Paid Members BigJag Posted February 19 Paid Members Share Posted February 19 @Scratch you're going to love it! I went with the wife and she enjoyed it. I've also sent my niece and her husband there. They came back with glowing reviews. @FLips has indeed given you a great review there. First floor is really loud and also had some of those dance dance games as well as some strange guitar game. Second floor has the classics. You'll find loads of fun here. Third floor was where I got to try out Beat Sabre. I highly recommend it. They have another venue in Manchester that is said to be even better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAREBEAR LUVVA Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 Yep, another thumbs up here for Arcade Club in Leeds, it really is excellent. It seems pricey to get in, but when you consider the fact that you can stay as long as you want (you can leave and come back later the same day if you need to pop out for a bit) and all the games are free to play, it's a pretty good deal. There's an excellent variety of cabinets, the staff are super friendly, the food and drink prices aren't extortionate, and it's all nice and clean which is a bonus. They've even got free deodorant in the toilets to encourage the clientele to not stink. It just looks really cool too, especially after dark when all the neon lights show up a bit brighter. A cracking place to spend an afternoon / evening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members FLips Posted February 20 Paid Members Share Posted February 20 (edited) I jumped the gun on my NES fixing abilities and have had to open that sucker up again. The initial clean I did was fairly half-arsed as I wasn't overly confident in doing too much with it, but it seemed to work so I thought I'd done a great job. Nope. After less than a day the same issues began cropping up again; games not loading, the blinking red lights, grey screen, etc. If you've ever owned a NES you'll know the annoying things it does. So this time I thought balls to it and I did a full refurbishment. This included some insane steps that I thought were a joke and had to double check. So I opened it up, took the 72 pin connector off the motherboard, used sandpaper to clean the top layer off the pins and then boiled it in a pan of water for 5 minutes. My mate came round and thought I was cooking tea and when I told him I was boiling my NES he thought I was taking the piss. After that I (and this is a legit instruction) smacked the 72 pin connector off a desk to shake all the water out, and then dried it with a combo of paper towels and a hairdryer. I then used a sewing needle to bend all the pins up into place. It recommended a second boil but I left it because my wife needed the pan for spaghetti. Then, I used sandpaper to sand the motherboard connector down and cleaned that with some isopropyl alcohol and cotton buds. After that I flipped the motherboard over and on the NES a lot of the game reading issues don't actually come from bad hardware or dirty games (though they don't help) but infact a chip on the motherboard that's used to detect pirated or wrong region games. If it can't read the pins 100% the chip freaks out and thinks you're pirating and this is what causes the blinking red light error that causes the screen to go on and off. So what you do is find the 4th pin on this chip and just yank it out. Some videos recommend soldering it but you can also just pull it out which is what I did as I don't have a soldering iron. Without this chip active you've essentially region unlocked your console (but due to 50hz/60hz this is fairly useless unless you want super slow or super fast games) but more importantly have stopped the anti-piracy check so now your games will just load without fault and any issues you know will now stem from dirty connectors and you can just clean them appropriately. So with the chip disconnected, the 72 pin connector thoroughly boiled and dried, and the motherboard sanded down, I screwed it all back up and can confidently say it works properly now. We tested it extensively last night and every game worked on the first attempt, and if it didn't a quick clean of the game cartridge sorted it. What most forums online say is a good sign of healthy pins too is I don't need to push the game down for it to play anymore either. Very happy with it! Â Edited February 20 by FLips Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperBacon Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 That's amazing @FLips Maybe that iPhone in a bowl of rice thing IS real after all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members FLips Posted February 20 Paid Members Share Posted February 20 3 hours ago, SuperBacon said: That's amazing @FLips Maybe that iPhone in a bowl of rice thing IS real after all. I've never felt more doubt in what I was doing than when I was stood stirring a boiling pan of NES components with a slotted spoon and trying to justify it to two people that everything was going to be ok. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members CleetusVanDamme Posted February 20 Paid Members Share Posted February 20 I remember doing the towel trick to temporarily bring a 360 back to life and thinking I was going to start a fire. I'm glad there's a process out there even more silly and demeaning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members FLips Posted February 20 Paid Members Share Posted February 20 (edited) Practice makes (far from) perfect and I finished Castlevania. Pretty handily too I might add, didn't even get a game over! As long as you keep hold of the Holy Water and never let it go no matter what, it makes a lot of the difficult parts fairly trivial. I got to Dracula with only 2 deaths and then died maybe 3 or 4 times on him. Very fun game. One thing I didn't know is the game infinitely loops. After beating it, it sends you back to the first stage but all the enemies are faster and stronger and there's more of them. The loop goes on with no limits but the difficulty doesn't get any harder after the second loop. I made it as far as Stage 2 and got battered by bats and medusa heads that weren't there the first run through. Got my Game Over finally and called it a day. Been playing one of those recommended "hidden gems" on the NES too, Little Nemo: The Dream Master. It's your standard 8-bit Capcom fare in terms of controls and graphics, very similar movement to a Ducktales or Mega Man. The gimmick here is you feed