Uploaded August 2023 | Updated September 2026, 6 hours ago
GameStop used to be the most dominant video game store prior to digital distribution but now the company is dying a painful death. I talk about a recent visit to my nearest GameStop as well as my experiences as a customer over the years, and why they're screwed.
Further reading:
Circle Of Life: kotaku.com/new-gamestop-program-leads-employees-to-lie-to-customer-1791874332
GameStop's Shameless Self Promotion Article in IGN: ign.com/articles/gamestop-is-the-place-to-trade-in-your-old-games-consoles-mobile-devices-and-more
GameStop launches NFT Marketplace in 2022: news.gamestop.com/news-releases/news-release-details/gamestop-launches-nft-marketplace
GameStop making employees work Thanksgiving: kotaku.com/gamestop-pushes-employees-to-the-breaking-point-during-1848144495
0:00 Intro
1:17 My Earliest Experiences Going To GameStop
3:27 Bad Employees and Ridiculous Upselling
9:59 Digital Distribution Killing GameStop
Further Viewing:
@RGT85 talking about his time working for GameStop: youtube.com/watch?v=ehlPb-rHIis
@CAMELOT331 talking about his experiences working for GameStop: youtube.com/watch?v=2AkekOnVoMo
@ReviewTechUSA talking about GameStop being in bad shape in 2023: youtube.com/watch?v=DHQWXGmDhG0
Games Shown:
Hang On (Sega Master System)
Chrono Trigger
Pokemon PureGreen (Rom Hack)
3D Super Hang On
Final Fantasy VI Advance
Gradius
Galaga 90
Paperboy
Palmride
Pole Position II
Gradius II
Root Beer Tapper
Super Mario Land III: Wario Land
Wario Land 3
Rally Championship (Gamecube)
Pilotwings 64
Hotline Miami
Super Smash Bros Melee
Night Driver (Atari 2600)
Robotron 2084 (Atari Lynx)
Music: Subaeris - The City In Rain
#gamestop #gamestopstock #2023 #gaming #videogamestore #digitalgaming #digitaldistribution
GameStop used to be the most dominant video game store prior to digital distribution but now the company is dying a painful death. I talk about a recent visit to my nearest GameStop as well as my experiences as a customer over the years, and why they're screwed.
Further reading:
Circle Of Life: kotaku.com/new-gamestop-program-leads-employees-to-lie-to-customer-1791874332
GameStop's Shameless Self Promotion Article in IGN: ign.com/articles/gamestop-is-the-place-to-trade-in-your-old-games-consoles-mobile-devices-and-more
GameStop launches NFT Marketplace in 2022: news.gamestop.com/news-releases/news-release-details/gamestop-launches-nft-marketplace
GameStop making employees work Thanksgiving: kotaku.com/gamestop-pushes-employees-to-the-breaking-point-during-1848144495
0:00 Intro
1:17 My Earliest Experiences Going To GameStop
3:27 Bad Employees and Ridiculous Upselling
9:59 Digital Distribution Killing GameStop
Further Viewing:
@RGT85 talking about his time working for GameStop: youtube.com/watch?v=ehlPb-rHIis
@CAMELOT331 talking about his experiences working for GameStop: youtube.com/watch?v=2AkekOnVoMo
@ReviewTechUSA talking about GameStop being in bad shape in 2023: youtube.com/watch?v=DHQWXGmDhG0
Games Shown:
Hang On (Sega Master System)
Chrono Trigger
Pokemon PureGreen (Rom Hack)
3D Super Hang On
Final Fantasy VI Advance
Gradius
Galaga 90
Paperboy
Palmride
Pole Position II
Gradius II
Root Beer Tapper
Super Mario Land III: Wario Land
Wario Land 3
Rally Championship (Gamecube)
Pilotwings 64
Hotline Miami
Super Smash Bros Melee
Night Driver (Atari 2600)
Robotron 2084 (Atari Lynx)
Music: Subaeris - The City In Rain
#gamestop #gamestopstock #2023 #gaming #videogamestore #digitalgaming #digitaldistribution
![Pole Position II [Gamecube/Arcade] - Seaside Full Run 54,220 pts](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SLl9dS6J1kg/mqdefault.jpg "Pole Position II [Gamecube/Arcade] - Seaside Full Run 54,220 pts
I finally beat Seaside in Pole Position II! Prior to this, I had beaten every other course in the game and uploaded runs of each. After beating this one, I can say its definitely harder than Test and Fuji but not as difficult as Suzuka. To be honest, the biggest turn in this one is a bit less risky than the big left on Suzuka and its not too hard otherwise. Fun fact: Seaside is based on the Long Beach Grand Prix street circuit used by both F1 and IndyCar/CART in the past.
I am considering creating a discussion video talking about both Pole Position game. Let me know if youd like to see that.
