@Wheatly Whilst I can see your point I really can’t sympathise too much with people struggling with control schemes; I played these games when I was very young and we all had to adapt to the controls. True, controls on my Series X are very good, but controlling a 2D platformer was something I never struggled with at the age of 10 back in the early 90s, neither do my own young children struggle with the same games now.
I am happy to admit that save states are a godsend when it comes to old school difficulty but limited controls is like complaining about driving a manual car when you are used to automatic. Sure, automatic is a lot easier but manual still works perfectly fine, as long as you are willing to adapt.
Asking this question is akin to asking ‘should you bother watching old movies anymore?’ Just like old films it comes down purely to quality. Many older games are simply good games, with the only limitations being a factor of their age (graphics, difficulty, modern quality of life features).
If we are to view playing Super Mario Land 2 as pointless in 2023, then should we have the same attitude to black and white films? You could say ‘but there are better games available since’ but that doesn’t negate how much fun you can have playing the older games. The same could be said for films.
The Lucky Dime Caper and the port of Alien 3 are two other good GG games.
However, the GG port of Sonic 2 is really disappointing; the screen is so far zoomed in that you can hardly dodge anything and made the first boss unnecessary difficult. The Master System version, while not as pretty, is a better game.
Wait, there were codes? We had to do it the old fashioned way; playing the levels until we unlocked them. We certainly got our money’s worth back then!
If you can, do yourself a favour and download the Streets of Rage collection on Xbox. All three original games, with the superior Japanese version of SOR3 (Bare Knuckle 3). Characters are in the correct coloured costumes and the balance is much better than the pointlessly difficult Western version.
As a kid my friend and I could rinse SOR 1 & 2 but 3 was just too hard. It was only years later I found out why; the difficultly levels were swapped round! Easy is actually Normal (and only lets you get to Stage 5) with Normal being the equivalent of Hard.
Having said that I never owned the cart of SOR 3 but felt sorry for my mate who did!
I’m not sure how many people today realise what it was like for SEGA to come out of nowhere and challenge Nintendo. Even getting the second spot was a massive uphill battle. It’s kind of like Iron Man vs Thanos in Infinity War: ‘all that for a drop of blood’
I remember watching this at the time in the late 80s/early 90s. The catchphrase wasn’t particularly annoying as it hadn’t been made a meme yet (plus most people I knew didn’t know much about Zelda, the most I had seen by then was a friend’s Zelda Game & Watch).
@Browny totally slipped by me that the Classic Controllers for the Wii weren’t on the list! I love the original one for its nostalgia but the Pro version is superb. The buttons are really responsive and it has a really good d-pad. Plus they are really well made: hundreds of hours on Monster Hunter Tri and various virtual console games over the 12 years I’ve had it and not one bit of drift or unresponsiveness.
For pure nostalgia I went for the classic 3 button Mega Drive controller; as a kid it felt futuristic (3 buttons? The NES only has 2!). Not surprised about the GameCube controller getting it; it was much derided at the time but on reflection it is very comfortable to use and the button layout and feel is great. Just a pity about that d-pad, though tbh that’s only really an issue in a handful of games or if you are using the GameBoy Player (personally I used to plug my GBA into the system with the connecting lead to control the games as they were meant to be controlled). However, modern controllers like the Switch Pro or the Xbox Series controllers are objectively better.
What about some 3rd party controllers? I have a few 8bitdo ones and have just taken delivery of the Pro 2 for Switch. Will be interesting to see how it compares to the Nintendo Switch Pro controller…
Pretty good but this list is missing some outstanding games such as: Dishonoured Far Cry 3 (+ Blood Dragon) Batman Arkham Asylum + City Mass Effect trilogy
Dishonoured is one of my favourite games of all time. However, back in 2012 is only just got an XBOX 360 S that summer. For Xmas my wife surprised me with 4 excellent games for it: GTA IV, Batman Arkham City, COD Black Ops and Halo CE 10 year Anniversary.
Needless to say she didn’t see much of me that holiday!
Back in the day I played with whatever came in the box! I used coaxial up to and including the PS2 in 2004. The GameCube was the first system I had that came with AV cables and I didn’t swap to something better until 2010 when I got an HD tv and found out I could use component cables with my Wii. I got an Xbox 360 a while later and finally moved onto the HD generation. However, as I got more interested in my older systems I have tried to get the best out of them. I bought a packapunch RGB SCART cable for my old Mega Drive and it looks excellent on my crt and very good on an HD tv. However I’ve recent bought a 4K tv for my Xbox Series X and that is HDMI only, so I have a clear split between my pre-HD consoles and systems from the 360 onwards.
Bought both my cubes second hand without a manual, so it took me years to discover the eject button (totally by accident). To be fair, the disc was in no danger of snapping as long as you gripped both sides gently with one hand and lifter up.
I think it also comes from the fact that we were so used to portable CD players where you would simply ‘snap’ the disc onto the central spinner and simply pull it off when done.
and I still have my original cart that came with my Mega Drive from less than a year later. Great game.
Unfortunately Sonic2sday for me was waiting for my preorder of the Game Gear version of Sonic 2, which still remains one of the most disappointing games ever. I was a huge fan of the 8 bit version of Sonic 1 and was hoping 2 would be better. However, due to the zoomed in screen of the Game Gear the first boss was ridiculously difficult for a sonic game and the following level had hang glider sections with broken controls.
On reflection I should have gone for the superior Master System version (which at least corrects the issue with the zoomed in screen) just like I did with the first Sonic game.
@Tasuki would that not mean that the generation of the Dreamcast would also count as retro? That would include the original Xbox, PS2 and GameCube. I’d argue that the Dreamcast was actually the start of the ‘modern era’ of gaming due to its online functions. However, a case could be made that retro ends with the Wii for another reason entirely: it was the last non-HD console (no HDMI port and max resolution of 480p).
Very sad news. His voice is the one I associate most with the character. Gruff but compassionate, intelligent and driven with just the right amount of humour. RIP 🦇
@Jimgamer8 Extraction wasn’t a port, it was a Wii exclusive. That’s why it’s so good, it was developed for the Wiimote. I’d love an HD version on Switch.
