RadioHedgeFund

I still think there is more to this than face value.

I still reckon Microsoft’s purchase of Activision was designed to keep gaming biggest franchises out of the hands of some 3rd party like Tencent, Amazon or some foreign power. An act of preservation.

The move to 3rd party on PlayStation then presents Sony with a problem: suddenly it has a monopoly on high end consoles and could be classified as a gatekeeper under EU rules. They could be forced to open up PlayStation to 3rd party game stores.

This would be good for gamers as it would allow places like the Epic Store and Steam but it would also allow Microsoft to put Gamepass on PlayStation.

I would argue that the Master System was the only Sega console better than its Nintendo counterpart.

Perhaps a little. A lot of out of to do with frustration. For example I have yet to play a dungeon crawler as straightforward as Phantasy Star Online in the modern day nor have Sony bothered to make a new WipEout in some time.

Sega Superstars cannot be the best Eyetoy experience because it does not feature George Formby.

I’m not sure why you’d take what is still one of the greatest FOS games ever made and then make it objectively worse. Goldeneye was great in its day but Perfect Dark is still so rammed with ideas 20 years later it’s embarrassing for every other FPS developer since.

@Axelay71 The only games I play on a Retroid are my existing purchases from Wii/PSN/3DS that are forever trapped on those consoles. I paid for them, they’re mine.

If there was one thing I did enjoy from Square it was the 2-hour intro movie to Final Fantasy XV, the movie Kingsglaive.

Shame it was a movie because I genuinely thought the story of Nyx Ulrich would have made for a better game.

I just have bought the game 4 times on all sorts of platforms and I still can’t get past the first level!

And yet I’d still call it one of my favourite games of all time. It’s a wonderful experience when you cannot die and the Infinite mode is to be played in VR.

@Bobb Nintendo often seem behind the curve but they experiment with tech at a rudimentary level years-to-decades before anybody else even bothers through clever use of software.

The NES and SNES had online portals and downloadable games.
For many of us the Gameboy Camera was our first taste of digital photography.
Look at the number of glasses-free lenticular 3D displays on show at CES at the minute and tell me the 3DS wasn't a decade ahead of its time. Said 3DS was also capable of taking 3D images and video a decade before Apple's new VR headset and playing passthrough AR titles in 3D too.

Probably my favourite console of all time and the reason why I keep a Series S under my TV instead of a PlayStation. I just can’t give up playing all those classics. Fable 2 and Forza Horizon 1 I play on repeat. Fable 2 streamlines and mocks so many WRPG tropes it’s hilarious and yet offers more freedom to build your own story than anything BioWare or Bethesda have built before or since.

@AJB83 I actually think the controls in WE64 are sublime. It’s the only one I can play with the analog sticks!

@AJB83 What I’m getting at is WipEout is the one racing title that actually plays better with the tap-tap minor adjustments of a dpad. I have found every version unplayable using the sticks!

WipEout 64 is actually the only game in the series which doesn’t have d-pad as an option!

@AJB83 Wipeout 64 is the only title in the series playable with the analog stick!

@CasePB The ridiculous amount of free DLC for the game would suggest otherwise.

Bullet dodged.

WipEout Fusion is one of the worst sequels in the history of videogames easily on par with Turok 3 and Angel of Darkness.

Because someone will ask:

• Game save deletion glitch which could not be patched.
• Most weapons locked behind game progress. Imagine having to win 3 cups in Mario Kart before you got the red shell.
• Ships glued to the track. No floaty feel.
• Inverse difficulty with upgradable low starting stats on all ships.
• AI can use every weapon.
• First weapon unlock? The Quake.
• Every 4th weapon hitting you in single player is the unavoidable Quake. Low stats means many deaths.
• Analog d-pad. Everyone knows WipEout cannot be played with analog controls. You need the tap-tap of digital.

Thankfully WipEout Pure came out and was such a good game it forms the basis of the current version.

@Poodlestargenerica You’ll probably find that the creativity and abstract thinking required for a challenge such as this is applicable to a whole lot of aspirational careers.

At school we had a nickname for Croc, or Crock of ***** as we called it. Utterly terrible game.