00:00 Intro
00:12 Qualifying
01:04 Race")
![Enduro Racer [Sega Master System] - Speedrun/1CC 55282 (US/EU Version)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/STnKOzIERuE/mqdefault.jpg "Enduro Racer [Sega Master System] - Speedrun/1CC 55282 (US/EU Version)
Played using the SMS Plus GX core in RetroArch with shaders.
Enduro Racer may be easy to clear, but getting good times is much harder. I would have gotten close to a WR had I not crashed near the end. A classic Master System arcade racing game that thankfully does not try to emulate the original arcade game and instead, opts for something a bit different.")
![Salamander 2 [Playstation 1] - First Loop 1CC 584,100 pts](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SlW6YBpe8ZI/mqdefault.jpg "Salamander 2 [Playstation 1] - First Loop 1CC 584,100 pts
Salamander 2 is a shmup from Konami that was originally released in Japanese arcades in 1996 and received a port as part of the Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus compilation for Saturn and Playstation exclusively in Japan in 1997. It is a sequel to the original Salamander that was released back in 1986. Most American gamers know the original better as Life Force, particularly from the NES port. Both games are considered to be spinoffs of the Gradius series.
The Salamander games are known for mixing horizontal and vertical shmup gameplay into the same game. They also lack checkpoints, which differentiates these games from mainline Gradius. Power ups are obtained by grabbing a specific item for whatever power up you want, unlike in Gradius where you have to grab enough powerups to get to the item you really want.
Salamander 2 does add some new wrinkles to the gameplay. Particularly, you can shoot your options toward enemies as an attack. It adds twin lasers from Gradius III as an extra weapon option along with the regular laser and ripple laser. The biggest addition to the gameplay is one that you dont see, and its a complex rank system almost as wild as something youd see in Zanac or Battle Garegga. This game adopts the same rank system as the Parodius games. Basically, the more powerups you grab, the higher the rank increases, increasing the bullet speeds and aggressiveness of enemies. Speed ups are especially problematic for keeping rank low.
What does bring the rank down is dying, whether you die on accident or intentionally. Suiciding becomes a legitimate strategy in a game like this, especially since recovery is easier here than in most Gradius games as you get a chance to reclaim your options right after dying and do not have checkpoints to deal with. In fact, I found it was best to suicide at the beginning of Stage 5 and right before the last boss, though the latter was more of an accidental death in my case but worked out in the end. In both cases, I had chances to get powered up again right after. Another side note is that the Player 2 ship, Super Cobra, has lower initial rank than the Vic Viper, which is why I played on the P2 side.
As far as the level design goes, its brilliant stuff. The set pieces are awesome and each stage feels super memorable, with excellent 2D graphics and music. It also pays homage at times to Gradius and the original Salamander, while still feeling like its own game. The difficulty curve is pretty reasonable, as the only real spikes in the first loop outside of the rank system are in Stage 6, the last stage of the first loop. Even the second loop seemed pretty reasonable compared to second loops in other games from the little Ive played of it.
The scoring is mostly straightforward, but there are some interesting hidden scoring opportunity. One is that its possible to kill that larger enemy halfway into Stage 1 if you can somehow get powered up enough. That gives you 100,000 points but I missed it on this run. The second way is to take the first two big ships in Stage 4 without damaging the rear engines in order to reveal a golden ship and if you take out the engine first and then the rest of it, you get another 100,000 points.
Overall, this is definitely the best Konami shmup Ive played. I still have some mixed feelings about the rank system because it can get really nasty if youre not trying to manage it, but it does make the game even more interesting than it already is.
0:00 Intro
0:26 Stage 1-1
3:10 Stage 1-2
5:31 Stage 1-3
8:00 Stage 1-4
10:11 Stage 1-5
12:59 Stage 1-6
16:16 Final Boss of Loop 1
18:12 Stage 2-1
#konami #shmups #1cc #shootemups #playstation #salamander #gradius")
![Crossgunr Infinite [PICO-8] - 559,921 pts (to Level 12)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ssk5_NAmNec/mqdefault.jpg "Crossgunr Infinite [PICO-8] - 559,921 pts (to Level 12)
This is another run of Crossgunr Infinite, which ended in a significantly higher score than the previous one I uploaded last week. In this run, I got all the way to the Level 12 boss.
Enjoy!")
![Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast [PC] - Goal C Run 43029 (O2 Course)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TMzCfeONX7g/mqdefault.jpg "Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast [PC] - Goal C Run 43029 (O2 Course)
Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast is a port of one of the last classic Sega racers, Outrun 2. Ive had the PC version on disc for several years, but the game had issues running on modern operating systems, particularly crashes and the game randomly running too fast. However, Outrun 2006 Tweaks came out recently, and that solved all of my problems running this game on PC. Even on Linux through WINE, it runs great as long as you tweak the ini file that comes with Outrun 2006 Tweaks appropriately.
