GRcade Retro Club Weekender 2.0 - Every Friday to Monday!

The Doom Spoon wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:

Jenuall wrote:

jawaX wrote:

Jenuall and Corazon, thank you so much for your great contributions! What a way to round off a fantastic start to the Retro Club Weekender 2.0!

I apologise for not being more active on this thread this week, (thank you to Jawa for holding down the fort), but since also launching the Weekender on Twitter, it exploded out of nowhere! We've had so many positive reactions to it over there and was great to see others take part too!

I think myself and Jawa are on to something special here! I'm considering taking it over to TikTok too, I've loved seeing Kerrs videos and I watch them regularly, plus like Twitter, it seems that you're able to connect with people of similar interests fairly easily!

I can not wait to see what everyone has planned for the next one, see you all Friday for the start of week 2!

Wow thanks glad you like my videos , if you get on there and start doing stuff then I will definitely follow you and give them some likes and stuff (same goes for Jawa as well , had a great retro conversation with him recently).. I have really enjoyed reading through this thread and seeing everything everyone has got... I wont be posting stuff in here every weekend as pretty much all my retro stuff is at my/my dads house and me and the misses alternate between living at her house and living at my Dads so I will probably post something every other one, but I will definitely check this thread out all the time.

As for TikTok I have had a lot of day or 2 day long suspensions from the site they've taken horror film footage and decided its real life gore , but they are a lot more willing to listen to reason when you complain than YouTube are and its not an issue your likely to have with games related stuff , when I have been editing stuff for GRcades TikTok its kind of refreshing as I dont have to worry about that lol

Corazon de Leon wrote:

Jenuall wrote:That's an impressive Rock Band collection Cora!

I only ever flirted with these kinds of music games myself, I played plenty of Guitar Hero 2 at a friends and had Guitar Hero 3 myself for a while but I never stuck with it for the arrival of Rock Band. I think it came out just as I was getting married and I don't think the wife would have appreciated me dropping £150 on it or however much it costed (plus then spending all of my time playing it! )

How come you didn't/haven't got the Beatles edition of Rock Band then?

I've always had a soft spot for Harmonix, a bunch of people from the greatest dev studio ever Looking Glass Studios moved over there after they closed so I've always followed along with their fortunes out of loyalty!

Ah I forgot to say didn't I!

I actually do have the game, and simply couldn't find it when I was looking out the disc copies of my games. Part of the licensing deal meant the music was completely non-transferable, so that's why it doesn't show up in any of the RB4 screenshots. It's the only completely self-contained Rock Band!

However, one other cool thing from The Beatles: Rock Band is that the instruments are still totally compatible with the mainline games, so I still use this bad boy whenever I try and get my broken hands across the frets:

Nice!

I remember being really impressed by the evolution of the various controllers over time, from the first functional but not particularly impressive wired guitar from GH1 through to some of these really impressive pieces of kit that were coming out for Rock Band

There have been some fantastic posts so far, I'm filled with regret that I didn't get a chance to dig out my retro gear this weekend like I was expecting, life has a habit of getting in the way of me being able to just enjoy myself for half an hour

I've got my post for this weekend lined up already though

Preezy wrote:I've got my post for this weekend lined up already though

*Excited Spoon Noises*

Post moved below "Week 2" banner. I was a bit too keen.

That Mario wall art

Week 2 of the Weekender is here!

Looking forward to seeing this week's submissions!

Yeah, I fell in love with it when i saw it at the convention, but did not have the money to purchase at the time. Luckily I found the seller on Twitter and he agreed to post it. Really nice chap.

Well as i failed last week i will try and be first this week (assuming someone has not posted ahead of me during me fumbling around with uploading images etc.....)



My "Nintendo shelf". All these consoles have been mine since their glory days, with the exception of the NES, which, interestingly, was my wifes! She has zero interest in video games, but never threw the one out she was given as a child. It was all mint and boxed when she suggested that I could use it in my collection! For 18 years or so (at that point) i had not known she had a NES! Perhaps she did not think it salient information..... madness.

The SNES was my favourite of these by a long shot - but that didnt stop me dropping a bottle of sherry on it as a 15 (at a push) year old scally. It took a fair bit of cleaning (back at the time) but still worked ok. Though sometimes the carts had to be removed and replaced several times.

