I’m such a mess. Just last night, I finally got caught up on all my outstanding cover scanning work. So how did I celebrate today? By hitting up my favorite thrift shop and grabbing yet more old, unloved games, starting with yet more Barbie titles. Some of these seem a bit of a stretch to define as games. However, at least one of them already lives in the MobyGames database.
Click for larger image
- Barbie Magic Hair Styler — this one is mercifully already present in the database
- Barbie Nail Designer
- Barbie: Talk With Me!
- Barbie Generation Girl Gotta Groove
- Cosmopolitan Virtual Makeover — copyright 1997 and published by SegaSoft; when I acquired and cataloged Virtual Makeover 2003, I figured that disc’s title implied that there was another in the series; I’m just surprised that it was so many years earlier (then again, I suppose there might be more of them out there)
Click for larger image
- Demo version (apparently included with a McDonald’s Happy Meal) of Disney’s Treasure Planet: Etherium Rescue
- The Cruncher 2.0 — This is an interesting specimen which claims to be a teaching spreadsheet for use in classrooms (grades 5 and up), and it’s from Knowledge Adventure, an outfit that puts out at least competent educational titles; maybe I can actually learn a thing or 2 about spreadsheets
- Hyperstudio 4 — I still like collecting odd multimedia creation titles; perhaps one day I will review them on my multimedia-oriented blog
This complete box was also available for cheap at the shop– Deep Raider:
Click for larger image
The box appeared to be re-shrinked. But maybe it was just poorly shrink-wrapped in the first place because the jewel case inside still looked fresh and all the other materials were pristine, including a USB “joymouse”:
Click for larger image
Despite never having been used, the d-pad still fell off when I opened the box, as pictured. Still, interesting marketing gimmick. This game has a release date of 2000, so this was very early in USB’s consumer lifetime. This is also the first PC game controller that I have seen which is modeled after the Sega Saturn’s controller.
I’m also a bit surprised that the publishers didn’t get in trouble thanks to main character’s striking resemblance to a Resident Evil 2-era Claire Redfield.
Jim Leonard says:
You’ve hit your Barbie game quotient. You must be stopped at all costs!
Zotmeister says:
I bought four copies of Deep Raider to get four of those controllers. I still use the controllers regularly. I still haven’t played Deep Raider.
I’m actually using one as a mouse right now – my actual mouse is currently sitting on its charging station.
I’ve had the left shoulder button die on two of them, but I’ve had no other issues with the Joymouse controllers (Joymice?) in all these years. Certainly no d-pads popping off, and I put them through their paces!
Being modeled after the Saturn controller (which is painfully obvious, even down to the CD music control shortcuts being molded into the plastic above the X/Y/Z buttons!) was a genius idea on the part of their designers. I always wanted to learn more about the history of these. – ZM
Multimedia Mike says:
Thanks for the feedback, Zotmeister. I admit that I still haven’t actually tried using this controller (nor have I played the game). But I trust it would still work.