Here’s my Lynx crap. Behold the fancy carry case! I have the type 2 Lynx (the smaller one). I bought a set that came with the console, carry case, screen shield, and several games from an online store called Video Game Liquidators in 1997. Here’s my list of games:
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure Chip’s Challenge Gates of Zendocon Gauntlet: The Third Encounter Ishido: The Way of the Stones Joust Klax Qix Rampart Roadblasters Robo Squash Rygar Shanghai S.T.U.N. Runner Todd’s Adventure in Slime World Xenophobe Xybots Zarlor Mercenary
I had hoped to visit Japan the summer of ’97 with the World Youth Visit Exchange Association (WYVEA), but the trip was cancelled. I had saved up enough money to go, but in the end I couldn’t go. (I went to Japan on my own the following year and made my own arrangements.) So, that summer I bought myself a Lynx and a decent VCR.
I recently discovered a game publisher called Flynn’s Arcade (awesome name!). Basically, the game is a cross between Dig Dug and Bomberman. You play as a bunny rabbit that poops bombs. And no, I’m not being silly. the game actually says that you poop bombs by pressing the button!
The object of the game is to kill all of the enemies on screen before the timer runs out, and you get bonus points for eating the four carrots on each screen. Press the button to drop a bomb behind you. It’s not like Bomberman where you drop a bomb right where you are, but rather behind your bunny. The delay is very swift, so you must move quickly. You can also dislodge rocks to have them fall on the enemies. Points multiply when you kill more than one enemy.
The emulated CRT scanlines are great in this game. Sometimes these faux retro games go overboard with the scanlines, but they look nice in this game. The game is available for Steam OS, so it runs natively on Linux and Steam Deck. Last year, I discovered Annalynn. Murtop is another such fantastic neo-retro arcade game. Play it or else you suck!
The first time I visited Japan was in 1998, and at that time all I saw were sit-down cabinets like the Sega Astro City, Taito Egret, Namco Cyberlead, etc. So, I was unaware that game centers here in Japan once had standing cabinets like America did until talking with my Japanese friend. He said that he would play Atari’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in the ’80s. Atari had some successes in Japan back in the ’80s, especially Gauntlet and Marble Madness. And going back further, Breakout obviously made quite an impression in Japan, giving birth to the “block kuzushi” genre with Arkanoid being the most exemplary title. Dang, if only I could travel back in time, or at least Quantum Leap into my childhood self and relive those memories…
I get a lot of comments on the buttons covering my backpack. I appreciate it when somebody has something to say about a button they’ve identified as something they know and like so that I can have a meaningful interaction with somebody, but if they are a boring person and just commenting on the amount of buttons only because they noticed that I have a lot of buttons and that most people don’t have a lot of buttons on their backpacks then they’re just wasting my time as I’m not usually interested in interacting with normies since it depletes my Energon cubes or something.
A very long time ago, my cousin Bethany gave me a button that simply says, “Everything I need to know about life I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.” I think this was back in college. It just slowly increased from there. Many of the buttons I’ve purchased on my own, but several were given to me, particularly by people who were kind enough to just want to add to the collection. Over time, I’ve lost some buttons, unfortunately. I won’t show them all, but here are some I’m particularly fond of.
This is a button for Mugen Senshi Valis by Tokuma Soft for the Nintendo Famicom. While I don’t care for this Famicom port, I do like the PC Engine a lot and the Megadrive version somewhat.
These buttons are for a game called Pac-Man. Perhaps you have heard of it.
Here is Mai and her fabulous tits from King of Fighters 2001.
A few years back, Village Vanguard stores at shopping malls had plenty of Sega Megadrive merchandise. There were these blindboxed enamel pins. Here are Puyo Puyo, Tant-R (a spin-off from Bonanza Bros), Sonic the Hedgehog, and Bare Knuckle II (aka Streets of Rage II for the NA Genesis). I’ve never played Tant-R before, so I sent this pin to my friend Brian. That’s what friends are for: pushing stuff you don’t want onto others.
Here is Reimu from Touhou Project and Lum from Urusei Yatsura. Reimu was given to me by a former coworker named Eddie several years ago. I think the color may have faded a bit? Not sure. If you don’t know who Lum is, I hate you and I’ll never be your best friend.
More King of Fighters: Here are pixelated Athena and King buttons.
My friend Lou gave me these enamel pins: the Vic Viper from Gradius and Oopa Oopa from Fantasy Zone. He found these at specialty pop-up stores in Tokyo, I do believe.
Anyhow, I have many other buttons and pins on here: Uglydolls, Peanuts, Rilakkuma, Blue Impulse, Darius Burst, Star Trek, the Flatwoods Monster, Tamiya, Hasegawa, and other pins. If you don’t know what any of these are and just want to comment that I have lots of buttons because you’re a normie and find it weird that others aren’t normal like you, then don’t talk to me by saying, “Boy, you have a lot of buttons on your backpack, bleh” because that drains my energy. So shut up.
Here’s the Solvalou fighter, your ship in the game.
