Year 5: October Update

As usual, I probably should have done more posts this month but I've been relaxing more or less and playing games. I should have a new toy video up this weekend though I haven't recorded it yet or even started the blog post so I could fail to get it done. Maybe I should be doing that instead of writing this but the month ends in two days and I need to get the monthly update done! The video will be about a few Tomy art kits from the late '70s/early '80s as it sort of relates to Halloween. I also chose them now because I recently received a comment on a previous Tomy video that indicated the person's interest in seeing more Tomy products.

Today I tried the Hot Wheels Unleashed game that released at the end of September. It has a fair amount of content, lots of cars and tracks to unlock, and there is a track editor. There aren't a lot of locations for the tracks, just a variety in each spot like maybe eight or more set at a basement, garage, college campus, skatepark, and skyscraper. You're basically driving the toy cars through full-scale environments. Not sure if I'll do a "Let's Play" video or not but I have posted gameplay footage on the Game Boys & Girls YouTube channel I run.

There was some interesting G.I. Joe video game news since my last update. Hasbro's Wizards of the Coast division has opened a game studio and its first project will use the G.I. Joe brand. That's about all the information there is on that so I'm sure it is years away as they are just getting started. The holiday shopping season appears to be starting next week based on the ads I've seen. Also, news reports indicate some toys could be hard to find due to all the shipping issues so you may want to get started soon. Since I have to mail my gifts to Arizona and I've also got to cover birthdays in November, December, and January, I have already begun putting together gifts. 

This month I watched a new documentary called Playing With Power: The Nintendo Story. It's from the same people that made Video Games: The Movie in 2014, and while I've not seen that one, it got a lot of negative reviews. However, I'd say Playing With Power is worth checking out, especially if you're a child of the '80s that had a NES. It's broken into five parts and about five hours long overall, and the first part is definitely my favorite as it details the early history of the company, shows a variety of Nintendo toys, and had a few tidbits here and there I didn't know. Most everything else is about the NES all the way up to the Switch and will likely be familiar to most knowledgeable gamers. 

The biggest disappointment is that there are no interviews with Nintendo of Japan employees, only those that helped build up Nintendo of America. Plus there are other people from the industry (Nolan Bushnell, Trip Hawkins, Phil Spencer, etc.) featured throughout, as well as Wil Wheaton and some people I'm not familiar with. A lot of the non-industry folks are there to recount their childhood memories about playing Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., and The Legend of Zelda for the first time. Of course, I couldn't relate to those stories as I had Sega and other platforms rather than a NES, SNES, or N64, but I still found it fun to watch. There are two hours of extras that don't add much as they are primarily about making the video and a few things are repeated. 

I've posted a McDonald's image a few times in the October updates and here it is again!

Happy Halloween!

-Jonathan

[YouTube] XBAND Video Game Modem

https://youtu.be/R7Q6nXAKraQ

The XBAND Video Game Modem was created by Catapult Entertainment and distributed by THQ in November 1994 for the Sega Genesis and in June 1995 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Although no 16-bit games were designed for online play, the modem allowed two players to compete with one another online. It fits into the console's cartridge slot with a supported game cartridge being plugged into the top of the modem. Subscriptions for online play cost $7.95/month or $39.75 for six months and had a limited number of credits (one game session per credit) per month. Those prices are stated in the manual but when I acquired the device in 1995 the cost had been reduced to $4.95/month. It also appears as if the modem was originally $69.95 but within about six months the cost was reduced to $19.99. 

From within the XBAND network users could also read news, check stats, and send messages, and to assist in typing messages an optional keyboard accessory was available for purchase as well. I only subscribed for one month, primarily because it didn't work well where I lived. It's not too surprising since at the time I was living in the outskirts of a small town. I expect it faired much better for those that lived in or nearby major cities as the review below from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) indicates the service ran quite well for them. NHL 95 would have be the only game I played on XBAND since I loved EA's hockey series. Maybe Madden would have worked better since it isn't as fast as hockey and you aren't trying to deke a goalie to score but I never tried that one. Every player had their win-loss record tracked for each game and the best players sometimes appeared in the pages of game magazines.

The above scans are all from 1995 issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly.

It's a unique product for the time period as it is one of the earliest online gaming devices for consoles, perhaps the first in North America. The XBAND was available in Japan and Brazil too, and Sega actually had its own online service called Meganet in those regions but that never materialized in North America. The XBAND service ended in April 1997 as the 16-bit generation was winding down. All of the supported games on Genesis were either sports titles or fighting games which makes sense since this is about competing. I expect having two-player same-screen multiplayer would be required but the SNES did support Super Mario Kart which would have had split-screen multiplayer. I'm not sure if the following supported games lists are completely accurate; Wikipedia also mentions NHL '94 for Genesis and Kirby's Avalanche for SNES.

