GRcade Retro Club Weekender 2.0 - Every Friday to Monday!

Ok so here we go, here's my submission for this weeks Weekender, and this time, we're going for a completely different take!

Doom's Childhood Nintendo DS... Warts 'n' All!

This week, I'm giving you an intimate look at something that's very close to my heart, my childhood "phat" Nintendo DS!

It was bought for me during the Easter Holidays by my Grandparents in 2005, roughly a week after the system was released. I would of been 13 going on 14 and little did I know the impact this thing would have on me and my gaming habits going forward!

I had it along with a copy of Mario 64 DS and, of course, the demo of Metroid Prime Hunters which was bundled in with the system on a cart, something I still have to this day... but that's for another Weekender!

The DS is responsible for one of the very few proper wow moments I've ever had in my gaming life, and that was the first time I booted up and played Mario, I could not believe this little folding console had the ability to play 64bit games, I was so excited to have a portable Nintendo 64 which could fit in my pocket!

Anyway, enough waffle, let's take a look! (Apologies if these picture turn out to be huge, I haven't added them to the post any differently, and yet this is how they've turned out!)

You wear your battle scars well!


I'd say its actually in great condition! If we consider this thing is 16 and a half years old, it's been through 6 house moves and has endured hundreds upon hundreds of hours of play time, most of which would of been during my teens, and I know back then I wouldn't of been as careful with it as I am with my tech today. It's been in and out of school bags, passed around my friends over and over again, seen road trips, flights, drops, bangs, the lot.

It has it's original battery which STILL holds a charge to this day, every button works exactly as it should, the touch screen is just as responsive as it's always been, the hinge is perfect, still stiff and clicks nicely into place and... I still have it's original stylus!

One of the biggest reasons this is so close to my heart though, is because it's responsible for getting back into Pokémon. I played gens 1 and 2, but by the time R/S/E come out, I thought I had out grown the series and never bothered with them, didn't think anything of it after that. fast forward to summer 2007, I had finished school for good and was about to go to college, I was in Cardiff one day and happened to walk into GAME and there a seen Pokémon Diamond and Pearl on the shelves. The game had been out about a month but hadn't given it any thought until this point.

I decided to take a punt on it and picked up Pearl, to see if I could relive some childhood memories and well... lets just say the rest is history! I completely fell in love with the art style and graphics (which was a MASSIVE upgrade from Gold for the GBC), the touch screen functionality made so much sense, the fact you could trade online over WiFi, this combined with the lore which these games offered just got me!

I would point out, this experience was had on this exact console, I never got a Lite and the DSi hadn't been announced yet. By this time loads of my friends had a DS Lite, and although I enjoyed the vibrant colours, sleek design and better screens, I never felt the need to replace the chonk!

So here we are at the end. Hope you've enjoyed my post, I've enjoyed reliving some great memories!

A topical one this week. I'm a bit of an Olympics geek, every four years (yeah I know it's five this year) I try and watch the lot. This has expanded into my gaming, and I've ended up with a fairly decent collection of Olympics games. They get a bit of stick for being lazy mini game cash ins, but I love them for what they are. The range of sports has really developed over the years as well - the current one has a crazy amount of games included. It actually started with Daley Thomson's Decathlon on the Spectrum (but I can't find that), and my first console experience was my sister's copy of Olympic Gold on the Game Gear (but I'm redecorating and can't get to that drawer )

Dowbocop wrote:A topical one this week. I'm a bit of an Olympics geek, every four years (yeah I know it's five this year) I try and watch the lot. This has expanded into my gaming, and I've ended up with a fairly decent collection of Olympics games. They get a bit of stick for being lazy mini game cash ins, but I love them for what they are. The range of sports has really developed over the years as well - the current one has a crazy amount of games included. It actually started with Daley Thomson's Decathlon on the Spectrum (but I can't find that), and my first console experience was my sister's copy of Olympic Gold on the Game Gear (but I'm redecorating and can't get to that drawer )

This is really cool stuff Dowbo, love to see multi-generational collections of sports games and it's been a kind of long-held ambition of mine to have as many on-disc/cart copies of FIFA as I can going back to FIFA International Soccer.

The Doom Spoon wrote:...my childhood "phat" Nintendo DS!...

Doom, it's always good to see a console that has a few knocks and dinks alongside a cool history. It gives a sense of life and use to the machine; the owner had enjoyed using it!