The Andor Genesis, the boss ships you fight against. Sort of looks like the top part of a Cylon Base Star.
Speaking of Battlestar Galactica, the Terrazi looks like a Cylon Raider.
This Jara is sort of TIE Fighter shaped.
The Kapi has a sort of Millennium Falcon shape to it.
I can’t say this Grobda tank really looks like anything, except maybe a cross from the Galileo Shuttle from Star Trek and the land rover from Battlestar Galactica.
The port of Xevious on the Atari 7800 is what I put the most time into, when I was in junior high. I remember how thrilled I was when I bombed the Andor Genesis with a one bomb kill. I’ll have to give it a try on my 7800 emulator for RetroPie again sometime to refresh my memory. IIRC, it wasn’t a bad port and it even had the hidden flags you can reveal by bombing secret areas on the screen.
In 1982, I saw the trailers for the movie on TV and wanted to see the movie so badly. My sister was 3 years older than me and had decided that since the movie was about computers, it would be too complex and I wouldn’t understand it. Yet she hadn’t seen it either, so how would she know? Older sibling syndrome, I guess.
It wasn’t until later when Tron came to the Disney Channel that I finally got to see it. It was a celebration of early ’80s video game culture. Fantastic. Recently I did a search for Tron stuff on Pinterest and wanted to post some of the cooler images I found.
I’ve never seen this poster image before. Super neat.
Jean “Moebius” Giraud did a lot of the designs for Tron. His graphic novel, The Long Tomorrow, was a visual inspiration for Blade Runner.
More Moebius art.
And speaking of Blade Runner, Syd Mead also did design work for Tron, with these black & white illustrations.
I’ve never seen this poster with Flynn, either. Perhaps this is fan art?
This poster for the “Space Paranoids” arcade game featured in the movie. It’s amusing since arcade games back then did NOT look like that, unless it was supposed to be a laserdisc game. There is no way we had FPS-style games like that back then!
But we did get an actual Tron arcade game by Bally Midway in 1984.
The design of this arcade cabinet is simply captivating, complete with the blacklights and lighted joystick. While it was cool, I really enjoyed the Discs of Tron game far better.
This was a step-in, environmental cabinet. It really blew me a way the first time I saw it.
Too bad Disney is more preoccupied with sexualizing children and wrecking Marvel and Star Wars to make anything cool anymore. At least a good sequel was made before Disney went down the crapper, although that movie and its spin-off cartoon weren’t enough to sustain interest in Tron. As for me, 40 years later, Tron remains dear to me.
Here is my DVD signed by Bruce Boxleitner. I only talked to him briefly, but I could tell he is BASED.
It was the summer of 2002. My first stint of living in Japan was coming to a close after 2 years, and I was in the process of packing up my belongings to move back to the USA. I happened to see Magical Chase for the GBC for only 3,000 yen. At the time, I had no way of playing the game, so I passed. It was only a few years later that this game’s value skyrocketed, and now I dare not look up to see its current value. I’ve kicked myself for passing on that opportunity. I figured that although it would be nice, I did not have a GBC, nor was I sure that I’d ever buy one. If I had only known, I could have at least bought it as an investment.
Well, I still don’t have a GBA, but I am able to play it on my Gamecube. Or Retropie, which I am using here for these screenshots. In 2002, this legendary cute-em-up was already rare and expensive for the PC Engine, and I figured that this GBC version would also go up in price. I wish I could somehow go back in time to snatch some of these games as I have become priced out of the market, thanks to hipsters.
I pigged out on Korean BBQ (yakiniku) with the female spouse unit (the female offspring unit doesn’t eat much) while watching The Last Crusade (she likes Indy Jones movies, but not so much Star Wars, but that’s alright) and then Message from Space. Played some Gyruss and booze doesn’t work so well to enhance reflexes, so I gave up trying to beat my high score tonight. Still, thanks to the weekend challenge on the Retro Palace group on Gab, I finally made it to Saturn for the first time in my life today! As for the Famicom/NES version, I can’t figure out how to get past that ball & chain boss.
As a kid, playing Gyruss for the first time, I think that may have been the first time I ever had played an arcade game with an actual soundtrack. I’m talking besides Atari’s Star Wars… a game with a continuous soundtrack! Space Invaders has that great bass tune, but that only half counts. I’m talking Johann Sebastian BACH! As a kid, I was like, “DUDE, CAPTAIN NEMO MUSIC.” Before I found out he was Nadia’s father… No, I mean the Disney movie I watched over and over again on the Disney Channel whenever it was on because there was nothing else to do, which gave me a passion for sea monsters and stuff. Hearing this in the game, with a sped-up tempo, really blew my mind. Toccata and Fugue in D Minor! Classy.
I’m playing Gyruss, chasing alien starfighters in warp tunnels as they speed towards planet Earth, destroying them before they can approach my homeworld. And when I got that shot powerup for the first time, when it gave a real deeper, bass to the sound to the shots, I really felt like I had serious firepower at my fingertips. Oh man.
How many times have I told you kids to get off my lawn? I’m playing Gyruss.