I played through Chop til you drop on Wii back in the day and enjoyed it. I finally downloaded the HD update for Xbox Series X version a while ago and… not so much. Maybe I need to give it more time but it’s not as fun as I thought it would be.
I did get hold of the COD modern warfare port for cheap a couple of years back. That’s one I’ll stick to on HD consoles!
Just completed Castlevania Bloodlines on the Castlevania Collection on my Seitch yesterday, followed immediately by blasting through the original Ninja Turtles Arcade game with both of my kids on the Cowabunga Collection.
On my own I’m currently replaying Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare on my Series X.
@RubyCarbuncle even weirder; that dinosaur skeleton was originally Godzilla! There are several versions of the game, each released after someone came after SEGA for copyright infringement. So there is a version with Batman, Spiderman, the Terminator and Godzilla and different versions with some or all removed/changed!
It is noticeable on the Mega Drive version. The music still sounds funny to me at full speed, being so used to the slower speed from my childhood! There are a couple of effects that are absent in the PAL version (the clouds in the background of Green Hill move independently on the Japanese version for example).
It sounds strange but have you tried the PAL release of Sonic 1 on Mega Drive? It runs at 50hz so is about 17% slower than the NTSC/ Japanese version. It’s the one I grew up with so I’m just as nostalgic for it as the full speed version. However, I also grew up with the PAL version of the SMS version too…
@Herna it has passing familiarity with the flagship 16 bit version but does its own thing. I grew up with both versions; 8 bit on my Game Gear (though it was the SMS version through the converter) and the 16 bit version in shops and friends’ houses before getting my own MD. I love both versions of Sonic 1 equally as they are both very charming games with their own strengths and weaknesses.
The Lucky Dime Caper on SMS is actually different from the Game Gear version, which is the one I grew up with; it’s tougher and has some unique sections to stages. The 8 bit version of Castle of Illusion is also excellent. Like Sonic 1 it has similar elements to the 16 but game but is very much it’s own beast.
Some other good Master System games/ports: Alien 3 - speedier than the 16 bit version Prince of Persia - how they got it working on an SMS is beyond me. Jurassic Park - totally different from the 16 but versions. Streets of Rage - descent port, even if you have to pause to use the special move. Wonder Boy Road Rash - almost as good as the 16 bit version. Jungle Book
I was in year 6/7 at school when the shareware version of Doom released. I’d heard rumours of this fantastically violent game going around the playground but only in hushed whispers about something called ‘Doom’. Then mum surprised me by saying that she’d picked up the shareware copy as apparently ‘it was all the rage’. I couldn’t believe it and quickly realised that she had no clue as to what it really was! Still, the damage was done and it helped that my dad thought it was awesome too (despite the fact that to this day he doesn’t get video games at all).
I remember being surprised though that to get the rest of the game you had to send off to the US for it, so I didn’t get to experience the full game until I was 13 when I got Ultimate Doom: Thy Flesh Consumed. In fact I’ve just blasted through the first 3 chapters of Doom on Switch and I’m trying to get through Thy Flesh Consumed at the moment (massive difficulty leap there from Inferno).
Shareware was awesome, I got to play so many games for so little money: Wolfenstein, Doom, Rise of the Triad just to name a few. The early PC time in gaming was fantastic. Though I’m strictly a console gamer these days and have been for a while, there was a period of time when I’d lose hours to games on the family PC: X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Discworld, Day of the Tentacle, Doom 2, Resident Evil 2, Magic the Gathering, Road Rash.
I’m from the UK where the SMS was quite popular (I saw far more of them than the NES growing up). I have around 20 games on cart I think, including the handful I had as a kid which I have since rebought. Luckily I also have the 16 games for the Wii VC after modding a spare console I found cheap, which includes some real gems like R-Type, Phantasy Star and the Wonder Boy series.
I’m not sure about a SMS app, as the console while successful in Europe and HUGE in South America, especially Brazil, didn’t do well in the US or Japan, which is why I think we only got 16 VC games (compared to 70+ NES/SNES/Mega Drive games released). I’d buy a SMS mini in a heartbeat though, even if it was just 30 games like the NES mini.
@Slinkeepie agreed! I don’t have my original copy for the SMS from the 90s (I gave my small Master System collection away along with a power base converter model 2 a long time ago). Luckily I too have it on Wii VC (my go to retro system plugged into a CRT tv with the entire VC library on it (through, erm, ways and means…) but I managed to track down another copy of the cart and got another power base converter 2: That means I can play it on my Mega Drive 2 through RGB SCART. Looks fantastic!
I also have an SMS 2 that I got cheap about 10 years ago and it happened to be the more uncommon model with Sonic built in. Funnily enough I just assumed there would be more of the sonic model than the Alex Kidd version which seemed to be everywhere when I was a kid.
@Slinkeepie Sonic 1 SMS was the first game I ever completed back in ‘92, except I played it through a converter on my Game Gear back then. Excellent version of the game, easily up there with the Mega Drive version.
‘Tis spooky season so I’m going through some horror related games this month. So far I’ve completed Super Castlevania IV on the Konami collection on Switch and I’m currently up to Death in Castlevania Generations on the same collection.
I’ve also blasted through the original Doom this month and I’m on another playthrough of Doom 2, again on Switch. I’ve been playing these games since the shareware release of the first game in 1993 and they are still awesome today!
@BulkSlash I’ll second that. I grew up with the cartoons in 80s/early 90s and was used to Mario and Luigi having Brooklyn accents. It was quite strange when I later got Mario 64 but got used to it very quickly.
I can’t see the problem; to me Sonic was a similar story, but went from silent protagonist to whiny kid on his cartoon to a happy medium of young and enthusiastic in the movies (it helps that he sounds the same as one of the three ducklings in the new Ducktales who is played by the same voice actor. Btw, if you have never seen the new Ducktales series it is really rather good, totally different from the original but does it’s own thing. David Tennant as Scrooge is casting genius.