candy to enemies to put them to sleep, then you use their powers. It's essentially Kirby but 3 years before Kirby came out. It's actually very fun. It looks lovely, the music is decent and aside from it being deceptively difficult it's very enjoyable. There's a level skip cheat so you can unofficially save your progress which is good as there's no way I could do this start to finish. Edited February 20 by FLips Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Jesse Posted February 20 Paid Members Share Posted February 20 I used to occasionally take part in a speedrunning league where on the night you'd race a couple of games, one you'd had a week to practice and the other as a surprise game where it was revealed on the night and you had 30mins to practise a set level and then 30mins of attempts to set the fastest time completing it. Little Nemo: The Dream Master was a mystery game for one of my earlier appearances and the only time I came close to rage quitting. Really fun game, and makes you feel like you should be better at it than you are, which made it embarassing when I struggled to even set a time in my 30mins. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hallicks Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 19 hours ago, SuperBacon said: That's amazing @FLips Maybe that iPhone in a bowl of rice thing IS real after all. Without wanting to go too off topic. The button on my electric toothbrush wore away, exposing the electronics inside. Water got in and it was completely fritzed. Put it in a bag full of rice for 2 days, completely back to normal. Anyway, retro gaming. Has anyone figured out the Wii U bricking problem after it’s been switched off for years? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members FLips Posted February 21 Paid Members Share Posted February 21 24 minutes ago, hallicks said: Without wanting to go too off topic. The button on my electric toothbrush wore away, exposing the electronics inside. Water got in and it was completely fritzed. Put it in a bag full of rice for 2 days, completely back to normal. Anyway, retro gaming. Has anyone figured out the Wii U bricking problem after it’s been switched off for years? Nothing definitive it seems. There’s a cheap USB fix for some issues and another that requires soldering, and also one that requires you had essential files already saved in the case this happened. Thankfully I saw all this kicking off last year so plugged mine in to check it and it works fine still. I still have a lot of love for the Wii U, even if the Switch made it entirely obsolete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hallicks Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 1 minute ago, FLips said: Nothing definitive it seems. There’s a cheap USB fix for some issues and another that requires soldering, and also one that requires you had essential files already saved in the case this happened. Thankfully I saw all this kicking off last year so plugged mine in to check it and it works fine still. I still have a lot of love for the Wii U, even if the Switch made it entirely obsolete. My wife bought me one for my birthday several years ago, about 2 weeks before our youngest was born. I think I’ve played on it about twice, but it’s been on my mind to unbox it and try it out now the kids are older. But now I have the fear it’ll die before I get to do anything with it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members FLips Posted February 21 Paid Members Share Posted February 21 48 minutes ago, hallicks said: My wife bought me one for my birthday several years ago, about 2 weeks before our youngest was born. I think I’ve played on it about twice, but it’s been on my mind to unbox it and try it out now the kids are older. But now I have the fear it’ll die before I get to do anything with it! Just plug it in to test it and then put it back. As far as I’m aware that will reset the clock so to speak. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members FLips Posted February 23 Paid Members Share Posted February 23 Fun Nintendo drama with the developer showcase they did the other day. In the west they did a really good "Out Today" surprise release of a load of Rareware games on the Nintendo Switch Online so now on the NES you can get Snake Rattle and Roll and RC Pro-Am Racing, on SNES you can get Killer Instinct and Battletoads in Battlemaniacs and on N64 you can get Blast Corps. Well it turns out for the die-hards this was a big insult because in Japan they released Mother 3 onto the GBA selection and there's still a vocal group of fans feel so hard done by because it still doesn't have a western release (and likely never will). Personally I think compared to the rubbish you usually get on the Switch Online service we got given a banquet and I couldn't care less about Mother 3 so win-win. In other updates, I found a dangerous feature of Ebay in which posts you are watching will sometimes send you exclusive offers and I got suckered in by one today like a moth to the flame. I got Ducktales, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Digger T Rock, Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout and Double Dragon 2 on the NES for £44.99 which was meant to be £49.99. All in all you're looking at £30 for Ducktales and Double Dragon alone, with the others fluctuating. An average on recent prices and before postage (this bundle was free postage) and you're looking £60-70 so there was a bargain to be had there. I also finished Aladdin on the SNES today again. What a fantastic game. I've said it before and I'll say it again, but Capcom in the 8 and 16-bit eras rarely stepped a foot wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westlondonmist Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 Blast Corps is quite fun, I'm not quite sure what the plot is. You smash shit snd have fun. I think it probably would have thought a rip off 20 years ago though. Battletoads isn't bad either. I'll get round to Killer Instinct. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merzbow Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 (edited) I played some Killer Instinct earlier, it's cool but falls really far behind the arcade version, more than other conversions of the time. Even the N64 version wasn't as good, now that was an odd port though and seemingly went through development hell? Edited February 23 by Merzbow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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