GRcade

kerr9000 wrote:Well I went to a retro game fair which was held in a hotel conference room today, I figured it would be all £100 boxed rares and nothing I'd feel like paying for and yeah there was some stuff like that but there was also a few cheap bits to pick through.

I got

Columns cart only for game gear for 50p
Wave race cart only for gameboy for £1
Game boy gallery cart only for gameboy £1
Golf cart only for gameboy £1
All star baseball 2001 cart only for gameboy color £1
F-1 world grand Prix cart only for gameboy color £1
Perfect dark cart only (missing battery cover) for gameboy color £1
Super hunchback cart only for gameboy £1
Gundam SD cart only (Japanese) for gameboy £1
Total soccer manager cart only for GBA £1
Nintendo scope 6 cart only for SNES £1
PGA tour 96 cart only for SNES £1
Secret of Man cart only (Japanese) for SNES £1
Donkey Kong Land cart only (half missing label) for gameboy color £1
Kirby super deluxe cart only (Japanese) for SNES £4
Robot Wars EX cart only (Japanese) for SNES £2

Two disc only copies of Alien Trilogy , a disc only copy of grudge warriors, and a disc copy of lion and the king £1 for the lot,

Joytech PS1 essential pack sealed , includes 3rd party 1mb memory card and 3rd party mini analogue controller

I also got a boxed complete Japanese SNES pinball game for £6 but haven't worked out what it is yet

Did you see anything cool?

There was lots of stuff there if you wanted to pay big money, a boxed mega CD like new for £250 which was pretty cool to look at, sure I have a loose one and I've seen ones in battered boxes but to see one that looked fresh of the assembly line was cool.

I was suprised to see a lot of counterfeit GBA games and megadrive games and such.

I saw things I have which I didn't think were rare but people were asking loads for like Maximum Carnage for megadrive complete for £100

Is the pinball game Jaki Crush by any chance?

Is the pinball game Jaki Crush by any chance?

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:

Skarjo wrote:My Q broke in transit from Japan. I've heard it's a relatively easy fix, but I was bloody gutted when it happened. Something to do with the innards being on plastic shelves that get brittle over time.

Panasonic Q?

Man, i wanted one of those so badly when the Gamecube first launched. It was region free as well wasn't it?
Oh - and hope it gets fixed ok

Not quite region free. It played US and Japanese games.

Got a copy of NASCAR 99 today and I’m a bit worried I already own it

kerr9000 wrote:There was lots of stuff there if you wanted to pay big money, a boxed mega CD like new for £250 which was pretty cool to look at, sure I have a loose one and I've seen ones in battered boxes but to see one that looked fresh of the assembly line was cool.

I was suprised to see a lot of counterfeit GBA games and megadrive games and such.

I saw things I have which I didn't think were rare but people were asking loads for like Maximum Carnage for megadrive complete for £100

Maximum Carnage isn’t *that* rare on MD but trying to find a boxed SNES copy for less than three figures has been very difficult for me. I don’t think it sold well in PAL territory, on account of it being shite.

There’s a retro game event in Glasgow in early November - are any forumites going to it?

Had a friend round for few beers last night and fired up the XBOX for some gaming shenanigans. Played a little of the original Forza which holds up remarkably well although I might need to tone the difficulty down a little then we moved to Top Spin which I hadn’t played before but it’s really good.

We played a few vs games then took turns in career mode and before we knew it it was nearly 3am. We’d been playing for a good 4-5 hours. So much fun and definitely 50p well spent.

Pedz wrote:

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:

Skarjo wrote:My Q broke in transit from Japan. I've heard it's a relatively easy fix, but I was bloody gutted when it happened. Something to do with the innards being on plastic shelves that get brittle over time.

Panasonic Q?

Man, i wanted one of those so badly when the Gamecube first launched. It was region free as well wasn't it?
Oh - and hope it gets fixed ok

Not quite region free. It played US and Japanese games.

Cheers for the correction

Pedz wrote:

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:

Skarjo wrote:My Q broke in transit from Japan. I've heard it's a relatively easy fix, but I was bloody gutted when it happened. Something to do with the innards being on plastic shelves that get brittle over time.

Panasonic Q?

Man, i wanted one of those so badly when the Gamecube first launched. It was region free as well wasn't it?
Oh - and hope it gets fixed ok

Not quite region free. It played US and Japanese games.

