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Two things I would like to show you all: I don't think I've ever shown this little guy off before, but this is my Woody over at my grandparents' house. Over here we have a few games like Basketball, Towering Inferno, and Lock and Chase. I rotate the games out frequently. Mostly multiplayer exclusive games are over here. Thank God, I can play this thing! I have tried Home Run and Crystal Castles out finally; they are fun games! Oh, and that other thing. I just wanted to mention that my grandparents' water heater always gives me hand cramps!

I wouldn't mess around with GG Sonic 1 on original hardware. That blurry screen looks like it might kill the game. I bought the game for $5 on 3DS Virtual Console and it plays well on there as well. I think it is also on Sonic Gems Collection on GameCube. I think. It's also on the Sega Master System. There are minor differences between the two variations, but they are both the same game at heart. I prefer the GG version, but some like the Master System version better as it has less screen crunch, though it is also less forgiving.

I like the Genesis, but it isn't Super Nintendo. Genesis has some stellar arcade-style games, but SNES has better adventure games. I love me my Nintendo IP's. And Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Link's Awakening, F-Zero, Pilotwings... those aren't on Genesis. Genesis is good, but not Super, if you know what I mean. Yeah, I'm surprised the Genesis is so cheap compared to the SNES. I guess it's because many of the games haven't aged as well or the IP's aren't being used at the moment that much. Sonic is the exception I guess. SNES games just seem more memorable and maybe that's why their value is higher. Plus, the series are still getting new entries to this day for the most part. Never been a big Sonic fan or cared much for his games at all with one exception. Sonic 1 on the GameGear/Master System (same thing basically). That game is phenomenal. Sonic 2 is OK in my opinion. I haven't spent much time with it. I will say lots of the classic Sonic games have really good OST's. Listen to the Jungle theme from GG Sonic 1 when you get a chance. It's amazing. It's also on my playlist on my DSi. I'll post the song here. @socrates63 are you sure? You really don't have to do this. That is very kind of you. Thank you.

@socrates63 that's very kind of you, but I'm okay. You don't have to send me anything. You should leave those for the people who are able to put stuff back in the box. Thank you, but I'll have to pass on your offer. By the way, I didn't know you got a Genesis. I don't have a normal Genesis but I do have the AtGames flashback unit. Sound emulation is poor but the games seem to run fine. My model came with some nice wired controllers instead of those crappy wireless infrared ones. My favorite game on the system is Columns III. Mean Bean Machine, Flicky, Goldenaxe, and Gain Ground are also fun. Be on the lookout for the six pack!

LD's are really cool. Will I ever collect them? Probably not as I'm not a movie guy particularly. If I want to watch a movie I'll just use Netflix or something. But I would like to get a couple LD's someday. They're so cool. They're the vinyl records of film. By the way, my package is now only about an hour away! The site takes a while to update. I hope I can get my 7800 back before tomorrow to play them.

I've said this before, but most of my retro games were inherited from family members. My 2600 was from my dad's cousin, my NES was from my uncle, and the rest were ones my dad used to have. So I guess it's been nearly 40 years, but all were collected separately and then combined. My games are currently two hours away. I don't think they'll be coming today, but I can wait.

Having enough games where space becomes a problem for me is like my dream. My collection isn't nearly as large as most of yours, only about 230~ish items in it. Like I've said previously, it's been being built up in separate chunks since 1981 or so. I'm really quite proud of it so far. Last week I finally took the time and cataloged it using pricecharting.com. When I have disposable income I would like to invest in some obscure consoles like the Channel F and Bally Astrocade, as well as get some vintage computers. I have wanted to learn BASIC since I first discovered The 8-Bit Guy a few years ago. My 7800 collecting and game collecting as a whole will be paused for the moment after I get these games. For Christmas I hope to get some games as well. Mainly BallBlazer, Pilotwings, and 7800 Mario Brothers. I also hope to get some more retro gaming shirts and things. Not many people my age you see wanting Atari 7800 games for the holidays.

Realsports Baseball and Touchdown Football. Yes, I do realize that, and that's pretty cool. I'm not hating on the game, but I just think it looks a little strange compared to the arcade and NES releases. I will no doubt enjoy it and play a lot of it. The imperfections give me a reason to return to this specific version. Fellow Galaxian fan here. Yeah, they do have that. I also saw a CIB Pole Position II there once. I don't know if that's the buggy 1987 version or the fixed 1988 version. I have the 1988 system, the one most affected by the bug. That cart was $5.

