Tuesday 31 May 2011

List of Shmups I'm Seeking


I've been using this working list for a while to monitor which shmups I want to collect.

Not an exhaustive list by any means and there are a few non-shmups in there too. Also with a few scrappy condition notes:

Title Format Notes (if applicable)
Radirgy GC Must be in good nick
Senko No Ronde Rev.X Limited 360 First run edition with art cards
Shooting Love 200x 360 First print edition with soundtrack
Dodonpachi Resurrection Black Label 360
Gigawing DC Complete and good condition
Ikaruga Sega Direct Version DC Comes with a mouse mat or some such shite!
Any DC shmup special Edition DC
Any DC Sega Direct Except Radirgy or Karous DC
Ketsui DS Complete, not bothered if its reprint version
R-Type 2 Gameboy Jap version complete
Nemesis 2 Gameboy Jap or PAL preferably complete
Ikaruga GC US version
Robo Aleste Mega CD
Gleylancer Megadrive Complete
Phelios Megadrive
V-V Megadrive Look for US version Grind Stormer too
Elemental Master Megadrive
MUSHA Megadrive Needs to be tiptop condition, consider US release
Kuuga Vapor Trail Megadrive
Steel Empire Megadrive Must be Jap version
Bio Ship Paladin Megadrive
Fire Mustang Megadrive
Fire Shark Megadrive
Insector X Megadrive
R-Type MSX Cartridge version, great artwork
Star Soldier N64
Ghost Pilots NEO GEO AES
Pulstar/Blazing Star NEO GEO AES Will always be too expensive - watch out for MVS conversions
Tatsujin PC Engine
Gate of Thunder PC Engine
Final Blaster PC Engine
Override PC Engine
Star Parodier PC Engine
Armed F PC Engine
Deep Blue PC Engine Needs to be cheap notoriously bad
Heavy Unit PC Engine Try and get cheap very difficult
P-47 PC Engine
1941 Counter Strike PC Engine
Final Blaster PC Engine
Raiden PC Engine
Cloud Master Chuka Taisen PC Engine
1943 Kai PC Engine
Cyber Core PC Engine
Coryoon PC Engine Uncommon
Metamor Jupiter PC Engine
Saint Dragon PC Engine
Rayxanber III PC Engine CD Preferably complete
L-Dis PC Engine CD
Sapphire PC Engine CD Will always be too expensive, check out PSP version
Geppy - X PS1 Any condition
R-Type Delta PS1 JAP edition
Soukyugurentai PS1
Oretachi Geasen Zoku - Sonic Wings PS2 Must be complete
Thunderforce 6 PS2 First Print Edition with Extras
R-Type Command 2 PSP
Star Soldier PSP
Sengoku Aces 3 PSP
Darius Burst PSP
Strikers 1945 Plus PSP
Platypus PSP
Skull Fang Saturn With bonus disk
Donpachi Saturn Not bothered about spine
Gun Frontier Saturn Not bothered about spine
Planet Joker Saturn Must be cheap as the game is notoriously awful
Steam Hearts Saturn Must include spine and be not too expensive
Cotton 2 Saturn Must be teacup version and have all the extras
Shienryu Saturn
Prikura Daisakusen Saturn Must be complete with all extras
Thunderforce V Special Edition Saturn Looking for complete, also looking for budget Satacore? VersionFantasy Zone Saturn
Kyuukyoko Tiger 2 Saturn
Silhouette Mirage Saturn
Darius Gaiden Saturn
Keio Flying Squadron 2 Saturn
3 Wonders Saturn Comes under the Arcade Gears banner
Super Dimension Macross Saturn
Capcom Generations 1 Saturn Complete
Gekirindan Saturn
Image Fight/X-Multiply Saturn X-Multiply is awesome
R-Type Sega Mark 3 Version
Power Strike 2 Sega Master System
Super R-Type SNES US version
Macross Scrambled Valkyrie SNES Complete, replacement for loose cart version - nice artwork
Judgement Silversword Wonderswan
Milestone Shooting Collection Wii
Illvelo Wii
Mamoru-Kun Wa Norowarete Shimatta! Limited Editon PS3

(Click on Picture for Larger Version)

Friday 27 May 2011

Thanks @Gunhead





Thanks to Gunhead aka Amidststorm for pointing me in the direction of this slightly obscure euro PAL release. This compilation disk containing 3 XBL games (and one DLC) as a physical release. For 360 shmup fans this game is of particular interest because it contains the tremendous Geometry Wars 2. I picked this up for the princely sum of £4 brand new from Ebay. Will post some nicer photos next week.

