Sketcz

I see VHS tapes. Any word on what those were?

Might contain lost footage.

I wish AI could have waited a few decades until I was dead and buried. Or I wish I could have been born just 20 or so years earlier so it arrived when I was too old to care.

I resent that I have to spend the last couple of good decades where I don't have dementia having to witness AI poison. I've even started seeing AI art on food packaging now.

@BionicDodo
It happens sometimes. One of the Ys games by Xseed licensed Jeff Nussbaum's fan translation officially. However... The hacker who partnered with Jeff to make a fan patch previously went nuclear at his "betrayal". The results were unpleasant.

There has been endless drama in the fan translation community for the last 25+ years.

My guess? Who wants the hassle? A professional company wants to spend some budget, get results, and move on, not deal with high strung prima donnas.

Most in the community are super cool. But there's always one or two whose ego causes atomic levels of trouble.

It pains me that such beautiful games have fallen into the hands of such people - Gleylancer, Valken, and Majuuou are all exquisite masterpieces.

@PinballBuzzbro is correct

@Steel76
If you want sources, check out the YT video here:

https://www.timeextension.com/features/paper-peepshows-wargame-history-and-pooping-mascots-n-my-spanish-retro-gaming-adventure

Rough time stamps:
18:34
37:26
01:05:58
01:07:00

I voted for Tower of Druaga, since so many developers have stated taking direct influence either from it, or games influenced by it.

@Steel76
Haha! Indeed. Did you know Miyamoto loved Druaga so much he had the arcade machine installed in his office to play, while making Zelda? There's an interview with him on YouTube citing Wizardry and The Black Onyx too. And in a French magazine in 1994 he said in interview he loved European computer games from a decade ago (ie: circa 1984), which is an obvious reference to the 8-bit micros of the time.

I am 100% certain none of the games voted for and presented by BAFTA will be influential.

They'll simply be highly nostalgic for the people voting, but won't take into account the games which came before them, which did the actual influencing.

Ah well.

@KingMike
Indeed - when I was told they had to ditch Mort's catalogues of scans due to wrong DPI, I winced inside. >_<

I still have all my multitaps. Just in case, one day...

@slider1983
Installing cores on my AP was daunting. But I followed the guide on TE which linked to a utility that sorts it for you.

I don't install manually, I use the utility to go online and download the latest cores for me. I forget the name. But it made installing the Wonderswan on the AP super easy.

You could also invest in a GB/GBC flashcart. The X7 is great. Though if you're not moving between systems like I am, then a GBC core should suffice.

I can't recall the name. It's a Windows program. You stick a micro SD card in your computer, load the prog, tick the boxes for the FPGA cores you want, and it downloads the latest official builds. You just need to stick your games in the assets folder.

EDIT:

Just grab one of the updater utilities:

https://www.timeextension.com/guides/all-analogue-pocket-openfpga-cores-and-where-to-download-them

@slider1983
They shut down the entire bluray division. Also their music CD and DVD print on demand services. I thought it was weird since there isn't any alternative which offers direct sales on the Amazon marketplace. So a lot of people's work got the chop sadly.

I continue to wonder:
Are these being scanned in a sufficiently high enough resolution?

I recall many years ago, when magazine scanning for internet preservation was in its infancy, gigabytes (terrabytes?) of data had to be thrown out, because the DPI was not high enough on initial scans, because no one had agreed on what constituted best practice. All of Mort's scans were discarded.

And then... Every page which had been scanned once before, had to be scanned again.

A major waste of everyone's time and resources because it wasn't don't correctly the first time.

Is there an official consensus on the correct resolution for scanning 3D objects? Is there even a "resolution" for them? Am I just not understanding the concept?

The Japanese Game Preservation Society started "scanning" laserdiscs, in order to capture all optical data; a single scan was 8 terabytes. But at least they know they're doing it right first time:
https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/01/this-game-preservation-group-wants-to-archive-laserdisc-games-before-theyre-lost-forever

@slider1983
Huzzah! Many thanks! Ah yes, the Episode IV DVD. Copies of that are all sold out, but I had it re-edited by Coury of MyLifeinGaming, and turned into a higher res bluray. (Don't get excited, he still had to work with my shaky handcam footage.)

This was being sold on Amazon's print on demand bluray service. Until they shut the whole thing down. Annoyingly before I'd recouped my costs on editing. I ordered 50 copies for myself and have been selling them off one at a time.

You can buy one for £40 direct, or there are pirate rips on YouTube which I've become lazy with demanding they be taken down.

Leave an email or message me on Facebook?

@slider1983
OK, I tested this on my carts.

I'm using:

• Everdrive GB X7 (GB and GBC games)
• Everdrive GBA Mini (GBA games, and GBC for this test)

Tested on an Analogue Pocket.