Portable consoles have been helpful. I cannot play Persona 4 without thinking of my work lunch breaks, trying to find a quiet corner of campus away from the students.

There are actually two answers to this one. The normal answer is Pure. Fusion isn't just the worst game in the series but one of the most bug-ridden messes on the PS2 that makes Angel of Darkness look like Ocarina of Time. I have an whole article of reasons as to why this game sucks. Pure not only tighted the ship, it still forms the basis of the most recent PS4 rendition. Seeing it running on that big ol' PSP screen was a slice of the future.

The secret best Wipeout is the very rare arcade variant. Think F-Zero AX but 2097 together with a cockpit cabinet of sorts that moved. There is very little information on it online (https://www.highwaygames.com/arcade-machines/wipeout-8041/) but I remember playing it as a teenager at the seaside in the UK.

Still the greatest FPS ever made. I am happy for people to disagree with that statement and also to provide an exhaustive list as to why they are wrong.

@-wc- fighting games are a hoot provided everyone is crap or everyone is good. Getting your ass handed to you repeatedly isn’t any fun for anyone

I think the last normal racing title I played in local multiplayer was Gran Turismo 3! I don’t mind online races at all although I imagine the players on the other end who have turned up for a serious race get a little annoyed at me playing it like Burnout!

Mario Kart is kind of fun online but I prefer the speed and pace of WipEout which I am a lot better at. The only local multiplayer I enjoyed in a Mario Kart title was Battle Mode on the SNES. It’s actually quite difficult to pull off a fun offline multiplayer game for 2 players.

I've never been a big fan of Mario Kart (I find the multiplayer races devolve into the same pattern every game: best player always wins. Worst player always finishes last. Other 2 are the only ones having fun) and only really enjoyed the SNES original thanks to Battle Mode.

But I do have a soft spot for double dash. Easily the best non-SNES version of the game. I always enjoyed playing Co-op with the missus.

I bought the GameCube pack and sold it straight back to the retailer just so I could get the Majora's Mask bonus disk in the UK.

I loved the Eyetoy. It has a place alongside the Gameboy Camera in introducing a mass audience to the idea of proto-augmented reality.

@-wc- I would argue that the DVD player had a lot to do with it. Marketing during that era made a turn from the edgy, adult stuff we got during the PS1 era into something a little more immature. I won't doubt the PS2 had a great software library but it wasn't as broad as you might think.

I think it's pretty clear Nokia did the original model on the cheap using off the shelf phone parts and very little reengineering. It's how we ended up with side talking and having to remove the battery cover to change games. The launch lineup was dire and the layout was terrible.

But you know what? The QD hardware revision was excellent! It corrected the design flaws of the original and launched with the 2nd generation hardware exclusives like Ashen, Pocket Kingdom, Glimmerati, System Rush and Pathway to Glory were great titles and all exclusives.

Ashen was especially playable using the Goldeneye controls with strafe mapped to 7 and 5 and using 4 as fire.

You can tell it's been developed by an American company when every single alternate name is an acronym.

In fact why not call it the Action Centre for Reality Operations Now in Your Mind?

I won't deny their work is seminal with Wipeout but I live in Sheffield and I have a few friends who have worked with DR in the past and one who shared a studio with them.

To call the actual guys pretentious would be a bit of an understatement based on what I've heard. One story involved them charging a company a lot of money for a new logo and them spending 5 minutes on the idea.

@samuelvictor That looks great. We certainly had the riches of the console in the EEC, particularly the Asterix platformers.

I’m not N-tertained.

I really don’t think the NES has ages that well compared to the Master System. I can appreciate how groundbreaking it was at the time but, for example I don’t think Zelda is as good as Wonderboy 3, Metroid a patch on Zillion or Mario close to Alex Kidd in Miracle World.

If I was on a desert island and had some sort of solar charger for a GBA SP then Advance Wars skirmish mode is the only game I would need.

The SG1000 could never hold a candle to the NES.

The Master System though was the best 8-bit console.

Given the rereleases of games on both platforms I wonder what we would say is the best place to play classic JRPGs: iOS or PSP?