The bead art pictures which, though not strictly retro, are pretty cool. I got them from a very nice seller at a retro gaming convention in margate a few years back.

And no dissing the funco pop. It IS fun.

On to the second shelf......



Sorry Jawa, Phoenix seems to have an OBJECTION!!! to the Mega Drive. Maybe because its the only thing that i didn't own here from when it was still current. I actually got this (with SoR2) at a car boot back in about 2002 for £3 i believe.

Other than that there is nothing much of note (that is visible form the angle anyway). The PS1 actually has one of those action region carts plugged in the back. I bought it back in the day because my save file at the end of FFVII was so bad I could not beat the last boss. I still remember the anguish. Anyway, this cart allowed me to watch any movie files from the game, which, before Youtube (and indeed the Internet) was a massive boon.

Perhaps more FF stuff another week.

Fun fact - the Joystick and Mouse were the ones i used to use on my Amiga 500 (which got broken in a house move, i have photos of it post breakage, but they are too distressing for a family forum). I think I am the most nostalgic about these two items. Im pretty sure i even used the Joystick on my second C64 when the A500 packed up at one point.

And yes, that is a framed Monkey Island postcard from an old copy of Amiga Power - I have a very very good life long friend who no longer lives in this country sadly (sad for me, he's happy), but shares my pasison for gaming. He sends me some of the most awesome gaming related stuff for my birthday / at Christmas etc. No doubt some of these will appear over the coming weeks.

Anyway, hope you have enjoyed this peek in to my spare room!

Edit - move my post to be under week 2 heading. Need those views......

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:Well as i failed last week i will try and be first this week...

BLAM! SLAM! kaz, you've burst through onto the scene like a boss! Absolutely ripping things up! Let's get into it:

The bead pictures of Nintendo characters look lovely! A nice bit of colour to set off the stacks of gaming gear on your shelves.

It's neat to see your consoles out and lined up for viewing. And they appear to be dust-free; you must be a man who likes to wield a cloth on a pretty regular basis. It's good to see - most of my retro gaming stuff is chucked into cupboards and storage.

As well as delighting us with the variety of consoles (including, as the stand-out item, that wonderful Mega Drive), you have pulled at our heartstrings by showing off hints of a few things that could appear in future Weekenders. That Amiga Power Monkey Island postcard... the Amiga mouse ( <3 )... the SNES game boxes... and a guitar (which may be a good one but I don't much about guitars).

A cracking submission, kaz, and one made all the better by your anecdotes for some of the items; they really added to the presentation. Great work, bud!

Jawa, the master of good vibes Thanks bud.

And don't worry - its a cheap (if fair quality) guitar.

The dusting of the consoles is a pain. I must admit i did a quick pass over with a pair of underpants a duster immediately before taking these snaps.

Wasn't sure what to go with for my first entry. In the end I just closed my eyes and took myself away to the sun-kissed shores of 1980's South Florida, Flock of Seagulls playing in the background. I realised then that I had to follow my heart. I realised that it was time for a story.... a Vice City story

I can't remember when I got my Sony PSP but it must have been pretty soon after launch so probably birthday/Christmas 2006. I only ever got a handful of games for it, some of which seem to have gone missing (Monster Hunter, Killzone: Liberation and FIFA), so my collection at the moment only consists of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops:

(Apologies for the massive images, I couldn't get them to be a decent size)


I enjoyed Portable Ops for what it was, but didn't really put too much time into it. Vice City Stories on the other hand was a continuation of my favourite game ever made, so of course I ploughed plenty of hours into it. The game also came with a really nice manual, Vice City tour guide/newspaper (perfect for trips to the loo) and a double-sided map/poster - I wish physical games still did this on the regular, seems like the exception more than the rule these days, sadly.



The PSP itself was hamstrung by the lack of a second analogue stick, but it was still a slick and expensive-feeling piece of tech, and at the time being able to play games of such high graphical quality and performance on the go was amazing. In the end though, I barely touched my PSP after finishing Vice City Stories and it wasn't long before it got boxed away for posterity. It's only as my interest in retro gaming has grown that it's found a new lease of life, and I often fire it up just to cruise the strip on Ocean Beach, Uzi in hand

I only ever played Liberty City Stories on PSP. After my initital awe at that much game being shoehorned into a portable system I never made much progress.

Vice City was always a stronger game than GTA 3, so i imagine the PSP equivilant was likewise.

