I'm pleased to report that the 2600 I talked about a few days ago is up and running! A cheap power lead and RF cable from eBay — plus a game of course — got the old boy fired up and, after a quick dust of the cartridge slot, working perfectly.

Here he is in his new pride of place, just behind the Atari XE:

And here's the game I got for testing purposes: Imagic's Cosmic Ark. I'd never played this before so I figured start my collection as I mean to go on: with something weird!

Cosmic Ark is kind of sort of the sequel to Atlantis, which is a game I liked a lot back on the Atari 8-bit. Mechanically it's a pretty simple game, but it's very addictive.

I'm actually quite impressed with the quality of the video signal from the 2600. Obviously it's no RGB SCART, but for an RF connection it's perfectly respectable — and considerably better than the very noisy signal I get from the Philips G7000/Odyssey 2.

Well, time to get collecting, I guess!

I've been playing a bit of the Atari 8-bit version of Space Invaders recently. This was actually my first ever contact with Space Invaders and, for those unaware, it is a very inaccurate port of Taito's classic. The invaders look different, there are no bases to hide behind, there's a weird rocket ship at the side of the screen that the invaders emerge from… and I love it.

I'd always believed that this was a pretty fondly regarded version of Space Invaders, but looking at a few comments from over the last ten years or so it seems that it most certainly is not — primarily for its inaccuracy. Thing is, though, that inaccuracy is precisely why I like this version of Space Invaders. I like it more than the arcade original — perhaps because it was my own first contact (no pun intended) with the game, but also because it offers something unique and distinctive rather than just trying to ape the arcade experience as closely as possible on hardware of the time.

I guess the argument against that is that if you're going to do that, you probably shouldn't call it Space Invaders, but, well, the concept of the game is the same, and the basic mechanics — bases to hide behind aside — are identical. So what if it looks different? I'd much rather play a bunch of different versions of Space Invaders, each of which have their own unique idiosyncrasies, than a bunch of near-identical versions.

I seem to be in the minority for this viewpoint, but that's nothing new, is it? 🙂

My favourite RPG casts are the ones that act as something of a dysfunctional family. And Ulrika's group in Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy is one of the finest groups of idiots I've ever had the pleasure to go adventuring with.

You've got Ulrika, who has enthusiasm and vigour aplenty, though it's often somewhat misdirected. There's her best friend Chloe, who is absolutely terrible at magic, and tends to end up cursing people when she's practising her "incantations". There's Pepperoni, a huge musclebound beastman who thinks he's a tiny fairy. There's Goto, who is… I have no idea, but he appears to possess a small red ball and/or an animal mascot costume. And there's Enna, who seems to be the most relatively normal of the group, but may or may not have been abused by his sister (who is a member of the game's other playable cast) to such a degree that she literally stole his name from him.

What a group. It's a delight to spend time with them, and something of a markedly different feel to what Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis provided. There was certainly dysfunction there, too, but most players would almost certainly find themselves gravitating towards a specific character that they particularly liked. You know, like liked. That's how I ended up going for Jess' ending.

In Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy — at least in the case of Ulrika's route, since I can't speak for Raze's yet — it's not quite that simple. None of these characters are particularly people I feel like I would want to "end up with" in the same way that Vayne and Jess getting together just felt "right", but all of them are absolutely fascinating in their own right, and I want to see their respective stories through to their conclusions.

Thankfully, Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy adopts a slightly different approach to its predecessor; in the first game, you could only complete the last "episode" of one character's personal quests in order to lock in their ending, whereas in Mana Khemia 2 you can complete all the quests, and the ending you get is determined by whoever you speak to first in the game's final chapter. That makes it much easier to make a save just before the final dungeon and be able to see everyone's conclusion.

Anyway, that's something to concern myself with a bit later; I still have a fair way to go. This one's going to take a little longer to cover fully than the previous Atelier games, but we'll take things as they come — no need to rush; I'm in this for the long haul!

I never really appreciated it to this degree back in the day, but the Atari Lynx has an absolutely delightful aesthetic if you blow its visuals up to "TV size". It turns out that the Atari Lynx's look and feel is exactly what a significant number of modern indie developers think all retro games look like. So I thought I'd share a few favourite examples with you today.

Here's Checkered Flag, a Pole Position-esque racing game that many consider to be a highlight of the system. While it may lack undulating roads — which disappointed me a great deal back in the day! — it has some great courses and a wonderful sense of speed.

Here's California Games, a game I never owned my own copy of, but which was the first thing I ever saw running on a Lynx. I don't love the game, but it's a good showcase of what the system can do, and I'm looking forward to revisiting it when the Evercade resurrects a significant proportion of the Lynx's library later this year.