Cheers for the correction

Corazon de Leon wrote:

kerr9000 wrote:There was lots of stuff there if you wanted to pay big money, a boxed mega CD like new for £250 which was pretty cool to look at, sure I have a loose one and I've seen ones in battered boxes but to see one that looked fresh of the assembly line was cool.

I was suprised to see a lot of counterfeit GBA games and megadrive games and such.

I saw things I have which I didn't think were rare but people were asking loads for like Maximum Carnage for megadrive complete for £100

Maximum Carnage isn’t *that* rare on MD but trying to find a boxed SNES copy for less than three figures has been very difficult for me. I don’t think it sold well in PAL territory, on account of it being shite.

There’s a retro game event in Glasgow in early November - are any forumites going to it?

I'm planning on going. Wanting to pick up a Super Famicom in the next week or two, so looking probably gonna pick up a few boxed games and see what else they've got going.

Cheeky Devlin wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:

kerr9000 wrote:There was lots of stuff there if you wanted to pay big money, a boxed mega CD like new for £250 which was pretty cool to look at, sure I have a loose one and I've seen ones in battered boxes but to see one that looked fresh of the assembly line was cool.

I was suprised to see a lot of counterfeit GBA games and megadrive games and such.

I saw things I have which I didn't think were rare but people were asking loads for like Maximum Carnage for megadrive complete for £100

Maximum Carnage isn’t *that* rare on MD but trying to find a boxed SNES copy for less than three figures has been very difficult for me. I don’t think it sold well in PAL territory, on account of it being shite.

There’s a retro game event in Glasgow in early November - are any forumites going to it?

I'm planning on going. Wanting to pick up a Super Famicom in the next week or two, so looking probably gonna pick up a few boxed games and see what else they've got going.

Great work! I'm hoping to drag the wife along and get her to pick up some Christmas presents while we're there. She'll hate every minute of it.

Corazon de Leon wrote:

kerr9000 wrote:There was lots of stuff there if you wanted to pay big money, a boxed mega CD like new for £250 which was pretty cool to look at, sure I have a loose one and I've seen ones in battered boxes but to see one that looked fresh of the assembly line was cool.

I was suprised to see a lot of counterfeit GBA games and megadrive games and such.

I saw things I have which I didn't think were rare but people were asking loads for like Maximum Carnage for megadrive complete for £100

Maximum Carnage isn’t *that* rare on MD but trying to find a boxed SNES copy for less than three figures has been very difficult for me. I don’t think it sold well in PAL territory, on account of it being shite.

There’s a retro game event in Glasgow in early November - are any forumites going to it?

I've never ever seen a boxed copy of the SNES version in the flesh, I rented it in the SNES back in the day and its the system I prefer it on. There was a loose SNES cart of it on sale yesterday but I wasn't paying the £55 asking price.

The pinball games not a pinball game its blooming pachinko or however its spelt. So bit of a screw up there on my behalf

kerr9000 wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:

kerr9000 wrote:There was lots of stuff there if you wanted to pay big money, a boxed mega CD like new for £250 which was pretty cool to look at, sure I have a loose one and I've seen ones in battered boxes but to see one that looked fresh of the assembly line was cool.

I was suprised to see a lot of counterfeit GBA games and megadrive games and such.

I saw things I have which I didn't think were rare but people were asking loads for like Maximum Carnage for megadrive complete for £100

Maximum Carnage isn’t *that* rare on MD but trying to find a boxed SNES copy for less than three figures has been very difficult for me. I don’t think it sold well in PAL territory, on account of it being shite.

There’s a retro game event in Glasgow in early November - are any forumites going to it?

I've never ever seen a boxed copy of the SNES version in the flesh, I rented it in the SNES back in the day and its the system I prefer it on. There was a loose SNES cart of it on sale yesterday but I wasn't paying the £55 asking price.

The pinball games not a pinball game its blooming pachinko or however its spelt. So bit of a screw up there on my behalf

Unfortunately that's about right from what I've seen for the Maximum Carnage price. I also used to rent it on the SNES! It's objectively a bit rubbish but nostalgia is a powerful thing and I'd like a copy to co-op with my kids one day, get them into retro games and stuff.

