Daggot

I've often wished we could get short animated series in the US based on artwork like this. Worse was when there was some bit of anime FMV in a game that literally showed what it would look like.

A recent example of this is Battle Chasers: Nightwar. I was so itching to watch that animated series, but it was just part of the game. Sea of Stars does it to me most recently. Come on, man! You've already done all that pre-work to do animation clips. Flesh out the story, find some VOAs and let's dig into this.

As for Tamaki, very much the style of the day, and I liked it back then. It just fit the mood of that era so well. Very Japanese and anime influenced for the time. RIP

@-wc- The sentiment is just someone with deep pockets to do something more with the IP. Not necessarily MS for consolidation.

I still think it would make sense for MS to buy Sega. Sega has done a poor job of fully utilizing its vast library of IP, especially on the arcade side. They've done a few moves I thought would have helped a sell to go through, like dropping their physical arcade division, but nothing was ever announced.

I expect this is part of streamlining their business. Or, they realize the maintenance costs out pace the rev from ads. The audience is narrow and most people don't spend a lot of time playing these games. I assume the majority fire it up for 20min, relive a few memories, and uninstall. Maybe a few fans of specific titles might try to play to the end, but that's pretty small numbers.

If not MS buying Sega, just someone with deeper pockets and more ideas of how to make some money off a wealth of classic and influential IP. I would have thought the Forever brand would have been a slam-dunk with the growing movement of video game preservation. But, their model didn't align with that kind of branding message. That should have been an easy win.

@Nitwit13 I'd forgotten about the redbook audio!

Not enough credit is given to the earlier titles from Cyan that lead up to Myst. The Manhole and Cosmic Osmo were built on early platforms of HyperCard, and HyperTalk if memory serves. Myst was the progression of the technology and the concept founded by these earlier games. They had so much exploration and imagination; just no puzzles. I believe Myst was also one of, if not the first, games to use QuickTime for video. Anyways, so many firsts with Myst and so many memories. I may not remember much of the original game anymore, but that music kinda sticks with you.

Didn't necessarily play all of these on the Amiga, but a pretty solid list. Sometimes hard to separate some standout games that make an impact, but weren't really good enough to make a Best Of list. Sometimes fun to revisit these from time-to-time. A lot of it was just the complete newness of it all. First time to see graphics and have audio like that. First time a genre was established, or realized with that kind of presentation, etc.

VRB is always such an interesting story about how it came to be. But, I'm glad it happened and had more influence on the market than it's generally given credit for. More so that Nintendo has even toyed with VR on the Switch with Labo. Gives me pause to wonder if they might tinker with VR again with Switch NG. I can't see that would be highly successful, but Nintendo does seem willing to try new ideas from time to time. Just not established ones like great online services, LOL.

That's totally a labor of love. It'll take a lot of work to make sure the hit boxes, frame times and input lag all align properly. But, I applaud the effort!

This is a hard one for me to vote on. My first Ultima game was Ultima III: Exodus on the C64. Spent so man weekends at my friends' house playing all night long. Looking back we didn't really know what we were doing, and didn't quite follow the story, but man we had an awesome time gathered around the breadbox eating pizza until 2am. LOL.

Then you move forward to Voodoo Memory Manager. The game really pushed the tech and expanded what the game world could do/contain. Not quite open world, but you get a sense that's kind of the idea they had but not quite realized like we have today. It really pushed the RPG genre. So, man, not sure how to vote. I might still go with 3 just for it being the first major wide release.

I'd like to know more about the game itself. How did the MMO aspect work? The footage looks like it's just a hub system, so the MM part is just like multiplayer golf but with subscribers so you might know specific people to play a round with?

Lasting only 10 months I assume the game didn't have a lot of subs, or if it was F2P then the microtransactions wasn't sustainable enough. As far as a basic console golf game it looks like a decent non-pro style PGA type game. Maybe leaning a little more Golden Tee?