Here's an intro screen from Electro Cop, noteworthy for both its big chunky font and the detailed background, even at that low a resolution.

Here's part of the intro to Gates of Zendocon, showing that hardware sprite scaling off a treat!

And here's an in-game shot of Gates of Zendocon (with a little unwanted input from NVidia in the corner). I love the way this one looks and, again, am looking forward to revisiting it on Evercade.

I never played Ms. Pac-Man on Lynx back in the day because I always felt the system was "better" than simple arcade games. With retrospect, I can now recognise that the system was absolutely perfect for simple arcade games, even if it lacked a little in screen resolution compared to the original!

Here's Ninja Gaiden, a bold attempt to bring the arcade-style belt-scrolling beat 'em up to Lynx — actually a cracking good game.

Here's first-person shooter Turbo Sub, probably one of the smoothest moving, slickest games on the system — and a fabulous blaster to boot.

Here's surprisingly detailed World War I air combat sim Warbirds, which had a good flight model and a variety of missions to take on — although they were all heavily dogfight-based.

And here's gratuitous Wonderboy ripoff Viking Child, one of the most sluggish platformers in existence — but actually a decent game if you can deal with its snail-like pace!

A lot of these are coming back in the two Atari Lynx Collection cartridges for Evercade later in the year, but I'd love to see Turbo Sub and Warbirds make a comeback too — those were some real favourites back in the day.

In the meantime, I can at least enjoy them in all their giant-pixel glory thanks to emulation!

I've taken a bit of time this weekend to get ahead of schedule on videos so I can focus on Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy for the majority of my free time. I've been getting a little behind on it for one reason or another, not because I'm not enjoying it — quite the contrary — but because I've been giving myself a bit too much to do, I think!

Still, it's all good now, and the day job is likely to be pretty quiet for a little while too, so all should be well from this week. I'm hoping they're not going to try and push to get people back in the office yet, what with the easing of some of the restrictions here in the UK; I suspect before long we'll likely be back to full-on lockdown, because the British public has shown on plenty of occasions already that they can't really be trusted even during a global pandemic!

I'm not sure why some companies are so dead-set on getting people back into the office anyway. If the lockdown period has demonstrated anything, it's that employees who don't do anything "physical" can do their job entirely from a home office. Granted, there's always the productivity question, then — and I know I'm certainly a prime example, because my motivation is at an absolute minimum right now — but that is often an issue whether or not you're on the "official premises" for your job. I'd be feeling bored, miserable and dissatisfied if I was sitting in the office — likely more so, in fact, because I wouldn't be able to easily step away for a few minutes and play a game or something.

Ah well. What will be will be and all that; we just have to take each day as it comes right now. And enjoy your time when it's possible to do so!

Can't remember if I mentioned this here before, but the Atari 1050 disk drive that I thought was dead — and which I was rather sad about, since it was the Atari 1050 I grew up with — is no longer dead. I did a bit of reading online and asked the AtariAge forums and the recurring advice was "clean the head", so I… got Andie to clean the head. (I trust her more with delicate electronics than me!)

I'm pleased to report that I once again have a fully functional Atari 8-bit system with 1050 disk drive. I am just missing a SpartaDOS X cartridge, so unfortunately I can't access any of the stuff on the four volumes of "Pete's Disk" right now — which is a shame, as they had a bunch of magazine type-ins on them, along with some of my own programming experiments — but aside from that, most of the 30+ year old disks I have seem to be working just fine!

Sadly, attempts to rescue some of the old, knackered joysticks didn't go so well; my Spectravideo and Konix joysticks all appear to have at least one worn-out microswitch so they don't move in certain directions, and what I believe is actually an Atari 7800 joystick doesn't move at all. (The fire buttons work, though.) Thankfully, I still have the Monster arcade-style joystick I got a while back, so that fulfils all my needs for now… plus I'm pretty sure I have a Zipstik and a Wico Commander(?) somewhere that both work if I happen to ever see another human being ever again.

Emulation is great — particularly for practical purposes like video capture and screenshots — but nothing beats the real thing when you just want to sit down and play something, so I'm very happy everything's back in full working order!

We finally got the new shelves up in the living room, so the wife and I have been spending some time filling them up. The layout of things might change as I acquire more stuff — part of the reason for adding these new shelves was to have some room to expand — but for now I think we've got things looking rather nice.

As such, I thought you might like to take a look!

Here's the main bulk of the new shelves. I've moved the handhelds and their games over here, and the rest of the shelves are used for "display" purposes. My various Senran Kagura bits and pieces, which was previously squeezed into a space half this width, now has plenty of space to breathe.

