Collection Update – One Game Found and One Removed

Edging ever closer to completing the collection, with another hard to find title knocked off the list...

The latest addition is the Ricochet re-release of the Lucasfilm Games classic The Eidolon. This was another Ebay purchase, costing £4.88.

Also, as I mentioned in my last collection update, I had a strong feeling that two of the remaining games I need to find were never released on cassette. Of those two, I am now 100% confident that Shogun was only ever released by Mastertronic on disk in the USA, and never received a cassette release. Therefore I am dropping that game from the list, leaving just seven to go for.

The other game I suspect only ever got a disk release is Five-a-Side Soccer but I’m not totally sure about that yet so it remains on the list for now.

Finally, this week I got my first glance at what is certainly one of the rarest Mastertronic releases – Ski Writer. This word processing package sold less than 2,000 copies on cassette, and a similar number on disk, so is sure to be one of the hardest titles to find. Unfortunately the one that popped upon Ebay this week is the disk version, but at least I now have an idea what the packaging might look like!

So the quest continues. I’m hoping to at least pick up a couple more games before Christmas so if you can help, please send me a message!

Total games: 203

Average cost: £1.23

Collection Update – A ‘Holy Grail’ Discovered!

Nope, not the Quest for the Holy Grail game (I’ve had that for a while) but I have in fact found one of the few games in the Mastertronic line-up that is so rare it can be considered a Holy Grail of sorts…

Yes, as the video shows, I have picked up How to be a Complete Bastard (Ricochet) for £5.00 after spotting it in an Ebay bundle. This goes to show that it sometimes pays off to scan through all Ebay listings in case something you’re looking for is listed as part of a larger bundle.

The second title picked up recently is Frenesis (Mastertronic), which was also part of a bundle of four games, the other three of which I already had. Since I can’t see myself recouping any of the cost of these, I’m just putting this game down as costing £3.24, which was the price for the whole bundle.

That now leaves just nine games on my list to find, though I have a strong feeling that two of those were never released on cassette so may be dropped.

Total games: 202

Average cost: £1.21

Collection Update – Two Ton Up!

Well I’ve had these two games for over a month now and the video has been on YouTube for ages but I forgot to post here for my legion of 3 or 4 adoring blog followers! ;-)

Two relatively easy finds from Ebay this time in Leviathan (Mastertronic Plus, £2.99) and Kentilla (Mastertronic, £2.75) which take my overall total to an even 200 games.

Total games: 200

Average cost: £1.18

Collection Update – Two More Titles

Just a quick update here for my latest Ebay purchases.

So two more of the rare titles obtained - Die! Alien Slime from Mastertronic Plus cost £3.20, and Starforce Fighter in second-wave Mastertronic packaging was £2.49.

That’s pretty much it. The search continues for the remaining 13 games!

Total games: 198

Average cost: £1.16

Collection Update – Edging Closer!

My latest acquisitions from Ebay add another five games to the collection...

One bundle consisted of three relatively hard to find games that worked out at £2.00 each – Alcazar (Mastertronic), Octoplex (M.A.D.) and Psycho Hopper (Mastertronic Plus). A good haul for the price!

The other two games in this update were individual purchases. Actually one of them isn’t a game at all - Make Music with Mistertronic was a relatively early release and has unique white grid-style packaging. Finally for this update is the last of the Mastertronic Plus games in the yellow packaging, Super Stock Car.

I now have just 15 titles left to collect, which are as follows:

Ballblazer (Ricochet)

Barry Mcguigan's Boxing (Mastertronic Plus)

Die! Alien Slime (Mastertronic Plus)

The Eidolon (Ricochet)

Five-a-side Soccer (M.A.D.)

Frenesis (Mastertronic)

How to be a Complete Bastard (Ricochet)

Kentilla (Mastertronic)

Leviathan (Mastertronic Plus)

Pigs in Space (Mastertronic)

Shogun (Mastertronic)

Ski Writer (Mastertronic)

Starforce Fighter (Mastertronic)

Trailblazer (Ricochet)

UCM: Ultimate Combat Mission (M.A.D.)

If you can assist with any of these please let me know!

Total games: 196

Average cost: £1.15

Collection Update – Filling the Gaps

Yet more games have arrived for the collection, gradually building towards the 200 mark...

