BionicDodo

I own far more of their wonderful books than I don't own. The Mega Drive cancellation was a real shame, although part of me feels like a Master System book without any mention of Wonder Boy is perhaps worse than no book at all.

Would love a PC Engine Visual Compendium, for someone to write a book about the Acorn Archimedes series (and the fabulous output of the Fourth Dimension) and maybe an in-depth book about Falcom and their wonderful action RPG series like Ys and Dragon Slayer.

Anyway, happy 10th birthday Bitmap Books! Keep up the wonderful work and don't let any legal issues or cancellations get you down too much. You deliver beautiful work that I am proud to own most of.

Revenge of Shinobi (aka The Super Shinobi) also initially featured Sonny Chiba's likeness on the title screen until it was edited in a later revision.

It's Mappy Kong!

My original Steam Deck doesn't creak but the B button does get momentarily stuck at times. It's rarely an issue in 3D games - where I use the shoulder and rear buttons more than the four face ones - but in things like fighting games it can be a pain. I should have reported it when the machine was new but I was having so much fun with the thing that I didn't want to send it back off for repair. May take it apart and see if I can fix it myself at some point. Otherwise my only complaint is that it isn't the OLED model!

@Steel76 Yeah, I had the exact same thought when I saw this thing. A clicky NEOGEO Pocket style stick and proper d-pad would be great but an analogue stick and a four button d-pad?! Nuts!

@MARl0 Thanks, that's done it. I copied them over without ever opening the folder and looking inside! Model 2 all working now. Still not seeing Model 3 games in Rom Manager though, which is weird as I saw them there at first.

@MARl0 I'm having the same issue with Model 2. Can't get that working at all. Oddly Steam Rom Manager recognised my Model 3 games at first and I added them but now it can't see them anymore. The Model 3 games are all running fine in EmulationStation in gaming mode though. Model 2 I've had no luck at all with.

Haven't had much time to play around yet but I ran the update and updated all emulators and now EmulationStation doesn't seem to want to launch from Gaming Mode. Will investigate later.

Pretty cool, but the Dreamcast was always such a lovely compact console that mine still fits just nicely on my TV stand as it is.

And now I will have the Mysterious Cities of Gold TV series theme stuck in my head for the rest of the day!

I would love an 'all-in-one' Analogue console that takes Mega Drive and 32X cartridges as well as having a CD drive for Mega CD games too.

I love my Saturn. This is a pretty nice list. Some of my favourites that didn't make their Top 10 are... Saturn Bomberman, Bubble Symphony, Die Hard Arcade/Dynamite Deka, Shining Wisdom, Shining the Holy Ark and Dark Savior.

Loved SWIV on the Acorn Archimedes and even have the GBC version. Always been interested to try this game, so might just pick it up.

The Amiibo of the 90s!

This looks great. Wonder if they'd do a port to the Master System itself...

I find it amazing that anyone would describe RoboCop Versus The Terminator as risible. I also remember the MD version getting good reviews here in the UK when it came out. Mean Machines and CVG both scored it over 90%. I have the game for both Mega Drive and Master System and enjoy both versions. Even if you find it a bit generic or dislike the level design or whatever, I can't see what would make it risible.

This game looks like good fun and I will definitely give it a try at some point.

I'm going to try and look past this and enjoy the fact that we will soon be able to play Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands and Parasol Stars on Switch. We also have various Puzzle Bobbles.

Not to sound greedy, but can we have Bubble Symphony and Bubble Memories next please? Pretty please?

That opening text crawl is amazing!

@Futureshark I'm with you on Rastan! I wonder if there will be a third Milestones collection too.

Looks stunning. Great effort.

Yes! This is a brilliant addition! Day 1 buy. Really looking forward to this one.

Brilliant update! I've been wanting turbo fire for shmups for an age, but especially since the EXP came along with TATE mode. Anyone who can comfortably hold that thing by one end and rapidly hit the fire button cannot have human hands!

Thanks for the heads up. As I own Aero Fighters 2 and 3 on Switch already I should probably pick this one up too!

I'm going to be honest, I read the opening paragraph of this article, stopped reading and ordered the book!

They had one of these in a small independent games shop in the place where I grew up. I always wanted to try it but I think it was something like £5 a go back then, which seemed like madness to a school kid like me. Look forward to reading the chapter in the book.

I am super excited for this! Without a doubt this is a day 1 purchase.

Just had a quick game on my Mega Drive using a Power Base FM and a flash cart. It worked perfectly and was really good fun! Thanks for the heads up.