It’ll be good to play through this again with HD graphics and some frame rate improvements. If it’s anywhere near as good as the HD update to Perfect Dark it’ll be good fun!
I have held onto nearly all my gaming stuff since I was a kid, so I use a mix. My Mega Drive looks excellent through RGB SCART on my crt tv and pretty good through my flatscreen. My N64 is passable on crt as is my PS2. GameCube looks great through SCART in the same way as Mega Drive, as does Xbox.
Aside from that I was a big fan of the Virtual Console on Wii and have a modded Wii with the entire VC library on it. Through SCART into the crt these play and look fine, though I will adjust the display to 4:3 (though it is a wide screen so they would look better through my other 4:3 crt which is in storage).
I have four of the mini consoles and they are great for nostalgia and with their HDMI outputs they are future proof (though the bizarre decision to limit the PS1 classic to 480p is annoying).
The Classic Console War of the 90s was a time when we didn’t realise just how good we had it. Both systems built on and realised the full potential of their 8 bit predecessors, taking 2D gaming to the next level. The huge leap from my ZX Spectrum to Mega Drive was akin to VHS to DVD or cassette to CD.
No matter which system you chose you were guaranteed an excellent experience which was also largely unique. Yes, there were multiplat games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II which showed the relative strengths and weaknesses of both machines but regardless you had fantastic exclusives on both that more than made up for not having access to the other, including completely different versions of the same game, such as Aladdin and Alien 3. They were both very different ‘feeling’ systems too, with their own styles. Neither did much copycatting of the other (the Super Scope and Menacer being examples of exceptions) but instead focused on innovation.
Both could also be made backwards compatible with older systems too: the Super Game Boy on SNES gave you access to the entire Game Boy library and the Power Base Converter on Mega Drive allowed access to the whole Master System library.
@Gs69 I still have my original Mega Drive II from 1993 and can confirm is a red light under the grills between the two switches.
The price is already ridiculous for what is essentially a novelty item pandering to nostalgia (and I say that even though I own 4 different mini consoles already) but the lazy use of the switch, as petty as it may sound, is enough to put me off. I loved the idea of a replica of my first and probably favourite console and hoped that they would put in as much attention to detail as the excellent first model. If it was £79 like the first I could probably my let it go but for £105 it’s too much.
@Hikingguy Ocarina of Time was my first real Zelda experience (apart from playing a bit of Zelda 1 on a friend’s NES in the early 90s) and it’s still my favourite by far, closely followed by Wind Waker. I personally never managed to get through Link to the Past or Zelda 2, though I’ve beaten the original game and a number of others. I’m hoping we might get the 3DS version of Ocarina on Switch at some point. I’ve always preferred console to handheld gaming if given the choice and to have one of my favourite games with the updated graphics of the 3DS but at 1080p would be fantastic.
I’ve put in over a hundred hours into Breath of the Wild on Wii U and completed it but have felt no compulsion to go back and play it again. The open world is lovely but the lack of true dungeons and the annoying weapon breaking system is not something I want to go back to. In fact, aside from the not terribly accurate motion controls of Skyward Sword, it was the destructible shields that put me off. Now that the Switch gives button controls to the game and I’ve gotten used to the mechanics of Breath of the Wild’s weapons I’m hoping I’ll see it through.
@Axelay71 I don’t know; the Dreamcast still gets regular releases these days 😁 I think it will depend on the fans. With the ability to mod the Wii (which I have done recently) it has given it a brand new lease of life. We will just have to see I guess.
@Hikingguy it’s funny that the Wii is actually the antithesis of the issue of ‘pushing the hardware’ like you mentioned with regards to HD. The Wii is basically 2 GameCubes squashed together with added online and motion controls. With it’s lack of power it struggled to do decent versions of multiplat games but with the technology being so well known to Nintendo you can see how comfortable they were with developing exclusives for it, where they focused on innovation with current tech rather than pushing it to its limit and falling short. All the first party games I have owned are still extremely playable today, aside from any that took the motion control too far I have just bought Skyward Sword for Switch as the Wii original is the only Zelda I have ever abandoned halfway through apart from Twilight Princess which I later completed on GameCube). The only glaring issue is the lack of HDMI but with a CRT tv it looks great.
@Axelay71 I think there’s another aspect of this: the age of the gamer. I was a kid during the 8 bit/16 bit generation and a teen during the 32 bit/64 bit generation. As such most people my age will be very nostalgic for those systems and are currently the age with some disposable income (!) and a desire to relive their childhoods. In 10/15 years time it will be kids who grew up with the Wii/PS3/Xbox 360 who will be in the same situation. As such, the same feelings of nostalgia will be felt for the games of that generation. Sadly the older generation will be forgotten by most (aside from people who also played retro games through Virtual Console or Xbox Online).
I’m sure people of my parents’ generation thought similar things about other trends and media: ‘huh, no-one will remember Oasis or the Spice Girls; the Beatles are classic!’ Whilst I do like my sixties/seventies tunes it is stuff from the 80s/90s that are my ‘classics’ (and I cannot stand modern music but my kids will feel the same way about it as I did for the stuff that was around when I was their age). Let the circle be unbroken…
I think of it like this: if I am playing on my Wii today I am playing a 16 year old console. When the Wii was released, what console would I have to have been playing at that point for it to be 16 years old in 2006? Something from 1990, so a Mega Drive or Game Boy. Would those have felt ‘retro’ in 2006? Definitely. As such the Wii is retro.
I’ve held onto nearly all my old systems and have them there ready to set up and play if I want to. However, having finally gotten around to modding a spare Wii that now gives me access to a decent library of retro systems and games from the Virtual Console. I have enough space to have a 32’ flat screen and a 26’ wide screen crt tv side by side so between the Wii and Switch/Xbox One and the various mini consoles I’m covered for a huge number of retro games.