It’s now a case of waiting patiently for the rarer titles whilst still filling the odd gaps with the missing common titles. All the games in this update came from Ebay, with the cost ranging from £1.90 to £2.95 per game. Inevitably now I’m having to be more choosy with what I bid on, the average cost per game is increasing a little.

First up we have three ‘grid style’ Mastertronic offerings - Mind Control and Sub Hunt are both relatively hard to come by, while Spectipede is a lot more common.

Next there are four games in later Mastertronic packaging, three of which are not too hard to find. They are Bosconian '87, The Curse of Sherwood and Molecule Man. The last one is less frequently seen – The Quest for the Golden Eggcup.

Finally we have a variety of titles, some of which I would class as uncommon based on my experience thus far - Impossible Mission (Ricochet), Rad Ramp Racer (Mastertronic Plus), plus Vectorball and Lazer Wheel (both M.A.D.)

So that’s another 11 games crossed off the list, which leaves just a handful of common ones before the inevitable long search for the really rare stuff.

Total games: 191

Average cost: £1.10

Collection Update – 180!

Yes, it’s 180 in more ways than one with my latest update…

Firstly, and most significantly, my latest batch of games brings my total to 180 Mastertronic titles, meaning there are less than 40 left to complete my collection.

Secondly, one of the games in this batch is the darts simulation 180 in the M.A.D. packaging, donated by my good friend and Retro Gamer forum stalwart SirClive. This is an extra special version of the game as the packaging has been signed by one of the developers, Ste Pickford!

The remainder of this batch consists of more Ebay purchases. First up are three of the rarer offerings – Rugby Manager (Mastertronic Plus), Geoff Capes Strongman (Ricochet) and Pulsoids (Mastertronic) – I’ve only seen these once or twice on Ebay so they are certainly welcome additions!

The rest of this batch are far more common and all cost less than a quid each. From the M.A.D. range comes Strike, and in second-wave Mastertronic packaging I have Master Chess, S.O.S. and Rasterscan.

That’s it for this update but more games have been purchased so expect another one very soon...

Total games: 180

Average cost: £1.03

Collection Update – Nine New Additions

Another week and another bunch of games join the collection.

First up came a bundle of five games donated by one of my YouTube subscribers, Retroid64. For just £3 to cover postage I got two Mastertronic games, Hyper Force and Jungle Story, two M.A.D. games, Hole in One and Master of Magic, and also Cage Match which is an Entertainment USA release that completes my collection of games in that packaging.

Also this week came more games from Ebay. For a combined price of £4.22 came three games - Big Mac and Quest for the Holy Grail (both Mastertronic) and Hero of the Golden Talisman (M.A.D.) And finally for this update is a Ricochet offering, the re-release of Ultimate’s Outlaws, which at cost of £2.06 is my most expensive purchase so far!

That brings the total number of games past the 170 mark, with a little over 45 still to go.

Total games: 172

Average cost: £1.02

Collection Update – Ricochet rarities and more...

Another 8 games added to the collection this week, most of which came from Ebay. Check out the video for all the details...

The highlights of this week’s arrivals were the three Ricochet games, all of which are fairly hard to come by – Toy Bizarre, Jet Set Willy and Starquake. I’m very pleased to have picked all of these up for under £2 each.

The remainder are all commonly occurring titles but it’s still good to be adding a few of these to the collection. In classic Mastertronic grid-style packaging we have The Human Race and Space Hunter, plus Back to Reality in the second-wave Mastertronic packaging.

Rounding off this update comes two Mastertronic Plus games – 3D Pinball and the re-release of Activision’s Hacker II.

As always I’m keeping the average purchase price under £2 a game and I now only have around 50 games to acquire...

Total games: 163

Average cost: £1.02

Collection Update – So much for slowing down!

Despite my best intentions to ease off on the purchases, the collecting bug has bitten hard and I continue to find deals too good to pass up...

First up this time is another trade with Retro Gamer forum member simes. I sent him half a dozen unwanted games from some of my earlier C64 bundles, and in return I got no less than 14 Mastertronic titles, including a few of the harder to find ones. The net cost to me worked out at a very generous 30p per game!

