What is your most RECENT import? Post often!

[Julio III]

Just recieved these in the post:

Dreamcast:
US Shenmue - sealed
L.O.L. Lack Of Love

Saturn:
Capcom Generation 5
Street Fighter Collection

These 2 Saturn games contain:
Street Fighter II
Street Fighter II' Champion Edition
Street Fighter II Turbo
Super Street Fighter II
Super Street Fighter II X (Turbo)
Street Fighter Zero 2'

So have all the Street Fighter IIs now, lots of variations. If only my Saturn was here to give them a go. Excited about my Dreamcast games also, US Shenmue looks lovely but since its sealed and I don't need to play it as have the PAL releaese don't know whether to open it. L.O.L. should be interesting, will only have time to give it a go in a couple of weeks though

[Fighter17]

Came in the mail yesterday:



$45 with shipping.

[Julio III]

Arrived in the post today, sadly still no pictures from me yet:

Yu Suzuki Game Works Vol.1
A nice big hardbook book plus a Dreamcast disc that has the 4 games from Shenmue + Power Drift

Then these 3 DS games:
Unou no Tatsujin: Soukai! Machigai Museum
Shanghai
Devilish

[Kyle15]

Here's a rare,but used gem I got on monday from eStarland.


Front Cover



Back Cover



It was $34.95. Was it a good deal? I sure think so!
This game is too good! It was sad that it never came here, but if it did, it would have been competely ruined with bad voice acting, translation, e.t.c.

[Kyle15]

Here's a rare,but used gem I got on monday from eStarland.


Front Cover



Back Cover



It was $34.95. Was it a good deal? I sure think so!
This game is too good! It was sad that it never came here, but if it did, it would have been competely ruined with bad voice acting, translation, e.t.c.

[Funk Buddy]

Some are not imports and I haven't played any of them to give impressions, but here's my latest package.







Nothing to spectacular, that's for sure.

[Funk Buddy]

Some are not imports and I haven't played any of them to give impressions, but here's my latest package.







Nothing to spectacular, that's for sure.

[Julio III]

Nothing to spectacular, that's for sure.

But a nice big selection of games there. Loving the art for the Bushido Blades, and what are those 2 dolphin games?

[Julio III]

Nothing to spectacular, that's for sure.

But a nice big selection of games there. Loving the art for the Bushido Blades, and what are those 2 dolphin games?

[Funk Buddy]

The Aquanaut's Holiday & The Aquanaut's Holiday: Memories Of Summer 1996.

[Funk Buddy]

The Aquanaut's Holiday & The Aquanaut's Holiday: Memories Of Summer 1996.

[Spartacus]

SIMPLE 2000 Series Vol. 95:
THE Zombie VS Kyuukyuusha

The story going around is that a foreign power dropped a bomb on Sunlight
City that wiped out most of the population. After several days the dead arose
and began terrorizing the few surviving inhabitants. A young paramedic for
the Sunlight Hospital finds himself trapped in the hospital garage with three
of its female staff. Statues of females might be a better description because
the poor things never move and are completely inanimate. But they do serve
useful functions if you stand in front of them and push the action button.
One nice lady, let's call her the hospital administrator, will manage your game
saves. Another lady, let's call her the medical transcriptionist, will explain
the game objectives and give you some tips. And lastly you have a pretty nurse
with extraordinary bosoms (of course) who records feats of heroism (stats) and
cheers enthusiastly during the game.

Most guys in this situation, myself included, would have simply locked the
doors to the hospital and immediately commenced with our civic responsibility
to re-populate the planet, but this guys either stupid or extremely horny or
both and decides to go outside to rescue other survivors using the hospitals
ambulance. Unfortunately for the survivors, he seems to have the Medusa's
touch and most people brought back to the hospital garage immediately become
inanimate objects themselves. Some fates are worse than death!