Wednesday 25 May 2011

Amiga "Backups"


I've promised this list for a long time for one of my youtube buddies ash, you can check his channel out here: ash81b4u sorry for the delay mate:

Dragon Ninja
Galactic Rats
Monopoly Deluxe
Gazzas Soccer
World Trophy Soccer
Ork Disk 1 + 2
Micro Golf 2
Baal
Winzip
Dynablaster
Argonaut
Jump N Roll
Addams Family
Navy Seals
Myth Disk 1, 2, + 3
Arcadia
The Mad Show
Carnage
Mercenary, Virus, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back
Mega-Ball
Alien Breed Disk 1 + 2
St. Dragon
Frogger, Tornado
Graham Gooch Cricket
Wings Disk 1 + 2
Chuck Rock Disk 1 + 2
Dizzy Collection
Pacman 87
Ishar 2, Snakes, Wibble World Giddy
First Samurai Disk 1 + 2
Subbuteo
Amazing Spiderman

Well these were the copies that were included with the Amiga I purchased, there were some original titles too - there are a few gems but also quite a bit of shite!!

Geoff

Sunday 22 May 2011

Stuff I've Bought Recently - Insane PS3 Limited Editions



Hello Chaps

Just thought I’d post a link to my newest youtube vid showing a couple of over the top PS3 limited editions I bought earlier on in the year. This is the first vid I filmed using my new HD camcorder, it came out quite nice. The JVC software that came bundled with the camera is a bit lame and so I’m going to have to get a better Mts to Wmv converter at some point. There were a few errors in this vid but overall I’m quite happy with it.

Geoff

Wednesday 18 May 2011

Gmintyfresh on Youtube - The Future

I've just realised that title seems quite final, like I'm making an announcement that the channel is going to shut down - I can assure you this Isn't the case.

Over the last few weeks I've been re-enthused about pulling together my Youtube vids, in fact I'd go as far as saying I'm really enjoying it!

So this is my chance to take stock of some old/new video ideas I need to get started:

1. Guide to games shops in Leeds
2. Beginners guide to 360 importing
3. Finish room tour
4. Dreamcast shmup collection retrospective
5. I've retired the Saturn Shooter collection series of vids - It was always going to be a useful testing bed for a bigger project I had planned, in that respect it was successful. This bigger project is a series of vids looking at my shmup collection in detail - I'm going try and script these and put as much information in as possible.
6. Some kind of interview session with real gamers.
7. Dreamcast Fighting Games Video - I've been meaning to start this project for ages because I've nearly got as many DC fighters as Shmups
8. 360 Limited Editions - Got loads of these I want to show too.
Hopefully I'll start on these soon!

Monday 16 May 2011

14 Shmups, 12 Months, £1200 - May Games


I really can't believe it's been ten months since I started this project, I'm really glad I actually stuck to with this adventure - trust me I nearly bailed a few times due to the sheer cost of acquiring these games! I knew towards the end of this project that I'd have to double up twice in the monthly purchases to reach the full 14 games to the 12 month deadline. So here I am now with 2 months to go and 3 games to buy.

Gigawing 2 and Blast Wind both arrived over the weekend and typically for games imported from Japan the games were solidly wrapped and were in completely pristine condition - no CEX atrocities here thank god!

Gigawing 2 feels similar to the original but in some ways it's also very different, it's certainly a lot more manic and tough. The reflecting mechanic from the original has also been taken to new levels in the game. I'm editing a video that should be up either today or tomorrow anyway.

As for Blast Wind I'm going to have a play on this tonight and I can't wait.

Tuesday 10 May 2011

14 Shmups, 12 Games, £1200 - Update

After the last post about this project I'm happy to say that I've acquired 2 more games towards the final target, as always I'll talk about these purchases here first:

Giga Wing 2

Was winning a copy on Ebay for about a week at about £20 but entered into a mini bidding war with another bidder about 1 hour before the auction ended. Managed to win this little bugger for £32 but I really thought I could pick it up a little cheaper - ah well I've got it now! This price was still cheaper than the £44 estimate I had on the game so it's not all bad. OH YES AND MY DC SHMUP COLLECTION IS NOW COMPLETE!!!! A DC retrospective vid will be forthcoming in the next few weeks.

Blast Wind

Finally won a copy of this at a non ridiculously silly price of £68 inc P+P, again I won this under my estimate of £75 - which in the current climate was a tough one to work to. Really looking forward to this one.

Friday 6 May 2011

14 Shmups, 12 Months, £1200 Current Position


Latest Update


Well after much stalling April's project video finally published yesterday, man the video was a trial to put together.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJhbaIBiljo&feature=youtube_gdata_player


To be honest I'd done most of the time consuming stuff such as capturing the gameplay footage and editing that but real life has just been getting in the way recently. But I'm back with a much more positive attitude about the whole thing. I've got one of the next games lined up by the look of it but I'm going to have to bite the bullet and buy something really expensive this month.......