As a SEGA kid for most of the 90s, the N64 was my first Nintendo console (I did have a Game Boy so it wasn’t my first system from the big N). I will always associate it with my final years in high school, playing 4 player Goldeneye/ Mario Kart 64/ Perfect Dark every Friday or Saturday evening with my friends. Whether it was shouting in frustration at MK (Toad getting the brunt of it), fighting an army of bots in PD or nearly destroying the speaker on the old TV I had in my room when 4 RCP-90s were blasting away in Goldeneye.
The single player experiences were great too: Mario 64 was my first Mario game besides the land series on GB, Lylat Wars was massively replayable as were Shadows of the Empire and Rogue Squadron. It was Ocarina of Time that really makes me hold the system in my heart. Never experienced anything like it before or since (Breathe of the Wild is not even close).
My only real gripe with the N64 is that it is hard to play today due to its limited outputs: in Europe you can only play it through RF (which is what I used at the time) or composite. Whereas my Mega Drive can output through RGB SCART and looks fantastic on a CRT TV and good on a flat screen, the N64 looks fuzzy on the first and terrible on the later. At least with my modded Wii I have access to many of the heavy hitters which I can play through SCART or component, though I have to use a pro controller or GameCube pad of course.
My N64 is still in working order today but my original pad’s stick has given up the ghost. Luckily I have a second first party pad that didn’t get as much use so I should be ok for a while yet.
During lockdown 2020 I decided to take apart and deep clean my original Mega Drive 2 from 1993. Aside from a bit of dust the motherboard was in great shape and once a bit of compressed air was used to get rid of that and a good scrub of the plastics separately it was running like new. I even took the pads apart and gave them a clean, removing old stickers and residue from newly 30 years ago. Hopefully will last a fair few years more. Might have to look into getting a more modern power adapter after reading this article though. I would t mind; the UK Mega Drive plug is huge and weighs a ton!
The major issue is that in all previous incarnations of the PlayStation parts got cheaper and building got more efficient. With solid sales this meant savings could’ve passed onto new customers as an incentive to sign up. It’s stating the obvious but parts and labour costs are going up in most of the world due to various reasons and this is reflected in the increase in price of technology. Nintendo isn’t putting the price of the Switch up (at least in the UK and Europe) as I’m guessing it is based on older and cheaper tech than the PS5. I for one am planning to stick with my current set up (Xbox One S, Switch and a wealth management of older consoles) for quite a while. I’m ok with that but this is a real bummer for people who were waiting for a price drop and build up of titles before committing.
If it looks like the original Mega Drive II (my first console that still sits under a TV in my game room) then I’ll track one down at some point. The first mini is excellent and this one has some interesting additions. Since I modded a Wii I have 70+ Mega Drive games, plus those on the first mini, so the Mega CD games intrigue me.
I was extremely young at the time so have no personal recollection of the time of the ‘crash’ in the UK, but on reflection it’s interesting that I clearly remember the SEGA Master System being advertised on tv in the 80s, however the NES was much rarer (though I remember seeing them in shops on occasion). When console gaming started to take off over here it was the opposite of the US, where the NES was king and the Master System the underdog. In the UK it was the other way round due to Nintendo pretty much ignoring Europe and that allowed SEGA to get a foothold. Even in the 90s I knew exactly one person with a SNES; everyone else had a Mega Drive.
I remember in the early to mid 90s being at two separate school friend’s houses where we found a NES boxed up in the attic. It was like a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark!
On the flip side I started with a Spectrum and although I remember not being impressed with it compared to what consoles could do (long loading times and limited colours vs the smooth play of NES games and the colours and graphics of Master System games) the games were so cheap; £2-£5 compared to £20+ on the consoles!
I first discovered MK in the arcade (my friends and I got thrown out of the tiny back room arcade in a local video rental shop for getting too excited playing the game; totally innocent we were just being a bit loud!). I never had the SNES/Mega Drive port but got it on PC (on floppy disc) a few years later, which I’m guessing was a much closer version to the arcade than either console. I did finally get the Mega Drive cart a couple of years ago. Love the theme tune.
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Re: Poll: Are Game Boy Games Still Worth Playing In 2023?
@Wheatly Whilst I can see your point I really can’t sympathise too much with people struggling with control schemes; I played these games when I was very young and we all had to adapt to the controls. True, controls on my Series X are very good, but controlling a 2D platformer was something I never struggled with at the age of 10 back in the early 90s, neither do my own young children struggle with the same games now.
I am happy to admit that save states are a godsend when it comes to old school difficulty but limited controls is like complaining about driving a manual car when you are used to automatic. Sure, automatic is a lot easier but manual still works perfectly fine, as long as you are willing to adapt.
Re: Poll: Are Game Boy Games Still Worth Playing In 2023?
Asking this question is akin to asking ‘should you bother watching old movies anymore?’ Just like old films it comes down purely to quality. Many older games are simply good games, with the only limitations being a factor of their age (graphics, difficulty, modern quality of life features).
If we are to view playing Super Mario Land 2 as pointless in 2023, then should we have the same attitude to black and white films? You could say ‘but there are better games available since’ but that doesn’t negate how much fun you can have playing the older games. The same could be said for films.
Re: Best Sega Game Gear Games
The Lucky Dime Caper and the port of Alien 3 are two other good GG games.
However, the GG port of Sonic 2 is really disappointing; the screen is so far zoomed in that you can hardly dodge anything and made the first boss unnecessary difficult. The Master System version, while not as pretty, is a better game.
Re: Xbox Confirms GoldenEye 007 Cheat Codes Won't Work On The Xbox Version
Wait, there were codes? We had to do it the old fashioned way; playing the levels until we unlocked them. We certainly got our money’s worth back then!
Re: "They Just Didn't Offer Us The Project" - Why Streets Of Rage 3 Is The Black Sheep Of The Family
If you can, do yourself a favour and download the Streets of Rage collection on Xbox. All three original games, with the superior Japanese version of SOR3 (Bare Knuckle 3). Characters are in the correct coloured costumes and the balance is much better than the pointlessly difficult Western version.
