Getting presents nowadays isn’t what it used to be. Mostly because a lot of us retro gamers are now older. Some have families, jobs, responsibilities that take us away from our favorite pastime. Of course with jobs comes the money to buy games we always wanted sooner rather than later.

hile many of us were in lockdown we had to find new hobbies to pass the time. For some they learned new skills, others watched movies or shows they wouldn’t have watched otherwise, and some dug out their old video game consoles. People who completely forgot about their old retro systems suddenly fell back in love with them again.

Playing through all the 2D Metroid games was something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. While Metroid Fusion always haunted me as a game I never got to beat (until recently) the series always piqued my interest. Who doesn’t want to be a badass bounty hunter in space blasting aliens left and right?

As lovers of retro video games we love nostalgia. We love it when we sit down with our comfort games, play through them like we did when we were younger, then move on to the next game. Yet there are some games that, for whatever reason, we couldn’t beat at a young age.

In recent months news stories have circulated all over the internet on old retro games being sold for millions upon millions of dollars. I first found out about this when news broke that a sealed Super Mario 64 game sold for over 1.5 million. The news struck me as insane and I wondered who in their right mind would buy a game for such a large sum.

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, or SNES as we’ll refer to it here, is quite possibly one of the most important systems ever made. Now it didn’t bring the American video game market back from the brink like its predecessor did but it’s impact on the gaming world as well as the industry should not be denied.

When it comes to reviewing retro video games, a lot of the same things can and have been said over and over again. “The game is a masterpiece”, “It was ahead of its time”, “Will we ever see a game like this again?” I can go on and on but chances are that the most used line when bloggers, You Tubers, and podcasters (myself included) have said is, “I loved this game growing up.”

I finally did it, after a year of playing it I finally got all 120 stars in Super Mario 64. The sole reason I bought 3D All-Stars was to play this game. A game that I missed out on when I did have a N64 and a game that many of my friends would say is a masterpiece and a must play.

Like a ton of other collectors out there I need a way to organize my video game collection. Even with my modest collection of games I forget what I have from time to time so I downloaded a games organizer app on my phone to make sure I don’t make the mistake of buying a game I already own twice.

Looking back on over 30 years of Sonic the Hedgehog is quite a story. You start with this new mascot from a company that wanted to take down their rival who just revitalized the home video game industry in North America and show that they too a force to be reckoned with.

The Nintendo 64 is an enigma of a console. Compared to the PlayStation it barely sold, but ask any retro gamer who held a controller in the late 90’s and they’ll tell you how much they loved the N64. Throughout its lifespan the system sold almost 33 million systems and carried some of the best known games around.

Nintendo has a love-hate relationship with retro gamers. Sometimes Nintendo puts out games from series that are tried and true and almost every new entry is cause for celebration. Other times they let a series run its course and never speak of it again. Even with some of their most beloved franchises have been getting swept under the rug with no signs of ever emerging again.

Last year I wrote 2 articles about starting a game collection with a limited budget. In those articles I mention that eBay is a viable option but you must be careful for fakes and reproductions are everywhere. Well it took some time, but I can now finally admit that I crossed that threshold when it comes to collecting retro video games.

As the old saying goes, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and when it comes to video games that saying rings true. Yet somehow when a game is bad, as in truly bad, instead of just saying it’s bad and moving on, the current generation of gamers latches on to it.

As us retro gamers grow older our free time becomes harder and harder to get. Be it a job, a family, or a combination of the two, finding time to play games is a god send for some of us. When we do have the time to play games we make every second count because who knows when we’ll be able to play again.

Pac-Man 99 is the latest classic game to get the 99 Battle Royale treatment. Nintendo and Bandai Namco literally surprised everyone when they dropped the trailer on us this past Tuesday and a released it the next day!

Ever since the internet has taken a more direct role in our lives things that we may have taken for granted are now starting to fade away. No longer do we have to go out to a music store to buy the newest album when we can just download it on our phone. Want to watch a movie? Turn on a streaming service and you can watch it right then and there. Video games are no different.

Being able to customize your things is really cool. Putting your own personal stamp or improving something you love can be a good thing, however it can also devalue the item if you want to sell it later down the line. What may seem priceless and worth hundreds of dollars to you may be worth pennies to others, yet for some reason the retro gaming community doesn’t seem to have this problem, quite the opposite in fact.

The Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch system is really neat. As someone who grew up mostly playing the Tiger electronic handhelds this new device pays a great homage to the Game & Watch titles from decades ago. So why am I talking about it now than way back in November when this first came out?

To say that the Game Boy Advance (GBA) is the best of the entire Game Boy family may be a tad rhetorical. It was the more powerful system, it eventually had a backlit screen and the clamshell design made the whole system easier to fit inside a pocket. You also didn’t need to buy batteries anymore since the SP version had a rechargeable battery.