The object of the game is to keep the hospital healthy and safe during the
epidemic. This is done by rescuing survivors and killing zombies. Either of
these acts will maintain the lifebar of the hospital that is coincidentally
represented in the game by a pic of a hospital in the upper left corner. When
it is relatively secure it will appear completely lit with a warm yellow glow,
but with zombies running amuck in the city it is constantly under siege and
it's lifebar steadily drains away! Successfully rescuing survivor's raises its
lifebar and rescuing police officers has the greatest positive effect. I have
also noticed that rescuing soldiers appears to keep the zombies from milling
around directly outside of the hospital and have a theory that they somehow
slow the rate of drain on the hospitals lifebar. The lifebar can also be
replenished by simply crushing zombies with the ambulance, thereby reducing the
threat. The difficulty of this method is that the hospital responds best when
multiple zombie deaths (combos) are involved and in the beginning of the game
the ambulance is not very effective at killing zombies. If the lights on the
hospital go dark, the game ends and you are simply asked if you wish to
continue. Say yes and the game starts right back up with the hospital lifebar
at the halfway point. No real big deal other than the embarrassment of having
screwed up.

Of course there's a lifebar for the ambulance as well. A damaged ambulance
loses much of it's speed which is needed in order to kill zombies on impact
and vital for getting rescued survivors back to the hospital quickly enough.
Hitting zombies doesn't hurt the ambulance, but hitting solid objects does
and in this game every tree, bush and chain link fence is a solid object!
Not that zombies can't hurt the ambulance because they can do significant
damage if they are given the opportunity to get their hands on it. If you
pull up to rescue a survivor who is surrounded by a group of zombies they
will happily slap the shit out of the ambulance and are capable of surrounding
the ambulance to prevent it from escaping as well! Worse yet is when you hit
a zombie and his upper torso flips up and lands on top of the ambulance. The
pissed off zombie will immediately commence to slap the crap out of the
ambulance until you shake him off by frantically waggling the analog stick
back and forth.



Oddly enough, every survivor you rescue is ALREADY infected with the zombie
virus and you only have a short length of time, represented by yet another
lifebar for each survivor, to get them back to the hospital to be saved. If
you're too slow, they'll turn zombie right inside the ambulance and rip the
thing to pieces in VERY short order! This activates the ambulance's emergency
response system by displaying EMERGENCY in very big letters!



The sound of an electric saw is immediately heard as the ambulance's automatic
self defense mechanism begins dismembering the zombie. It works perfectly every
time too! Unfortunately the lowest bidder who installed the automatic zombie
ejector system hadn't gotten all the bugs worked out of it and your only
recourse is to hit a solid object at a very fast speed and eject the crazed
victim zombie parts out the back of your ambulance. I kid you not!

While it's possible to pull into the hospital garage with one of the survivors
in a zombie state, they will not be counted as rescued! You can buy your
patients some more time during the trip by finding syringes and IV bags
scattered about which will help delay the on set of full blown zombie-itis.
And while pulling into the garage will repair all damage done to the ambulance
on it's trip, there are also small toolboxes scattered about capable of making
repairs to it in the field.

Sunlight City is actually quite small in size and you can drive around its
perimeter in well under 2 minutes. There are only four roads leading in and
out of the town and these are curiously blocked with large steel gates. Perhaps
the effects of the fallout induced a nuclear winter because the town is
shrouded in perpetual darkness giving it a desolate, if not down right drabby
appearance. You find people to rescue by keeping an eye on a small map in the
right hand corner of your screen where victims appear as small white dots. When
you get in visual range you will see a green ring encircling the rescuee' that
shows up quite well in the darkness and parking the ambulance in the green ring
let's the survivor enter the ambulance. Usually they're found cowering in a
corner somewhere, but occasionally they've been spooked by zombies and are on
the run. They're already quite skittish and if you come barreling in with the
ambulance they may suddenly disappear. Once you have a survivor in the ambulance
a green arrow will point you towards the hospital.