As a kid my friend and I could rinse SOR 1 & 2 but 3 was just too hard. It was only years later I found out why; the difficultly levels were swapped round! Easy is actually Normal (and only lets you get to Stage 5) with Normal being the equivalent of Hard.
Having said that I never owned the cart of SOR 3 but felt sorry for my mate who did!
Re: "Sonic Didn't Launch The Genesis, Joe Montana Did"
I’m not sure how many people today realise what it was like for SEGA to come out of nowhere and challenge Nintendo. Even getting the second spot was a massive uphill battle. It’s kind of like Iron Man vs Thanos in Infinity War: ‘all that for a drop of blood’
Re: Random: Legend of Zelda Cartoon Writer Reveals The Origins Of Its Infamous Catchphrase
I remember watching this at the time in the late 80s/early 90s. The catchphrase wasn’t particularly annoying as it hadn’t been made a meme yet (plus most people I knew didn’t know much about Zelda, the most I had seen by then was a friend’s Zelda Game & Watch).
Re: Poll: So, What's Your Favourite Controller Of All Time?
@Browny totally slipped by me that the Classic Controllers for the Wii weren’t on the list! I love the original one for its nostalgia but the Pro version is superb. The buttons are really responsive and it has a really good d-pad. Plus they are really well made: hundreds of hours on Monster Hunter Tri and various virtual console games over the 12 years I’ve had it and not one bit of drift or unresponsiveness.
Re: Poll: So, What's Your Favourite Controller Of All Time?
For pure nostalgia I went for the classic 3 button Mega Drive controller; as a kid it felt futuristic (3 buttons? The NES only has 2!). Not surprised about the GameCube controller getting it; it was much derided at the time but on reflection it is very comfortable to use and the button layout and feel is great. Just a pity about that d-pad, though tbh that’s only really an issue in a handful of games or if you are using the GameBoy Player (personally I used to plug my GBA into the system with the connecting lead to control the games as they were meant to be controlled). However, modern controllers like the Switch Pro or the Xbox Series controllers are objectively better.
What about some 3rd party controllers? I have a few 8bitdo ones and have just taken delivery of the Pro 2 for Switch. Will be interesting to see how it compares to the Nintendo Switch Pro controller…
Re: Best Xbox 360 Games
Pretty good but this list is missing some outstanding games such as:
Dishonoured
Far Cry 3 (+ Blood Dragon)
Batman Arkham Asylum + City
Mass Effect trilogy
Re: Poll: What Was Your Favourite Game Of Christmas 2012?
Dishonoured is one of my favourite games of all time. However, back in 2012 is only just got an XBOX 360 S that summer. For Xmas my wife surprised me with 4 excellent games for it: GTA IV, Batman Arkham City, COD Black Ops and Halo CE 10 year Anniversary.
Needless to say she didn’t see much of me that holiday!
Re: Poll: Which Old-School AV Connection Is Your Favourite?
Back in the day I played with whatever came in the box! I used coaxial up to and including the PS2 in 2004. The GameCube was the first system I had that came with AV cables and I didn’t swap to something better until 2010 when I got an HD tv and found out I could use component cables with my Wii. I got an Xbox 360 a while later and finally moved onto the HD generation. However, as I got more interested in my older systems I have tried to get the best out of them. I bought a packapunch RGB SCART cable for my old Mega Drive and it looks excellent on my crt and very good on an HD tv. However I’ve recent bought a 4K tv for my Xbox Series X and that is HDMI only, so I have a clear split between my pre-HD consoles and systems from the 360 onwards.
Re: Random: 21 Years Later, People Are Discovering The GameCube's 'Hidden Eject Button'
Bought both my cubes second hand without a manual, so it took me years to discover the eject button (totally by accident). To be fair, the disc was in no danger of snapping as long as you gripped both sides gently with one hand and lifter up.
I think it also comes from the fact that we were so used to portable CD players where you would simply ‘snap’ the disc onto the central spinner and simply pull it off when done.
Re: Flashback: It's 30 Years Since 'Sonic 2sday' - And Here's How It Happened
and I still have my original cart that came with my Mega Drive from less than a year later. Great game.
Unfortunately Sonic2sday for me was waiting for my preorder of the Game Gear version of Sonic 2, which still remains one of the most disappointing games ever. I was a huge fan of the 8 bit version of Sonic 1 and was hoping 2 would be better. However, due to the zoomed in screen of the Game Gear the first boss was ridiculously difficult for a sonic game and the following level had hang glider sections with broken controls.
On reflection I should have gone for the superior Master System version (which at least corrects the issue with the zoomed in screen) just like I did with the first Sonic game.
Re: Interview: Trista Bytes On Carving Out A Career In The Retro Gaming Scene
@Tasuki would that not mean that the generation of the Dreamcast would also count as retro? That would include the original Xbox, PS2 and GameCube. I’d argue that the Dreamcast was actually the start of the ‘modern era’ of gaming due to its online functions. However, a case could be made that retro ends with the Wii for another reason entirely: it was the last non-HD console (no HDMI port and max resolution of 480p).
Re: Interview: Trista Bytes On Carving Out A Career In The Retro Gaming Scene
‘Perfect Dark is superior to Goldeneye in every way’
A wise choice.
‘Soul Caliber is better than Tekken Tag Tournament’
….them’s fighting words!
Re: Batman Voice Actor Kevin Conroy Has Passed Away
Very sad news. His voice is the one I associate most with the character. Gruff but compassionate, intelligent and driven with just the right amount of humour. RIP 🦇
Re: Flashback: Remembering The Glory Days Of Wii-Exclusive Ports
@Jimgamer8 Extraction wasn’t a port, it was a Wii exclusive. That’s why it’s so good, it was developed for the Wiimote. I’d love an HD version on Switch.
Re: Flashback: Remembering The Glory Days Of Wii-Exclusive Ports
I played through Chop til you drop on Wii back in the day and enjoyed it. I finally downloaded the HD update for Xbox Series X version a while ago and… not so much. Maybe I need to give it more time but it’s not as fun as I thought it would be.