Still to get:


Gigawing 2 - DC


Trying to find this for less than £30 with spine has been tough, it's not rare by any stretch of the imagination but it suffers from the curse of being a DC game and a shooter. Ebay sellers crank the prices up on this game. It's funny I played this the first time at Retro Rewind with SpiffierRabbit and Oli_Lar from the Retro Gamer forum, great day and great company. More inportantly however is that this shooter represents the last DC shooter I need to buy for a full shmup collection. My mission to collect shmups in general spwawned from thios collection so it'll be quite a watershed moment for my collection when I finally complete this set.

Cotton 2 SE with Calendar and Tea Cup - Saturn

One I want in the collection purely for the beans - I mean as a Special Edition it's ridiculous right? What's doubly daft is that I turned down a copy of the standard edition for £15 once! But the game itself looks lovely so at least Im going to play this one! I expect to pay around £80 for this one.


Blast Wind - Saturn

Another Saturn Technosoft exclusive! For some reason when I started the project this shooter was quite modestly priced (£50-£60) but over the last 9 months the price has slowly risen. I suspect this is because at the moment there doesn't seem to be as many copies out there, this game seems to divide shmup fans - whilst it might not be the prettiest shooter out there I love it's unique visuals they make me think Mars Matrix on the DC. I'm probably looking at around £80 -£90 for this one now.

GleyLancer - MD

One of the first games I bookmarked on ebay when starting this project and the one that has maintained it's high price for longest, to be honest with this one I'm going to be lucky to get it for less than £90. It just rarely comes up on ebay to bid for and it's generally listed as buy it now in auctions - so the prices are really maintained at the same level. I really love this game however so I'm more than willing to part with the cash for this.

Harmful Park - PS1

The daddy!!

I suspect this one could be the most expensive game on the list, to get a nice copy with a spinecard on ebay you're looking at at least £130! Another shooter that was a good £20 cheaper on average when I started the project, there just aren't that many copies around. This is probably the game I'm most curious about it looks like a Parodius game with equally over the top boss battles.

So now it's time to stop writing and get hunting those dream shmups!!

To understand what I’m attempting to achieve with this project do please see the previous blog entry here:

http://gmintyfresh.blogspot.com/2010/07/12-months-14-shmups-1200.html

Current status

Blast Wind - Sega Saturn
Harmful Park - Playstation 1
Radiant Silvergun - Sega Saturn (Bought)
Ibara - Playstation 2 (Bought)
Mushihimesama Futari Ltd Edition - Xbox 360 (Bought)
GlayLancer - Megadrive
Gigawing 2 - Dreamcast
Zero Gunner 2 - Dreamcast (Bought)
Twinkle Star Sprites - Dreamcast (Bought)
Last Resort - NEO GEO AES (Bought)
Cotton 2 - With Tea Cup - Saturn
Soldier Blade - PC Engine (Bought)
Hyper Duel Sega - Saturn (Bought)
Deathsmiles 2 Limited Edition - Xbox 360 (Bought)

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Hello Everyone


Been away the last few weekends so not much YT action from me recently I'm going to try and film a few this week.


  1. 14 Shmups, 12 Months, £1200 #9 Twinkle Star Sprites

  2. April 360 Shmup Madness #3 - Ototmedius Excellent

  3. Another Stuff I've bought recently vid - A priority because I've got loads to show.

I Picked up an uncommon Saturn shooter this week called Wolf Fang, it's a fairly nice mech based shooter by Data East converted by Xing. The game is one of the sequels to vapor trail and and I've only seen the Saturn version a couple on times on eBay so I was really pleased to pick it up for £25! I've seen quite a few copies of the PS1 version but as always the Sat version is the one to have! Nearly picked up a copy of Planet Joker also - I know it's supposed to be one of the worst shmups of all time but it was really cheap.



Yet more new 360 shmups have kept me busy too namely Otomedius Excellent and Trouble Witches Neo:

Otomedius Excellent - Much the same as the previous game in the series but I think it's better. More characters, more level variation, unlockable weapons for the powerup system, and more interesting boss encounters. A special mention should be made about the soundtrack, it's pure Parodious you'd love picking out where some of those tunes came from!

Trouble Witches - I wasn't expecting much from the XBL download going by the reviews I've seen of it - boy I was wrong what a lovely little shooter for 800 points. Think Deathsmiles mixed with a large dollop of Cotton, it even feels a bit like the PS3/PC doujin release Gundemonium - but a lot nicer.

Geoff