PS1 appreciation thread

[Asura]

How is the PSOne official screen? Is the quality any good? I've never seen one running in the flesh.

[importaku]

How is the PSOne official screen? Is the quality any good? I've never seen one running in the flesh.

The screen is surprisingly good picture wise it's very crisp and sharp with not that much motion blur at all however due to their age the hinges can be fragile if you open it too far out it can cause the internal parts of the hinge to snap. They used to be pretty cheap and common but thanks to modders using that screen for crappy janky home made handhelds they have ruined the supply and now they are pretty hard to get at a decent price.

[Anpanman]

I really loved my PS1, got it at launch more or less and remember paying the same for a memory card as for an extra controller before the price came down, unless I was just ripped off. Bought four games with it at £50 each and a load more at top prices before going on holiday to Malaysia in 1996 and discovering Honk Kong silvers.

Subsequent visits to Indonesia, Brunei and Thailand plus having a mate who went to Thailand about twice a year meant we had all the decent western releases in Japanese format along with all sorts of weird and wonderful titles.

Remember a puzzler come shooter which had these crab type things and a rescue game where you drove an ambulance.

Happy Days.

[importaku]

I really loved my PS1, got it at launch more or less and remember paying the same for a memory card as for an extra controller before the price came down, unless I was just ripped off. Bought four games with it at £50 each and a load more at top prices before going on holiday to Malaysia in 1996 and discovering Honk Kong silvers.

Subsequent visits to Indonesia, Brunei and Thailand plus having a mate who went to Thailand about twice a year meant we had all the decent western releases in Japanese format along with all sorts of weird and wonderful titles.

Remember a puzzler come shooter which had these crab type things and a rescue game where you drove an ambulance.

Happy Days.

Thats actually a good point, piracy does have a bad effect it also has another side as those silvers were everywhere and as such people got to try some rather exotic and obscure imports ones that import shops never would risk getting in as they mostly just chose the most mainstream popular stuff. Before i won my PS1 i used to play on my friends at his house and every few weekends we'd all get up and goto the car boot sale and my friend would load up on various mystery disks a lot you had no idea what you were gonna get as they had some weird butchered title instead of their full title. And sometimes you had no idea if they were even in english this is how i learned of mr domino.

Philai actually introduced me to a lot of games as he had a large mix of silvers & originals, stuff like geppy x and suzuki bakuhatsu and a ton of music rhythm games i'd never have known of until i played them at his place. It was a exciting era of gaming as with those dodgy disks you never truly knew what was out there as there was no internet to research this stuff like there is now. I still remember my friends box of floppy disks for his snes copier and one called wonder kitchen, i had no idea what it's origins were till a long time later. Those games ended up been found many years later and the extreme sometimes obsessive lengths i'll go to for getting the absolute best condition copy i can find. Games that even 20+ years later i still find a joy to play.

[JazzFunk]

Used to love Leeds CEX when it was down Albion Street. Remember when I got my PS chipped and got US Silent Hill and JP Thunderforce V from there for a fiver. And then the imports were gone. It's not as interesting without the import games.

Went in today, never bought owt. All I seem to buy now are BC 360 games for a quid, and that's rarely. Don't even trade in for the pennies they offer, just give my games away to pals or my bro these days (unless it's a keeper).

I never had much dosh back in the day so I relied on Cross Green car boot to provide me with PS1 'golds', usually four for a tenner back then.

It might not have been the most moral way of gaming but it allowed me to play some weird and wonderful and obscure JP and US games, stuff that we'd NEVER get over here. Loads of cack, too, but at four games for ten quid you didn't really care.

Also, you'd often get the better, US 60hz versions of big games. I recall playing stuff like Tomba 2 and Syphon Filter on US gold (lol) discs ages before they came out here and looking much nicer.

Stuff like them shooter collections you couldn't get anywhere, those bizarre JP retro compilations, I had them all. But on pirate.

"Edge of Sky High". Whatever that was. I had it tho.

Sold the lot in the run up to PS2 in 2001, had about 250 pirates with it, had to cart it to my pal's in one of them massive HEAD tennis bags from the mid-80s.