I did get hold of the COD modern warfare port for cheap a couple of years back. That’s one I’ll stick to on HD consoles!
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (November 5th)
Just completed Castlevania Bloodlines on the Castlevania Collection on my Seitch yesterday, followed immediately by blasting through the original Ninja Turtles Arcade game with both of my kids on the Cowabunga Collection.
On my own I’m currently replaying Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare on my Series X.
Re: Sega Wants To Know What Mini Console You Want Next
Master system! Fill it with 50+ games, bundle with two controllers and sell for £50/£60. Day one purchase!
Re: Best Genesis / Mega Drive Games
@RubyCarbuncle even weirder; that dinosaur skeleton was originally Godzilla! There are several versions of the game, each released after someone came after SEGA for copyright infringement. So there is a version with Batman, Spiderman, the Terminator and Godzilla and different versions with some or all removed/changed!
Re: Best Sega Master System Games
It is noticeable on the Mega Drive version. The music still sounds funny to me at full speed, being so used to the slower speed from my childhood! There are a couple of effects that are absent in the PAL version (the clouds in the background of Green Hill move independently on the Japanese version for example).
Re: Best Sega Master System Games
It sounds strange but have you tried the PAL release of Sonic 1 on Mega Drive? It runs at 50hz so is about 17% slower than the NTSC/ Japanese version. It’s the one I grew up with so I’m just as nostalgic for it as the full speed version. However, I also grew up with the PAL version of the SMS version too…
Re: Best Sega Master System Games
@Herna it has passing familiarity with the flagship 16 bit version but does its own thing. I grew up with both versions; 8 bit on my Game Gear (though it was the SMS version through the converter) and the 16 bit version in shops and friends’ houses before getting my own MD. I love both versions of Sonic 1 equally as they are both very charming games with their own strengths and weaknesses.
Re: Best Sega Master System Games
The Lucky Dime Caper on SMS is actually different from the Game Gear version, which is the one I grew up with; it’s tougher and has some unique sections to stages. The 8 bit version of Castle of Illusion is also excellent. Like Sonic 1 it has similar elements to the 16 but game but is very much it’s own beast.
Some other good Master System games/ports:
Alien 3 - speedier than the 16 bit version
Prince of Persia - how they got it working on an SMS is beyond me.
Jurassic Park - totally different from the 16 but versions.
Streets of Rage - descent port, even if you have to pause to use the special move.
Wonder Boy
Road Rash - almost as good as the 16 bit version.
Jungle Book
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (October 15th)
Well I’ve just got an Xbox Series X so not so much playing as waiting for all my games to transfer over from my Xbox One!
I have been able to play through the original Turtles arcade game on the Cowabunga collection on Switch though. Excellent collection so far!
Re: CIBSunday: DOOM (PC)
I was in year 6/7 at school when the shareware version of Doom released. I’d heard rumours of this fantastically violent game going around the playground but only in hushed whispers about something called ‘Doom’. Then mum surprised me by saying that she’d picked up the shareware copy as apparently ‘it was all the rage’. I couldn’t believe it and quickly realised that she had no clue as to what it really was! Still, the damage was done and it helped that my dad thought it was awesome too (despite the fact that to this day he doesn’t get video games at all).
I remember being surprised though that to get the rest of the game you had to send off to the US for it, so I didn’t get to experience the full game until I was 13 when I got Ultimate Doom: Thy Flesh Consumed. In fact I’ve just blasted through the first 3 chapters of Doom on Switch and I’m trying to get through Thy Flesh Consumed at the moment (massive difficulty leap there from Inferno).
Shareware was awesome, I got to play so many games for so little money: Wolfenstein, Doom, Rise of the Triad just to name a few. The early PC time in gaming was fantastic. Though I’m strictly a console gamer these days and have been for a while, there was a period of time when I’d lose hours to games on the family PC: X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Discworld, Day of the Tentacle, Doom 2, Resident Evil 2, Magic the Gathering, Road Rash.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (October 9th)
I’m from the UK where the SMS was quite popular (I saw far more of them than the NES growing up). I have around 20 games on cart I think, including the handful I had as a kid which I have since rebought. Luckily I also have the 16 games for the Wii VC after modding a spare console I found cheap, which includes some real gems like R-Type, Phantasy Star and the Wonder Boy series.
I’m not sure about a SMS app, as the console while successful in Europe and HUGE in South America, especially Brazil, didn’t do well in the US or Japan, which is why I think we only got 16 VC games (compared to 70+ NES/SNES/Mega Drive games released). I’d buy a SMS mini in a heartbeat though, even if it was just 30 games like the NES mini.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (October 9th)
@Slinkeepie agreed! I don’t have my original copy for the SMS from the 90s (I gave my small Master System collection away along with a power base converter model 2 a long time ago). Luckily I too have it on Wii VC (my go to retro system plugged into a CRT tv with the entire VC library on it (through, erm, ways and means…) but I managed to track down another copy of the cart and got another power base converter 2: That means I can play it on my Mega Drive 2 through RGB SCART. Looks fantastic!
I also have an SMS 2 that I got cheap about 10 years ago and it happened to be the more uncommon model with Sonic built in. Funnily enough I just assumed there would be more of the sonic model than the Alex Kidd version which seemed to be everywhere when I was a kid.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (October 9th)
@Slinkeepie Sonic 1 SMS was the first game I ever completed back in ‘92, except I played it through a converter on my Game Gear back then. Excellent version of the game, easily up there with the Mega Drive version.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (October 9th)
‘Tis spooky season so I’m going through some horror related games this month. So far I’ve completed Super Castlevania IV on the Konami collection on Switch and I’m currently up to Death in Castlevania Generations on the same collection.
I’ve also blasted through the original Doom this month and I’m on another playthrough of Doom 2, again on Switch. I’ve been playing these games since the shareware release of the first game in 1993 and they are still awesome today!
Re: Random: If Mario's Voice Upsets You, You'd Better Not Watch 1993's Live-Action Movie
@BulkSlash I’ll second that. I grew up with the cartoons in 80s/early 90s and was used to Mario and Luigi having Brooklyn accents. It was quite strange when I later got Mario 64 but got used to it very quickly.