It was cool to hear how the DS gave you that Mario "wow" moment and brought you back to the Pokémon series. I liked the DS and it was one of those machines - especially in its Lite variant - that everyone seemed to have, leading to a huge and varied gaming library.

That was a smashing showcase of your DS .

Dowbocop wrote:...I've ended up with a fairly decent collection of Olympics games...

Hey, welcome to the Weekender, Dowbocop, and it was a terrific idea to share your Olympics games! I remember the Mega Drive version from 1992 as my brother had that as the pack-in game when he bought his console. Oddly I don't recall the London 2012 game at all so it's cool to see that here.

Dowbocop wrote:...It actually started with Daley Thomson's Decathlon on the Spectrum (but I can't find that)...

Oh, man - Daley! I suspect that the game accounted for quite a few wrecked joysticks. It was so popular at the time, coming off the back of Track & Field and Hyper Sports in the arcades. All were fun titles although I think I preferred Epyx's Summer Games as that needed slightly less furious joystick movements. I recall that Daley had a sequel, Olympic Challenge, a few years later.

You were totally on point with the Olympic focus and so you get a (imaginary but no less resplendent) medal, Dowb!

I can only add one Olympics-based game to that list - Nagano '98 on the N64, which you can get boxed fairly cheap because it was terrible.

Corazon de Leon wrote:...it's been a kind of long-held ambition of mine to have as many on-disc/cart copies of FIFA as I can going back to FIFA International Soccer.

That'd make for a really cool set, Cora. Sports games tend to lose their value quickly once the next release arrives but it would be neat to see a long run of the games; FIFA year-by-year would be a good one. I have the International Soccer original on Mega Drive and the sequel FIFA 95; they really were cool and probably the standout console football game at that point. Sensi and Kick-Off ruled supreme on the 16 bit micros!

I liked EA's early Ice Hockey and Madden titles, too - I knew little about the sports but the games were well-made and so much fun.

Oh doom, the absolute state of that DS!

jawaX wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:...it's been a kind of long-held ambition of mine to have as many on-disc/cart copies of FIFA as I can going back to FIFA International Soccer.

That'd make for a really cool set, Cora. Sports games tend to lose their value quickly once the next release arrives but it would be neat to see a long run of the games; FIFA year-by-year would be a good one. I have the International Soccer original on Mega Drive and the sequel FIFA 95; they really were cool and probably the standout console football game at that point. Sensi and Kick-Off ruled supreme on the 16 bit micros!

I liked EA's early Ice Hockey and Madden titles, too - I knew little about the sports but the games were well-made and so much fun.

Yeah it's an interesting one, because you can probably get every FIFA between about 2003 and 2018 on every console for about £50, but then finding boxed copies of versions for older consoles becomes a bit more fun and a bit more expensive.

I think, though, that my main series' to collect games and spins offs for in the near future will be the Zelda/Resi combo, so FIFA will need to wait until I have a bigger house.

Victor Mildew wrote:Oh doom, the absolute state of that DS!

Wonderful isn't it! I can thank my teen self for every scrape and ding it has! Back then I wouldn't have used a carry case, just throw it in a bag then more than likely, throw the bag about without a care in the world! Oh to be young and stupid!

Got some stuff to show off for the weekend a wee bit late - inspired by Doom's awesome wrestling gear last weekend! Here is my N64 collection of wrestling games!

First up, a wee group shot. This is all of the PAL released N64 games - there is an additional WCW game only released in North America(WCW Thunder I believe) and some NTSC-J wrestling games that never even crossed the Pacific, but we got eight on our shores and here they all are:



In one corner, we have the young upstarts - WCW World Tour, Revenge and Mayhem, and ECW Hardcore Revolution:



And in the other corner, the WWF all-stars: Warzone, Attitude, Wrestlemania 2000 and the jewel in the crown, No Mercy:



What's this? BAH GAWD, IT'S GOTTA BE...IT'S CAT!



Sadly, only one of them is boxed - WCW Mayhem - and it was a fairly cheap copy picked up from a now defunct shop in Glasgow a few years ago. Here is the box:




But there we are! A wee peak back at the Monday Night Wars, through the lens of the Nintendo 64!

I've never been into wrestling at all, barring the general level of cultural awareness that anyone growing up in the 90s would have for it, but for some reason I really strawberry floating loved Wrestlemania 2000 on the N64! There was something satisfyingly "chunky" about both the presentation and game play

Corazon de Leon wrote:Got some stuff to show off for the weekend a wee bit late - inspired by Doom's awesome wrestling gear last weekend! Here is my N64 collection of wrestling games!