Good times.

[importaku]

Ah you went to the same car boot as me hehe, cross green gave off a distinctly dodgy air but seeing as it's in halton moor that's not a difficult feat lol

[monel]

I used to buy PS import titles while my friend got Saturn games. I was always surprised at the range of PS games, loved Rival Schools and Omega Boost. There was an indie shop that got imports but the prices were stupid, 55 - 60 for any random title. I was often surprised at what turned up without being mentioned in magazines, like Captain Commando. Wasn't sure if they weren't weird bootlegs at times.I liked Bishi Bashi, too.

[importaku]

Ah rival schools, that's one that i ended up buying when i still had my PAL chipped ps1. Not a common thing for me to buy any fighting games but that one i found fun due to the unlockable minigame weird stuff like getting a massage by using the dual shock controller. I still remember been really annoyed that i unlocked everything and there was no edit mode like the back of the box advertised. They apparently took it out of the PAL release and never bothered to update the back of the box i tried everything to see if it was unlockable but i never saw it ever.

Konami pulled that crap with the botched version of mystical ninja on the snes, no Ebisumaru farting dance they showed it in the manual but cut it from the game. The final straw that pushed me into importing.

[monel]

To be honest I went import only in the days of the Megadrive and SNES (although you had the 60hz switch), I think they should never have got away with the shocking pal conversions, we all were paying for inferior products.

[JazzFunk]

Ah you went to the same car boot as me hehe, cross green gave off a distinctly dodgy air but seeing as it's in halton moor that's not a difficult feat lol

That place was LEGENDARY in its heyday. I'd say it was at its best betwixt 1990-2000, just before the point the pirate DVD stalls took it over and eventually led to its downfall.

But think about it. It was MASSIVE. It was like three or four acres of ROBOCOP set with myriad peeps bustling about.

You came in the gate, turned right onto the 'main' bit. And that bit was huge. But then you had the side bit. And the back bit. And sometimes the back-back bit as well (where you could often get scraggy gold discs for £2 or less. And a great VHS porno stall).

It was just the SCALE of the place. It was MAHOOSIVE. We were very lucky to have experienced it mate, I reckon this used to be the very best car boot in the UK!!!

Now, it's an incinerator.

A MAHOOSIVE incinerator that can be seen for miles aboot Leeds.

All trace of car boot incinerated away.

[JazzFunk]

Used to get some great deals on Gillette Sensor blades, as well. Unless the Trading Standards were poking about.

When that happened, you'd see loads of peeps immediately folding their tables in two and stuffing them in vans. Lol.

[JazzFunk]

Still dream about the place. Like some industrial, mesmerising, chav-filled Koyaanisqatsi.

It was a very special place. Proper Mos Eisley.

[importaku]

Hehe i remember it getting frequently raided and then it was a bit rubbish for a few weeks as all the dodgy stuff vanished till it sneakily came back. Used to be annoying travelling all the way there from chapel allerton to find out there we no dodgy games so a wasted trip as it meant no new games as my friend used to live in halton so we would goto the booty then take the spoils to his to play for the rest of the weekend.

Now i just scour online looking for minty originals but i must admit the dodgy days were rather fun, seeing as import shops dried up there's no way to do realworld shopping for that stuff unless i goto Japan.

[wakka]

Konami pulled that crap with the botched version of mystical ninja on the snes, no Ebisumaru farting dance they showed it in the manual but cut it from the game. The final straw that pushed me into importing.

The fact that this is the thing that got you into import gaming, this specific fart-based dance, is the most Importaku thing I've ever read

And plus, you should go to Japan to do real world import shopping. How have you not been yet?!

[importaku]

The fact that this is the thing that got you into import gaming, this specific fart-based dance, is the most Importaku thing I've ever read

For years i had put up with not getting games because i lived in the wrong country or been told that game is just not what i'm supposed to like so we wont release it. Paitently waiting for the scraps they would throw us in peasant pal land. Goemon was the final straw, decided from there on not to bother waiting for inferior versions i ditched all my uk console stuff and slowly went into the world of importing.