There's kind of a two-fold problem. Hit early games were undeniably imaginative and gave us new genres. Really solid game, partially because they were so new. But, then struggled to fully flesh out some of his ideas. That dovetailed into the hype-machine. Was he doing his job to hype and advocate for his games? Without question. He just didn't know how to balance that with pulling more energy into polishing his ideas and getting the games to that polished state.

As more of a social experiment, that cube thing was interesting. I'm sure there are research papers out there with some interesting insights into our human behaviors. But, in terms of delivery? yeeeeeeeeah, he's used up all his cred. If he can deliver, he could redeem himself in my eyes, but it would have to be a pretty good hit game to gloss over so many overhyped titles.

@Poodlestargenerica True. But, I am always impressed when people come up with something that has a good result and shows how creative and resourceful people can be. I'm one of those that might have the technical ability to do something, but never the artistic and seldom the vision to dream like that.

Not much they could do about a shipping delay. At least it's not a code delay. Bugs are a far worse problem to have to deal with than shipping hicups.

Oooh. i could imagine a DK Country take on this too.

I love the elegance of the design, but it's also kinda blah. Although anything more would probably end up garish, so probably not an easy thing to balance.

I've never been able to wrap my head around play a shmup on mobile. Unless you're using a controller, you can't really help your finger getting the way of seeing the screen. But, there are plenty of them out there, so there is an audience for these. I'd much rather play with a real controller, maybe even a stick for an arcade title.

It's great to see groups coming together to preserve some less common bits of video game history. Since this is an official product, we'd hope that Nintendo wouldn't fire up the lawyers to stop this.

Ridiculously tempting. I was going through various videos listening to old game sound tracks lamenting how old games had really good music, but you never see them as standalone tracks. Some companies really excelled at background music too. Hope some other classic collection like this come around too.

@UK_Kev There's a nostalgia factor for having the 2600 box sitting on the floor in front of the TV (using HDMI, lol) and a traditional joystick instead of a gamepad. I think of this more about the experience than the games themselves which can be found in other packs.

I like the approach here, but that price feels a little given that we've had these same games through other packages multiple times. Nice to have the HDMI, but that doesn't feel like it's enough to justify the price point.

Nice list. I fired up Shining in the Darkness after reading this. Oh, that scratched the ol' dungeon crawler itch and good. I'd forgotten it was turn based so I could just roam around mindless while grinding the early levels. I'd love a modern take on this with graphics like Grimrock, but still turn based.

First response: "Wow, that's really cool that someone took the time to figure out how to make that work."

Second: "uh, how secure is something like that to be connected to the internet these days?"
Then again, the tech is so old would any viruses or malware even work against it? LOL

I've seen a few of LD's videos, like others because of some of the rare content. But, honestly, it wasn't great. From what I've read it appears that McNeail handled this well. Seems like there are other issues at play that haven't been disclosed which is keeping this an open concern.

I think I agree with most of this list. Didn't play every one of them, but the ones I did play I would say should be on the list. I guess I'm especially found of DQ. It was the first time I played a DQ game and it was a blast. My wife and I played it together in the evening which probably is what helped make it so special. We also did that with Eternal Sonata.

$20 doesn't sound too bad if this experience works like the marketing makes it out to be. Looking forward to this. Very curious what the remaster will be like.

I love the idea of these kinds of books. It's a great way to thumb through and remember a lot of great games from years past. But, the truth of it is, for me at least, I'd thumb through it a couple of time; maybe read entries for a few key games I spent a lot of time with, but then it would end up on the shelf. I don't even have a coffee table to leave it out on as a conversation piece. I might be better served to have the images streamed onto a screen saver instead.

This reminds me I really do need to go back and replay Fate of Atlantis. It's been long enough that I don't remember most of the game now. It would be like playing for the first time except for bit and pieces that standout in my memory.

It was a combination of things. That Tower of Power was a colossal misstep. Consider how much money had to go into that with very little to show in return. I believe it's what started the downfall. Saturn only added fuel from that point on. Timing was a huge issue with the X32 to Saturn to time to market for Dreamcast.

I keep wondering if there is any truth to the rumors that MS keeps courting Sega for a sell.