The dedicated X7 cartridge runs GB and GBC games flawlessly, including Army Men. This cartridge replicates the functionality of an original GB or GBC cartridge. It will work in a GB and GBC and a Super Gameboy on SNES.

The Everdrive GBA Mini... This does not run GB / GBC games natively. You need an emulator on the cartridge. I did not have one. So I looked online. Krikzz explains you need to use Goomba as the GBC emulator. In the GBASYS/emu/ folder is a readme which states:

Store emulators in this folder.
The emulator name should match to the target ROM extension
example: "nes.gba" for .nes files, "gbc.gba" for .gbc and so on

currently supported emulation for the following systems:

[system] [recommended emulator]
Game Boy goomba
Game Boy Color goomba
NES pocketnes
Neo Geo Pocket ngpadvance
MasterSystem smsadvance
GameGear smsadvance

OK, so then...

I went to the Goomba site and downloaded the latest version (2019). I put it on my GBA flashcart, along with the Army Men games.

The emulation is awful. The title screen has garbled graphics, the digitised sound is wrong. It's just awful.

This isn't really the fault of the GBA Everdrive, since it's relying on the Goomba emulator to run GBC games. If you check your GBASYS folder on your cart you should see the emu folder, and files inside.

If you're using an Analogue Pocket, and don't want to faff with cores, etc., but want to play GBC games, I recommend the X7. I have one since I like to move it between the AP, the Gamecube, and SGB.

If you're trying to run GBC games on a GBA flashcart, then you're basically emulating the GBC on the GBA, with mixed results.

I hope that makes sense. Please feel free to ask for clarification.

I bought one and extremely happy with it.

Love it in fact. Though it was actually a bit pricey in my view - had to import it from a reseller in the US because Hyperkin's page seemingly doesn't exist. And I saw none on eBay. I paid £22.

Used the controller test app on my flashcart - the one that asks you to push the stick to 8 directions and then shows a red outline to compare to other alternatives (OEM, cheap knock-offs, modded GC sticks, etc.).

The limits of the stick are in line with the OEM stick by Nintendo. In fact, maybe even a smidge under? The program gives you an optimal baseline dot. Factory fresh OEM sticks are slightly over this. Broken-in sticks reduce with use. This is right on that optimal line. Also it is nothing like the red-line shown for modded GC style sticks - which produce a big square zone, showing how over-sensitive they are. This may seem like a GC stick, or be described as one, but it's been calibrated to function akin to an OEM stick.

I have no tested an actual GC stick that's been rewired to work in an N64 controller, the test program simply shows you the typical threshold range for one, for comparisons, so I'm working off that.

Mario can tip-toe slow walk. Goemon can run at full pelt. Mario Kart controls great. My OEM controller struggles to make Goemon run, because it's so worn down, but this doesn't have that problem. And it can detect subtle shifts when tested with Mario.

I have zero regrets. I know this post is way after the fact, but it took me a while to get around to buying one.

@Kobeskillz
@Skunkfish
@DeciderVT
@Shiesty
@ChromaticDracula
@slider1983

@slider1983
If I'm understanding correctly, you loaded a GBC game on the GBA Everdrive? As far as I known that GBA flashcart runs those older system games via a sort of inbuilt emulator I think. I don't know precisely because I never used it - I have a separate GBC Everdrive for GB and GBC games.

I play these on my Analogue Pocket, Gamecube Player, and Super GameBoy where appropriate.

I might be totally wrong. But I think if you pop a GBA Everdrive into a GBA and try to run a GB or GBC ROM via it, it doesn't load it in the same way as popping a GB cart or GBC cart into the GBA (or flashcarts for those systems). It will load those ROMs into a GB/GBC emulator.

Whereas a dedicated GB/GBC flashcart will run like a native GB/GBC cartridge.

I hope all that makes sense. It's late and my eyes are tired.

@Razieluigi

MID TYPING EDIT:
Quickly checked the website and for the GBA cart it says:

NES, GB and GBC ROM formats are support (emulation mode)

Which probs explains it. But I'll pop my GB cart in and check out Army Men, just to be triply sure.

@slider1983
Oh? Does the GBA Everdrive not work with certain games? I bought one but haven't really used it at all (outside a couple romhacks). Please do tell!

I despise flash carts and ODE that require serial number input. My feeling is: I bought it new, why are you now ***** with me? Feels like a punishment. Updating my PSIO was like eating broken glass.

The Mega Everdrive allows custom backgrounds. I downloaded some nice ones, to improve the plain black

I've long had a fantasy about these devices, and I'm wondering if anyone with more knowledge can verify whether it's possible.

GBA eReader cards carry data visually along the edge of the card, like a barcode, but much more dense - based on photos I've seen. Even so, it's still based on the reflect of light from the LED scanner.

