GravyThief

GravyThief

Catching up on PS1 and PS2 games...

Comments 333

Re: CeX Retro Watch: November 2023

GravyThief

Does this feature have anything to do with the Facebook Group that’s also called CEX Retro Watch that’s been around for a few years? Was wondering if they’re branching out 🤣

Re: Review: Atari 2600+ - The Grandaddy Of Gaming Is Back

GravyThief

I don’t think it’s right to say the PAL issue isn’t their fault and give them a free pass. If they are selling this in PAL regions, advertising that it can be used with original cartridges, it’s on them to make sure those cartridges work. Will they be putting a warning on the box that PAL carts won’t work properly? I doubt it.

At least you can say it’s authentic. They’re giving PAL regions substandard hardware just like videogame manufacturers did back in the 80s and 90s 🤣

Re: Molyneux And Minter - The Story Of The Lost GameCube Exclusive 'Unity'

GravyThief

Interesting read. I don’t recall anything about this game at the time, and I was actively into the GameCube at the time. To be honest I would have had no idea who Jeff Minter was back then. I was too young to have played his 80s games and this music light stuff doesn’t appeal to me as a game at all. So can’t say I’m bothered it never released! 🤣

Interesting article all the same though.

Re: Warhammer 40K: Boltgun Contains An Awesome Throwback To Games Workshop's Musical Past

GravyThief

Coincidentally I’ve been reading old White Dwarf magazines, starting from around issue 90, so I recognise this album cover as it was advertised in quite a few issues around that time and is fresh in my mind. I wouldn’t recognise the music though, not my cup of tea at all!

Kudos for owning the album. You really are a true retro head! The best I can do is owning the Dungeonquest board game and its expansions from that era of Games Workshop. It’s the best board game of all time in my opinion and still fun to play today.

Re: Gallery: Unboxing The Atari 2600+

GravyThief

I have no nostalgia for Atari, and no desire to play the games either. The NES and Master System are as basic as I can go for retro gaming.

However this does look a good proposition on the face of it. The price seems reasonable, it plays original cartridges AND they are re-releasing some of the old game cartridges too. If I had nostalgia for this system, I’m sure I’d jump on the band wagon.

Re: Hands On: Evercade's Latest Crop Of Carts Offer Some Welcome Surprises

GravyThief

“but we're willing to overlook this, thanks mainly to the wonderfully electric selection on offer here.”

Electric or eclectic? I guess both works!

This Evercade seems to be going from strength to strength. Good to see it still going strong, it could just as easily have died after the initial releases but the company really seems to be on it and hopefully it’s paying off for them.

Re: Playing The CeX Retro Lottery

GravyThief

@Foxhound it depends how you look at it. No individual could send a Tracked parcel that cheaply via Royal Mail, and until recently they were only charging £1.95 per item. On the other hand, they charge the same price for Large Letters which are usually cheaper (for DVD cases, DS games etc) and as you say you don’t get any discount when items come from the same store, which they always try and prioritise doing if some or all of the games in your order are available in the same store.

Re: Playing The CeX Retro Lottery

GravyThief

I’m surprised you received reprinted covers from an online order. I believe they’re only supposed to sell those in store (so you know what you’re getting) and they cancel online orders if they don’t have another copy available.

It’s also worth mentioning that they typically have these reprinted covers because they get the original boxes stolen from their stores. So they only do them for games they’ve taken in as boxed but no longer have the box for them.

Their franchised stores can be a lot more picky with the condition of games they take in compared with corporate stores. I tried trading in some boxed games without manuals that I’d purchased as boxed from their website, but the franchised store would only take them as unboxed 🤣 obviously I just went to another store who took them as boxed no problem.

All in all I like CEX, but as you say they really need to split the boxed grade into with and without a manual.

Re: CIBSunday: Sega 3D Reprint Archives 1, 2 & 3 Triple Box (Nintendo 3DS)

GravyThief

I have a handful of US region 3DS games that I have never played as I assumed getting hold of a US region 3DS console would be much easier than it turned out to be. So the last thing I want to be doing is buying Japanese region games too!

I looked into hacking one of my 3DSes but it’s not exactly straightforward and it’s irreversible from what I can tell. All my current consoles are too sentimental for me to do that to.

