ChristopherChandler.net

I’m not one to collect imports. I have a few friends that do, and from what I understand it basically doubles the cost of obtaining games for your collection.  However, there are times where I MUST have a few imports for my collection.  The two we are going to look at today are Battle of Olympus and Adventures of Lolo for the Nintendo Game Boy.  These two gems were released both in Japan and Europe, but never made it stateside.

Battle of Olympus is essentially a port of its NES big brother, while the Adventures of Lolo seems to be either a compilation of levels from the NES or a brand new game altogether. These were obviously both supposed to come stateside, but never made it over. Lucky for us, Adventures of Lolo requires almost no English to play, and Battle of Olympus has an English setting (as well as other languages as well.)

Adventures of Lolo is a great puzzle game, and it’s a shame it never made it over as it would seem as it would be perfect for the Game Boy.  Both games feature a password system, and Adventures of Lolo grants a password after every level which is perfect for portable play. Finally, Adventures of Lolo is also compatible with the Super Game Boy, for enhanced color palettes. Battle of Olympus is especially a good port, graphics and sound are strikingly familiar to the NES version, and it essentially holds it own. It reminds me of other great NES ports like Double Dragon, Kid Icarus, and Bionic Commando.

It’s a real shame that we miss out on great games like these two, and it may never be clear as to why.  Could it be the NES counterparts didn’t sell too well in the U.S.? Well that can’t be the case for Lolo as the NES original spawned two sequels. Someone in marketing or management made a decision at some point in time that American Game Boy players were not worthy of these two gems. Luckily in the modern digital age, there are options out there for us to play these great games.

As you may or may not know, my historian side of collecting is dedicated to collecting items for the Nintendo Game Boy. You remember that little portable system right? With the greenish screen where you spend hours playing Tetris, Dr. Mario, Super Mario Land, and other favorites. There is something about this system that there will always be a special place for me. Maybe it’s because it was my first system that was truly “mine”. Or maybe it’s because the games were so much cheaper than NES or SNES games at the time, that I had so many of them.

The big challenge of collecting for this system, is that for one reason or another every kid (including myself) threw away the box and the manual for these games. Finding every cartridge is easy, finding every box is an insane challenge that I decided to take on sometime in late 2005. In those 5+ years, I have amassed over half of the collection (about 250+ games) complete in box. I have most of the rare ones knocked out, but there are about a dozen that I will have to shovel out the big bucks for. These most likely will be the last ones I will need to complete the collection.

Also, I am co-founder of a site called gbdb.org which is dedicated to recording Game Boy history. Here are some videos I took with my iPhone over a year ago, my collection has changed a bit since then. I plan on taking an updated video soon. Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

-Chris

The first Saturday of every month, my friend Nick and owner of Next Level Video Games holds a collector/gamer gathering (South Jersey Classic) at his store. This gives us a chance to catch up, trade some games, and try maybe one of the thousands of games that Nick has in his store.  We are all very thankful for Nick holding this gathering, and it is something we all look forward to every month. Below is a video of what we did all day Saturday at his store. -C

Dave setting up our booth at MGC

I recently took a trip to Wisconsin to vend at the Midwest Gaming Classic convention in Oconomowoc, WI. Going in I had low expectations, especially after comparing cons to the old days of Philly Classic 3, 4, 5, etc. as well as CGE back in San Francisco & Vegas. I was reassured by many in the online classic gaming community that it was worth the trip. After working some details out with my friend Dave, I decided to help load & unload as well as run their booth in exchange for some table space.

I shipped three boxes of random retro gaming goodness out to Wisconsin, packed up some clothes and hopped a plane to Green Bay. We loaded a 26 foot Penske truck full of Arcade machines, cartridges, boxes, manuals, discs, memorabilia, and more. After arriving at Oconomowoc, I immediately sensed something different. Vendors were actually vendors! Now what I mean by this, is that the vendors who had tables actually sold items. Recently, I have noticed the disturbing trend at cons where a vendor will pimp out one or two products, or even just try to promote their business, with selling little or no items at all. However at Midwest Gaming Classic, there was none of that. Every vendor had parts, games, and/or memorabilia at their table, very impressed. Arriving at the show, the staff was very helpful in helping us unload and directing us to where we were supposed to go.

As the show floor opened on Saturday, I could immediately tell that this show was going to be different. This show is a buyer & sellers show. Deals were to be found everywhere. Vendors giving discounts, free games, and more. People had the money. I don’t care what the economy is like, there are still a lot of people who have a lot of disposable income to burn on copies of Shaq-Fu and Mario Party 3.

Some of the Arcades at MGC: Punch Out!, Street Fighter II, Area 51, Ms. Pac-man, Dig-Dug, Galaga, and a ton more.

If you had no money, that was okay, because there were over 25 arcade machines to play for free, as well as over 30 or so pinball machines to play as well. This doesn’t count the 20 or so console stations that were setup to play anything from classics to XBOX 360. There were a bunch of tournaments including Guitar Hero / Rock Band, Pinball tourneys and a bunch more!

All in all I would say that MGC 2009 may be the best game show of the year, and that CGE is the only show that could potentially give it a run for its money. I definitely would go back again, and be in as a full force vendor. I hear they sold the floor space of the show out quickly, and that there are rumors of a larger venue being acquired. I am all for it, especially if they move it closer to a major city like Milwaukee or Green Bay! -C