First up, a wee group shot. This is all of the PAL released N64 games - there is an additional WCW game only released in North America(WCW Thunder I believe) and some NTSC-J wrestling games that never even crossed the Pacific, but we got eight on our shores and here they all are:



In one corner, we have the young upstarts - WCW World Tour, Revenge and Mayhem, and ECW Hardcore Revolution:



And in the other corner, the WWF all-stars: Warzone, Attitude, Wrestlemania 2000 and the jewel in the crown, No Mercy:



What's this? BAH GAWD, IT'S GOTTA BE...IT'S CAT!



Sadly, only one of them is boxed - WCW Mayhem - and it was a fairly cheap copy picked up from a now defunct shop in Glasgow a few years ago. Here is the box:




But there we are! A wee peak back at the Monday Night Wars, through the lens of the Nintendo 64!

Glad I was able to inspire your submission to the Weekender Cora! We were truly spoilt in this era was amazing Wrestling games!

Loved seeing your collection and the presentation!

Did you have a particular favourite one? Mine has always been WCW/NWO Revenge, closely followed by No Mercy. It was the success of the WCW games which drove WWF to drop publisher, Acclaim and go with THQ, so they could get access to the same engine World Tour/Revenge was built on as they were considered much superior games at the time.

Wrestlemania 2000 was the first to use it, then followed by No Mercy, this started the swing in WWFs favour for producing high quality wrestling games!

Corazon de Leon wrote:...Here is my N64 collection of wrestling games!...

^ Actual video of Cora after slamming down those N64 wrestling carts in GRcade.

Corazon de Leon wrote:...First up, a wee group shot...

Worst-ever "I have a PS5 (and some high heels)" photo .

Corazon de Leon wrote:...This is all of the PAL released N64 games...

That is a smashing set of wrasslin' games, man, and it's so cool to see them all together like this. Something about those chunky N64 carts always makes them look great. If you were to pin me down and make me choose my favourite I'd say WCW/nWo Revenge; even as someone who isn't knowledgable about wrestling, I really enjoyed playing that. The characters and spectacle combine with solid gameplay and created a lot of fun.

A terrific entry for the Weekender, Cora, and one made all the better by seeing Cat join in, too .

I can never get over Big Show's (the real one, not the Poundland version) face on the artwork of World Tour.

Corazon de Leon wrote:I can only add one Olympics-based game to that list - Nagano '98 on the N64, which you can get boxed fairly cheap because it was terrible.

Apparently the licensed games only started with Olympic Gold. There wasn't a proper one for Rio, so I'm only missing Atlanta and Athens in the mainline series (I've got Tokyo on Steam).

As a rule I'm less bothered about the Winter Olympics but Vancouver is quite fun! I probably will hoover the rest up via eBay at some point...

Drumstick wrote:I can never get over Big Show's (the real one, not the Poundland version) face on the artwork of World Tour.

The high heels are, of course, mine.

Corazon de Leon wrote:

Drumstick wrote:I can never get over Big Show's (the real one, not the Poundland version) face on the artwork of World Tour.

The high heels are, of course, mine.

That explains the hopping from side to side on Tipping Point then

kerr9000 wrote:My PSP Collection Videos so far...

Nice collection! I'm most jealous of Me & My Katamari, would like to play that along with Chili Con Carnage. I was also unaware of the Harvey Birdman game! Cool that you also have a sealed copy of The 3rd Birthday in its fancy box, and also good to see you have Gurumin - one of my favourite PSP games and largely unknown, it also got ported as a downloadable title to 3DS!

Dowbocop wrote:Apparently the licensed games only started with Olympic Gold. There wasn't a proper one for Rio, so I'm only missing Atlanta and Athens in the mainline series (I've got Tokyo on Steam).

No interest in Mario & Sonic beyond the first game (which earns a place in almost any collection just for being the first game with both Mario and Sonic)? The Rio game is best for the debut of Rugby Sevens which is great fun - and its the best part of Tokyo too. Tokyo is obviously a good fit for Mario and Sonic too!

I missed this weekend, so I'll try and submit two this weekend to compensate.

Love seeing all this retro goodness though.

Drumstick wrote:I missed this weekend, so I'll try and submit two this weekend to compensate...

Looking forward to your double-bubble, Drum! .