#Blog The Other Mini Consoles

So I made a little post about the Mega Drive Mini (and the other Nintendo and Sony minis).

I decided to get my hands on the remaining missing Minis. We'll talk about the Neo Geo mini arcade cabinets another day. Today let's have a look at the...

The 64 Mini

This Commodore 64 mini was released with 64 retro titles. Both a "Mini" and a regular-sized clone of the Commodore 64 with actual working keyboard (along the digital keyboard on the emulator).

It looks slick and modern actually. I dig the quality of the Mini here.

And here's the C64 Mini next to my Master System for scale comparison:

PC-Engine Mini

 

I like how they called the European release the "PC Engine Core Grafx Mini", to combine both the Japanese and the American name of the original system.

The system itself has a great list of pre-loaded titles, which you can select easily by switching between the American and the Japanese list of selected games.

Here's the Mini right next to my actual PC Engine Duo, for size comparison. It's so tiny!!!!

A great list of games, probably my favorite selection of all these Mini consoles. Why can't they cover entire "classic must have series", though? Bonk 1 and 2? Where's Bonk 3?? The Mega Drive Mini couldn't have all main Sonic titles either..

VGR Bonk 3

Can you believe it? The last time I reviewed Bonk was back in January 2011! How time flies... 

Mascot platformers you ask? Check out the following reviews!

Aero the Acro-Bat - 2 / Astal / Bonk - 2 / BUG! - Too! / Clockwork Knight - 2
Crash Bandicoot 1 / Croc / Donkey Kong and DK Jr.
Earthworm Jim 1 - 2 - cartoon / Felix the Cat / Greendog / Psycho Fox
Rayman - 2: The Great Escape - 3: Hoodlum Havoc - Origins
handheld Rayman games - The Animated Series
Rabbids Go Home

Rocket Knight Adventures - Sparkster - RKA2
Sonic 1 - (8 bit)
Tomba! - 2: The Evil Swine Return
Tempo - Jr. - Super Tempo / Tonic Trouble / Wild Woody / Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel

VGR Shinobi

I am proud to present you a review of the original Shinobi here on my blog!

Aka Sega's least marketable mascot for children! (he might have been more of a badass than Alex Kidd, but he didn't had Sonic's all-ages appeal..)

VGR Die Hard (PC Engine)

For this review, we'll go back to Die Hard 1 and a very unexpected release...!

Die Hard Another Day in these classic Eyz reviews!

Die Hard / Die Harder / Die Hard with a Vengeance

Die Hard (Nes) / Die Hard Trilogy / Die Hard Arcade
Die Hard Trilogy 2

#Design - unreleased Fanzasy Zone & Half Life custom cover art

Here's some custom cover art I designed for scrapped unreleased games I burnt on discs for my collection! :P

This is a custom cover for the unreleased Space Fantasy Zone! It's a Fantasy Zone game which plays like a Space Harrier!

I actually based it on  one fanmade cover project I found in low res on google. Since I couldn't simply use it for quality reason, I tried to recreate it with my own touch. (I made a little 4 pages booklet with screens and Fantasy Zone art - not showed here above)

Here's my own take for the oh-so "famous" unreleased Dreamcast Half-Life prototype.

The game's actually fully playable, saves and all. (I believe this was a Gold prototype)

The bios is available "around" online and works perfectly once burnt on disc.

Please! Do not ask for these! This was a personal job, not outsourcing the work to other people. If you want me to work out something for you, I will do so for money only.

Design © Eyz 2012.
Game and work based on a propriety © Sega/Nec/Hudson & Sierra/Valve
Not for commercial use!

Ad - The higher energy video game system

I love the TurboGrafx, I really do.
I adore this such underrated almost-unknown system.
Loads of fun games, great visuals and sounds. (in a way, closer to arcade games than the Megadrive or the SNES did later)

Here's an old commercial for the TurboGrafx 16 through the eyes of people in 1989:



Extreeeeeme!!~

VGR:Quickies Ports of Persia

As you've probably seen on the blog, I've reviewed most Prince of Persia games already. (and comics...and movies..)

But this isn't all of them yet.
During this long running franchises, most episodes have known various releases on several platforms. If most releases nowadays are pretty similar to one another it wasn't always the case "back in the ol' days".