The bulk of the bundle was games in standard Mastertronic packaging, including The Captive, Munch Mania, Prowler, Rollaround, Starlifter, Super Nudge 2000, Super Trolley and Vegas Jackpot.

Also in the lot were four M.A.D. titles - Angle Ball, Superstar Ping-Pong, The Wizards Pet and Zub – and rounding things off came FA Cup Football (Ricochet) and Yes, Prime Minister (Mastertronic Plus).

I also picked up some more games from Ebay, mostly from the same seller thus saving money on postage costs. Again this was a mixed bag, covering most of the different brands. In Mastertronic packaging came Beat It, Street Beat and Treasure Island, and there was also Fighting Warrior (Mastertronic Plus).

Finishing things off for this update were Ball Crazy and On Cue (M.A.D.) and Las Vegas Video Poker (Entertainment USA). None of these games cost more than £2 so my average price paid has actually dropped below a pound again!

Even more games are on their way, so this won’t be the last of the collection updates this month!

Total games: 155

Average cost: £0.98

Collection Update – More Ebay buys and a big bunch of rarities!

Yet more additions to the collection, starting with a small selection of Ebay purchases and ending with a great bundle...

As the collection grows, the chances of getting large bundles of games to fill in the holes is diminishing, so instead I’m looking at reasonably priced one-offs. Where possible I’ll try to get them from the same seller to save on the postage costs.

So from Ebay this week I’ve received three packages. The first had two games that cost just 50p each plus postage – Rapid Fire (Mastertronic) and Continental Circus (Mastertronic Plus). The other two featured one game each from the Ricochet range, the re-releases of Aliens (£2.00) and the first Dan Dare game (£1.74)

My other purchase this week was quite substantial. I discovered the online store Retro Gaming World had a vast number of games from my hit list for £1.99 each, including quite a few of the hard to find titles. It turns out that the store is based just down the road in Stafford, and although the stock isn’t on display there, I agreed to pick the games I wanted up from there to save myself the cost of postage. So a few days later and with the help from my better half (who works in Stafford) I received a bag of ten games, several of which I haven’t seen on Ebay yet!

In Mastertronic packaging came Phantom of the Asteroid and Rogue, while from the M.A.D. range I got Grand Prix Tennis and Jeff Minter’s Revenge II.

There were also two games from the Mastertronic Plus range, Fist II and Micro Mouse, and another three from Ricochet – Blackwyche, Judge Dredd and Skate Rock Simulator.

Last but by no means least came a real rarity – a promotional cassette featuring a rolling demo of Darling Brothers game screenshots on one side, and an exclusive game on the other side from Mr Chip Software, called Aqua. I’m not sure if this was originally a covermount or was given away at computer shows, but it’s a really interesting addition to the collection featuring a game that was never released at retail!

So that’s another 14 games added to the collection and some of the uncommon titles crossed off the list. Clearly I have plenty to be getting on with now so I expect to slow down on the buying for the next couple of weeks unless I see something too good to miss.

Total games: 134

Average cost: £1.01

Collection Update - Various Bits and Bobs

Over the past week I’ve received a number of small bundles through the post, including some of the harder-to-find Mastertronic titles.

First up was a copy of the M.A.D. re-release of the classic Manic Miner. This was an Ebay purchase costing £1.99 including postage. Also on the same day came a donation from Retro Gamer forum member Bub&Bob. There were three games in the package, all from the Mastertronic range – two new additions in the form of Motorbike Madness and Wing Commander, plus another copy of Kikstart that had a better quality inlay than the one I already owned. These cost me absolutely nothing!

A few days later came three packages. Two were Ebay purchases, containing two games in each. First were titles that I’ve thus far only seen on Ebay once (and these were them!) – Street Hassle from Mastertronic Plus and Brian Jacks Superstar Challenge from Ricochet. They cost £1.99 each with free postage. The second pair were more common but the Ebay seller had a 20% off sale so I picked them up while they were a bit cheaper than usual – Rebel (Ricochet, £1.59) and Pulse Warrior (Mastertronic, £1.43)

The third package contained five games courtesy of tachi from Retro Gamer forum. These cost £7.00 for the lot and included several uncommon titles. From the Mastertronic brand came Kobayashi Naru and Venom, the Ricochet range was represented by Dragonskulle and Little Computer People, and finally there was Bump Set Spike! from Entertainment USA.

