BulkSlash

Managed to get 2'59"070, that's the NTSC version on an original PS1, using the Carrot car and manual gearbox:

https://youtu.be/jcE0AC_QuxI

Does it have to be emulated only or can we submit scores from real hardware if we film the screen?

@AllieKitsune Yeah, they’re brutally hard for some reason. One mistake and you’ve got no chance of a first place! There’s a tool I found a few years back that lets you change the AI difficulty of the ROM and after a bit of experimentation I was able to get the game to a point where it’s quite fun.

I guess Sega didn’t want it to be too easy as even with the original three tracks and two extra ones it’s quite a brief experience. Star Wars Arcade on 32X is annoyingly hard too, presumably for the same reason. Hopefully that will get a decomp at some point!

@Glassneedles IIRC the Switch version has a 3x speed up mode while the PC version doesn’t have anything. So if they’re adding that I would be most grateful! 😅

I just hope this doesn’t break all the mods I’ve got installed! 😂 I also wonder if they’ve finally fixed the music cutting out when Cloud remembers his confrontation with Sephiroth. Apparently that has been broken since the PC version was first released in the ‘90s!

I’d love to see a controller with gyro built-in and an option to map the right analogue stick to the gyroscope for games that don’t support gyro aim by default. I only mention this because the Steam Deck has capacitive sticks which can be used to deactivate gyro when you’re not touching the sticks.

@KingMike My guess is the size made it become rare. The two screens would mean it had limited value for arcade operators once the X-Men game stopped making money. A “normal” JAMMA cab with one screen could be converted into something else, but a dual screen like that with six control points couldn’t easily be made to run something else. So many of the cabs were probably destroyed when people’s interest waned.

I’ve read stories from people who worked in arcades back in the day and they’d take all sorts of cabs that are sought after today out the back and flatten them with a sledge hammer to put in a skip. Back then no-one thought people would care about these games 30+ years later. If the game wasn’t making money it would be trashed or converted to something else. 😢

As I love gyro aiming and gyroscope technology was fairly "withered" by the time of the 3DS I think it perhaps doesn't belong in the list of specs that were unnecessary for the 3DS. I think gyro is one of those things that epitomises the Nintendo idea of new ways to play (in fact gyro aiming is my favourite way to play FPS games now).

All the other stuff like StreetPass and the 3D camera though I totally agree was fluff I never used. They surely could have sold at an even lower price without those things in there. Reminds me of the new C button on the Switch 2 that I have never touched... 😂

@SlangWon I asked for a collection of Sega’s arcade games from System 32, Models 1, 2, 3 and Naomi but Sega never seem to deliver on that one… 😢

What's going on in that last screenshot? Is this one of "those games"? 😂

Love the idea, reminds me of the competitions N64 Magazine would do back in the day, like fastest time on Peach Slide or highest score on level 1 of Star Fox 64.

That said, I don’t think I’ll be trying this, I’ve tried in the past and not been able to get past it. I couldn’t beat the brain that chases you in GameBoy Battletoads either, and I think I had found an infinite lives cheat with the Action Replay for that too! 😅

@somnambulance Same. I'm playing it at the moment and maybe it's a victim of the hype but I'm just finding it to be okay, it's not really blowing my mind. In fact, other than MGS1, none of the games in that top 9 would be in my list! 😅

@OorWullie By Switch emulator I mean the official N64 emulator on a real Switch. I did wonder if that line would be confusing when I typed it! 😅

I honestly can’t play N64 games with anything but an original controller. I’m not surprised you struggled with the Pro controller as Nintendo map the C-buttons to the analogue stick and it just doesn’t work. I honestly feel people must get such a bad impression of the N64 because modern controllers just can’t replicate the six button layout of the N64.

I do have an NSO N64 controller and it’s pretty decent other than the analogue stick, which leaves a lot to be desired. But I’m something of a fanatic when it comes to N64 analogue sticks, I’ve tried so many drop-in replacement sticks on the original controller and none have satisfied me. For some reason no-one has been able to accurately recreate the feel of the optical sensors on the original stick. Even the Hall effect stick from 8Bitdo isn’t right, although it does move very smoothly.

Funnily enough I was just playing GoldenEye (and struggling to beat Cavern because destroyed lockers don't properly disappear on the Switch emulator). It's still amazing to play even today IMHO.

I might give First Light a try if it's cheap enough, but I'm really not loving the young James Bond idea. It would have been better if they'd just made a normal Bond story instead of yet another origin story.

@KingMike There's usually about 10-15 Vampire Killers on eBay at any one time so I don't know if they're really that rare, but then again at >=£700 perhaps they don't sell very often! Of course there's also the repros at a slightly lower price hoping to catch someone out. 😩

I think the price of Bloodlines/New Generation has gone up because of the Japanese version making people think all versions of the game are rare!

