Stone Age Gamer keeping the good old days… good

By Stephen Munn | November 18, 2008

Old school gaming may be experiencing a bit of a renaissance here on Aeropause thanks to neat brick-and-mortal retailers like PlayNTrade, but it’s common knowledge that the Internet is an excellent place to find old gaming goodness. If you haven’t heard of Stone Age Gamer, this is my chance to crow about them a little bit, because I recently had an experience that might make you think less of me, but much more of Stone Age Gamer.

Here’s how this went down.

I had read quite a bit about the RetroDuo console, which is a third party clone system that runs NES, SNES, and Super Famicom games. This is a newer generation of NOAC (NES on a chip) that can run the more complex titles that didn’t run on older NOACs, such as Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. The main reason I wanted a RetroDuo was this. My NES is broken (beyond the standard 72-pin slot replacement) and I wanted to be able to run the NES and SNES games in my growing Castlevania collection, as well as any others I happened to pick up.

When I searched for a cheap place to buy one, Stone Age Gamer came up with the cheapest price point at $39.99. I hit the site and found they had a lot of unusual items I wanted, such as a new AC adapter, video cable and controller for my N64. I gathered together my shopping cart of stuff and placed the order. Within a few days my order arrived, and I excitedly assembled my new RetroDuo and started trying games.

When every game I tried had serious audio issues, I contacted Stone Age Gamer for assistance and they sent me a return services UPS label for the system. I shipped it back for replacement and when they got it, they sent me an email to tell me they had tested seven games in it without issue. They asked what games I had tried, and when three of them were Castlevania titles (the other was Ninja Gaiden), they pointed out that these are games that notoriously have issues with clone systems. Sheepishly, I asked them to send the system back to me, and they were happy to do so, but not before offering me free shipping on anything else in the store (since a box was already on its way back to me, why not?) I bought a memory/rumble pack for my N64, which I had forgotten last time, and now everything’s back here at home.

I’ll save my RetroDuo review for when I’ve had more time with the system, but kudos to Stone Age Gamer for putting up with my stupidity on the NOAC compatibility situation. Check them out and be aware that if you have any problems, even if you’re a dumbass, they’ll take care of you.

More about Stone Age Gamer, from their website:

Stone Age Gamer was founded by retro gamers to fill what we feel is a void for our old school gaming brethren. As classic gaming has become more and more popular the last few years, there did not seem to be a place that appealed to casual gamers, serious collectors, and home-brewers.

Stone Age Gamer strives to be a reputable seller of classic games, consoles, and accessories. We also carry a variety of brand new “reincarnations”. Here at Stone Age Gamer we take detailed pictures of everything we sell and we are one of the few classic gaming stores that offer product protection on many of our items that are no longer supported by their manufacturer at no extra cost.

Stone Age Gamer also runs gaming sites including StoneAgeGamer.org (a retro gaming community), SAG-Collector.com (a web site for collectors with certificates to check their Collector Protection refund values), and ArmyOfTheFallen.com (an MMO community).