Is it at all feasible, theoretically, that the eReader could be plugged into the Analogue Pocket (GBA connector after all), and the eReader Hardware interface with some sort of customised Barcode Battler core, where the eReader can be used to scan barcodes for the Barcode Battler core to then use in replicating the BB experience?

I ask because I was thinking about handheld systems. And the Analogue Pocket cores are shaping up to replicate every system out there. I was playing WonderSwan and Game & Watch and they're great!

But to replicate the Barcode Battler on Analogue Pocket you'd need a way to "acquire" the visual data of a barcode. You could type the number in, but that's no fun.

Then I thought maybe a GB camera could be used? Interfaced somehow? But I figured that visual noise would result in bad readings.

Then I thought: what about the GBA eReader?

Is it possible? I'm looking at the above photo and it looks like it needed to plug into the GBA's link socket to function?

@Asaki
Downloaded. Need to make time to peruse. So busy.

LOL at them pixelating out Nintendo's name on the FDS unit of that video! Probably for copyright safety? But I couldn't help think of Japanese pornography and the fact they pixelate the naughty bits on that too.

@no_donatello KENZAAAAAN!

I finished it via the lengthy inline FAQ. I actually printed the entire thing at work. Loved that game.

Waiting for the patch with my modded PS3.

I hope it's an easy install!

@N64-ROX
Titillation? What do you mean?

I had the PS3 game and sold it for the translated remake after looking up a detailed vid on the differences.

They were so minor I actually can't recall any specific details.

Biggest one was faces were changed to bring them in line with newer series character designs.

There was some minor change with how food power ups worked - you didn't need to eat the same item over and over? I forget exactly, but I recall thinking I preferred the old system. And something about forgeing weapons was made easier or less tedious?

I don'r know why anyone would play the PS3 version. It had less detail abd fewer people on the streets.

@gingerbeardman
Maybe the multiplayer saved it.

I played the PS3 game. I just looked up a video to make sure I was not making stuff up:
https://youtu.be/JbpIKLgl6AI?si=ZlRq_JAtkGP0C2cH

It's even worse than I remember! I forgot about the mandatory training centre opening. **** that noise.

It's nice that some peole enjoyed it. It means people did not spend years of their life toiling in vain.

But I honestly hate this game so much. It represents everything I have come to dislike from modern games.

6 minutes before you're actually playing properly in that video. Endless cut-scenes and dialogue. Onscreen button prompts! QTEs! Everything about it rubs me the wrong way.

N64 GE had none of these problems. When you had a dialogue scene, with Trev in the bottling room, it was discrete, pleasant, quick. I'd have liked voice acting, like Perfect Dark, but it's fine.

The remake seems to go to great lengths to take away your ability to actually "play".

And the imnediacy of the N64 version didn't reduce its depth. Some later higher difficulty missions had extremely complicated objectives.

I never even looked at the multiplayer in the remake. I played multiplayer on N64, but I have always, first and foremost, adored its single player campaign.

That reboot was such hot trash. It showcases how well designed the single player campaign in the original Goldeneye was.

I've heard a few high profile retro community figures try to change the narrative about the N64 game, saying it was fine for its time but it's aged badly and by today's standards is not a good game, and anyone praising it is doing so only out of nostalgia.

I call BS on this.

This reboot of Goldeneye is a perfect comparison tool to showcase the superior design sensibilities of 1996 versus 2010. Schools should use both to teach students.

Case in point: the opening level

2010 remake: excessive long cutscenes, tutorial instructions, and then a QTE to silently take down a guard.

Lame. I want to play, not jump through hoops.

I never even finished the first level. It's so long winded and boring. At one point I was in the truck? WTF? Then in the base, which turns out to be a confusing maze. Awful.

1996: immediate control once you click start level. One east guard to learn how to shoot. Guard tower is obvious point of interest, rewarding exploration with sniper rifle. Easy guards in distance to learn how to use it.

On easy mode the level can be finished in under a minute.

It's easy to learn, immediate, while higher difficulties increase complexity of objectives.

It is the perfect tutorial level.

It teaches you by letting you do things, not lecturing you with screen button prompts.

@sdelfin
I wouldn't even say it's the site. Google has gone to turds since the last search algorithm change. This is just one of at least 10 examples in the last few months, where despite deep dive searches using various keyword combinations, I could not find the result I knew I wanted.

My old articles where I searched for the title. The names of songs or bands I'd heard. Real world news events I know happened.

I use Yandex a lot now, but even then, the internet seems broken.

I've started to keep a TXT file of various URLs. This is the insanity we face today. Search engines do not work.

Whichever tech head at Google thought that Reddit should be the top result for EVERYTHING can go **** themselves.