The list of people that can be rescued is short, but you will strangely see them
over and over and over and over again no matter how many times you save them!
The single most valuable person to rescue is the auto mechanic and rescuing your
first will be a memorable experience because he had secretly hidden his shop
foreman up his butt! There's simply no other explanation for how that guy
suddenly appears in the hospital garage! The mechanic will build upgrades for
your vehicle for a price and in this post apocalyptic world the coin of the realm
is dead zombies. Want some hubcaps with knives on them? That'll be 40 zombies.
Want a bumper with a blade attachment for zombie pruning, that'll cost you 120
zombies. ect. ect. The good news is that you needn't pay up front. Simply agree
to the purchase price and he will start building it. Now as you mow down zombies
to keep the hospital healthy you are also paying off the mechanic for your
purchase. The more mechanics you rescue, the more upgrade options become available
including entirely new vehicles. The bad news is that he only writes in Japanese
and trying to figure out just what the hell you are ordering is pretty much a
guessing game. Once it's built though, he will hand it over to his shop foreman
who will help you to accessorize your vehicle with your new upgrade. At least the
shop foreman has the sense to show you a picture of what you've purchased and
let's you see on a scale of 1 to 5 how much of an improvement it is over what you
are currently equipped with. Interestingly enough, all the upgrades you purchase
can be applied to all the vehicles you may acquire without any extra charge and
that's a pretty terrific deal!

Last, but not least, there is the city mayor to rescue - repeatedly of course.
He is the only character you will see multiple statues of in the garage. That's
because when you have rescued three mayors, he will go into a LONG winded speech,
then open the gate to a new section of the city for you to find more mayors in
(and other survivors of course), then suddenly disappear! Rinse and repeat for
each of the four new sections of the city brilliantly named North Field, South
Desert, East Building, and West Forest. Just remember that before you can enter
the new territories you'll have to take out the dreaded endboss guarding each.




The female survivors are given a strange and somewhat precarious role in the
game because unlike most of the male survivors they provide no extra tangible
benefit's and thus are totally dependant on your sense of chivalry. What's even
worse for them is that they zombifie in the ambulance at a much faster rate than
male survivors making them much more risky to attempt to rescue. Perhaps as
compensation they will thank you with a big heart whenever rescued.



There are what, maybe seven or eight types of survivors to rescue and I would
guess there's that many different types of zombies. They shuffle about, some with
their arms outstretched ala Frankenstein. Not to bright, they seldom make any
attempt to get away from a crazy ambulance careening towards them and are often
seen running straight for it! Hitting one hard enough throws up some blood splatter
and will now and then produce a grunting noise from impact. Unlocking different
parts of the city is rewarded by seeing something different in form of new zombies,
maybe dog zombies, or giant zombies or zombies with pistols who take a few pot
shots at you. I should mention that the game can be played from the default third
person perspective or from a first person perspective with your view looking out
from the front windshield. The 3rd person makes navigating the ambulance easier,
but the first person view let's you see the zombies with much more detail and of
course, you are treated to the look on their faces on impact!



The bit's of music looped through the game attempts to convey an eerie atmosphere
with an occasional wolf howl thrown in, but it's pretty lame. The hospital nurse
has a small vocabulary but speaks perfect English and will keep you appraised of
the hospitals lifebar situation with dire comments and will praise your prowess
at killing zombies. Most of the time you'll only have the sound of the ambulance
engine and the thump thump thump of zombies being run over to keep you company.
The ambulance has a siren, supposedly to attract the attention of rescue victims,
and it will wail for a second or two by pressing the shoulder buttons. Pretty
useless really.


What I liked about the game: It ended.

What I disliked about the game: Since you cannot exit the ambulance and zombies
cannot enter the ambulance nor can they pull you out of it, there is no way
for the zombies to induce fear. A zombie game in which the zombies cannot
threaten you is a terrible idea and that is why the game doesn't work. Mowing
down thousands of helpless slow moving zombies while protected by thousands of
pounds of steel becomes monotonous in a hurry!

