Lazy Game Reviews

Unboxing and enjoying the Tomy Omnibot 2000! A 26-inch home robot that can speak, play music, bring you drinks, and generally felt like 'THE FUTURE' in the 80s. While still a toy, it actually sorta comes close to the type of droid popularized in sci-fi, which back then featured all manner of automaton companions. So grab a cassette tape and a soda and let's give this some input!

Unboxing and testing even more weird old mouse devices on a Windows 98 PC! Checking out a Sony clamshell mouse that opens up into a card reader, a Mad Catz mouse for The Sims 3 that lights up to show sims' moods, and an oddity with a built-in radio and antenna for recording FM stations to MP3 files.

It's been a while! Checking some of the usual thrift stores in my area and seeing what kinds of retro tech and random old oddities I can find. Plus traveling six hours to Richmond, Virginia to find even more because why not. Let's go thrifting, ooh yeah!

Celebrating the 25th anniversary of SimCity 3000! The third game in the classic Maxis city builder series had a false start in 3D form, but after EA took over and development restarted, the final 1999 game ended up being my favorite in the franchise. So let's revisit the Windows PC original, SC3K Unlimited, and the gameplay experience decades later in this LGR retrospective review!

For some reason I bought this cheap OptiPlex from 2004. So let's take a look at it! From my view, it's easily one of the most undesirable computer systems ever. Boring looks, basic business hardware, bad airflow, and suffering from capacitor plague. Does it even still work? Let's find out!

Checking out the odd Titans Sphere by SGRL from 1998! Intended as the ultimate controller for 3D games in the late 90s, the Sphere was a failure on practically every level. "Throw away your joystick?" Ehh not so fast, let's set up this bit of LGR Oddware and see it in action first.

The reviews must flow! And the spicy subject here is the first computer game adaptation of Dune, made by Cryo Interactive and Virgin Games in 1992. Take control of Arrakis as Paul Muad'Dib Atreides, reclaiming spice mines from the evil Harkonnens and forming a Fremen army to dominate the planet! Early 90s MS-DOS game goodness.

Taking a retrospective look at the Toshiba Libretto W100, an innovative dual 7-inch touchscreen UMPC from 2010! The final machine in the fabled Libretto line and the first consumer notebook with twin touch LCDs. A rare, fascinating, cutting edge Windows 7 system when new, and still an uncommon way of doing things today.

I got this nifty Gateway 2000 desktop from the 90s and don't know much about it! Except that it cost $2,649 when it was new. So let's dive into the G6-233M with its Pentium II MMX 233MHz and see what else is inside, what's broken or missing, and what needs repair and cleaning and such.

The first (and only?) LGR donations unboxing episode of 2024! Opening up a nice big selection of vintage hardware, software, oddware, computer games, and retro tech. Massive thank you to everyone who contributed this lovely stuff, it is all appreciated!

Revisiting UT2004 two decades later! This sequel to UT99 (er, UT2003?) from Epic Games and Digital Extremes was a staple of PC gaming in the 2000s, with the bombastic Onslaught mode being added to the classics of deathmatch, capture the flag, and so on. So let's review this classic FPS and dive into its predecessor, its gameplay, multiplayer, mods and more!

I've made a huge mistake and ignored the first rule of vintage computing: NEVER buy an old inkjet printer, especially a 90s Canon. Yet here we are with a BJC-2000 color printer from 1999... in an ideal world this was gonna be a fun romp into Windows 95 Bubble Jet printing, plus a test of the IS-22 scanner cartridge. In reality though, everything about this thing sucks and is awful and that should surprise no one. Least of all me, but whatcha gonna do.

Revisiting this CS-630 from the year 2000! The Intel Pocket PC Camera is a glorified webcam with batteries when it comes down to it. But that simplicity made it an ideal introduction into shooting digital for 14-year-old me back in the day! So join me as I unbox a new one and revisit this toylike camera for the first time over two decades.

Checking out the odd Mouse Yoke from 1992! Colorado Spectrum sold several flight simulator adjacent devices in the 90s but this is the weird one of the bunch. Clamp the base to a desk, strap in a computer mouse, slide in the shaft, and enjoy a realistic aircraft yoke! Possibly, in theory, sort of! This bizarre thing is prime LGR Oddware for sure.