That is surprising given how much everyone loves it. How many of your games do you actually play?

For those of you who don't have time to watch this video or are looking for a specific game's ranking and don't want to watch the whole video again, I have compiled @nosweargamer's rankings in list form here, from highest to lowest ranked: BallBlazer Food Fight Ninja Golf Ikari Warriors Commando Ms. Pac-Man Alien Brigade Xevious Dig Dug Midnight Mutants Xenophobe Donkey Kong Junior Tomcat F-14 Desert Falcon Galaga Joust Mario Brothers Mean 18 Ultimate Golf Donkey Kong Centipede Crossbow Winter Games One-on-One Basketball Rampage Planet Smashers Asteroids Pete Rose Baseball Basketbrawl Motor Psycho Super Skateboardin' Double Dragon Super Huey Kung Fu Master Impossible Mission (Broken US version) Robotron 2084 Fatal Run Ace of Aces F-18 Hornet Dark Chambers Choplifter! Pole Position II Scrapyard Dog Summer Games Tank Command Water Ski Karateka Crack'ed Hat Trick Tower Toppler Barnyard Blaster Jinks Sentinel Fight Night Mat Mania Challenge Meltdown Realsports Baseball Touchdown Football Title Match Pro Wrestling

I'm guessing that my new games will arrive tomorrow given how fast they are traveling. Maybe Thursday (that's what the link says), but I'm guessing they'll actually arrive sometime tomorrow afternoon. The shipping day estimate was way off last time. I'm quite excited, even though I don't have my ProSystem back yet. I'm asking all of you here at the I/O: What are your opinions on Galaga, Xevious, and Food Fight on Atari 7800?

Yeah, I forgot about racing games as sports. Indy 500 and Night Driver are my favorites on the system, and I prefer ND to Indy. Dragster is pretty fun too, and Pole Position is also great (if not eclipsed by the sequel). I also enjoy Activision Grand Prix though that's mostly nostalgia. I haven't played much Enduro but I remember enjoying it. Street Racer is fun, but not for the street racing part of it. I much prefer the other variations, like Number Cruncher.

It's a sports game in the same way BallBlazer is a sports game. It's not a real Earth sport, but I would still consider it a sports game. I think the sports games are good, but watching any sport other than Baseball is painful for me. I don't follow sports, but if a Baseball game is on I might watch it. My grandfather, my sister and I used to go to a lot of the minor league games the last few years before COVID. I miss that. Shame you don't have Video Olympics. It's a really fun game, and one you can't emulate well because of the lack of paddle controllers. My text label copy gets a lot of use for multiplayer gaming. Or at least it got a lot of use. I really miss my .

I don't understand you two and your love of Golf. I never used to understand the swinging mechanism until my dad and I played it a few months ago (he grew up with Computer Golf! on Odyssey 2 which was completely ripped off by Atari for the 2600 game). Now that I understand it, it's more fun but it's still not great. I much prefer Miniature Golf. You ought to give that game a try. It controls much, much better. Plays a bit like Billiards. I'd pick OG 2600 Football over Madden any day. Bowling is quite fun as well. I have the former but not the latter. I remember going to bed and my dad and his friends were playing Bowling. Pretty fun.

@RickR some good games in there! Ice Hockey was never one I much cared for; I much prefer the version that is part of Video Olympics. RS Volleyball and Basketball are really fun, too. I have played Pele's Soccer before years ago, like 2012 or so, and don't remember it much. If I remember correctly, the players are just squares in a top-down perspective? That one's real cheap; I'll have to pick it up someday. And to answer your question, yes, to my knowlege that was the first 3D-esque Basketball game. Odyssey 2 Basketball! was the same year, I believe, and it doesn't look very good. 2600 B-Ball is great, and it's one of the few 2600 games my sister will play with me. When I played One-on-One for the first time, I was instantly reminded of this game.

"2600 sports games" is a broad term to say the least. The system lived for so long, so the difference between early and late sports titles is night and day. I'm not a big sports guy, so I like it when they keep games simple. I prefer the early games, but some later ones like RS Volleyball are really good. I especially like Video Olympics, Home Run, and Miniature Golf on the system. What do you think?

