Month: November 2021

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Sony – KDL22PX300 a.k.a. Sony PS2 TV

Something a bit different and I think fairly rare in the grand scheme of things. The Sony Playstation 2 TV was released in 2010, very late in the PS2’s life cycle and after the launch of the PS3. Apparently, Sony had a bunch of PAL PS2s they needed to shift so came up with the idea of combining the PS2 with a 22inch Bravia LCD TV. I don’t think these were ever sold outside of the UK, so are rare in the global market.

The PS2 is built into the base of this TV and is wired internally using a component video connection so the picture quality is as good as you can get natively from a PS2. The PS2 itself is the latest version of the console so unfortunately can’t be hacked with the standard Free McBoot mod. But it can be modified to run the Fortuna hack.

I am currently using Funtuna which basically combines the Fortuna hack with Free McBoot so you get all the same functionality. The only difference is it doesn’t automatically launch the hack when you turn it on, you instead have to go into the PS2 browser and press a few buttons. Not really the end of the world.

I have set this one up now booting games over the network from a Netgear ReadyNAS drive. This is faster than booting from USB since the PS2 only has USB 1.1 ports.

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Revival Games – Plymouth

I only heard about this shop a couple of weeks ago and have been dying to get down there and take a look. Well, yesterday was that day.

I think the shop has been open for a few months now and they have a brilliant stock of retro consoles and computers including things such as Amigas, Atari 2600s, Sega Saturns, 3DOs, Playstations and a variety of handheld consoles. I was quite surprised with how much hardware they had in stock.

They also have a great selection of games for the various consoles, including games for some of the rarer machines like the Japanese PC Engine.

If you are ever in the Plymouth area, you really cannot miss out on paying this store a visit. It’s certainly going to become my go-to shop to visit when I make a trip down to the big city!

The store is located on the same side of the city as the National Marine Aquarium, and when we visited, we were able to park straight outside the shop, which is handy for loading all that newly purchased hardware and software into the car.

For more information visit their website at: https://revivalgames.co.uk

260254825_999616977561376_5602436830486928746_n
259066810_227228449400063_4603735148169674714_n
259039626_405737641280438_2574593131055371665_n

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Game & Watch Zelda Editon

I had kind of forgotten I even pre-ordered this many months ago, but a few days ago an Amazon parcel arrived containing the new Game & Watch from Nintendo. This time it’s Zelda that gets the game and watch treatment. The small device contains: The Legend of Zelda, The Adventure of Link and Links Awakening. Along with a bonus game and watch game and the clock functionality.

I was a bit surprised/disappointed to find that Links awakening was the original Gameboy version and not the Gameboy Color DX version. Seems a bit of an odd choice since the other two games are NES versions and are therefore both in colour. Still, it’s a nice little device and I guess people who buy it and more interested in collecting things like this rather than actually playing them. There are many easier ways to play these games and more without buying a new handheld each time you want to play a different game 🙂

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Neo Geo CD

Another new one for the collection arrived today in the form of a top-loading Neo Geo CD. Unboxed, but it’s in great condition. The console has a Sega Saturn sort of aesthetic to it, but the controllers are really nice. I am loving the micro-switched joypads!

I decided to go for the CD version as the game cartridges for the Neo Geo AES were expensive when they came out, and haven’t gotten much cheaper! Looking around, the cartridge games seem to be in the £100’s of pounds each. At least with the CD version, I can play CD Backups relatively easily. My initial experimentation shows my Verbatim discs seem to work pretty well but I do get some errors occasionally, even after burning them at 4x on my Sony IDE CD-Writer. Maybe a replacement laser assembly is on the cards for this one in the future. The original games work though, and the lasers in these older consoles can be very picky at the best of times (I’m looking at you 3DO!)