Well, I’m a 25-year PC user who made a total migration to Apple, and with things like BootCamp and Parallels, you can run either Windows itself on the Mac (which is weird to see, honestly), or you can run Windows in a Virtual Machine (which is even weirder).

But if you want the best bang for your buck, you’ll need to build your own PC, or have someone like me build it for you.

Here are a few questions you need to answer, though:

1). How much are you willing to spend?
2). What kind of GPU specs do you ABSOLUTELY require?
3). What kind of CPU specs do you ABSOLUTELY require? And Intel or AMD?
4). What kind of lifespan are you looking to get from this computer?

If you can answer those questions, at the very least, I can give you a good ‘shopping list’ for a place like Newegg for the parts.

If you have the monitors, keyboard, mouse, speakers…you know, the little incidental stuff, you can get a very powerful computer for about $1600, and not have to upgrade for five years. And when you do, you won’t need to buy a case (you’ll have it already), probably won’t need a new Power Supply Unit, almost definitely won’t need a CPU, and absolutely won’t need a new motherboard, so you’ll probably just have to upgrade the RAM (if you didn’t max it out before) and the GPU, which, unless you get bleeding-edge-of-technology, won’t cost more than maybe $600 or so, and will extend the lifespan of your machine another five years or so. So $2200 for ten years of solid use? $220 a year, or about $18.33/month.

jumpman wrote:
Snatcher is probably my most played adventure game EVER. I’ve finished it probably 5-7 times over the years. The story, voices, and music are all top notch.

I absolutely hate that Kojima continues to release Metal Gear over and over, with no love at all for one of his greatest titles. With today’s technology, I can only imagine how great a reboot would/could be.

Keep up the great work, and hopefully we can see a full release in the future. For sure put me down for a copy, if and when it ever gets to that point of course.

I’ve never played Snatcher, mainly because I despise all of Kojima’s Metal Gear games…except for the first two (yes, the NES ones, “I feel asleep!” and all), and I always figured that Snatcher’s hype was all part of the same nonsense.

If the ROM is ever finished, I might consider doing a physical release, though – seems a lot of people are super interested in this.

I don’t know if anyone else has discussed this possibility, but has it occurred to anyone that the V9 series are likely units that were sent to Nintendo for repair? I know that SNES units sent in to Nintendo were given new serial number stickers beginning with ‘9’ to denote that they had been repaired under warranty – the similarities between that and the VB, a mere handful of years later (when they would almost certainly adhere to the same process) are hard to deny.

I just emailed him about that yesterday, and he replied – he said that he hasn’t started building the new stock yet, and that it will be a few weeks.

Cheers.

VirtuousRage wrote:
Holy cow! Your set-up looks great!!
But, what on earth are those other two Gundam games?! :O
I don’t think I’ve ever seen those in my life.

Well, if you notice, Quaze (the lucky son of a ****!) has FOUR Gundam games. One is the original Japanese release. Another is UncleTusk’s original 2013-2014 English release. The last two are copies of my release of the English game, which is functionally identical, but has different packaging and artwork. I sent those out about a week ago or so, but there’s been a lot of interest in a second run.

vuefinder83 wrote:
Received my copy yesterday. I’m very pleased with the quality, definitely top notch. Automatically add me to the list of any future VB projects, RetroDan.

Thank you! to everyone involved in the making of this.

I’d say the community as a whole is to thank more than me. Every single one of you made this possible.

Alright, most of the International orders are shipped. Still waiting on several people to get back to me. I’m thinking that, if I haven’t had contact by February 14th, which is six weeks from now, those who haven’t responded will lose their place in line. For those who provided donors, they are free to contact me and they will receive the dollar value of the discount that would have been applied to their purchase returned to them via PayPal gift.

I don’t like drawing lines in the sand, but it has been nearly two weeks, and I’m growing a little concerned by the silence. Now, I know that life can get in the way (believe me, I know – I had some lady rear-end my car yesterday, joy of joys), so I figure that six weeks is a very fair length of time to wait. Long enough for a short hospital visit or personal tragedy, and anything that would necessitate a longer absence probably means that someone has much bigger problems to deal with and shouldn’t spend their money on something as trifling as a Virtual Boy game.

Just sent an email – I’d love a copy of my own.

Sorry to everyone who has been waiting! I’ve been keeping updates on the NintendoAge forum, but with work, illness, general life tomfoolery, I actually forgot to even check this site for a few months!

Okay, so I FINALLY got the printed materials (on the 19th of Dec – yeah, two days ago), and all are assembled and nearly ready to go.

I’ll be taking from tomorrow to Jan 2nd off, and over this weekend, I’ll be contacting people and getting some info to help me compile individual invoices.

I was stupid and forgot to order the clear collector’s cases until just a few days ago, and I probably won’t get them until after the holidays, so that is totally my fault.

However, this project is pretty much done – just a little bit of legwork left, and I’ll start shipping.

I apologize for not keeping PlanetVB’s thread updated (though I’ve been pretty open about the NintendoAge one – you can read through that, which will explain all the obnoxious delays Vince and I went through, as well as see pics of the final product), but things have kept moving, even while I’ve been silent here.

Thanks to everyone for keeping the faith!