I cracked this bad boy out again today. This was actually the first retro gaming item I got CIB. It's quite a fun game and has lots of variety, more so than many 2600 games. Game play reminds me a lot of Solaris on 2600, though simplified a tad. I did a bit more research on this unit. The Radio Shack version (AstroThunder, the one I have) was released in 1986. However, that wasn't the first time the world was blessed with this game. Grandstand, a UK and New Zealand based electronics company, released FireFox F-7, a near identical game, all the way back in 1983. Aside from the design printed on the tabletop, the two units are indistinguishable. Grandstand was known mostly for its Pong consoles and other tabletops, like Caveman, though they did release a pretty nifty Channel F clone. So yeah, AstroThunder and Firefox F-7. It's nice to know that both Travis Scott and Mozilla both had 1980's VFD games. This is the Radio Shack version, however. My original post here is painfully lacking in description, so I will try to fill you in. Earth is under attack by alien invaders and you have been sent to destroy their base before they invade our planet. You're mission is to destroy the Gond--I mean, the enemy power base. You do this by infiltrating the City of Myst--er, the enemy base. If you couldn't already tell, it's a lot like a third person Vanguard mixed with elements from Galaga, Solaris, and the Star Wars trench run. It even has the Vanguard/Flash Gordon music in it! There are six phases to the game. You're in a trench shooting enemy spacecraft (which the manual stupidly refers to as "planes") Ah! Magnetic storm! Don't try to touch the magnetic field, or you'll lose energy. Shoot the fleeing enemy "planes". In order to hit something, you'll have to line it up with you're sights, which you can see above you're health and score bars This phase is just a standard shoot-out featuring some plagiarized Star Wars music. What it lacks in theme it makes up for in a steep difficulty spike. Watch out! You must shoot over 8 "planes" within 70 seconds or you'll have to repeat the level. But beware--they can shoot back! I should mention that all these stages last about a minute, give or take. You approach the enemy base and view the world's shortest cutscene. Aside from the background and the enemy patterns being a little different, it's the same as the last phase. You enter the enemy base and fly through another trench! The planes are very aggressive and the walls will quickly drain your energy if you come in contact with them. Later in the level, the walls get narrower. Finally, you made it to the enemy power base. Destroy this thing, and earth is safe for the time being. But the alien invaders have one last trick up their sleeve: they've outfitted the power base with a deadly, zig-zagging laser gun! You only have a few seconds to land eight hits on the power terminal. Destroy it and KABOOM! The alien base is destroyed and Earth is safe! You can get bonus fuel if you destroy it soon enough. You can also shift into high or low gear. Higher the gear, higher the points per enemy shot. You have a select amount of fuel in the game and no lives. Run out of fuel by taking damage, you're game is over. The digit on the left of the screen represents your score in units of 100, the digit on the right is your score in units of 10. The awkward bar on the left is your score in units of 1. Some interesting things about the system include its stereo sound (you can silence either channel if you so wish) and almost 3D screen filter. Upon watching @Willie!'s video, I learned a bit more about the game. Apparently there were many more variations of the unit I was unaware of. I'll link it here. Like many vintage VFD games, AstroThunder is a C-cell battery hog, though you do have the option of using a 6 volt AC Adapter. The manual recommends using one from Radio Shack themselves, though I did find a plug in the basement that fit the jack and was the proper voltage. The system got power, but only sound effects played with a blank screen. No worries, though; I did happen to have some C batteries on hand just for this purpose. If you ever come across AstroThunder or one of its 89 variants, do try to check it out! It's a really fun game.

Can't buy at the moment, but I'm just wondering: how does that thing play? It seems like it would be fun if the booster grip was secured to the joystick, but the way it is the grip looks like it would just slide off too easily.

It's that spooky time of year again. The leaves are changing, the weather is colder, and Halloween is fast approaching. And you know what that means: Luigi's Mansion and spooky stories. What were some of the creepiest things you have experienced yourself? Not nessicarily paranormal ones, but those are very much welcome too.

How very nice of him! I'm interested in what Video Easel is like. And those glasses are very cool, too! You're going to like that Ms. Pac-Man Plug 'n' Play. It has a nice version of Pole Position on it where you twist the stick like a steering wheel. I'm very nostalgic for that thing. I played lots of Xevious and Mappy on that thing in a kid's playroom at a car dealership when I was younger. That was when my parents were trading in their old car.

If you didn't notice already, there is a fireball in the game like in Mario Brothers. Wait a while and it will come and kill you. Life lost, but score kept. I got past level 9. I didn't get that much bigger of a score as I didn't do as well on the earlier levels as I did that one time. Having fun. Good choice @Justin.