Here's the wall many of you may have seen before. I've now got a lot more room to expand those parts of the library that are most likely to expand — Wii, Switch, PS4 and perhaps a bit more PS2.

And here are the shelves above the sofa, now entirely used to display various limited editions and big-box games, plus a few books that look nice on the shelf like the Zelda Hyrule Historia and Final Fantasy XIV's Encyclopaedia Eorzea.

I love how all this looks! I really am out of space when all this lot is full, though!

Well, I'm very excited to announce that as of today — the 9th of July 2020 — MoeGamer has already exceeded last year's views. Here's proof!

You all know that I don't do this for the numbers, but that doesn't mean I'm not happy when the numbers go up! I'm an RPG fan, after all; enjoying numbers getting bigger is in our blood.

Anyway, with that in mind, I just wanted to say a big thank you to all of you who have taken the next step beyond just reading and perhaps sharing MoeGamer articles and my YouTube videos, and who have helped me invest in things to keep the site up and running and full of interesting stuff to read!

It really is super-appreciated, and it means a lot to me that my little passion project that I started out of frustration and disillusionment clearly means something to people other than myself. As a writer, it's always nice to know that people are reading your work; as someone interested in gaming history, it's a pleasure to know that the things that are important to me are important to others, too.

MoeGamer is such a major part of my life now that it most definitely isn't going anywhere, but I'm continually grateful for everyone who has helped it become what it is over the course of the last six years. I love doing what I do, and I hope that comes across!

Thank you again.

Limited Run Games' press conference was today, and they've announced a great lineup of stuff coming soon. If you want to see the full list, you can find it at  https://limited-run-games.myshopify.com/blogs/news/lrg3-2020.

There's a lot of things I'm excited about on this list — packaged releases of the Castlevania Anniversary Collection and the excellent Mighty Gunvolt Burst, to name just two, but one of the greatest things is that Shantae is making a comeback. Yes, the original Game Boy Color game — the one that commands astronomical prices on the second-hand market these days, and where you're probably getting a reproduction cart anyway. (Okay, LRG's version says up-front that it's a reproduction, but it's still a nice "official" way to get hold of a packaged copy of Shantae for Game Boy.)

Even better, both the original Shantae and Shantae: Risky's Revenge are getting packaged releases for Nintendo Switch. This means that the entire Shantae series will be available on one console, which I know doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, but always makes me very happy when it happens. And Shantae is one of those series that just feels right on Switch.

Other highlights include the Grandia HD Collection — had a feeling this would get a limited-press packaged version — Ys Origin for Switch and the mysterious River City Girls 0 from WayForward. All of these are coming in the next couple of months, frustratingly for my wallet — but I'm damned if I'm missing out on a complete Shantae collection if nothing else!

Packaged releases of games are alive and well and, as I've said before, the whole "limited run" thing provides the potential for everyone's library of games on modern systems to be quite different to each other. While that may frustrate completionists who want a "full library" for a console, realistically that hasn't been an option for a good few console generations now! I think at this point I'd much rather celebrate my favourite games by proudly displaying them on my shelf rather than picking things up just for the sake of it.

I realise I say all this after I pondered getting into 2600 collecting yesterday — but even in that case, I'm primarily interested in tracking down some interesting or unusual games rather than the same things I can just boot up Atari Flashback Classics to play. A collection should, to my mind anyway, be an expression of your own personal interests and passions rather than shelves upon shelves of things you've never played and probably won't.

Anyway, I see Ys Origin is up for order today, I believe, so I guess it begins already…

I'm considering getting into Atari 2600 collecting. This is probably something to do with all the Classic Game Room I've been rewatching lately, but I have actually had a 2600 Jr. lurking around the house minus a power and RF cable for quite some time now. I've finally ordered the bits I need to (hopefully) get it up and running — and if it does work, then I might start a 2600 collection.

The 2600 is a really interesting system to me, for several reasons. One, because it lasted so long on the market, even amid technologically superior competition. And two, because its early days represented a time when developers didn't really know what a video game was, and thus just experimented with a bit of everything to see what worked and what didn't.

While it is simple enough to explore the system's library through emulation, there's something eminently pleasant about the physical aspect of taking a single-game cartridge and plugging it into an actual system. Plus I kind of like the way Atari 2600 cartridges look stacked up on a shelf.

Not sure if this will go anywhere as yet, but it's definitely something I'm considering. The cables and bits to get the 2600 up and running should hopefully arrive in a couple of days, so I'll keep you posted as to whether or not it actually works!