Compound this fundamental flaw with the fact that the people responsible for the
game have some of the lowest production values I have ever witnessed in my life!
Absolutely no effort was made to create anything interesting, unusual or enjoyable.
The city was a rigid lifeless dreary little thing that, when you included all of
its unlockable sections, would have easily fit into a single GTA airport. Yet you
were forced to sit through four frackin load screens to simply drive from the
hospital to one end of town and back!



Those load screens take SEVEN SECONDS EACH! Nothing in the city could be smashed
or broken! There was no traffic in it and no other vehicles were even parked in
it! Forget about seeing cliffs, bridges or doing jumps. Hell, forget about even
being able to roll the ambulance over!

Unlocking one part of the city meant closing down the rest of the city as far as
finding survivors went and the game only had 8 to 10 possible places where the
survivors would always be per section of town. Once you recognized these spots,
finding survivors was about as difficult as going to pick up your mail. In the city
proper, 8 survivor locations are within two blocks of the hospital! Oh gosh! I hope
I get them back in time!

The animations given to the zombies being struck by the ambulance consisted of a
few arms flying off and some strawberry jam squirting out. But why should they
waste animation on something you will only briefly see as you fly right on past?
It's not like you have a rear view mirror to look back and see anything. But
when you have a half of a zombie riding on the top of the ambulance who is
obviously beating the hell out of it by the sound and it's reaction's, the least
they could have done was to show the zombies arm moving!

The endboss battles were so poorly done (if could you even call repeatedly
smashing the ambulance into the endboss a battle) that I couldn't even understand
why they were ever included. I'm absolutely certain that the bosses were never
able to discern where the ambulance was - either to attack it or to avoid it!
How lame is that?

I see dead people, they're everywhere! Once you purchase your first lethal upgrade
for the ambulance, and I don't care what it is, hubcaps, bumpers, whatever, your
lethality to zombies is so overwhelming that purchasing any other upgrades is only
done for amusement or vanity. Thump, thump, thump! Zombies are everywhere and you
can hardly avoid hitting them. From this point on paying attention to the hospital's
lifebar is pointless as any ambulance trip will produce more than enough kills to
satisfy it whether you mean to or not! Thump, thump, thump! Thump, thump, thump!

This is a budget game and I expected it would cut a few corners, but this was done
by people who have no respect for their customers, their craft, or themselves! I
read that the guy responsible for it boasted he would sell 100,000 copies of the
game. My first reactions to that was to snort in disbelief and then shake my head
with disgust at the thought at how little effort he had put into the game. Then I
slowly realized that - Hey, I had bought it! What is it about zombie anything that
allows us to believe it can't be all that bad because it has zombies in it? You
can crap into a DVD case, seal it and slap a picture of a zombie on the front of
it and someone will buy it. This guy knew that. Hell, I bought one! Hell, you'll
probably buy one too!


GAMEPLAY: 2
GRAPHICS: 2
SOUND: 2
ENGLISH FRIENDLY: 2 (The main menu options were all in English)
OVERALL: 2


I might have gave it a one, but it like... you know.... had frickin zombies in it!

[Spartacus]

Splatter Action Vol. 64 is the last of the Simple 2000 games that I decided
to try and it turned out being a splendid blast from the past that I'm
sure any retro gamer could appreciate and enjoy. It comes with a story, like
any good side scroller should, about an evil wizard called Jaggod who brings
life to a host of monsters to help him take over the local village. When an
old couple who live on a farm near the village decide to stand up to Jaggod,
they are badly hurt. What Jaggod didn't know was that his magic had also
brought life to a scarecrow on the old couple's farm. The scarecrow thought
of the old couple as his adopted parents and seeks revenge.