Unboxing and setting up this 80s retro oddity on LGR! The Intermatrix Mac Phone is an early peripheral for the original Apple Mac computer from 1984. For $200 back then you got a telephone to stick on the side of your system, a dialer program... and that's about it! It's become a rather rare collectible, so let's install and test this one 40 years later.

Assembling a mid 90s Windows NT workstation computer! Specifically NT 4.0 with two Intel Pentium Pro 200MHz processors, maxed-out RAM, and a Matrox MGA Millennium video card. All in an awesome metal case on wheels. Testing, dusting, building, troubleshooting, games, CAD rendering and more! Most of which I've never done so let's dive in and make some mistakes.

Celebrating 15 years of LGR! When I first starting making these videos, the retro gaming and vintage computer scene looked quite different. So let's take a look back at how much the hobby has changed in the last decade and a half! Mostly for the better, I feel.

Checking out the 2007 Novint Technologies Falcon on LGR Oddware! A combination of haptics and force feedback providing up to 2 pounds of force for everything from recoil, to impacts, to caressing balls. A fascinating input device that never got the userbase it arguably deserved.

The KDS PC CD Organizer was first released in 2001 and holds 75 discs of any type! CDs, DVDs, games, software, doesn't matter. Mainly because it relies on your PC for all the smarts and data-related stuff. Still, it's a fascinating optical media storage solution and the motorized innards are just fun to look at!

The original emerald green Acer Aspire is a 90s classic! A once-common PC that has become a desired rarity for its styling by Hartmut Esslinger's Frog Design group. And its specs were respectable in 1995 with a 100MHz Pentium, 16MB RAM, 2MB PCI graphics, Sound Blaster Vibra 16 and Windows 95. So let's run the factory restoration CD and explore what it can do!

Gameplay and overview of the SIXTEENTH expansion pack to The Sims 4. This time it's all about romance and all that comes with it! Relationship dynamics, dating, jealousy, gaudy decor, and lots and lots of woohoo. Is it worth yet another $40? Let's see!

Retrospective on the PV-SD4090 digital camera from 1999! Panasonic decided to make a digicam based on the LS-120 Super Disk format they manufactured, and jeez is it an upgrade over a Sony Mavica in many ways. So I took it with me on a trip to New York to test it out!

Checking out Long Island Retro Gaming Expo, a unique classic game show at the Cradle of Aviation Museum! An overview of the show itself, what it's like attending and exhibiting, and of course a tour of everything they had on display in 2024. It's become my favorite vintage video game event, so let's dive in!

Unboxing, setting up, and enjoying the Voodoo 3 3500 TV card from 3dfx. When it launched in 1999 it was one of the best GPUs around, and the fastest V3 from the factory! Its main appeal though is its TV and FM radio tuning and video capture abilities, all thanks to its big long dongle.

When Hurricane Helene hit my home in Asheville, North Carolina in September 2024, two oak trees fell through the roof and wrecked the place. Including the main LGR vintage computer collection downstairs where lots of rain water leaked through, resulting in moisture and mold issues. This first part of the cleanup process is unboxing the moldy boxes, evaluating the damage, and cleaning the surfaces of things! Internal cleaning and testing will occur later.

Opening up an unused in the box PlayStation 2 built in 2000! Sony released the system over two decades ago and for whatever reason this felt like the right time to unbox a fat one, set it up, go through its peripherals, and play some games. Different place, different rules!

When Hurricane Helene hit my home in Asheville, North Carolina in September 2024, two oak trees fell through the roof and wrecked the place. Including my upstairs living room and the main LGR vintage computer collection downstairs where lots of rain water leaked through, each causing water and mold issues. This part of the cleanup process is unboxing the moldy boxes, evaluating the damage, and cleaning the surfaces of things! Internal cleaning and testing is for later.

Going back to 1985 with The Computer Chronicles for Christmas! Their holiday buying guides from the mid 80s into the 1990s are some of my favorite cozy TV episodes. Grab a festive drink and join me in watching this seasonal retro computing goodness!

I'm calling it, folks! For a multitude of reasons which I go into at the end of the video, this is the final "donations unboxing" thing on LGR. I may still do individual vids on special items that trickle in through the mail over on LGR Blerbs, but these long mailbag videos are done for the foreseeable future on LGR. Hopefully the reasons I provide in the video make sense!