That map brings back fond memories.

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:The dusting of the consoles is a pain.

That was my first thought on seeing the consoles out on the shelves like that Great display though!

I worry especially with consoles that have top vents, like the N64, that dust is collecting inside of them.

Preezy wrote:I can't remember when I got my Sony PSP but it must have been pretty soon after launch so probably birthday/Christmas 2006. I only ever got a handful of games for it, some of which seem to have gone missing (Monster Hunter, Killzone: Liberation and FIFA), so my collection at the moment only consists of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops

PSP

I have Liberty City Stories, not Vice City Stories - I'm not sure which is considered better. LCS is okay, I had a bit of fun with it, but for whatever reason it never clicked with me as a sandbox like the PS2 games.

I like Portable Ops (and Portable Ops+) and they are interesting for, despite being non-canon, introducing a lot of elements that made their way into first Peace Walker and then MGSV. Peace Walker is definitely the MGS game to play on PSP though! I still intend to buy Acid 1+2 at some point, I've always hesitated to pick them up and now regret it.

Preezy wrote:...I just closed my eyes and took myself away to the sun-kissed shores of 1980's South Florida, Flock of Seagulls playing in the background...

Preezy, you just knew that'd get my attention .

Preezy wrote:...I can't remember when I got my Sony PSP but it must have been pretty soon after launch so probably birthday/Christmas 2006.

It's cool to see you bring some focus onto the PSP; it's a console that I've never used but it had a long life and tons of games. It must have been ace to be able to play GTA in the palm of your hand, more so with the exclusive missions found in the GTA Stories titles. I was always intrigued by the amount of movies that arrived on the UMD format and they seemed to do maybe surprisingly well. The PSP is odd in that it sold well - perhaps more so in Japan than here in the UK - but never seemed to really break through; even though the folk who owned the console loved it. Maybe it could be classed as a true "cult" console?

Preezy wrote:... I often fire it up just to cruise the strip on Ocean Beach, Uzi in hand

Now that paints a picture, Preezy! A lovely bit of violence to chill out to - with magnificent 80s tunes to accompany the action!

With all this hot weather I figured what better time to show off some winter sports games, in a feature I'm calling snowboarding down the generations!

I've always enjoyed snowboarding and skiing in videogames. I think it's the simplicity of the set up, just starting at the top of a mountain and heading down to the bottom, that really resonates with me. Even in the excitement of a race I can find it relaxing and therapeutic, but it's definitely the games that just put me-against-the-mountain with no other pressure that I can really lose myself in.

Snowboard Kids (N64) & 1080 Snowboarding (N64)

The games that started things off! Snowboard Kids is a proper gem of an N64 game, a great kart racer in its own right with a downhill twist. Even my parents would play this with me and my brother, and it'd often be on for hours at a time as we tried to unlock Shinobin, the secret character behind the last winner's podium. Snowboard Kids was one of those strange N64 games that required a memory pak to save rather than saving to the cart, something I only associate with this game, Rayman 2 and Mystical Ninja. We had a memory pak but it never seemed to work with Snowboard Kids (or in fact Rayman and Mystical Ninja), so every time we played the game we were starting fresh. I've since learned that third party memory paks, like the one we had, were notoriously bad on the N64!

1080 Snowboarding was the lesser played of the two probably because it was aimed at an older audience, with a much more serious take on the sport. I still enjoyed it though and it's more the game that lined me up for my next generational foray into extreme sports with EA Big...

SSX3 (PS2) & SSX On Tour (PS2)

SSX3 was and remains one of the all-time greats - not just one of my favourite snowboarding games, or sports games, but one of my favourite games full stop. With all of its events tied to a single mountain this was "open world" gaming just as open world gaming was becoming a thing, and it works brilliantly. With the option to free roam you can drop in at the top of the mountain and spend a full 30 minutes boarding down to the bottom without a single interruption, pulling insane tricks and reaching crazy speeds along the way. Add in a brilliant soundtrack and an in-game radio presenter to rival Fallout 3's Three Dog and this game came together in a way that has never been surpassed.

SSX On Tour was comparatively a disappointment, lacking that cohesiveness that really elevated SSX3's single mountain experience and feeling all in more shallow. What it did do, however, was mark the first appearance of skiing into my snowboarding game journey. That would become my preferred sport style as we jump two generations...

