Sam’s Scores 13

4) NES game carry case You may know how I love to buy the canvas travel cases for retro systems, but I'll buy almost anything branded that allows me to store my video games and systems. Such is the case with this NES game carrying case. Back in the NES days Nintendo put their name on anything, sometimes it was utter junk and other times it was decent, in this case it was JUNK! This thing was meant to carry up to 10 NES games anywhere you needed to go. The problem was these things were merely plastic covering ... Read more
Posted 11 years ago

Did you know?

There are some pieces of gaming trivia most people know. I have compiled a list of lesser known facts. The Atari 2600 and the NES had pretty much the same processor. The NES used a MOS Technology 6502 processor. The 2600 used an offshoot of the 6502 called the 6507, which had fewer pins and, as a result, could address only 8 KB of memory. Night Trap & Sewer Shark were developed in the late '80s. In 1985 development began on the Nemo. Nemo began as a prototype that was essentially a ... Read more
Posted 11 years ago

From NES classics to DOS Disasters!

While most of the world was captivated by the NES, some developers still, for some reason, felt the need to port NES games to the PC. I am without a doubt completely ignorant when it comes to the whole politics of how or why NES games ended up on the PC, so I won't be covering anything in that respect. I will however show you how morbidly mangled some classic NES games were during the port. MegaMan, Bionic Commando and Super C are just a few titles, that I'm aware of, that were totally and completely destroyed in the transmission over ... Read more
Posted 11 years ago

Radica Sega Genesis Plug n Play version 2

You could say I've been on a bit of a plug n play kick lately, but I prefer to think of it as playing vintage games I don't own in any other form. As we all know vintage games are getting harder and harder to find, so I will play them almost any way I can. Luckily these plug n play systems make that affordable and simple, while taking steps to make the experience feel more genuine than simply emulating the systems they're trying to be. [caption id="attachment_1997" align="center" width="300"] Comparative of ... Read more
Posted 11 years ago

Toymax Activision 10 in 1 Plug n Play

Today I bring you the final Atari 2600 plug n play controller I will be reviewing. This one is packed with 10 strictly Activision classics titles: Crackpots, Atlantis, Pitfall!, Grand Prix, River Raid, Tennis, Spider Fighter, Ice Hockey, Boxing and Freeway. This one is brought to us by a company called Toymax, which I've never heard of, but it seems as though Jakks Pacific had to have their hands in on this somewhere, as the system buttons are the exact same as the 2600 joystick. [caption id="attachment_1961" align="center" width="300"] Activision [Left] Jakks ... Read more
Posted 11 years ago

Vintage Online Gaming: Part 1 The 1980s

These days, gamers take online play and downloadable content for granted. Did you know it has been around for more than 30 years? Most were failed experiments, others just didn't have the subscriber base to get off the ground, and one ended up taking the internet to a whole new level. I'm going to list the first examples of network gaming going all the way back to the Intellivision. PlayCable In 1981, Mattel came up with a way to allow local cable television companies to let gamers download games over the same cable they used for their TV. The PlayCable adapter ... Read more
Posted 11 years ago

Jakks Pacific Atari 2600 Paddle Plug n Play

Yet another Jakks Pacific plug n play system, although today I bring you the paddle controller. There is another version of this that has an attached player 2, but mine is strictly single player. Even so, Jakks Pacific added a few games from their joystick and more paddle controller classics: Breakout, Canyon bomber, Casino, Circus Atari, Demons to Diamonds, Night Driver, Steeplechase Street Racer, Super Breakout, Video Olympics, Warlords and 2 bonus Arcade quality versions of Pong and Warlords. [caption id="attachment_1876" align="center" width="300"]Original [Left] Plug n Play [Right][/caption] The paddle controller is quite ... Read more
Posted 11 years ago