The driver in that video would have racked up about 900 years in jail!

This looks great, I'm going to have a serious dig through the site when I have some time. Thanks for sharing!

I hate this style of 'poll', so I'll just say 3 SE.

I love the Wipeout series and it has such iconic design that it is well suited to a nice hardback book. I really want to like Read Only Memory, as I love books about classic games and buy basically every Bitmap Books release, but I have always been put off by their fondness for blank space. Every one of their books I have ever looked at has loads of pages with a single image at the top and then half a page of blank white space beneath it. The Street Fighter II book has pages that are mostly text (with a small cartoon of the person speaking) where the top half of the page is just empty white space. I've always found it quite jarring and it has put me off picking their stuff up.

Great article. I love Jeff's games, so it's a real shame this one never released. Moose Life VR is a favourite of mine.

I never owned an Atari back in the day and had no interest in this when it was first announce... but since then it has managed to sneak into my head and I now really want to get one. The impulse buy price tag helps.

@michaelf I'm guessing it will be like the two versions of the C64. As in essentially the same as the Amiga 500 Mini but in a full size box with a functioning keyboard.

Shame there wasn't an Atari Arcade 2 before this happened.

It's Metal Slug 8!

Really want this for Mega Drive, shame it's coming from Limited Run Games and their Japanese company, as I'm really not a fan.

I'm a sucker for a slide out keyboard, but I'm guessing I can't afford one of these and likely never will be able to!

As above I will remain reasonably sceptical about this until I see a more varied demonstration, but it is interesting news nonetheless. I'm also intrigued by a Retron FPGA console in general, as I've never been interested in their software emulation devices.

I had to vote for Ultima IV as the Master System version had a huge impact on me as a small child. My brother bought it (and boy was it pricey!) and the different classes and terrain and general size and complexity of it blew me away. Not to mention the books and maps that came with it! I bought Ultima Underworld 1&2 CD collection in the EA budget range for PC years later but they already felt a little old fashioned by then so were harder for me to really get attached to as an impatient teen. I also played some Pagan at that time but I mostly took the GTA approach and just messed about in the world, blocking people into rooms with items and getting in trouble. It was fun but never gripping or awe inspiring like Ultima IV was.

Nice idea. It would be nice if a single site had one section for old games that have received modern official localisations/remakes and one section for games that have received fan translations.

Oooh, now this has me interested. Wonder where they're going with this one...

That is amazing cover art.

I am loving mine so far. Have loved little clicky sticks since I first bought a NEOGEO Pocket Color way back when. Lovely.

I just wish someone would make a left Joycon with a clicky stick and built in battery/wireless, so I could play shmups on the FlipGrip with it. I would then be in shmup heaven. I guess the arrival of this means there's some scope for DIY projects...

I've nearly bought the original a few times. The expanded version looks great, but I really can't stand Limited Run. Preferred the original cover too, especially as this one has not only a huge Press Run logo on it, but also a big Limited Run one too!

I am hopelessly behind in the Yakuza series, but I now want to buy this game just for the arcades! SEGA are constantly re-releasing the 16-bit era content in ranges like SEGA AGES, can we please have some standalone releases from this era? Pretty please?

Er.. Japanese language has been what?! Haha.

This was always a nice game, but this 16-bit version is fabulous and continues to get better.

I love how this is nice and subtle, yet still pays perfect tribute. I have no interest in a really garish watch and I would actually wear this. That said, I don't really spend that kind of money on watches, and have a perfectly good one already, so can't really justify it. Good effort by Seiko though.

2D hand drawn artwork and pixel art are not the same thing. I do expect that pixel art will start to disappear as fewer developers (and gamers!) have nostalgia for it, but a beautiful hand drawn 2D image will always be beautiful and someone will continue to make them. It is however a much more expensive and time consuming way to work than using 3D models on a 2D plane, so I doubt we'll see a lot of it.

Two that still stick in my mind are...

Cheat mode in James Pond on the Acorn Archimedes: YNGWIE J MALMSTEEN (name of a Swedish guitarist)

Wonder Boy in Monster Land on the Master System: Pause the game 45 times to gain 45 gold. As the buttons in controller 2 could be used to pause/u pause the game, we used a Quikshot Python joystick in controller 2 with the auto fire switch on and a rubber band around the trigger. Wander off for a bit and come back to endless riches!

My first thought when I saw the picture of the dirty statue was "I could clean him up nicely in PowerWash Simulator!".