Daggot

Watched the trailer. Right off it has a VERY strong vibe like the art is trying to imitate Sea of Stars. It doesn't have the same advanced lighting tech as SoS, but the pixel style is very similar. I kept reading to see if maybe they were able to get one of the artists from Sabotage Studio.

This sounds interesting, and I applaud them for having a female lead. That's important to my daughters who all love playing games.

Eh, is this really worth it vs the Atari 50 project? Without comparing the games list, this seems like a less attractive product. I never had one, and don't know what kind of computer-type things you could do with the hardware. Otherwise this is just a game emulator that probably overlaps with the Atari 50 list. Nostalgia I guess.

Although, I played a TON of the original Star Raiders game, but never the 2nd game. That might be interesting. Although I can get it from other authorized packages out there.

What's the source of the failure? I assume it probably has something to do with the material in the substrate or insulator that breaks down eventually so electrons start passing through the material which will cause errors or shorts in the transistors. Assuming it is something like that, then there is no guard or preventative. It's simply a function of time. Would also explain why A vs B is a thing; different materials used in mfr'ing. I guess I hadn't really considered this. Does give me pause about what other electronics I'm holding on to that are likely to just die at some point w/o warning.

<scrolling> <scrolling> <scrolling> dang, this is going to be a good read. let's get some coffee first. . .

I remember this well. When news circulated we fired up the disc and there it was. At the time we all thought it was super funny. I was always a little surprised there wasn't a stupid copyright lawsuit from the show. I mean, sure it would probably get thrown out because it wasn't intentional by EA. But, that's never stopped an overzealous law firm when they see a company with deep pockets like EA. I'm sure someone pitched it though.

that image in the article echoes my own view on this. Having spent so, so, so much time on the OG SNES game, it's clearer why I didn't do as well on the later games not knowing about these chains. dang. But, also I know the frame times of some champions changes as well as some hit boxes. I saw this very clearly with Chun Li. But, I also agree that this shouldn't be considered a feature since it was never marketed about the original game.

A mini would be a fun toy for the home brew community. I doubt there would be much appeal in the pack-in games. But, I doubt even if they tried to target home brew that it would sell well enough to be worth it.

It's an interesting concept for sure. But, oh man, those controls. They look more like something off an old vacuum display game; like that classic Mattel Football game that I played so much of as a kid. Without a game, not sure he'll be able to really showcase what the vision of what the system was going to be able to do.

Lawyers. It's always due to lawyers. And licensing.

Never seen this game, but it looks like a good time.

May as well go all the way for a Transformers crossover and have it modeled on Soundwave.

Since this will be an emulation device, I hope there's enough head room on the maxi to emulate a turbo board too. I wonder if it's intent will still be mostly a game machine like the mini. You can get workbench et all on the mini, but I'd like the maxi to be more of a traditional experience.

That's not a terrible price if the emulation is spot on. I loved those games back on the Amiga. I know I played this on the SNES, but I don't remember it as well as the Amiga games. Tempting to put it on a Christmas wishlist.

I'm torn on this. I get their desire to stick to the concept of simpler mechanics like the early games, but with some modern twists. I don't think it always translates well. I could see a game like Warlords would do better similar to how Yar's worked well. Looking at the video; this isn't it.

@dconstantine Yeeeeah, only if you were nerdy back then and paid attention to labels. I did because I recognized the trend in quality between publishers and especially when it was from a PAL region/publisher to know what speed the game was going to be at.

It's thinking outside the box, but assigning employees work like that would beg for a lawsuit unfortunately.

@Damo TIL! But, I would love a more in-depth look if that could be added to the schedule.

@Zenszulu Good point.

I...uhh... guess this is a thing. I was hoping the YT video might show someone trying to play with their fingers. The website has more info, like connecting to a PC and using the little dance pads as a controller. It doesn't say much about the music that'll be included. Licensing can be a huge pain these days.

I'm impressed. The frame times on the video looks solid. I assume this has to use one of the ram expanders for the C64 like Sonic does. Still, this is really impressive looking. If the controls are tight, this would be a real treat to try out.

Guess I was expecting more from this "article" than just this. How was the game received? Was did the gun perform? Lag? Accuracy? It's like this is the opening for a normal length blog post, but then the author hit send instead of save?

@BulkSlash oh, ya, an HD remaster of the TC series would be awesome. Maybe even a demo level for VR? The rapid movement might be too vomit inducing though; hence just a demo level. But, an HD remaster with an updated gun? Shut up and take my money!

@KGRAMR Ah, ya, was thinking it reminded me of something.

I think I like the idea of this. Not pure pixels, not pure 3d, rather an interesting balance. Can't tell if this is going to be Contra hard, or where it should land on the spectrum. This doesn't look too over the top hard. Hopefully there are some other features, combos maybe(?), that we haven't seen yet. Either way, I like the art direction here.

@Blast16 Agreed on them breaking that pattern. They have so many IP to work with, not just Sonic.

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.