Re: Why MiniDisc, Sony's Precursor To The PSP UMD, Is Still Alive In 2023

GravyThief

I had MDs in the late 90s, early 2000s. They were really useful for recording my bedroom DJ mixes (I was so cool). Not only could you re-record if you messed up, but it was CD quality sound (to my ears anyway) and you could create the tracks to break up the mix into each individual tune. You could insert the track breaks quite precisely if I recall, I remember going forward and backward until I got the track break in exactly the right spot where it sounded just right when you skipped to each track.

Re: Poll: Are You Concerned About 'Sun Fade' Ruining Your Retro Game Collection?

GravyThief

Makes me glad all my collection is stored away and has never been on display. Although at the same time in recent months I’ve stopped caring about my retro games collection.

I reached a point where I realised a lot of my time outside of work was spent on activities linked to collecting. And I’d become a hoarder. I always originally bought the games with the intention of playing them, but the reality is that’s never going to happen. Life’s too short.

So I’m now selling most of it, and I’m much happier for it. And with what I will have left at the end of it, I won’t be thinking about how the sun shines on it.

Re: The Making Of: Fighting Fantasy - The Million-Selling Gamebook Series

GravyThief

Great read. I knew a lot of the early part thanks to having recently read the book ‘Dice Men’ from Ian Livingstone. Which is a great book. But then much of the latter part was entirely new for me and very interesting. Thanks!

I’d love for Time Extension to do an article covering the early Fighting Fantasy and Games Workshop videogames. There must be some good stories there? HeroQuest, Soace Hulk, Space Crusade, the first two Warhammer games on PC and PS1.

Re: Random: Here's Why 'Alan Smithee' Is Credited As The Director Of SNES Classic Equinox

GravyThief

Does anybody know why the PAL version of this game has the thickest, most horrendous borders ever seen in a PAL SNES game?

PAL SNES games in general are bad enough, with thick borders and skewed aspect ratios (much worse than PAL Mega Drive games), but this game takes the biscuit.

It’s strange, because the NTSC version doesn’t have any borders at all. I thought it might be like Street Fighter II on the SNES where even the NTSC version has borders, so the PAL version has even thicker borders because of it. But nope, the NTSC version is fine. It even has thicker borders than the PAL versions of the Street Fighter II games.

Anyway, I think I’ve used up my allowance of the word ‘borders’ in a single comment, so I’ll stop!

Re: Random: Why Does Rampart's Japanese Manual Feature A Section On Lego?

GravyThief

That Lego is from my era. I had those 3 sets as a child. I used to love it! I’ll always remember Rampart on the SNES for being a game that was always in the ‘crate’ at an electronics store (maybe Dixons, can’t quite remember). My brother and I would always rush to it to look through the games, and got fed up of always seeing Rampart!

Re: The Making Of: Mario Is Missing, The Legendary Plumber's Oddest Adventure

GravyThief

I remember really enjoying Mario’s Time Machine back in the day as a kid. I think I also played this one, and enjoyed it too. They both kind of merge together in my memory

I do specifically remember Mario’s Time Machine highlighting to me that America used to be a British colony. It’s not something I remember being taught at school, probably because it was just one of hundreds colonies Britain had and lost over the centuries. But it stuck with me as an example of a videogame teaching me something, and I’m sure I used it numerous times as ammunition against people who thought videogames were a waste of time! 🤣

Re: Playdate Sells 53,000+ Units, More Than Double Panic's Expectations

GravyThief

I’m glad hardware like this, and the Evercade, seem to be doing well. Hopefully we get more hardware in the future from similar ‘niche’ projects.

Speaking of the Evercade, that business model is how I wish Sega and Nintendo would have approached their Classic Mini consoles. They could still be selling mini cartridges that contain multiple games from different publishers (including themselves), and be making money from it. If Evercade can do it, then they definitely could.

Re: Now's The Time To Hack Your 3DS

GravyThief

I’ve been wanting to hack one of my 3DSes for a while. Not to download games for free, but to be able to play genuine US exclusive copies of 3DS games on my UK console. I cannot believe they region locked the 3DS, and this idiotic move of theirs has directly resulted in me wanting to hack their console. I was hoping they would release a software update to make it region free, but alas that doesn’t seem to be happening.