However, £100 for a cracked box and no cart is not what I'm looking to pay...in fact it's everything that's wrong with retro collecting at the moment.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Maximum-Carnage-SNES-BOX-Manual/113913248496?hash=item1a85c23af0:g:jqIAAOSwp8Jcq78P

SNES collecting is a difficult one - I don't think I'll do boxed collecting when I come to increase my totals because it's *so* hard to find good condition CIBs for a decent price, but there are about a dozen games - mostly licensed tosh that I fondly remember from being a kid - that I'd love to have on display. Biker Mice from Mars, the TMNT games, any Marvel licenses etc.

Corazon de Leon wrote:

Cheeky Devlin wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:

kerr9000 wrote:There was lots of stuff there if you wanted to pay big money, a boxed mega CD like new for £250 which was pretty cool to look at, sure I have a loose one and I've seen ones in battered boxes but to see one that looked fresh of the assembly line was cool.

I was suprised to see a lot of counterfeit GBA games and megadrive games and such.

I saw things I have which I didn't think were rare but people were asking loads for like Maximum Carnage for megadrive complete for £100

Maximum Carnage isn’t *that* rare on MD but trying to find a boxed SNES copy for less than three figures has been very difficult for me. I don’t think it sold well in PAL territory, on account of it being shite.

There’s a retro game event in Glasgow in early November - are any forumites going to it?

I'm planning on going. Wanting to pick up a Super Famicom in the next week or two, so looking probably gonna pick up a few boxed games and see what else they've got going.

Great work! I'm hoping to drag the wife along and get her to pick up some Christmas presents while we're there. She'll hate every minute of it.

Mine has also been told we're going.

I rented Maximum Carnage on MD once, I recall being excited it was like a newer Spiderman game (which was good if hard) but, trying an emu out decades later I'd agree it's just not a very well made game.. it feels kinda "spammy" and oversaturated, like a cheap cartoon! I think you guys would know what I mean when a retro title feels "bad retro" and kind of spongy.

What are the obvious tells of repro-N64 boxes that one should look our for?

Drumstick wrote:What are the obvious tells of repro-N64 boxes that one should look our for?

I'd be keen to know these, too. I haven't bought an N64 title for about eight years now and, thankfully, repros weren't really about back then.

Interesting fact, though - Nintendo used to sell repro versions of boxes! When i got my N64 in 1998 it came with GoldenEye and - as was common at that time - the cart was loose in the console box; there wasn't a cart box. I contacted Nintendo UK and discovered that - for Nintendo published titles - you could buy a replacement box . I did so and I still have it to this day. The print quality isn't quite as good as an original version but it's okay .

Personally I would look very hard at the weight (i.e. gsm), colour and the texture of the card pulp in photos so try to see how thick it is. That's probably the best telltale sign you have, also pay attention to how the flaps are printed with the right area of green for localisation indication, barcodes, registration and colour proofing marks and little things like that.

Also, I don't believe N64 boxes are laminated, so you should be able to see the dot pattern in really good photos and have that kind of "eggshell" finish. The box should either "drape" inward or puff out slightly. Most contemporary printers use toners and inks that produce a more consistent and glossy print.

Bear in mind Activation and some other publishers made different box designs so that isn't necessarily a bad sign if the net looks a bit different.

And naturally I'd be sceptical if it was 100% no marks at all. Also maybe study the folds and how they have been achieved on a legit box with a factory scoring machine. Have they been folded properly with a little bump for the fold on the inside (I think this is done with a die press or similar, or have they just been creased by hand or scored with a blade? That's something nearly impossible to replicate without a factory line of the original equipment

The "bumps" on the reverse of the crease should look a bit like this:



Just checked and it looks like Nintendo have been doing that since the NES.

jawafour wrote:

Drumstick wrote:What are the obvious tells of repro-N64 boxes that one should look our for?

I'd be keen to know these, too. I haven't bought an N64 title for about eight years now and, thankfully, repros weren't really about back then.

Interesting fact, though - Nintendo used to sell repro versions of boxes! When i got my N64 in 1998 it came with GoldenEye and - as was common at that time - the cart was loose in the console box; there wasn't a cart box. I contacted Nintendo UK and discovered that - for Nintendo published titles - you could buy a replacement box . I did so and I still have it to this day. The print quality isn't quite as good as an original version but it's okay .

That reminds me of something Square did (in America at least) on the PS1. Later print runs of a bunch of Square games came on regular looking CDs rather than the more common black CDs you’d associate with PlayStation. Without knowing this you’d assume the games were fakes.