Everybody has a stupid moment now and again. It’s only when you have enough of them to make a career in politics that you should worry.

speedyink wrote:
Now how in the hell did you beat it so fast? I’ve had Gimmick for like a year now and I still haven’t been able to beat it the proper way yet! I just somehow need to get better =P

Probably the way I eventually beat it – by mainlining Monster Energy Drinks, Coca-Cola, and a ten-hour marathon run of the game until my entire being was channeling the spirit of Yumetaro.

And then I crashed for nineteen hours and had caffeine withdrawal so strongly that the migraine that resulted blinded me for twenty four hours. Still worth it.

I’m going to have to say Gimmick! is the hardest game I have actually beaten 100%. It took me weeks of practice just to get past level 4, to say nothing of the others. Well, except for that last level, which is cake aside from the true final boss.

JoePassive wrote:
I want to buy this too, how can i do this?

Well, the waiting list is full, but I’ve over-ordered on parts, so I’ll likely have a few additional CIBs after the run of 50 is complete for sale. I’m definitely keepin’ one, though.

JoePassive wrote:
I’d like to complete the collection of games that came out in the west,
even tho i don’t actually care about region
I hope the prices will be sane.
Thanks!

Jack Bros
Nester’s Funky Bowling
Waterworld

With respect, good luck on the Jack Bros. I keep on seeing that for about $250 or so loose. I made my own copy, though I do hope to acquire a legit copy some day. As for Waterworld, here’s a link to a relatively cheap copy from LukieGames.

http://www.lukiegames.com/Waterworld-Virtual-Boy-Game

I actually got lucky on Nester’s Funky Bowling – I walked into a local game store, and there it was. I’d never actually seen a copy in the wild like that – VB didn’t sell well in my area.

Dreammary wrote:
Oh I was talking about the design, not necessarily how the actual print was. Just the design looks really nice.

Oh, thanks. I’m actually pretty proud of the design myself. I had to redraw a lot of the elements of the boxart – the right leg of that Zaku (the green mobile suit) is almost totally my artwork.

I’m considering re-doing the “SD GUNDAM” bit so that the ‘SD’ is a vector match of the original title rather than a simple font replacement, but I’m very happy with the gradient.

Dreammary wrote:
“If things proceed as well as I think, CIBs should start shipping out in the middle of October, hopefully sooner.” -RetroDan (copied from his posting on NintendoAGE)

As for when he wants paid, he hadn’t posted that. I can tell you though from my cart that the label art is top notch, I opted away from a boxed copy (boxed games just aren’t important to me, I care only about the game).

That label is what I would consider to be ‘okay’ quality. I designed and printed that on my home printer and die cutter. UncleTusk is actually going to be printing the labels, and they will be of much higher quality than that.

The run is primarily done on NintendoAge, and the rules on NA prohibit sales of things that aren’t on-hand, so I’m going to actually need to have the boxes and other paperwork on-hand before I can start calling in payment.

I understand that reasoning, it just kinda…annoys me a touch.

I will say, however, that if all the PlanetVB guys paid up front, I would be able to get the printed materials paid for by the end of this month. Just saying…

If you need someone to compose music for this game, I’d love to offer my services. I just need to know what file format you would need (musically; I’m not a programmer. I could compose the music and send it in something like MIDI), how many tracks I’m limited to, etc.

Koohiisan wrote:
Is this still something I could get in on? Do I just need to donate a cart? I’ve got one I’m willing to chip in, if that’s all I need to do.

The waiting list is full, but I have over-ordered in case of bad parts or acts of dog. So after the orders all ship out, there may be a handful left over that I could parcel out.

Well, the last spot on the waiting list was filled yesterday.

I actually started this run because I wasn’t going to spend a shit-ton of money on games I might potentially like/dislike, so I made a few repros of the games I wanted to try. SD Gundam was one of them, mainly because years ago, I saw the English repro on UncleTusk’s site, and I missed the boat on it.

I made my own copy, loved it, and thought, “I bet there are other people who missed the chance to play this”. It all kind of snowballed from there. I’ve been rather surprised and humbled by the enthusiasm of the community response. I know I keep mentioning it, but it keeps on surprising me.

[RetroDan]

I’m going to have to say Legend of Success Joe on the NEO GEO is the worst game that I, personally, have played.

The game starts out as a really bad Streets of Rage clone, then does this sideways punch out thing, coupled with horrendous controls. Even the graphics, something that the NEO GEO typically curb stomps every other system with, are hilariously, uproariously terrible.

HP Lovethrash wrote:

Mega Man 1, 7, 8 and Mega Man X5, X6, X8; I absolutely hated the change in direction each series took- the annoying cartoony art style, goofy voice acting, some RPG elements, those ridiculous boss names. And the very first MM game just drives me nuts, I only played it to try and complete the PS2 compilation.

With respect, I absolutely adore Mega Man 7. 8 is an unmitigated shitball of epic proportions, but 7 is one of my favorite SNES games. X5 wasn’t bad, X6 was a little worse, and I didn’t mind X8. X7 is horrific. Just…BAD. Like, 8 bad, only this time it’s because of the controls and gameplay rather than shitty voice-acting.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by RetroDan.