The scarecrows name is Kakashi and he's actually a pretty likeable character.
He's colorful and well animated and does some goofy kid like stuff when he's
idle. Kakashi can throw a good punch and if you hit the punch button 3 times
in quick succession he will mix in a nice roundhouse kick as well. He can also
jump up to deliver a serious headbutt to enemies that are either taller than
him or flying above. But when things get particularly nasty, Kakashi packs a
pair of chainsaws that he can whip out in a hurry and create some serious
carnage with!



Pretty much everything you would expect to see in a classic side scroller is
in the game. You'll find plenty of crates and barrels along the way that can
be smashed open for coins, hearts and fuel for the chainsaw. There are the
usual jumps to be made and pitfalls to be avoided. The moving conveyor belts
and the hot steam pipes to duck. There's sometimes a midlevel boss and always
an endboss for each stage. The game starts out with Kakashi in the countryside
by the old couple's farm and he will follow a road that will eventually take
him to meet up with Jaggod. Along the way he will travel through a ghost town,
a scrap factory, an enchanted forest, a train canyon, past Freeze Lake and
finally on to Jaggod's castle. They will make up the seven themed stages of
the game. You'll have the customary big map to chart your progress.



It's obvious throughout that the level of detail in the backgrounds was the
one corner that was cut in order to make this budget game. There's no
parallax scrolling or anything fancy going on. Still, I'll give them credit
for taking efforts to make the backgrounds less of a sore point by having
some interaction going on. Large water towers will teeter and fall on top of
the unsuspecting, cars that appear to be parked will suddenly roll across the
road, and dogs wielding large bones will pop out of garbage cans and smack
pumpkinhead in the noggin if he's not wary.



Finishing a stage gives Kakashi a chance to pop into Annie's shop and spend
his coins. This picture is from the PAL version of the game for clarity. In
the Japanese version it's not in English, but it isn't hard to figure out
either. My skills in the game haven't earned me enough coins to purchase the
Death Mask yet, so I can't comment on it. But buying the dummy means that the
very next time Kakashi is killed, it was only his dummy that died and Kakashi
comes back to life completely restored right at the spot his dummy died. As
far as I can tell, the game has unlimited continues and if Kakashi should die,
he is sent back to the beginning of that stage with everything he had when he
started it.



There's a good assortment of characters Kakashi will have to deal with along
the way, but Jaggod's mainstay soldiers are short squat almost paper thin
fellows sporting viscous looking grins on their faces. Also very well animated,
they have a way of throwing their shoulders back and forth while walking around
that looks hilariously like a bad John Wayne imitation. It's also funny watching
them when they've spotted Kakashi because they will often circle around him,
dancing on their tip toes, building up their courage to attack! Kakashi always
performs a spin move when he whips out the chainsaws and he will earn more coins
when he takes out groups of enemies, so letting a bunch of the bugger's surround
him can really pay off. There are several variations, some have a coiled spring
instead of legs and hop around, some can fly, and my favorites wear hockey
mask's and carry a mean looking tomahawk hatchet and those guys really want to
get in some licks with it!



My favorite stage in the game was in train canyon. Kakashi will walk along side
of a train that has pulled into a station and as he passes by the freight cars,
cattle doors will open up and the baddies will hop out for some action. They
do such a good job with their awful John Wayne imitations and just seem to
really fit in well here. Eventually Kakashi will reach a chasm with two small
platforms that he must jump back and forth from while trying to fight off a
couple of flying baddies. Meanwhile a freakshow in the freight car in front of
him will shout and gurgle the strangest noises and eventually start puking out
vomit that explodes on contact! It's one of the weirdest things I've seen in a
long long time!



If Kakashi gets out of that mess he makes it to the front of the train and
finds a gruesome looking stageboss slithering out of the front of the locomotive.



Does this thing remind you of anyone? Well, I thought it was a pretty good take
on a scene from Beetlejuice and something I noticed while playing Splatter
Action is that icons from classic horror films were sprinkled about the game.
Hard not to notice the hockey masks from Friday the 13th, the chainsaws from
Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I suspect Kakashi himself may have been lifted from
the Pumpkinhead films. If you manage to complete the game on normal, you'll earn
Kakashi a different wardrobe and I'll be damned if those things on his hands
don't look like Freddy Kruegers gloves from Nightmare on Elm Street!