I can’t afford the normal version of Vampire Killer, I dread to think what a gold one costs! 😂

Sounds more like the transition period where the old leadership must remain in place after a takeover has expired and he’s out the door now.

I don’t know what it is about the 3DS, but it’s never really come down in price. I was hoping to one day get one of the Super Famicom branded specials but they’re still hugely expensive, even ones that have been scuffed and scraped. 😩

While I'm sure the inaccuracies are disappointing, I'll bet it's nowhere near as bad as the N64 emulator on the Switch. GoldenEye is borderline unplayable thanks to certain emulation flaws. Plus the CRT filter makes the image so dark it's impossible to see in some levels.

It's a shame if true, although the biggest problem they had is the machines became so expensive they were often the same price as buying a real arcade machine (which meant real machines started getting even more expensive 😫!)

I wonder if the RAM shortage had any impact on them suddenly closing down?

I've still not even played Shenmue III. For years I hoped we would get a sequel but by the time it arrived (and also when I found out it still doesn't finish the story) my excitement had pretty much dried up. If they do really announce Shenmue IV and promise it will finish the story I probably would play part III.

Really though, I just want Shenmue III and IV on the Dreamcast where it should have been all those years ago...

That Sega Swing type cabinet is insanely rare as it is, let alone with a SegaSonic board and a control panel with trackballs in it. It's very cool, but if we're talking System 32 I'd want Rad Mobile, Galaxy Force II or Rail Chase more than this I think.

I'd be perfectly happy with a new shooter from them with just N64-level graphics if it has the same unique and varied missions like GoldenEye has (plus the randomisation that means missions never quite play the same way twice).

I know basic graphics aren't very commercial, but I'd definitely buy it! 😅

I didn't think CPS1 could do sprite scaling, but I see it's just spreading the tiles further apart or closer together rather than scaling the pixels. Ironically it seems the Mode 7 zoom of the SFII Turbo logo on the SNES is better than what the CPS1 could do (CPS1 is obviously more powerful in most respects).

It's good to see a 4-way shifter on those cabs. The Daytona they had at Weston-super-Mare just had an up/down shifter which made dropping to first or second gear from fourth for a power slide particularly difficult. It's like the people who designed the cab didn't know how to play Daytona. 😩

Sega should perhaps consider some modern cab re-releases of other classics like Sega Rally, House of the Dead and Virtua Cop.

"Henshin a go go, baby!"

The place looks really cool, it's a shame Leicester is a bit far from here.

Reminds me of when Supreme did an Arcade 1-up special edition. They were on eBay for three times the price of a regular Arcade 1-up, but all they had was ugly generic side and front art. At least the regular Arcade 1-ups attempt to look like classic arcade cabinets with replicas of the original artwork. Happily, I don't think anyone bought those overpriced machines as they hung around on eBay for years.

Sounds like they've done a pretty good job, the gun preferring to see the whole screen sounds like it could be a problem though.

A Deluxe Time Crisis 1 has a 52" rear projection screen and you'd hold the gun about 1.5 metres away from the screen on that. A 4:3 image displayed on a 65" 16:9 panel is about 53" diagonally, so needing to be 3 metres away seems too far compared to the distance on an actual machine.

It would be interesting to see how the AI gun handles an ultra-wide monitor, an ultra-wide might be ideal for playing two instances of Time Crisis 2 on one screen!

@bring_on_branstons I think you’ve pretty much summed up my feelings on the Box Art Brawl results from most weeks! 😅

I want to know how many people have clicked on the Amazon affiliate link at the bottom of the story to buy the book! 😂

Someone at Capcom seems to have a bad case of the Jim Ryans 🙄. I just beat the RE4 Remake and while it had some good points I much preferred the gameplay of the original (in fact I’m replaying the Wii version right now and having a great time).

When it comes to RE1, I really like both versions, the original’s mansion is all yellowing Formica and peeling wallpaper. Whereas REmake is like a sumptuous haunted house. They both have great horror vibes while having a totally different atmosphere.

So for Capcom to consider the original REs to be obsolete is really disappointing and concerning.

@RextheSheep I also wish it was Ubisoft Connect free, it's a pain logging into that rubbish on the Steam Deck using the onscreen keyboard, especially as IIRC the last Ubi game I played wanted me to login every time I loaded the game. 😩

I've played Time Crisis 1 so many times and I never noticed the final orange guy (as seen in the article screenshot) is the Level 1 boss with the broken face mask. 😳

In my defence on a CRT it will be blurrier and harder to see!

