendental calm from listening to female singers (not pop starlets!) go watch it.   

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Am I doing something wrong? - POWER SPORTS]

Nevermind, I bothered reading the manual. :/
(Who reads manuals with sports games?!)

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What is this game?]

http://www.pcengine.co.uk/HTML_Games/Hiso_Kihei_Kai_Serd.htm
Not exactly the greatest of strategy games, though.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What is the best Turbo/PC Engine Tennis game?]

I find Power Tennis superior to Final Match Tennis eventually.

World Court is very arcady unrealistic, and too cute for my taste, besides: 90% of the player's sprite being the head makes it kind of hard to judge where exactly on the court the player sprite stands. And it is graphically butt ugly. The sound is equally bad. My least favorite of all Namco games on the PCE.

On Davis Cup (which I would love to love if it weren't for the angle of view) I have a question:

So far I only knew it from the ROM, but that is the US version. In Japan it was on CD - are there any actual differences to gameplay/modes, etc., or did they just add music and other "fluff"?

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: English friendly PCE games?]

Just because I did a little youtube video on it the other day, and it meets your demands ...

HYPER WARS is a (robot battles simulation kind of) game full of English. Even the intro has English text to the narrator's Japanese.

In-game everything on screen is English, other than your staff's comments, but they don't tell you anything that isn't obvious anyway.

You can find part 1 of the video here:

And part 2 here:

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Am I doing something wrong? - POWER SPORTS]

Hi everybody. 

I am currently spending a little time with Hudson's POWER SPORTS, but I wonder about the Rapid Fire Pistol contest.
Is there a way to speed up one's crosshairs? Because the 4-seconds-run is over just before my crosshairs reaches the fifth target.
At first I thought it was something with my pad, but I tried other controllers, it's the same problem on all of them.

Am I missing something?

Or is this just a game design flaw?