For this run, I decided to focus on Goal C in the Outrun2SP mode, playing on the original Outrun 2 course instead of Outrun2SP course. My goal was to get my time as fast as possible while getting my score as high as possible. After a little bit of practice, I pulled off this run which Im proud of. There were a few small mistakes but nothing fatal.
This game has an amazing scoring system for a racer due to the slipstream mechanic. The longer you stay in slipstream, the more points you get. Plus, if you use slipstream to pass up cars, you get double the usual amount for passing them up as long as you pass cleanly. It is especially important to do this to the rival cars that appear throughout the courses.
00:00 Intro
00:52 Race Starts
05:28 Ending/Credits and High Scores")
![Sensible Soccer [Sega Mega Drive] - Munich vs Luxembourg 5-0 Shutout (Expert Mode, No Cheats)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Tixd5DGi4-M/mqdefault.jpg "Sensible Soccer [Sega Mega Drive] - Munich vs Luxembourg 5-0 Shutout (Expert Mode, No Cheats)
00:48. Match begins
03:28. Second half
The Sensible Soccer series is one of the greatest franchises in arcade sports game history, especially if you were a PAL gamer back in the day. However, unlike a lot of the more famous arcade sports franchises from the 90s, it was not in arcades as it originated on the Commodore Amiga. The first couple of games in the series found its way on to home consoles at the time, including this Mega Drive port of the first game in the series. However, starting with Sensible World Of Soccer, the games pretty much stayed on PC and Amiga for the most part.
There are a couple of things that make the Sensi games stand out. One, it is the simplicity of these games. On the Amiga and DOS versions, you only get one button to do everything on the field, such as shooting, checking, and passing the ball. This Mega Drive version however takes advantage of the Mega Drive controllers three buttons and uses A to shoot or lob the ball far, B to do a mid pass, and C to do short range passes. I typically find myself using just A and C when playing this version. However, it is still pretty simple to play even with this change.
The second feature of these games is the after-touch mechanic. This allows you to curve your shot and long passes after the ball is kicked by the player. In this version of the game, the input timing is fairly strict but the mechanic is super satisfying when you nail it and score a goal with a curved shot. Because of the input timing being pretty strict to utilize this mechanic, I use my arcade stick when playing this game, which has my customized ASI Golden Lever installed in it. However, my thumbs are pretty slow to be fair and cramp up quickly, so your mileage may vary on controllers. I dont have this issue doing curved shots when playing SWOS 96/97 in DOSBox on controller, as the timing is less strict on that one. Thats the only only game I have played in this series besides this one.
One more thing that stands out is the fact that the ball does not stick to the player typically in these games. Even with a high-stat team, you will eventually lose control of the ball if you try too hard and change directions too much. The Mega Drive version unfortunately forces you to turn up the difficulty to get the true Sensible Soccer experience in this regard, but its still there on Expert, which is how I play. The game is too easy on the default Beginner mode.
There are other things that make these games great as well, like the fast pacing and being able to do custom teams. However, theyre not necessarily as unique.
As far as the match goes, I managed to score a lot of goals and in various different ways, including a rare free kick goal and a corner kick goal. Now it is true that I played as a pretty good club versus a not so good one. However, I still had to put forth a little bit of effort because the opponent AI even in these matchups is not a complete pushover. The ball always stays with them as theyre moving, though their movement stays mostly realistic to be fair. The goalies has lousy AI on both sides even on Expert, but you tend to experience their incompetence a bit more than your opponent does especially when you play a strong team.
I would like to do superplay matches of some other arcade sports games, but I will need to do some practice to shake off some rust before attempting that.
#megadrive #sensiblesoccer #sega #soccer #futbol #sportsvideogames #segagenesis #palgaming")
![Rambo [Sega Master System] - 1CC Playthrough 1,350,220 pts](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TnCZIluvE_c/mqdefault.jpg "Rambo [Sega Master System] - 1CC Playthrough 1,350,220 pts
Rambo on the Sega Master System is known for being tough as nails, but it was honestly better than I expected. Its not a perfect game, but its much better than the NES version of Ikari Warrior for example. By 1986 standards, its pretty solid. This game is also known as Ashura in Japan and Secret Command in PAL regions.
I had a much longer description written for this one, but Youtube decided that it couldnt process this video when I first uploaded it, and I couldnt even go back and get the original description. Second go around, my upload stalled on me. This is my third time uploading. Not sure if the issue was on my end or Youtube.
00:00 Intro
00:15 Stage 1
04:00 Stage 2
09:04 Stage 3
13:51 Stage 4
19:54 Stage 5
24:30 Stage 6
29:23 Ending
#rambo #sega #segamastersystem #retrogaming")