I can’t see the problem; to me Sonic was a similar story, but went from silent protagonist to whiny kid on his cartoon to a happy medium of young and enthusiastic in the movies (it helps that he sounds the same as one of the three ducklings in the new Ducktales who is played by the same voice actor. Btw, if you have never seen the new Ducktales series it is really rather good, totally different from the original but does it’s own thing. David Tennant as Scrooge is casting genius.
Re: GoldenEye 007 Announced For Nintendo Switch And Xbox Game Pass
It’ll be good to play through this again with HD graphics and some frame rate improvements. If it’s anywhere near as good as the HD update to Perfect Dark it’ll be good fun!
Re: Best Retro Gaming Systems - What's The Dream Option For You?
I have held onto nearly all my gaming stuff since I was a kid, so I use a mix. My Mega Drive looks excellent through RGB SCART on my crt tv and pretty good through my flatscreen. My N64 is passable on crt as is my PS2. GameCube looks great through SCART in the same way as Mega Drive, as does Xbox.
Aside from that I was a big fan of the Virtual Console on Wii and have a modded Wii with the entire VC library on it. Through SCART into the crt these play and look fine, though I will adjust the display to 4:3 (though it is a wide screen so they would look better through my other 4:3 crt which is in storage).
I have four of the mini consoles and they are great for nostalgia and with their HDMI outputs they are future proof (though the bizarre decision to limit the PS1 classic to 480p is annoying).
Re: The Man Behind Sega's 'Blast Processing' Gimmick Is Sorry For Creating "That Ghastly Phrase"
The Classic Console War of the 90s was a time when we didn’t realise just how good we had it. Both systems built on and realised the full potential of their 8 bit predecessors, taking 2D gaming to the next level. The huge leap from my ZX Spectrum to Mega Drive was akin to VHS to DVD or cassette to CD.
No matter which system you chose you were guaranteed an excellent experience which was also largely unique. Yes, there were multiplat games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II which showed the relative strengths and weaknesses of both machines but regardless you had fantastic exclusives on both that more than made up for not having access to the other, including completely different versions of the same game, such as Aladdin and Alien 3. They were both very different ‘feeling’ systems too, with their own styles. Neither did much copycatting of the other (the Super Scope and Menacer being examples of exceptions) but instead focused on innovation.
Both could also be made backwards compatible with older systems too: the Super Game Boy on SNES gave you access to the entire Game Boy library and the Power Base Converter on Mega Drive allowed access to the whole Master System library.
We were spoiled rotten and it was great!
Re: Have You Spotted What's Wrong With The Genesis / Mega Drive Mini 2 Yet?
@Gs69 I still have my original Mega Drive II from 1993 and can confirm is a red light under the grills between the two switches.
The price is already ridiculous for what is essentially a novelty item pandering to nostalgia (and I say that even though I own 4 different mini consoles already) but the lazy use of the switch, as petty as it may sound, is enough to put me off. I loved the idea of a replica of my first and probably favourite console and hoped that they would put in as much attention to detail as the excellent first model. If it was £79 like the first I could probably my let it go but for £105 it’s too much.
Re: Where To Buy The Mega Drive / Genesis Mini 2
At £105 this is a hard pass for me.
Plus a power switch instead of a button? That’s not accurate at all for a European Mega Drive II!
Re: Poll: Are The PS3, Wii And Xbox 360 Retro Now?
@Hikingguy Ocarina of Time was my first real Zelda experience (apart from playing a bit of Zelda 1 on a friend’s NES in the early 90s) and it’s still my favourite by far, closely followed by Wind Waker. I personally never managed to get through Link to the Past or Zelda 2, though I’ve beaten the original game and a number of others. I’m hoping we might get the 3DS version of Ocarina on Switch at some point. I’ve always preferred console to handheld gaming if given the choice and to have one of my favourite games with the updated graphics of the 3DS but at 1080p would be fantastic.
I’ve put in over a hundred hours into Breath of the Wild on Wii U and completed it but have felt no compulsion to go back and play it again. The open world is lovely but the lack of true dungeons and the annoying weapon breaking system is not something I want to go back to. In fact, aside from the not terribly accurate motion controls of Skyward Sword, it was the destructible shields that put me off. Now that the Switch gives button controls to the game and I’ve gotten used to the mechanics of Breath of the Wild’s weapons I’m hoping I’ll see it through.
Re: Poll: Are The PS3, Wii And Xbox 360 Retro Now?
@Axelay71 I don’t know; the Dreamcast still gets regular releases these days 😁 I think it will depend on the fans. With the ability to mod the Wii (which I have done recently) it has given it a brand new lease of life. We will just have to see I guess.
Re: Poll: Are The PS3, Wii And Xbox 360 Retro Now?
@Hikingguy it’s funny that the Wii is actually the antithesis of the issue of ‘pushing the hardware’ like you mentioned with regards to HD. The Wii is basically 2 GameCubes squashed together with added online and motion controls. With it’s lack of power it struggled to do decent versions of multiplat games but with the technology being so well known to Nintendo you can see how comfortable they were with developing exclusives for it, where they focused on innovation with current tech rather than pushing it to its limit and falling short. All the first party games I have owned are still extremely playable today, aside from any that took the motion control too far I have just bought Skyward Sword for Switch as the Wii original is the only Zelda I have ever abandoned halfway through apart from Twilight Princess which I later completed on GameCube). The only glaring issue is the lack of HDMI but with a CRT tv it looks great.
Re: Poll: Are The PS3, Wii And Xbox 360 Retro Now?
@Axelay71 I think there’s another aspect of this: the age of the gamer. I was a kid during the 8 bit/16 bit generation and a teen during the 32 bit/64 bit generation. As such most people my age will be very nostalgic for those systems and are currently the age with some disposable income (!) and a desire to relive their childhoods. In 10/15 years time it will be kids who grew up with the Wii/PS3/Xbox 360 who will be in the same situation. As such, the same feelings of nostalgia will be felt for the games of that generation. Sadly the older generation will be forgotten by most (aside from people who also played retro games through Virtual Console or Xbox Online).