My favorite stageboss of the game was at the Candy Burger restaurant in the
ghost town. On top of restaurant is a Big Boy rip off holding a platter of
hamburgers. He has three types of attacks that he will announce by shouting
goofy sounding commands in Japanese. One attack will be to let 3 or 4 of the
John Wayne baddies come swaggering out of Candy Burger who's front doors swing
open like a western saloons. Another attack is to shoot a laser beam from his
eyes that will erupt into a giant gusher of water when it hits the street. But
his best attack is when he flings the platter of burgers at Kakashi. The
hamburgers bounce around on the ground and then explode. When Kakashi can bat
a bouncing burger bomb back up to him, the explosion will begin to crack open
his plastic head exposing his brains inside! That really pisses off Big Boy and
he will start launching his attacks in faster and faster procession. I loved that
guy! Goofy as hell and tough to play.





The game definitely won't have an OST made, but the music had a lively electric
guitar riff that I enjoyed! The sound effects were good and other than the intro,
there's no scrolling Japanese text to read. The story is a simple one and is
played out visually.

What I liked about the game: A cleverly done side scrolling beat-em up with
a touch of Tim Burton and a zany Japanese flair. Seeing their takes on bits of
Americana was actually pretty amusing! The detail given to the character's
animations allowed them to convey personality suprisingly well, especially
Kakashi! The game is just goofy fun, but it's not afraid to show a lot of blood
either! The blood can be changed to green for kids, but how old should they be
to play a game that employs chainsaws? Not to mention that in Jaggods castle
there are hooks hanging from the ceiling with hunks of flesh on them! Still, this
would make for a great game to play on Halloween night! Funny and gory all at the
same time! I haven't managed to open the unlockable content yet, but there's
supposed to be different endings and a Survival mode included.



What I disliked about the game: The only bad thing I can think of is that it
just writes to one game save and that's it! Having multiple saves for
different players, levels or difficulty settings doesn't appear to be possible.

GAMEPLAY: 10
GRAPHICS: 7.5
SOUND: 8
ENGLISH FRIENDLY: 8
OVERALL: 9

It's a short game but it doesn't cost much either. I wasn't able to find anyone
who had this in stock from my usual sources and ended up getting mine off Ebay.
It's worth tracking down in my humble opinion.

[Lord Contaminous]

Barunba (PC Engine)
Just won it off ebay just now. Heard this was another excellent PCE shooter. I heard a HES rip of its soundtrack, and it made me want a copy.

[Lord Contaminous]

Yoshitaka Amano got involved with Capcom? I didn't know that...

[Lemmy Kilmister]

Yoshitaka Amano got involved with Capcom? I didn't know that...

Yeah, he did all the artwork for the El Dorado Gate series.

[drwily008]

Yoshitaka Amano got involved with Capcom? I didn't know that...

Yeah, he did all the artwork for the El Dorado Gate series.

How many total came out? I think they originally had 12 planned, I am curious if anyone here has all of them.

That was one I always wanted to be released back in the day for the U.S. Dreamcast.

[Lemmy Kilmister]

Yoshitaka Amano got involved with Capcom? I didn't know that...

Yeah, he did all the artwork for the El Dorado Gate series.

How many total came out? I think they originally had 12 planned, I am curious if anyone here has all of them.

That was one I always wanted to be released back in the day for the U.S. Dreamcast.

I think there was seven volumes total.

[drwily008]

I think there was seven volumes total.

I wonder if they finished up the story in 7 volumes? Yeah, all I ever saw was 7 as well. I just wondered if anyone else knew of others that are harder to find.

[Tron 2.0]

Won this on ebay a while ago



I also got a, Saturn ps2 pad as well today from ebay works great