12 for $20

Found an interesting listing on craigslist; a bunch of PSX games for $20. I got Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout (disc only) NBA Live 99 (no booklet), Rayman (Greatest Hits, no booklet), Spyro The Dragon (Greatest Hits), Tekken 2 (disc only), Toy Story 2, (no booklet) Twisted Metal III (Greatest Hits, no booklet), WWF Attitude (no booklet), WWF SmackDown! 2 (Greatest Hits), and WWF War Zone (Greatest Hits, with booklet, no case).

Oh, and Bushido Blade 2 and Jumping Flash 2!!! Not bad for $20 :) I'm gonna flip the rest, but I've been looking for those last two for a while now... Still need to find the original Jumping Flash though.

Slick Stick

I bought a Dempa Shinbunsha XE-1 PRO HE arcade stick for my Duo-R for $45 CDN. It's a pretty slick stick, feels great, is impressively customisable, sports a built-in five-port multitap, and seems to be going (new) for $55 US + shipping from Japan on eBay. You can read-up on it here.

I've still got a few more interesting acquisitions in the works, so don't go too far...

Follow-Up

Swapped Dracula X discs at the shop (the other case was a little faded and worn) and dropped off the Duo-R pad with them. They said they'd see if they could fix it, or try to find a replacement for me... In the mean time, they've given me an Avenue Pad 6; the PC Engine controller designed specifically for Street Fighter II': Champion Edition. My ire has been assuaged.

Not Fun.

Sonic Advance 2 is reminding me why I loathe bottomless pits. To be more specific, I've discovered parts of the Sky Canyon zone, in both acts, that consistently launch the player at bottomless pits. Both seem like sloppy level design, as one apparently offers no alternative path or means of retreat once you approach it, and the other could've been resolved if a platform had been moved just a few pixels to the right. Not fun, especially considering that you only get three lives to complete both acts and the boss encounter.

Also not fun is noticing that my copy of Dracula X for my PCE CD appears to have been resurfaced. The shop has another copy, and is allowing me to swap for it. Even worse is discovering that the controller for my PCE Duo-R is malfunctioning! Upon closer inspection, something had been spilled on it, it has been opened but not fully cleaned, and two of the screw wells were stripped in the process! Again, the shop has offered to swap it for anther, but they only have PCE, Core Grafx, Duo, and Avenue Pad 6 controllers in stock... No Duo-R controllers! That's whack!

Still Catching-Up

Finished Sonic Advance, and on to Sonic Advance 2. Anyone who's been missing Sonic's 2D glory days on the Genesis needs to play the Advance series if they haven't already. Almost done Gunstar Super Heroes (last boss). Haven't had a chance to sit down with Gears Of War 2 or Majora's Mask recently... Been building-up my PCE/TG16 CD experience though:

• Bomberman: Awesome version of the classic game.
• Bonk III CD: Still awesome, CD audio is a nice upgrade.
• Beyond Shadowgate: This was a surprise; a solid adventure game! Controls take some getting used to, but there's some good stuff here.
• Castlevania: Dracula X: Best game on the system. Possibly the best game on any system... Ever.
• Forgotten Worlds: Great version of a great shoot-'em-up.
• Gate Of Thunder: Another awesome shoot-'em-up.
• Last Alert: Sweet top-down action game with notably gory gameplay and unintentionally funny voice acting.
• Lords Of Thunder: Yet another great shoot-'em-up, but with a medieval/norse theme.
• Fighting Street: Awful game, barely playable, only significant historically.
• Shadow Of The Beast: Some weird kind of action/adventure game with sweet graphics and awful gameplay.
• Shape Shifter: Unique action/RPG, solid gameplay, high production values for its time.
• Super Air Zonk: Yet another great shoot-'em-up, but with particularly weird cartoon graphics.
• Super Raiden: Great port of the seminal shoot-'em-up, with sweet CD audio.
• Valis II: Bad control, boring gameplay.
• Valis III: Huge improvement over Valis II, I specifically like the playable/in-engine cutscenes.
• Ys Boook I & II: Haven't played it yet.
• Ys III: Haven't played this one yet either.

More R!

Loving my PCE Duo-R... There're so many games I guess I just missed my first time around! I've revisited Castlevania: Dracula X (still one of the best games ever), Fighting Street (still awful), Last Alert, Valis 2 and 3, and Ys 1 & 2 and 3, but now I'm also getting into Beyond Shadowgate, Bomberman, Bonk 1, 2, and 3 (I didn't even realise there were CD versions!), Gate Of Thunder, Lords Of Thunder, Shape Shifter, and Super Air Zonk! There's some really impressive and unique stuff on this system... Just way more crap than most to sift through, it seems.

Finished Wario Land 4. Fantastic game with gorgeous graphics, great action, clever twists on the ever-evolving Wario Land gameplay, and a great selection of optional puzzle-solving and mini-game aspects. Can't wait to really dig into Shake It! now :) Gonna keep going on my GBA with Gunstar Super Heroes and the Sonic Advance series before I start looking through my PSP and NGPC collection for something to do on the subway.

Shinobi

Totally forgot to mention that I also picked-up a copy of The Cyber Shinobi for Master System yesterday!

That means I now have the following Shinobi games:

• Shinobi (SMS - 1988)
• Shinobi (PCE - 1989)
• The Revenge Of Shinobi (Genesis - 1989)
• Shadow Dancer (Genesis - 1990)
• Alex Kidd In Shinobi World (SMS - 1990)
• The Cyber Shinobi (SMS - 1990)
• Shinobi (GG - 1991)
• Shinobi II: The Silent Fury (GG - 1992)
• Shinobi III: Return Of The Ninja Master (Genesis - 1993)
• Shinobi Legions (Saturn - 1995)
• Shinobi (PS2 - 2002)

I'm not too worried about collecting the arcade original, all of the console ports of the original, or that werid GBA game... But I am still on the lookout for Nightshade for PS2.

R!

Picked-up Corpse Killer, Slam City, and Supreme Warrior for 32X CD. Now I only need B.C. Racers, BlackThorne, Night Trap, Primal Rage, Spider-Man: Web Of Fire, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, T-Mek, Toughman Contest, World Series Baseball, and WWF Wrestlemania to complete my collection... And Darxide, FIFA '96, and Sangokushi IV, if we're counting imports.

I also snagged Manx TT Superbike, Scorcher, and Three Dirty Dwarves for Saturn.

Then I traded-in my PC Engine + AV Booster, model II SEGA CD, "Light Sixer" and "Short Rainbow" Atari 2600s, second ColecoVision, and three games (my second copy of Missile Command for the 2600, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary for Game Boy, and Doom Troopers for Genesis) for a PC Engine Duo-R... Now I just need to get Dracula X and Fighting Street :)

Wario Land 4 is gorgeous.

Wario Land 4 is gorgeous.