And finally, yesterday came another couple of games via Ebay – Silkworm (Mastertronic Plus) and Scout (Mastertronic) which cost £3.28 for the pair.

So the collection grows once again and the average cost has increased a little, but with under 100 games remaining I’m well on course to keep below that £1.99 per game target.

Total games: 120

Average cost: £0.91

Collection Update – A Century Reached!

Four more packages of games have arrived over the last week or so, taking the collection to well over 100 games...

From fellow collector and blogger Alex Aris came a bundle of five new additions plus a couple of bonuses. The new games are Amaurote, Magic Carpet, Squirm, Starace and Werewolves of London. Alex only charged me for postage on these so the cost for these games was just 60 pence each!

Next came a completely free donation of five games from Retro Gamer forumite Antiriad2097, although only one of these games was a new one. The other four were generally in better shape than my existing copies however, so have made their way into the collection, with the surplus to be passed on to other C64 gamers. The one new addition was Knuckle Busters, a re-release on the Ricochet brand and a relatively rare one too.

Also popping through my letterbox were two Ebay purchases. The first was Ninja, which cost £1.25, and the second was a pair of uncommon titles in the form of Bazooka Bill (another Ricochet offering) and Knight Games (Mastertronic Plus packaging). These cost £1.79 each including postage.

So that’s another nine games in the collection and yet the average cost hasn’t changed at all!

Total games: 106

Average cost: £0.85

Collection Update - Something a Bit Different

No new games in this update but some commentary on the trials and tribulations of being a collector...

Buying those replacement tape cases has of course marginally increased my average game price – I’ve added 20p to the cost of any game where I’ve replaced the case.

Total games: 97

Average cost: £0.85

Collection Update – Starship Delivers The Goods!

If you thought the last update was big, this one’s even bigger…

The video goes into more detail, so to keep it brief, this batch came from Retro Gamer forum member StarshipUK and basically features 36 new games for a derived cost of 62p each. As you’ll see from the photos some of the boxes are going to need replacing as they are in poor shape or covered in stickers, but there’s no denying this is another bargain bundle.

The majority of titles are on the main Mastertronic brand but there are offerings from all the other variants as well, with some of the rarer games included. There’s not really much more to say other than a big thanks to StarshipUK and here’s a full list of all those games:

Mastertronic

1985: The Day After, Agent X II, Bionic Granny/Jungle Story, BMX Racers, BMX Trials, Chiller, Dark Star, Duck Shoot, The Election Game, Excaliba, Hyperbowl, Kane, Kane 2, Kikstart, Milk Race, One Man and His Droid, Orbitron, Sailing, Se-Kaa of Assiah, Skyjet, Speed King, Starforce Nova, Storm, Zzzzz

Mastertronic Plus

Rescue on Fractalus and Tetris

M.A.D.

Con-Quest, Raw Recruit, Sport of Kings and Voidrunner

Ricochet

Crazy Comets, Eddie Kidd Jump Challenge, Hacker, Tau Ceti and X-15 Alpha Mission

Entertainment USA

Los Angeles S.W.A.T.

In addition to that massive bundle, another small packet arrived with four games purchased from Ebay – they were 75p each plus an incredibly specific £1.46 for postage.

This lot consisted of Finders Keepers, The Last V8, Speed Zone and City Fighter. I’m now edging close to 100 games in total!

Total Games: 97

Average Cost: £0.80

Collection Update – Monster Ebay Bundle!

The Ebay seller Rockrabilia is one that I’ve bought quite a few games from over the years. Whilst browsing the almost endless C64 Ebay listings last week I happened upon a bundle of 33 games for a Buy It Now price of £19.49 including postage. Closer inspection revealed that 23 of the games were Mastertronic or Ricochet ones, and amazingly none of them were already in my collection! Needless to say, these were snapped up and arrived the other day...

Discounting the non-Mastertronic titles completely, the average price of the games works out at just under 85p each, and of course I have ten free games as well! A massive boost to the collection and at a great price too. Additionally most of these games are ‘new old stock’ meaning they are in great condition!

Breaking the lot down into chunks, firstly there are four M.A.D. games – Countdown to Meltdown, Energy Warrior, Ice Palace and Rockford.