For this occasion, I decided to make this new Quickies installement! 
To have a look at some iterations of the original Prince of Persia games by Jordan Mechner. As well as another bonus quick review.

Gamin' NEWS! HUDSON IS DEAD! LONG LIVE HUDSON!

I just learned Hudson is no more...

The end of an era.

Hudson Entertainment will be shutting down at the end of the month.
All the future games and projects they were working on were canceled.

Some of the quoted reasons have been the bad communication and collaboration between Hudson's Japanese and American divisions and the growing indie movement (which, most Hudson titles, aimed for the same audience).

And what about the Japanese house Hudson Soft? They were aquired by Konami earlier in January 2011. They will now work on some Konami adaptations and focus on social gaming.

So it is the end of an era for me.
As a fan of the Arcade titles Hudson created during the 80s and 90s and Bonk, Bomberman and the PC Engine... It is sad news for us fans :(

I didn't had any proper fanart of Bomberman I did on my hands

apart from this little pixel-art experiment.

Source: a blog announcement by brand manager Morgan Haro

VGR Bonk 2

After a heckuva long time, I decided to finally go back to one of my earlier reviews and move on the sequel of Bonk!

VGR Splatterhouse

Are you ready for some gory, violent, brutal old school beat 'em all action?!?
Are you ready for the Splatterhouse!?

In case you missed it, I've recently posted the Japanese manga and the American comic page telling Splatterhouse's plot.

My Fighting Games Collection!

Hello folks!
Today, I wanted to post a pic of my fighting game collection, since I've been posting so much about the "fighting genre".
Collection as of today - pic taken July the 1st 2010~

Sega Mascots 02: Opa Opa

Here's another look at a past Sega Mascots. This time, it's Opa Opa's turn!

 

OPA OPA

VGR Street Fighter 1 aka Fighting Street

Kickin' off my FIGHTING MARATHON Reviews, here come the very first Street Fighter game!

What is Fighting Street? Did it age well?
More on that and the review itself right here...

What did ya play this weekend??

Hey gang!
How was your weekend?

Here's a new feature - from time to time on Mondays, I'll ask you what you've played/read/watched/etc.. and tell you what I did as well!

Don't be afraid to use the comments section, it doesn't bite! Plus it's simple to use~

This is my own weekend-selection and o- waaaAAIIT! Why is there only CAPCOMTM games?!

Those are the games I've mostly played this weekend : P
As you can see... Waaaaait, what?! Only Capcom games?? I didn't plan that! It just seems like I did it, logically!

I've been playing lots of Super Street Fighter 4, like so many others.
I've always been a big fan of fighting games (as you may already guessed from some of my older posts) amd this SSF4 is a nice overhaul of last year's Street Fighter 4!

Now, Fighting Street or Street Fighter 1 is a strange yet addictivie oldie.
I have a review about this one coming up, so wait and see~

I've also been playing some gamecube games, thanks for the wii retrocompatibility (hey! I already have to much systems plugged in my tv!). Those 3 are part of the "Capcom five" project, more on that on the future review of Resident Evil Zero maybe. But I'll have to publish the Resident Evil Code Veronica review first.
Viewtiful Joe and P.N.03 are very original and fun games.
I've been playing those 3 games for a while, alternating between them from time to time.
Viewtiful Joe is very hard, old school 8 Bit hard! P.N.03 is easier but I find myself on this one during small playthrough every now and then, to keep it fresh.
Resident Evil 0 is strangely pretty difficult and needs a bit of adaptation over the original Resident Evil games...

Well, that's for me, what have you guys and gals been doing? Write/comment/answer in the comments below!

Resident Evil review
Resident Evil 2 review
Resident Evil 3 review

VGR Bonk 1

Here's a game I really like, a underrated cult favorite of mine.
Despite it being almost forgotten nowadays, I consider it as one of the nicest 2D old school platformer!
The sequels are kinda better, but that's for another review another time!

The system is known as the TurboGrafx-16 in the USA but I always use the official names or international names in my reviews!

PS: YEAH! I know there's a new BONK 2,5D game coming on Xbox live. But THIS is about the first, the original Bonk!

Edit29/12/2010: Edited this old review with my current template, instead of the huge jpg picture I previously had...