Interview #2. Brandon @ The Old School Game Vault

Blogging live to you and yours! It’s your boy TWOTALL4UFOOL. This is interview #2 of this interview series I’m doing on my blog and I had the pleasure of interviewing Brandon @ The Old School Game Vault. If you are looking to buy and sell used games you need to check  his site out. Last month he did a guest post on the retro game Blades of Steel. Check it out if you haven’t yet. Anyway let’s get into the interview and I hope you all enjoy!

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2TALL: Brandon thank you for taking time to do this interview. So it seems like you are big retro gamer to the looks of your website. I’m curious though do you play current games? If so what do you have? If not then explain why not?

Brandon: No I don’t play much of the current stuff. I will play with my son when he asks, but I generally like to stick with the retro stuff. The retro stuff has great playability when I have 30 minutes to play something. I can pick up a shmup and go to town.

2T: That sounds awesome man. So where did it all begin for you when it came to gaming?

B: Started back in grade school, with the first legend of Zelda got me hooked. I was the kid in the neighborhood who would always go around and help others find secrets or help them get past difficult parts in Zelda.

2T: What are your all time favorite game/games?

B: The Legend of Zelda, Contra, Tecmo Bowl, Blazing Lasers, Soldier Blade, BioShock, Final Fight, Samurai Warriors.

2T: What is your all time favorite console?

B: The Nintendo NES as I grew up with that, but the Turbografx is a blast to play, even today.

2T: I never had the Turbografx but I’ve heard nothing but good things about it. So let’s say you could play the role of developer. What kind of game would you develop? What platform would you want to have it on?

B: Beat’em Up – I’d put it out on steam, I’d try and replicate the 16-bit era of graphics.

2T: Nothing like a good beat ’em up. If you were to introduce someone to video games what would you recommend?

B: Depends on the person, video games are so evolved compared to years ago. Young kid, lego star wars, teenager a shooter, an adult depends on their personality. There are some many different types of games and stories to encounter.

2TALL: Where did you get the idea for your website The Old School Game Vault?

B: Dumb luck really, years ago I was buying and selling vintage electronics. From Vintage speakers, receivers and reel to reels. Then I stumbled across a bunch of colecovision stuff. I sold all the stuff on eBay and made some real good money. So, I took the $200 in profit I made and decided I was going to buy video games and make a platform do sell them on. The rest is history!

2TALL: How long has your site been around?

B: Over 10 years.

2TALL: Wow you been a around a minute. I notice your website does have a blog. What are some of the topics you blog about?

B: Boy the blog has been around a long time, nowadays I find myself writing and educating others about retro stuff. I like to do reviews, I also like to dig up weird facts about the retro stuff. Some of my most popular articles are about different ways to fix things, and the different ways to spot reproduction / counterfeit games.

2TALL: Now I was doing some inquiries on what games you buy. I typed in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The game that came up for the highest price was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters for the NES believe it or not. Could you explain that?

B: Supply and demand in the collector’s market. Tournament Fighters came out at the end of NES life cycle. This is also the time when the Super Nintendo was on the market. Since most gamers were buying Super Nintendo games and consoles. The NES stuff was not as popular any more. Since there wasn’t a demand for Tournament Fighters on the NES, the supply of the game was limited. Nowadays this is makes for a rare game. This is a big reason why Super Mario Bros 3 doesn’t sell for much, as they made 25 million copies of the game.

2TALL: Yeah they were still pumping out games for the NES for up to two years after the SNES came out. After I got my SNES I pretty much only played the NES when I went to my grandmothers house until she told me to take it one day when she was doing some remodeling. Are you into emulation of any sort or do you prefer the original hardware?

B: I don’t have a problem with emulation as long as you’re not trying to re-sell it. I prefer to play on the original hardware, as I have the entire turbografx library on emulation. I have an everdrive card which slips right into the original turbografx console. It’s pretty sweet as I can use the original console and controllers.

2TALL: I agree. There are a lot of resellers out there and it just makes me mad to see people doing it and people who actually buy it without doing research. Do you think that retro games have aged well?

B: Depends on the game and the system. I love the 16 bit graphics still today as the cartoon graphics still look great. I think the mid 90’s 64 bit graphics are looking worse. It’s hard to go back and play a lot of PS1, N64 and Saturn games. They are just so blocky and pixelated.

2TALL: Yeah I have to agree that 32-bit and 64-bit games as a whole have not aged well. Some are better than others but overall it’s very hard to play some of those games today. Let’s have some real fun now!

2TALL: Favorite food?

B: Foie Gras

2TALL: PC or Mac?

B: Mac but use a PC for coding

2TALL: You code. Nice! A place you have always wanted to travel?

B: France, Italy

2TALL: I visited both of those countries years back. Favorite movie?

B: Batman

2TALL: Favorite cartoon character?

B: Scooby-Doo

2TALL: Scooby-Doo that’s a great franchise. Sprite or Sierra Mist?

B: Sprite

2TALL: Favorite sport?

B: Football

2TALL: Favorite game that isn’t a video game?

B: Playing Golf

2TALL: Nintendo or Sega?

B: Nintendo

2TALL: Guilty pleasure?

B: Drinking a Beer in the Shower

2TALL: I need to try that sometime. Ok anything you like to say to the readers out there before I conclude this interview.

B: Please don’t support or Buy Repro’s, Reproduction Video Games and or Counterfeit Video Games or Consoles. Otherwise thanks again.

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A big thank you once again to Brandon @ The Old School Game Vault for doing the interview. Hopefully he comes back again and contributes more awesome retro game reviews for the site. And hopefully you all enjoyed the interview. I got another one coming next week. If you would like to be interviewed (or want to interview me) please reach out. Blogging live to you and yours! It’s your boy TWOTALL4UFOOL! Remember TOGETHER EVERYONE ACHIEVES MORE! Thanks for reading and I hope you all enjoyed! Later!