In the Mastertronic packaging there is Dynamix, Gaplus, Knight Tyme, Majik, Nonterraqueous and Sweep.

On the Mastertronic Plus label is a selection of original and re-released games, including Advanced Basketball Simulator, Gemini Wing, Jonah Barrington’s Squash, Raster-Runner, Sidewinder II, T-Bird and Xenon.

Last but not least come six re-releases on the Ricochet brand – 5th Quadrant, Dan Dare II, Erebus, Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, Knightmare and Rock’n’Bolt.

 

That takes me comfortably past 50 titles in the collection, so I better get playing some of them!

Total Games: 57

Average Cost: £0.90

Collection Update - First Ebay Purchase

A week ago I won a bundle of 20 Commodore 64 games on Ebay for the opening bid price of 99p, plus £5 postage. That works out at less than 30p a game! I picked up the package yesterday and recorded the opening…

This bundle actually only contains five Mastertronic titles but at the price it went for, I couldn’t resist! Cost-wise I’ve allocated a value of 75p to each Mastertronic game with the remaining 15 games being valued at £2.24 altogether. Some of those will be kept, others sold on or given away, so the cost of the five significant games may be reduced depending what I get for the remainder.

The games in this lot are Bomb Fusion, Formula 1 Simulator, Mindtrap, Shinobi and Night Racer. The latter game is in pretty poor shape – the inlay is a mess with the back cover torn off – so I will look to replace that when the opportunity arises.

So I’ve only been collecting for a matter of days and already I’ve passed the 30 games mark and the average cost still remains lower than a quid!

Total Games: 34

Average Cost: £0.93

First Collection Update

Well I’ve got my first batch of new games for the collection courtesy of a couple of deals done on the Retro Gamer forum, so I marked this event by recording my first ever ‘package opening’ YouTube video…

The first bundle consists of ten games from RG forum member Shinobi, and cost me £10 including postage. This is a mixed bag that includes five of the early grid-style packaging releases - Bionic Granny, Hektik, Hollywood or Bust, Space Walk and Spooks!

Also in this batch are a couple of M.A.D. releases from the ‘Magic Knight’ series of games, Spellbound and Stormbringer, plus Legend of the Amazon Women and two re-released games in the form of Camelot Warriors and Double Dragon.

The other package came from RG forum member simes and consists of two games based on classic 80’s toy franchises – Action Force and Transformers. The latter is a re-release of the Activision game. This bundle was a straight trade for two unwanted items from my collection which originally cost me a total of £3.50, so I’m valuing these two games at £1.75 each.

One thing I’ve already noticed is the inconsistency of the packaging for re-released Activision games. For example Ghostbusters comes in the Ricochet packaging, Pastfinder comes on the M.A.D. label and Transformers has the Mastertronic Plus branding. As yet I see no obvious reason for this!

Adding these to the games I already had brings the collection summary up to:

Total Games: 29
Average Cost: £0.96

The Story So Far

At the time of writing I have not officially started building my collection, but I do already have some Mastertronic games for the C64 as part of my general games collection:

My collection thus far consists of 17 games, which span all of the different types of branding…

From the early wave of Mastertronic releases with the signature grid-style packaging I have Action Biker, Challenger and Hunter Patrol, while the in the later packaging style there is Video Meanies, P.O.D. and the brilliant Kikstart II. Also under the regular branding is Pipeline 2, which reverts to the grid-style design for some reason despite being a much later release.

In the M.A.D. (Mastertronic Added Dimension) packaging comes a mixed bag, including shooters Kromazone and Motos, action adventures in the form of Flash Gordon and Droids, and a re-release of Activision’s classic Pastfinder.

Also in the collection to date are two classic games re-released on the Ricochet label – Ghostbusters and Way of the Exploding Fist, while on the Entertainment USA brand there is isometric shooter Panther and Street Surfer, which is inexplicably one of my all-time favourite C64 games! Last but not least is split-screen helicopter shooter Protector from the Mastertronic Plus range.

So that’s not a bad starting point, with some of the best games Mastertronic had to offer already in the bag. None of these games cost me more than £2 to purchase and the majority came in a job lot purchase from the Retro Gamer forum a couple of years ago, which means my average price per game at this point is under a quid!

Total Games: 17

Average Cost: £0.85