Finds (All Others)

[Elrinth]

Picked up: GBA games, 32X, Analogue DAC, Sharp Famicom TV, X68000 floppies, PC98 floppies!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bxYTN1JPDg

[L___E___T]

That Famicom TV!  Hope you can boot it up and show us some games in action - very keen to see how 'sharp' it looks! 

[P]

Me too! I also hope you can figure out how to connect NES or maybe Famicom controllers to it.
Just be careful when repairing it, as you might know, TVs has high voltage and can be dangerous if not handled correctly.

[jpx72]

Did you know there are such wonderfull Commodore 64 games PCB ? I'll leave it here for inspiration

[P]

I never had a C64 but those are very cool!

[carmine]

I never had a C64 but those are very cool!

I had one, but I destroyed it.
Could someone tell me where I can buy a CM64 to collect?

[Ghegs]

Picked up Fester's Quest on NES and hey, I actually kind of like it. I like how the game takes place on this large map, and under it with the sewers, even if the route through is quite linear. This is the US version which I understand is inferior to the PAL one, but all my other NES games are US ones and I didn't want to have a single PAL game in there. The PAL version is also considerably more expensive than the US one.

But more interestingly, Brook recently released Wingman SNES, the accessory I've been wanting for ~15 years in my quest to find the ultimate controller to playing NES/Famicom games. It always struck me as strange that there was never a PS2-to-NES -controller adapter, when there was an adapter for PS2-to-pretty much everything else ever. But finally, here's a "Pretty much everything-to-NES" -adapter, and it can map buttons as rapid fire and even more importantly, it allows remapping buttons. Oh, how I've wished for that. I can finally create the a very comfortable button configuration where I have normal B and normal A next to each other, and then I have turbo B and normal A as well, for when you need to switch between the two choices quickly by just moving your thumb over the other set of buttons. Or I could just have turbo B on a shoulder button. No more fiddling with the rapid fire setting mid-game when you need to occasionally charge a shot or something.

And I can fix the few games that for some unfathomable reason flipped B and A around, just remap the buttons on the controller the proper way. It's a dream come true.

Well, almost. You can only remap the A and B buttons, but not Start and Select. Why's that of concern? Because in some games, like Recca, Batman, and Gun-Dec, those buttons are used to switching speed or weapons, and letting go of either the d-pad or the face buttons mid-game is annoying. This would allow for much smoother gameplay. I'm hopeful they'll add it in, since the device originally didn't work on the Analogue NT Mini (it worked fine on my AV Famicom), but less than two weeks after I had sent them a mail asking if it would be possible to add support to it, they released a firmware update that fixed it. So hopefully they'll accommodate this wish as well.

It supports both wired and wireless controllers and since it accepts USB controllers, I imagine it's fairly future-proof. Though it doesn't automatically work with everything USB, I first tried with the Switch Horipad, and it actually lacked the A button completely. I'm using it now with the Xbox 360 Horipad EX Turbo, for the even more added convenience of having turbo capabilities built into the controller as well. Works great, and it's not even officially listed in the website as a supported controller.

The adapter also works as a "Pretty much everything-to-SNES" -adapter but not having one of those, this will be exclusive to NES/Famicom use for me. I'm sure some here might find it of interest, though.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

I bought Stunt Race FX at a local game shop for $15. I never really played this game myself, but I figured why not?

[P]

That's a nice find! I loved the game back in the day, borrowing it from a childhoodfriend who had it. It got mixed reviews as some people apparently didn't like the slightly sluggish pace (which is supposedly because the hardware isn't able to handle it any faster but the EAD team and Argonaut took advantage of this and designed the game around this constraint) and slightly unstable physics, but I loved it and it sold very well anyway.

It's an interesting part of early 3D racing game history that is often forgotten (the Super FX chip was an early type of 3D video hardware for video games after all). It's a Nintendo racing game for sure, kind of a spiritual successor to Excitebike, F1 Race/Famicom Grand Prix series, F-Zero and Super Mario Kart and also has similarities to both Wave Race 64 and F-Zero X. The 3D makes it play very differently from mode 7 games like F-Zero and SMK and employs much more realistic physics (despite being a "cartoony" racing game). It is much easier than SMK though, you race more against the clock than against the CPU opponents.

I especially loved the Stunt Trax mode back in the day, in which case 4WD is the best car by far due to its powerful engine and low-torque off-road capability. It's also great for beginners in other modes on Easy due to its high acceleration and strong body. Once you get better Coupé is a better choice, it's a good balanced car for intermediate players. F-Type has the best top-speed for advanced players but with a weak body and sensitive steering. The two-wheeled car 2WD is generally best once you unlock it and learn to handle it (except in Stunt Trax mode of course where 4WD is always king).
Trailer is crazy and only played on the bonus track.

Make sure you play the game from the beginning with an empty save file (the manual has the button combination for erasing the data, this erases all records though). The Free Run mode is only available in the beginning and it has a unique track. It is later replaced by the Free Trax mode once you complete Speed Trax at least once, and you will never see that unique track again (or at least until the data is erased again).

Battle Trax is the 2-player mode and it has 4 unique tracks not available in any other mode. You can still play it 1-player by not touching one of the two controllers, the CPU will take over shortly after start. You can actually "play" it 0-player by not touching either controller.

Today I have the Japanese version "Wild Trax", unlike the English version it has a "story" in the manual, according to that the game apparently takes place in America IIRC.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

Today I have the Japanese version "Wild Trax", unlike the English version it has a "story" in the manual, according to that the game apparently takes place in America IIRC.

For whatever reason, I had the idea you were playing as toy R.C. cars. Is this not the case?

[P]

I don't think the story mentioned R.C. cars and it seems to take place on real-sized roads with the heavy physics of real cars. The eyes of the cars were supposedly added in pretty late to give some more character to the game, which was developed like quite a realistic car racing game. The fact that the largest and heaviest of the cars (4WD) is the beginner car with fastest acceleration might be part of this realism, as a larger engine normally means better acceleration, instead of the usual F-Zero/Mario Kart tradition that usually goes something like this:
light vehicle = fast accel, slow topspeed, bad at collisions and good at off-road driving
heavy vehicle = slow accel, fast topspeed, good at collisions and bad at off-road driving
Then some variant of these but with some other quirk, like better tire grip.

There actually is an R.C. mode as part of Stunt Trax that you can unlock if you beat the 4 regular Stunt Trax tracks, which supposedly uses R.C cars, the main difference is the camera view though as physics seems the same. It's sort of like a cat-and-mouse-demolition-derby-arena-game (but only 1-player so it's not like Mario Kart's battle mode and you are always cat), the opponent cars lacks the eyes in this mode making them much less personal. It's a sort of crazy mode with strange camera angles, but it's also one of my favorite modes, you just gotta love the music!

[Preki]

Recently I bought a Mega Drive 6-button controller on Allegro, the premier Polish on-line auction service. For how much? An equivalent of roughly $15. That's right, fifteen bucks, for a 6-button MD controller, Japanese version (shorter cord and slightly smaller dimensions, but that's what I needed). At the same time I'm selling RetroBit replicas because they might feel good at first glance, but ultimately the build quality isn't as good as the original's.

[P]

Ah the Fighting Pad 6B (SJ-6000) that's my favorite controller for the Mega Drive, and you got it for a good price. I prefer it over the original 3-button MD controller as it has higher quality d-pad that is less sensitive to accidental diagonal presses. I also have that Japanese version with the blue START button, the cord is long enough IMHO.

The SJ-6000 is also what the highly praised Saturn controller (HSS-0101) is based on, so it's a popular controller indeed.