Supported Genesis Games: Madden NFL 95, Madden NFL 96, NBA Live 95, NBA Live 96, NHL 95, NHL 96, NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, Primal Rage, Super Street Fighter II, and Weaponlord. 

SNES Supported Games: Madden NFL 95, Madden NFL 96, NHL 95, NHL 96, NBA Jam T.E., Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, Super Street Fighter II, Weaponlord, Killer Instinct, Doom, Super Mario Kart, and Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball.

When doing some research I was surprised to find a XBAND Twitter account run by a former Catapult employee but he hasn't posted in a couple years. SNES Central has a variety of pictures of that console's purple modem taken from a variety of other sources here. I took some photos and scanned the box and some paperwork, though I didn't scan the whole manual, only a portion of it. A couple of the inner box sides have facsimile autographs of the development team.

The Tokyo Toy Show: The Games of 1991 (Electronic Gaming Monthly #14)

January 2022 UPDATE: I'm getting a bit unorganized here and I just found that I posted these scans twice. It's not just a repost as I did scan all the pages a second time without reazling I had already posted the same thing in 2018. I'll leave them both up but if you already saw the old post there is no reason to read this one too. Sorry!

This 10-page article is actually about the 1990 Tokyo Toy Show but as it states, the games were often released in Japan first back then so Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) is assuming the games it is writing about here would appear in the U.S. in 1991. Before the annual Tokyo Game Show which began in 1996, videogames appeared at this toy show and since the scans are from a video game magazine, there aren't any toys being shown, unfortunately. I'm posting this now as the 2021 Tokyo Game Show kicked off yesterday, and like E3, it is an all digital event this year.

Year 5: September Update

Another month is flying by rather quickly and I suppose I don't have a lot to talk about though there were some more gaming events with new announcements. The reason I uploaded another video on the blog's YouTube channel for a Sega Master System light gun game this month is I want to get rid of my old tube TV as it's quite bulky and I rarely touch it. The only other platform I own a light gun for is the Saturn but I've never actually used it, and I think the only game I have that is compatible with it is Virtua Cop. Back in 2019 I posted about the Aladdin and Lion King game compilation and now there is an updated edition coming to stores on November 9th that adds The Jungle Book and the Super Nintendo version of Aladdin to the collection.

Sony held a "PlayStation Showcase" event on September 2nd where it announced a sequel to Spider-Man and another new Marvel title from Insomniac Games that stars the X-Men's Wolverine. These games are at least a couple years away though and exclusive to the PlayStation 5. Aspyr Media is remaking BioWare's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and it will be a console launch exclusive on the PlayStation 5 which means it will likely get to Xbox at a later date (it doesn't have a release date yet). This isn't a remaster, it's a full remake of one of the best Star Wars games and certainly one of my favorites.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2

Nintendo just streamed a "Nintendo Direct" video presentation this past Thursday with a variety of things shown, including a new Kirby game for 2022 and the addition of Nintendo 64 (N64) and Sega Genesis games to the Switch's online service, plus N64 and Genesis gamepads will be available for the Switch. The video also unveiled the voice cast for an animated Mario Bros. movie that will hit theaters in late 2022. A couple of the actors featured are Chris Pratt as Mario and Jack Black as Bowser.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

That's about it for this month's update. Thanks for stopping by!

-Jonathan

ToyFare Picks the Top Ten Greatest Toy Lines (July 1998)

ToyFare is a spin-off of the comic book magazine Wizard and focuses on action figures so this "Top 10" article is, not surprisingly, all about action figures. I'm not too familiar with Shogun Warriors (#10) or Micronauts (#8) though I do own an incomplete Micronauts set. The rest are all quite well-known and, of course, I completely agree with ToyFare's #1 selection as it is also my favorite. Some unexpected selections are the first G.I. Joe line and McFarlane's Spawn. While Spawn figures do look nice, and ToyFare does indicate it selected the line due to the detailed sculpts, ranking it 4th is too high. I expect the popularity of Spawn in 1998 had a large influence on that choice. I'd say Masters of the Universe is the biggest omission and it doesn't even get an honorable mention in the "Toys in the Attic" box that provides some reasoning on why a few toy lines didn't make the cut. In the scans I deleted a couple captions as they were too adult for this blog and not humorous either (unless I'm misunderstand the joke which is possible).