Steep (PS4)

Ok, so this is decidedly not "retro" (although it is half a decade old now), but this was the first game since SSX3 that looked to give me that same experience I was craving. Thankfully it did not disappoint! Steep was my favourite game of 2016 and one of the few platinums I have earned on PS4. Like SSX3 Steep is open world, but where the former was just one mountain Steep is a whole alpine range (with more added as DLC). For a game I can just get lost in, finding my own fun in throwing myself down a mountain, Steep is one of the best.

Go Vacation (Switch) & Family Ski (Wii)

Go Vacation is one of those surprise perfect fits to a person, a kind of videogame comfort food that I find myself returning to on a semi-regular basis just to unwind and forget my adult life worries. Split into four distinct resorts, my favourite by some margin is the snow resort which - surprise surprise - lets you free roam snowboard and skii down a mountain. While again a Switch game might not seem very retro, unlike Steep this is an enhanced port of a Wii game (published by Nintendo, it might actually be their first wii port, coming out at a time when they were still working through their wiiu library?). Having come to Go Vacation on the Switch I then looked up its origins and found it to be the third game in a broad lineage that started with Family Ski on the Wii (titled We Ski in the US). When I then happened upon Family Ski while browsing a game store for the princely sum of £5 I had to then buy it! I've actually yet to play it (it has the honour of being the first third-party game to use the balance board, a peripheral I also don't own!) but intend to try it out when I have my wii set back up. I'd also quite like to pick up the sequel, We Ski & Snowboard, if I ever happen across it!

With that we reach the bottom of my proverbial snow-covered mountain of a post. While those aren't the only games to feature snowboarding that I own (who can forget Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild!) they sum up my relationship with the sport in videogame form. Would I want to snowboard in real life instead and enjoy the thrill of tumbling down a mountain first hand, rather then vicariously through a videogame? Probably not, I'm too frightened I'd at best break a leg and I'm certain I'd be no good at it. That though is the power of videogames, and why it remains my favourite medium when I want to cool off and unwind.

A snow boarding history with no Cool Boarders? GTFO!

Seriously though, nice collection! I loved 1080 back in the day and bits of the soundtrack still regularly float up into my head (this is a test etc.)

OrangeRKN wrote:With all this hot weather I figured what better time to show off some winter sports games, in a feature I'm calling snowboarding down the generations!...

Whoop! It's great to see you sliding in to the Weekender and spraying the white stuff everywhere*, Orange! I recall you being a big fan of snowboarding games - yes, including Steep famously being your GOTY a wee while back! - and you've done a great job in sharing your memories of playing games from the genre. Snowboard Kids, the SSX series, Family Ski... lots of classic titles and, by detailing your experiences of playing the games, your passion for them shines through.

I believe that Family Ski+Snowboard allowed for the Wii Fit Board to be used - not something I've tried myself, but it sounds pretty neat. Oh, and whilst I haven't yet played an SSX game, I do have SSX Blur on Wii to try out and I think it was pretty well regarded.

OrangeRKN wrote:...and an in-game radio presenter to rival Fallout 3's Three Dog...

Oh, you! Outrageously mentioning Fallout 3 ( <3 ) to get my attention... and it worked! I like your chutzpah!

Thanks for taking part, Orange! Oh! And I urge you all to check out Orange's new game room setup that he has posted about in the Retro chat thread - I'm going to take a look now.

* What on earth are you thinking this refers to? Dear reader, your mind is filth!

Jenuall wrote:A snow boarding history with no Cool Boarders? GTFO!

As soon as I saw ORKN's post I thought "hang on, what was that PS1 snowboarding game that was decent... oh yeah Cool-JENUALLLLLLLLL"

Jenuall wrote:A snow boarding history with no Cool Boarders? GTFO!

I never had a PS1 - but I don't even need to play it to know it has nothing on Snowboard Kids

jawaX wrote:

OrangeRKN wrote:...and an in-game radio presenter to rival Fallout 3's Three Dog...

Oh, you! Outrageously mentioning Fallout 3 ( <3 ) to get my attention... and it worked! I like your chutzpah!

Honestly though I do associate the two together just because they are my two favourite versions of in-game radio. Here are all of the voice clip rips from SSX3 - over 45 minutes!



Apparently the same guy is in Burnout Paradise... which is making me want to play Burnout Paradise!