I love that this is a thing. To get hardware level emulation like this is pretty much a dream come true. Except the mister hardware is still rather pricy. Probably not too bad if you're really into retro and emulation as a dedicated hobby. But, it does keep the barrier to entry rather high. Maybe some day the prices will be able to come down.

This is an interesting idea, but which platform to partner with? I could see doing a range of figures based on Nintendo's handheld systems. That would give a lot of possibilities.

Too bad they missed the window on the toys-to-life era. That would have been a natural fit for Transformers figures and video games. I guess they could do amiibo figures, but that would be more limited.

LOL. 8 Bit Guy games on Evercade? He's done incredibly well for himself. Wonder what he's going to do next between his channel and the fame he's garnered with his retro games.

This could seriously scratch an itch I haven't really been able to find a new retro-style blow'em up style game. SHMUP-lite? Maybe that's what I'm looking for. Not bullet hell. More mass destruction and smart enemies. Will definitely keep an eye on this title.

This is actually a thing that happens; especially if the originating company doesn't have a good catalog system for their assets. Seen it at a game company I worked at. They didn't have a good archive system and even lost part of a game that was in active development because of a local hard drive crash. When I asked the IT guys about disaster recovery and catalog of assets, he just kinda looked away and went "yeeeeah". I've also seen it in corporate settings where process documents on how to run parts of the business got lost because there wasn't a good solution in place for common files (no use of SharePoint for example). There are solutions for this stuff, and you'd hope a big dev shop like Activision is using a repository system for code and assets. But, it's possible certain teams were not as well plugged in to formal solutions. So, ya, I can see that some of that stuff might be lost. There are a lot of vids about retro studios that nearly lost all their archive stuff after various dev studios closed up and then someone buys an old PC that ends up being from that studio and they discover a treasure trove of assets.

Gen X here, so my first experience goes back to early arcade games like Space Invaders and Asteroids. Eventually knew someone with the 2600 and that got me hooked. I think I had the most games on the 2600 out of all my console systems until I got to the PS2; besides the PC. I didn't own most of the consoles between the 2600 and NES, but I had friends that owned most of them. Then you get to the C64 and that changed everything. It showed just how versatile a computer could be compared to a console since it could use a floppy drive. Games like Ultima were vast and Summer Games from Epyx that could incorporate both I & II to play a wider set of events blew away what was possible with a console.

@RetroGames At least the music on the SNES version was really good. Even now I still fire up the OST in youtube to give it a listen. The gameplay is more my pace than more modern games in the genre.

Never knew about this game. I like that they tried something different for the arcade. It's almost more like a console game in design. Great that it's co-op too. Seems like a gem game that Sega may hold for some milestone anniversary. Although, looking at the video above, first thought is this doesn't look all that fun. Second thought, HEY this is very similar in concept to Marble Madness. The more I watch the more I see parallels to MM.

Took my brain a long minute to remember the original game(s). But, wow, what an odd inclusion to bring in Astley. I assume the dev/producer has a specific angle on why include him. Still, neat to see some icons from the past coming together like this.

Only got to try this once. It was actually a little overwhelming. While I understood what was going on, it's something you have to play a few times to really get your coordination down with all the controls. I could tell, even as a kid, that the tech involved was pretty cutting edge. If you had the money to invest in repeated play I could see that being an incredible experience. But, the price to play was not a trivial barrier to entry, and the cost of the center meant they would only be in larger cities and probably in the upscale areas.

This version is the only one I've ever played. It was such a great game. In several ways I thought it was better than the original game. When you get to where you have to move the control up/down it really changes your strategy. I need to look at YouTube to see if there is any footage of the game past where I was able to get to. Not sure how far that is before it just loops.

I love the idea of this. Hopefully it goes all the way back to the 2600 days. I know there was a coffee table book for those glorious box art designs, but I wasn't able to grab one. I'm sure there are trends and influences to be found over that large a period of time.

Wish I had a coffee table in the living to have several of these books to display. This kind of stuff needs to be looked at, not just stuck on a shelf.

Please, let it die. While I am all for the nostalgia factor, this has been a disaster in the making. Don't waste money trying to bring this to market.