I’m sure people of my parents’ generation thought similar things about other trends and media: ‘huh, no-one will remember Oasis or the Spice Girls; the Beatles are classic!’ Whilst I do like my sixties/seventies tunes it is stuff from the 80s/90s that are my ‘classics’ (and I cannot stand modern music but my kids will feel the same way about it as I did for the stuff that was around when I was their age). Let the circle be unbroken…
Re: Poll: Are The PS3, Wii And Xbox 360 Retro Now?
I think of it like this: if I am playing on my Wii today I am playing a 16 year old console. When the Wii was released, what console would I have to have been playing at that point for it to be 16 years old in 2006? Something from 1990, so a Mega Drive or Game Boy. Would those have felt ‘retro’ in 2006? Definitely. As such the Wii is retro.
Re: Poll: How Do You Play Your Retro Games?
I’ve held onto nearly all my old systems and have them there ready to set up and play if I want to. However, having finally gotten around to modding a spare Wii that now gives me access to a decent library of retro systems and games from the Virtual Console. I have enough space to have a 32’ flat screen and a 26’ wide screen crt tv side by side so between the Wii and Switch/Xbox One and the various mini consoles I’m covered for a huge number of retro games.
Re: Soapbox: The Nintendo 64 Isn't Perfect, But I Still Love It
As a SEGA kid for most of the 90s, the N64 was my first Nintendo console (I did have a Game Boy so it wasn’t my first system from the big N). I will always associate it with my final years in high school, playing 4 player Goldeneye/ Mario Kart 64/ Perfect Dark every Friday or Saturday evening with my friends. Whether it was shouting in frustration at MK (Toad getting the brunt of it), fighting an army of bots in PD or nearly destroying the speaker on the old TV I had in my room when 4 RCP-90s were blasting away in Goldeneye.
The single player experiences were great too: Mario 64 was my first Mario game besides the land series on GB, Lylat Wars was massively replayable as were Shadows of the Empire and Rogue Squadron. It was Ocarina of Time that really makes me hold the system in my heart. Never experienced anything like it before or since (Breathe of the Wild is not even close).
My only real gripe with the N64 is that it is hard to play today due to its limited outputs: in Europe you can only play it through RF (which is what I used at the time) or composite. Whereas my Mega Drive can output through RGB SCART and looks fantastic on a CRT TV and good on a flat screen, the N64 looks fuzzy on the first and terrible on the later. At least with my modded Wii I have access to many of the heavy hitters which I can play through SCART or component, though I have to use a pro controller or GameCube pad of course.
My N64 is still in working order today but my original pad’s stick has given up the ghost. Luckily I have a second first party pad that didn’t get as much use so I should be ok for a while yet.
Re: Feature: Your Beloved Games Console Is Slowly But Surely Dying
During lockdown 2020 I decided to take apart and deep clean my original Mega Drive 2 from 1993. Aside from a bit of dust the motherboard was in great shape and once a bit of compressed air was used to get rid of that and a good scrub of the plastics separately it was running like new. I even took the pads apart and gave them a clean, removing old stickers and residue from newly 30 years ago. Hopefully will last a fair few years more. Might have to look into getting a more modern power adapter after reading this article though. I would t mind; the UK Mega Drive plug is huge and weighs a ton!
Re: PS5 Price Hike: Here's How It Compares To Past PlayStation Console Prices
The major issue is that in all previous incarnations of the PlayStation parts got cheaper and building got more efficient. With solid sales this meant savings could’ve passed onto new customers as an incentive to sign up. It’s stating the obvious but parts and labour costs are going up in most of the world due to various reasons and this is reflected in the increase in price of technology. Nintendo isn’t putting the price of the Switch up (at least in the UK and Europe) as I’m guessing it is based on older and cheaper tech than the PS5. I for one am planning to stick with my current set up (Xbox One S, Switch and a wealth management of older consoles) for quite a while. I’m ok with that but this is a real bummer for people who were waiting for a price drop and build up of titles before committing.
Re: The Sega Mega Drive Mini 2 Is Finally Announced For Europe
If it looks like the original Mega Drive II (my first console that still sits under a TV in my game room) then I’ll track one down at some point. The first mini is excellent and this one has some interesting additions. Since I modded a Wii I have 70+ Mega Drive games, plus those on the first mini, so the Mega CD games intrigue me.
Re: Here's How UK Magazines Covered The "Great" Video Game Crash
I was extremely young at the time so have no personal recollection of the time of the ‘crash’ in the UK, but on reflection it’s interesting that I clearly remember the SEGA Master System being advertised on tv in the 80s, however the NES was much rarer (though I remember seeing them in shops on occasion). When console gaming started to take off over here it was the opposite of the US, where the NES was king and the Master System the underdog. In the UK it was the other way round due to Nintendo pretty much ignoring Europe and that allowed SEGA to get a foothold. Even in the 90s I knew exactly one person with a SNES; everyone else had a Mega Drive.
I remember in the early to mid 90s being at two separate school friend’s houses where we found a NES boxed up in the attic. It was like a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark!
On the flip side I started with a Spectrum and although I remember not being impressed with it compared to what consoles could do (long loading times and limited colours vs the smooth play of NES games and the colours and graphics of Master System games) the games were so cheap; £2-£5 compared to £20+ on the consoles!
Re: Feature: How Mortal Kombat Defined The Console War Between Sega And Nintendo
I first discovered MK in the arcade (my friends and I got thrown out of the tiny back room arcade in a local video rental shop for getting too excited playing the game; totally innocent we were just being a bit loud!). I never had the SNES/Mega Drive port but got it on PC (on floppy disc) a few years later, which I’m guessing was a much closer version to the arcade than either console. I did finally get the Mega Drive cart a couple of years ago. Love the theme tune.
All together now: GET OVER HERE!!!