Retron 5: Hardware Review

Finally got my hands on a Retron 5 after supply problems from Hyperkin's first shipment led to quick sell-ours across the continent. 

Here's my raw video review of the hardware:

After all the controversy, you sucked so hard.

Found my old Japanese copy of Night Trap, for the Mega Drive. 

Interesting bits about this gem:

• Dana Plato`s in it. 
• Despite how tame it was, even by 1990`s standards, it sparked Congressional hearings on offensive video game material, and lead to the modern ESRB ratings system
• It was a horrid game. Horrid acting, horrid game mechanics, horrid concept - Please don`t ever play it. 
• Corey Feldman is NOT in it. 
• Like most other Sega CD games developed by Digital Pictures, if you put the game disc in a CD player, you'll hear a short redbook audio CD track of a phone ringing with a male voice answering "Good afternoon, Digital Pictures", followed by a backwards playback of several voices saying "number nine" ("enin rebmun"), a reference to The Beatles song Revolution 9. This odd recording was thought by some to also be a hint for another DP game called "Sewer Shark" - if the player turns left (referred to as "niner" in the game) three times the player will not hit a wall.

More gems from the game collection migration project :: Both NA and JPN releases of "Dark Wizard," for Sega CD and Mega CD Drives, respectively. I bought the US version on the left it at a CD store in Nelson BC for full price, not knowing anything about it, and it ended up being the only game I'd bought which rationalized my purchase of the Sega CD add-on.

It's an early turn-based strategy game (think Fire Emblem) with an epic soundtrack. 

And here's a review of that soundtrack.

The only other redeeming quality of the Sega CD, is the ease with with which you can burn games to regular CDs and play them on the console, meaning the games produced for this system will survive much longer than the millions of games on your iPhone, etc. I'd post a link to a torrent on "Underground Gamer," but "the man" took them down. 

The January Haul

Vita was an early b-day prezzy.
Everything else, save “Yakuza” came from Game Deals in New Westminister. Fabulous retro store.