I can sympathise with not even having the time to beat a short game. I'm replaying Wario Land on the GB at the moment, the fact it saves after every level is really helpful, so I don't normally have to lose much progress if I need to switch off suddenly.

In fact, I want to be replaying Code Veronica on my Dreamcast but I just know I won't be able to reach save points easily (plus ink ribbons are limited!) so I'm playing it on the Steam Deck and just putting the console to sleep when I need to stop.

Krikzz usually has a Black Friday sale, so maybe I'll go for a GB X7 (although I also want a Mega Everdrive, an N8 and a 64 X7, but I can only pick one!)

Some cool games there. It’s a shame the deluxe Gunblade and House of the Dead 2 have had the 4:3 rear projection TVs replaced with widescreen LCD TVs.

It’s interesting that Konami seemed to make unique Turtles cabs in every region. That pale green look is quite unique!

Was it supposed to be Reiko in Rage Racer as well? It does look like a prototype version of her.

@Slider2711 It’s true he designed the US console casing, but the button labelling has been inherited from the Japanese consoles. So I wonder if Masayuki Uemura was the one with the CAD reasoning?

@Shiryu I wonder if they'd have skipped Sechshänder for sounding a bit like a lewd act?

@mr_benn No you’re right, I just looked up Gold Cliff and it does have a continue button. Sadly I never had that one. I’ve seen the DK Jr Panorama and it looks awesome, maybe if Nintendo are remaking the Virtual Boy they’ll remake some G&Ws like that one! 🤞

I’ve thankfully still got all my G&Ws from back in the day and they all have their boxes too. My first one was the original Donkey Kong, which I believe was the second game I ever played.

One of my favourite G&Ws is the Crystal Screen Super Mario Bros, which has a fully transparent screen. I was fortunate to buy Mario the Juggler back then which turned out to be the last G&W released and is now quite rare.

I think the best G&W from a gameplay perspective is the Zelda one. Unlike most (all?) the others, it actually has an ending rather than looping infinitely and it has quite a lot of variety in the way it plays. I think it’s also the only G&W with a continue feature so you don’t have to start from scratch after a game over.

I'm quite looking forward to comparing the "new" VB headset to the original. I'm curious to see if it's basically a 1:1 match or if they've had to change the size to accommodate slotting a whole Switch inside it. I'm hoping maybe they'll do a controller recreation at some point too for the most authentic experience.

I'm thinking the VB headset will be a great way to make use of my old Switch 1 which has been sitting around since the arrival of the Switch 2.

My favourite bit is when James gently rips the Xbox logo off the top of the console to mount on his creation.

I go back and forth on whether this or Vampire Killer is my favourite, but either way it’s an amazing game. I still feel abandoning the omnidirectional whip in later games was a mistake, I know it makes the game easier, but that isn’t really a bad thing in my book. 😅

I don’t think I actually played it until the late noughties, so it’s not even nostalgia that makes me love it, it’s just a well designed game that’s really fun to play and just as fun to listen to.

Is 1080 known to be hard to "emulate"? My basic N64 acid-test is to load up Mario Kart 64 and check if the big TV screen on the first track displays anything or not. Strangely the pause screen of Ocarina of Time seems to trip up a lot of emulators too.

Would that Microsoft keyboard work with a Mac? It would either be PS/2 or USB, I don't think the Mac supported PS/2 and it would be too early for USB.

Wait, that's an AI thumbnail? But it's so photorealistic and I'm sure we all remember playing on CLAIIR in the arcades back in the '90s right? 😉

I know it's hard to always guarantee every game is up and running, but you'd think their website would list all the machines they have, but I can't find anything. If I know a place has a Time Crisis 1 I'm definitely going to visit!

The funny thing about that scene in The Wizard where Beau Bridges is playing the game is that he says he’s on level 3 and has the scroll weapon but on the TV it’s level 1! However, he is on the third sewer of level 1, which makes me wonder if someone on the production team thought that actually was level 3?

Anyway, I never finished this game back in the day but I did finally finish it recently. I cheated though and used the “Pizza Party” hack which makes pizza pickups apply to all the Turtles.

You’re basically into Steam Deck territory at that price, the LCD model is £350 and has double the storage. Admittedly it’s only an 1280x800 60Hz screen, but if you’re playing retro games you don’t really need more than 60Hz (unless you really want to play Doom at its native 75Hz! 😅)

Shame about the lack of analogue as this seems to be the first time one of these devices hasn’t been skimped on in the CPU area. While the button layout isn’t quite perfect it would have been decent for N64 games.

“Especially in a negligible degree under esoteric circumstances”

WTF kind of word salad is this?

I probably be buying this just for the Chris Huelsbeck music! 😅

(I doubt I'll get anywhere in the game as I couldn't beat it back in the day!)