Not only do digital historians dig old games, but they will actually dig in an archeological sense just to get to their hands on the oxidized, label-torn real thing. The quest for these true classics, which took me to ruinous pawn shops and grime factories, thankfully need not take you further than this site. I hope you appreciate just what I do for you.

See for yourself if any of these fill the gaping holes in your collection (n.b.: collections lacking these games are full of gaping holes). because we’re going so old-school, this post will be a completely text-based adventure.

Psychic Force 2012 — cage fighting in midair. Seriously better than anything Dragon Ball Z has tried.

MARVEL VS. — whatever this may refer to, anything with ‘Marvel Vs.’ in the title is a great wallop of fun. Marvel as in the comic-book superheroes, versus as in against Capcom characters.

dr. Mario 64 — you know this, the virus-busting game? It appeared on the N64, and so it appears here.

Nights into dreams — the original Saturn game, classified under Dreamcast here because it has nowhere else to go. Helping you find it gave me my job.
…there are mroe than that, but I’ll leave them for the next post. This is my near-to-last gift to you, loyal readers… enjoy it.

When I was studying (or, as was the case in third year, not) at my first post-secondary institution, I was in only the second cycle of the ‘laptop programs’. It was the early 2000’s, you see, and no one had yet discovered the potential for utter distraction posed by personal computers (and non-academic software) in the classroom. Granted, it WAS a computer programming course, but much of what resulted was students throwing one-hundred-eighty-player Counterstrike LAN parties right in the middle of Professional Management.

…didn’t they realize that if they were going to host a game, it should be Worms World Party? The tactical war-fighter starring the cutest lil’ invertebrates ever to blow each other up, Worms has been mortars o’ fun since 1995. Since my first contact with this still-fantastic oldie in school, it’s been the repeat subject of LAN parties in my own home. The 2001 PC CD-ROM, also available for PS1, Dreamcast, and GBA offers single-player campaigns and a map editor, as well. Whatever the mode of play, WWP exhibits fluid animation, a lovably goofy art style, and humorous dialogue in languages from around the world. It also features a buttload of map-making assets and map-destroying artillery–that’s sure to please.

I guess I should say, (D)C (D)C! Get it? “Si si”? Spanish? It was on Dreamcast first in 2000… yeah neeevermind it played out a lot better in my head.

Anyway, the only maraca-shaking game I can name has, over all these years, sustained the high esteem of those who played it, and garnered envious stares from those who missed it. It’s slated to be released on the Wii next month I believe, fully compatible with the existing motion sensing devices for that system (score!), but for anyone who is tired of dangling in the shifting limbo of release dates, the Dreamcast version is actually not so hard to come by. While you’ll need to procure the maracas separately, the original version of the game is the one that has already been acclaimed as disarming rhythmic delirium with a soundtrack like no other. It remains to be seen how the maraca behaviour at high, medium, and low levels will be replicated with the Wii remote and nunchuk… but you decide! Take your pick! And amigo, play that samba all summer long.

“Jet Grind Radioooooo!”

As I’ve gone about rediscovering my Dreamcast with a new VGA hookup, I’m troubled by my recent realization that one of my most cherished games is missing. It’s been many years since I tricked down the streets of Shibuya-cho, tagging the backs of the miscreant cops who try to crack down on the vandalizing youth, and I wanted to re-experience the original funky flavour of Beat, Gum and the GG’s gang again.

I may just have to secure another copy of Jet Grind Radio, the Sega/Smilebit celebration of graffiti as art that nonetheless carried a public service-style disclaimer against illegal spraypainting in real life. There really is no nebulous moral ground in this lighthearted take on unlawful activity, making JGR a game that could appeal to pretty much everyone. It’s expression as a game–it let you create your own designs or choose from among the 200+ tags you find throughout the game, it let you choose from any number of carefree characters, and it let you choose your tunes from an eclectic mix of commercial to… very indie music. In a genre that is wont to make executing tricks a matter of holding 10 buttons or more, JGR controls simply and smoothly and lightly.

The game that put cel-shading on the digital entertainment map is a definite must-play for anyone who, like me, still rummages through the old DC collection once in a while.

To think just a month or two ago I wanted to cover some Dreamcast peripherals–inspired by the fact that all ours are gradually getting worn out–and I could find next-to-none here. A scenario that likely sounds familiar: the wires in the cord of my official controller have begun to lose contact at the controller end, thus powering off during and corrupting many a VMU save, or just leaving me in a kind of pause-unpause slow-motion as the system repeatedly detects the ‘removed’ control pad. Luckily for cool Dreamcast owners such as ourselves, there’s a nice assortment of replacements here:

So rejoice! Even if your equipment isn’t defective, the site is full of hope if you, like me, still cherish your old systems and want to enjoy them at maximal value. Or maybe you just thought Sega struck gold and made the most comfortable controller ever, and you know that, while the patents are jealously guarded for all time, there are adaptors floating around to use console controllers as USB joypads. I know at least two people in this camp–shout-outs to my Dreamcast homeboys Josh and Paul!

It had three show-stealing arcade installments, and strong home ports of each — okay, so the Saturn version was hurting bad for stronger hardware, and I hear the third game on Xbox was a bit iffy. Anyway, it made one innovative foray into keyboarding practice software — well, typing zombies to death in a contest of words-per-minute was a little strange when you had a Dreamcast lightgun lying next to you, still hot from II. Don’t forget, there was the theatrical release… that no one saw, but that the trailers assured took place on a tropical island and had nothing at all to do with any video game in the known universe.That about sums up Sega’s House of the Dead line, which a few years ago, after so much half-assed horror-filmesque effort, seemed to have vanished without a trace. It certainly was no slouch for sales, because whether I have figures on hand or not, I know how many of my dollars went into the Jeep-sized coin-op arcade cabinets. As with the Jurassic Park machine, the second I set foot in a video-operated recreational environment, I was drawn to the a big black box with a screen with the high cause of shooting zombies inside it.

So how is it that the Wii was bequeathed a compilation of House of the Dead II & III and I didn’t know about it? Damned unceremoniously, that’s how. I’m not sure I’m getting out enough, but since there’s not even an image from the sellers here for the thing, the release seems like a weak jab destined to quietly fade into undeath. Take this advice from me and get it while you can. I know I will.

Playing the subject of my last post brought to mind another, much older Capcom game, whose cartoonish charms and rogueish outcasts I swear must have come from the same minds as Zack and Wiki. Albeit one part free-for-all, arcade beat-em-up, one part zany action-platformer, and no parts puzzle, I’m convinced this is Zack’s next-of-kin, and I should notify him - and all of you - that it’s in seriously neglected condition.

Power Stone was a series of two on Dreamcast plus one on PSP, which was just a remake of the first. The original Power Stone was only two-player and lacked many of the crazy locals and locales of the second game, but I couldn’t find it from any sellers, so with the first you must settle with the game shown adjacent.

Good in their own right, its arenas, including scalable bamboo gazebos, Mexican mineshafts, the city of ‘Londo’ and yes, a pirate ship, set the stage for hand-to-hand combat, with the occasional appearance of a 100-ton hammer and the like. But the real key to victory lay in collecting three of the titular stones and turning into your character into his or her raving lunatic Power Stone form, and for as long as your power should last, pummeling the living sin out of
your opponent.

Power Stone was a hallmark of graphical and gameplay achievement in its day, and reminds us why so many crazies have lobbied for a Dreamcast revival in 2009, year of its 10th anniversary. Personally, I’ll always like 2 better, and could do very well with a third. Cause let’s face it - at this rate, that’s going to happen before Smash Bros. Brawl ever gets released!