A good thing about ordering from Cex online is there is probably a store near you to return it to with a generous 14-day grace period for online purchases. They also put a 2 year warranty on all hardware which is more than you’ll get anywhere else.

I’d still call it my favourite console of all time. I was sold as soon as a sales assistant in Game handed me a demo unit to play WipEout Pure on. That screen was an instant jaw dropped but having the best edition of my favourite gaming franchise as a launch title was also a draw (and especially after the debacle of WipEout Fusion on PS2….)

It kind of went on to be a portable Dreamcast, home to some great genre titles and the only good online RPG since PSO (Phantasy Star Portable 2). The creative titles like Locoroco I still play to this day.

My favourite genre for portables is racing and has there ever been a better served console that the PSP for the genre? WipEout, Ridge Racer, Outrun 2006, Need for Speed Underground. I will still never begin to fathom how they managed to squeeze Test Drive Unlimited onto the thing. Like a portable Forza Horizon.

I’ll assume they cancelled it because, well it looks awful.

The timeless child was dumb because the Doctor never needed to be the messiah, just an idiot in a box.

I really hope RTD has the brains to retcon that out of existence as just another lie of the master.

I think it boils down to foreign folklore being wildly more fascinating and mysterious than domestic.

I know the medieval fantasy is more European in theme but it remains heavily romanticised by Arthurian myth. When we think of medieval castles immediately your thoughts drift towards the UK.

Consider how both countries, UK and Japan share a lot of cultural crossovers. Both are mysterious island nations, largely untouched by war. Both have a monarchy linking them to their past. You don’t have to walk far on either of them to find a thousand of years of history wherever you go. And both have cultural exports that are famous worldwide.

And yet here in the UK Japanese culture is the mysterious, foreign one.

Take the original Phantasy Star Online

Update the graphics and animations

Keep the original multiplayer model intact

Charge us a sub to play it.

And play we will.

What a console! Despite probably the worst launch lineup in gaming prior to the Series X launch, the first year of the PS2 was just incredible. MGS2, GTA3, GT3, Red Faction, FFX, Jak and Daxter, Ico, Devil May Cry, SSX; all incredible titles. Shame WipEout Fusion turned out to be one of the worst sequels in history.

Once the Xbox and GameCube hit the market though I kind of lost interest. Both of those consoles were brilliant for post-pub gaming sessions of Halo, Smash and Super Monkey Ball. When I went to Uni I sold my PS2 to my brother and kept my GameCube for travelling between Uni and home.

I’d dare anyone to name one game, released on both systems that looks anything other than marginally better on the PS3.

Whilst the likes of Flower and WipEout HD made the PS3 sing, we could say the same about Forza Horizon or Halo 4 on the 360.

And lest we forget both of these titles ran GTAV ok too.

Probably one of the most influential too. Straying from side-to-side, taking advantage of destructible cover, learning enemy movements: games like Halo and Fortnite may as well still be Space Invaders.

I grabbed this and Wave Race at launch. Both titles were technically a step above anything on competing consoles but man, they were both tough too.

As my friend Robert put it at school in 1997: Croc is a crock of *****.

4 words:

Flaming

Hot

Monster

Munch

I can understand it if people are resorting to piracy instead of paying the creators for their work.

But you cannot give Nintendo any money for 3DS software anymore. There isno eshop and only 2nd hand boxed titles.

So where is the beef?

Sega, you pay Toho as much as you can to make a Skies of Arcadia movie!

When Nintendo leans towards 'lifestyle' software the results are often brilliant. I used to read the Wii News channel every day before work, flicking around the globe and seeing what was going off overseas. Streetpass was the best feature of the 3DS, cleverly encouraging you to carry a portable console in an age of smartphones.

I often wonder why they don't build more of these ideas for smartphones themselves. Miitomo was a great continuation of ideas taken from the Everybody Votes Channel and would have worked well as the Switch's Mii editor. Why not rebuild Streetpass for phones using the Covid bluetooth tagging feature?

If this was at retail for £150 or less I think I'd bite. It looks like it could emulate the GBA without issue but I wonder about the PSP...

Wonderboy 3 was the best platformer of the 8-bit generation.

@RetroGames I'd heartily disagree and go as far as to call it the best ARPG of the 16bit era.