Nintendo Entertainment System - Duck Hunt

Time to add the third of my classic Black Box NES games to the Preserve archives. Today we take a look at another Light Gun (Zapper!) game, Duck Hunt! Remember how your dog would laugh at you when you missed a duck? Heck you have three chances, how can you miss? And no standing right up to the TV and putting the gun against the screen, what are you 8? Oh yeah, you are, but that's still cheating!


Posted by charlie on February 7th, 11:58 AM
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Transformers: Animated - Freeway Jazz

Hasbro has really thrown the fans of Transformers: Animated a bone by revisiting the line and bringing out the late edition, thought to be canceled figures just when we'd all but given up hope. Seeing national distribution, and suddenly about all I see in the stores currently, are the two figures that make up wave 6, Freeway Jazz and Electrostatic Soundwave with Ratbat. Granted they are repaints of existing characters, but it's great that we get a Ratbat figure, and that he is a keytar - excellent! Today I wanted to feature this latest Jazz - click the image below for his full gallery and bio.


Posted by charlie on February 6th, 09:01 PM
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G.I. Joe: The Pursuit of Cobra - Doc

Having finally returned to vintage posting in earnest here at the Preserve, I do assure you that it will continue. However, there are still a number of excellent modern day products and worthwhile news reports that keep cropping up, so I have to at least sprinkle those back into the vintage coverage as we proceed.

In particular, I have been greatly anticipating the new G.I. Joe line - rather a 'sub-line' of The Rise of Cobra which is to be known as The Pursuit of Cobra and have added an icon for it over to the right - with the red stripe. The first figures to hit from this line are, interestingly enough, exclusive to Toys R Us - I'm so glad TRU is doing such a great job in partnering with Hasbro! According to some dedicated Joe sites, the Pursuit of Cobra line is being pushed back until Fall 2010, but I suspect we'll have a lot more to say about this after we meet with Hasbro a week from this Saturday. In the meantime, check out this fantastic new TRU exclusive figure, and the first figure in the Pursuit of Cobra series, Doc! After being a mail-away special several years ago, it's great to see him get a larger release, and you just can't beat that amazing color scheme. Click on the image for his full gallery, and get ready for our Toy Fair coverage starting in just over a week.



Also, you have to wonder which Hasbro execs get to have their fingerprints on the cardbacks. Check out the bio cards for this cool ongoing feature


Posted by charlie on February 5th, 06:33 AM
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TurboGrafx 16 - Bonk's Revenge

I know it's been a little heavy on the TurboGrafx 16 this week, but I only had 4 games back in the day and I wanted to get my entire original set posted. Well, today completes that journey with Bonk's Revenge, the long awaited sequel to everyone's favorite headbanging Caveman. Created by the Red Company in Japan, where it was called PC-Genjin 2, Bonk is up against King Drool III, descendant of the first big boss. With most console systems, developers learned how to squeeze more out of the hardware as the months slid by, so we see a more advanced and slick presentation in this sequel. Maybe eventually I'll pick up Bonk 3 but there's definitely a premium with that, being the final installment in the series and having come out in 1993, near the end of life for the whole platform.


Posted by charlie on February 4th, 01:25 PM
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TurboGrafx 16 - Keith Courage in Alpha Zones

The game that everyone had, because it was the pack-in with the original TurboGrafx 16 console, was Keith Courage in Alpha Zones. It isn't a bad game, and had some bold colors and characters, but I think that history has decided that as far as launch titles go it wasn't as strong as it needed to be. The overworld/underworld motif is cool, where you have a right-scrolling platformer in the colorful overworld, but face nightmare creatures in your nova suit when in the underworld. Each 'Zone' consists of an over and underworld and then of course a boss fight. There's a lengthy backstory for the game, which is actually drawn from an anime TV series called Mashin Eiyūden Wataru (as the game was called in Japan on the PC Engine).

Given that I'm lacking the cardboard outer sleeve for all of my 4 original games (though I think this one did not have that outer layer, or an interior HuCard clip), and that you really don't see them come up even on eBay all that often complete, I was bemoaning the lack of back story for any of my titles. Then, last night I realized like a fool that it's right there in the first page of the instructions! Well, I've gone back and updated the Blazing Lazers and Bonk's Adventure pages with their fun intro information, if anyone is interested.


Posted by charlie on February 3rd, 07:24 AM
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Nintendo Entertainment System - Excitebike

Another 1985 release title, hence "Black Box" in the parlance of our times, is Excitebike for the Nintendo Entertainment System. This title not only had fast paced jumping and racing action with great little engine noises, but had the amazing feature of being able to build your own tracks! Choosing from a pretty cool set of jumps and other track features, you could design some truly unplayable layouts, but it made for amazingly long and repeated play value for this game. The simple interface and quick-to-play UI kept things moving even before everyone's attention was corrupted by the internet. This game won a lot of my time back in the day, so click the image below for pics of the original set.


Posted by charlie on February 2nd, 08:44 AM
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Captain Power - Powerjet XT-7

This isn't a new addition to the Preserve, but in keeping with my marathon of vintage features I really wanted to be sure that Captain Power was represented, since I haven't talked about it in a few weeks. This still stands as my favorite bit of Toy Technology to ever fall within my experience, and I'm delighted to be a part of the CP online community. Click the image below for pics of my original Powerjet XT-7 - yet another line that my Dad discovered originally and brought home for us to enjoy!


Posted by charlie on February 1st, 06:21 PM
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Nintendo Entertainment System - Hogan's Alley

The games that a system launches with can often make or break that platform - a statement that has become more true as time has gone by and which was a real strength of the Nintendo when it hit US shores in 1985. Known now as the "Black Box" games, thanks to their uniformly awesome pixelated cover artwork and otherwise black packaging, the original 18 titles were fantastically strong. Ranging from sports to platforming to their amazingly innovative zapper gun and robot - even to math! - there was really something for everyone. I have a number of these games as part of my original collection, though am considering filling in the gaps so that all 18 can be properly represented here at the Preserve. Certainly I'll post my originals first, so today let's take a look at Hogan's Alley! Making use of the Zapper, this game really was a cool new experience (along with Duck Hunt of course!). Click the image for more shots of my original game - I'm so proud of myself that I carefully hung on to the poster all this time - note that I checked off the few titles I had. Excitebike is coming up soon!


Posted by charlie on January 31st, 06:10 PM
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TurboGrafx 16 - Bonk's Adventure

I didn't have a lot of games for the TurboGrafx 16, but in addition to Blazing Lazers from a day ago, I certainly had Bonk's Adventure, one of the headline games for the system. Featuring a pretty simple play mechanic, and a set of powerups that are experienced pretty well within the first level, it's no Mario (wait, I guess that's all true of Mario as well) but has enough teeth-based wall-climbing to make it weird and cool. Granted, I never had the patience to beat this one either, so maybe things get a lot different 45 minutes later! Click the image for a few more shots of my original physical game.


Posted by charlie on January 30th, 01:19 AM
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Battle Beasts - Battle Chariots

The attentive Preserve reader may have noticed a set of interesting items in the Captain Power carrying case that was discovered last week. I was just as surprised as you to find all three Battle Beast Battle Chariots hiding in that case! Unfortunately there were no figures or packaging stashed along with them, but I know all of that will turn up. For now, I'm delighted to have unearthed my original, complete set of these three chariots, which you can check out by clicking the image below!


Posted by charlie on January 29th, 02:19 AM
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