Well, as many of you know I am an old-skool retrogamer much of the time. That being the case I like to emulate everything in site (mainly old arcade games). One of the latest CDs I picked up was Taito Legends 2 for PS2. Well, that was both good and bad. How was it bad? Well, my X-Box is getting pretty fried… takes 5 times or more to get it to read a game CD… and if you want to play a DVD movie?…forget it. It's pretty well shot now even after cleaning the laser lense and CDs.

I figured, OK…I still have the PS2 to play stuff. Well, I bought Taito Legends 2 "new" (Last copy where the CD was behind the counter with the box on the floor). I tried to load it up… no dice! The CD looks perfect (no scratches) and the PS2 got the laser lense cleaning treatment. No difference. I tried other CDs… some worked, Movies…no way again =(

So am I at a total loss? Nope… I just used MAME like I wanted to in the first place to run them =) I rather have ALL my stuff together ready to run on my PC with just a few clicks. I view it as at least "moral" as I "own" the games. I like to own the games I run.

Over the years I have owned just about every retro CD that came out. Namco Museum Volumes 1-5, Midway Collection 1+2, Atari Collection, Williams Arcade Greatest Hits, Midway Arcade Treasures 1-3, Capcom 1 and 2, Tecmo, Taito Legends, Arcade Party Pack, Namco 50th (to replace some missing CDs from a move years back),Atari Anthology etc…

Well, as much as I love "stick people" games under 100K with limited colors and mono sound, this latest CD may apeal to many of the people here in the younger age bracket.

I remember talking to a guy at Game Crazy and told him I was into "Retro-games". He was talking about picking up Final Fantasy 7 like it was retro. Nooooo! LOL! It's old, but not THAT old. If anybody out there feels "retro" means the late 80's and thru the 90's my latest score might apeal to you.

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Taito Legends 2 (Like Taito Legends 1) has a good spread over the years. Games from the late 70's to the late 90's, not to mention a little bit of everything for everybody. Driving, Fighting, Shooting, Gun Shooting, Platform, you name it.

Taito Legends 2 strength seems to be towards shooters. In the upper screenshots there is Camel Try (On The Ball for SNES), Darius Gaiden (Fricking YUM!!!),

Elevator Action Returns (Prototype I think?), and Cleopatra Fortune (no…it's more than Tetris! Surround the Gems and King Tut dudes and the blocks drop).

In the bottom picture are Puchi Carat (Breakout meets Puzzle Bobble style gameplay), Puzzle Bobble 2 (A.K.A. Bust A Move 2 on the PS1… I spent $25 just for that game years back!), G-Darius (Like Darius Gaiden was not good enough? Awesome 3-D and effects. Sound is still not perfect in MAME from what I can tell…but still quite playable),and Don Doko Don… a little Bubble Bobble-ish.

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My current count in MAME is 278 games I own, but some may be duplicates (Version 2, 3, different company, etc…) There are tons of retro titles out there for snaging dirt cheap now. (Taito Legends 2 cost me $15 and has 39 games on it). Other CDs with more modern stuff kinda are the Capcom CDs (mostly Volume 2), Taito Legends 1 has a few newer games on it but mostly classics, etc..

In my opinion, preserve EVERYTHING! Taito Legends 2 also has such dinosaurs as Crazy Ballon and Alpine Ski. Such wide variety… hope everyone gets the chance to experience them….and at less than 50 cents a game to own them, how can you go wrong?