EDIT:
Wow, rereading this I am clearly very salty about this whole thing. Not directed at you. But I face this every day, and often with more important things than a simple videogame. It's making me crazy. It feels almost like gaslighting. I know those results exist, but the search engines absolutely will not bring them up.

This reminds me of... I can't recall now. About a year back there was a similar run n gun, Metal Slug Metroidvania, with a touch of Metal Gear too, set in a jungle with an evil military and tanks and robotos and... I have completely forgotten the name. There was a news item on TE but trawling the site reveals nothing.
Any recall this?
@sdelfin ?
(I suppose there are now so many pixel art action platformers its difficult to search for a specific one; or the Google algorithm is just broken?)

EDIT: After trawling the site for over 90 minutes now, I have finally found it:
https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/06/chasm-creator-reveals-wolfhound-a-slick-looking-metroidvania-set-during-world-war-ii

@makankosappo
Interesting. Not to sound dumb, but how do you connect the VGA cable to a UK CRT television where the only inputs are an S-Video port, composite (YRW) ports, and RGB SCART socket?

I'm looking at a photo of it now, and I have three CRT TVs, and not one of them has VGA input. Including my sacred Sony Trinitron, which is the best consumer CRT on the market.

Unless you mean a PVM? But not many people have a PVM.

@euan
Fantastic! That's great - and so simple and elegant too. Thank you very much.

Fascinating. This man is doing some priceless work here. The number of times I've been faced with incompatible formats, and ultimately just abandoned using some files due to how irritating it was to fix. The PS1 tools will be especially useful - previously converting Dex, PS3, and raw mem card files required some pretty complex tinkering.

The only thing missing - unless I didn't see it - is the ability to change regional coding on PS1 saves. He mentioned Suikoden, and that's a great example, because the Sui 2 save data is compatible between PAL and NTSC-U, except the files are regionally separated by name. You have to use one of the PS1 memory card tools to load it and swap it so the file will then be "seen" by the other region's version.

Edited: to correct a technical point

@MontyCircus
This is fantastic. For once, a list I actually agree with! For the MD... There is not a whole lot different from my own hypothetical list. The order would just be a little different. Ranger X at #1, Gunstar at #2. Maaaybe one or two end list substitutions for obscurities I like.

What I find fascinating and VALUABLE in your data, is you've collated all the different lists, so as to create a more... Robust? Reliable? Averaged? Accurate? A better list, that softens over egregious entries in others, and helps raise other titles which maybe made the list at various places, but only lower down.

I'm not kidding. If you have Excel files, containing aggregated lists of a system's games based on large datasets, taken from multiple other listings, then there is genuine value in the work you put in.

Thank you for sharing!

What other systems did you research? Did you do the same as you did for the Mega Drive?

You know... If you did, I feel this effort should be online for everyone to see. Did you keep a list or URLs of where the original lists were found?

@MontyCircus that's a lot of work!

Is your ultimate list available to read anywhere? Curious to see it.

No love for Blue's Adventure? I like the shrinking mechanic in this platformer a lot. Every NG fan I speak with however says they hate it (granted that's like only 3 people I know).

Also Neo Mr Do on MVS might be the only Mr Do game I like.

I never liked any of the NG fighting library. Just not to my taste. I preferred fighters like Psychic Force or Fighter's Destiny.

But Blue's Adventure? Lots of fun.

Given all this... Why was it changed for the US release?

Tabletlop simulator is an absolute treasure for playing lost games. It even has the Zelda Barcode Battler game!

I have nude mods for both DOAX games on Xbox and X360. For research purposes of course.

Jeff Goldblum voice: Life will always find a way.

Does it allow "trails" ?

I loved trails and was always sad and confused when later ports of VC to PC removed it. So did the recent remaster.

Just lemme have mah trails!!

@HoyeBoye cheers!

I don't full grasp what rollback code is...

These continued fan translations warm my heart.

Still hoping for Cyberdoll on Saturn to get one sone day.

@Robotattack
Whoa. O_O

I'm not trying to be funny, but I did not even realise this got an official Dreamcast port. I remember the PC version, but the DC one was US exclusive and... It just passed me entirely. Clearly need to go through the US DC release list. I was buying EGM back then but must have missed the issue.

Bloody heck. I'll just delete my comment and let's pretend this never happened, LOL.

Cheers!

I like Lynch as a person, and I like his work. He's a genius.

But I've never liked any of Sony's European TV ads for PlayStation (the Frenchman eating a PS2 was... at least funny).

I recall seeing this 3rd place ad. My parents were like "WTF is that?" Guys at school who were into games said the same. A couple of fellow gamers actually felt less inclined to buy a PS2, asking ourselves: is it going to be dumb nonsense like this? We wanted MGS, Final Fantasy, Parasite Eve, Armored Core, Symphony of the Night, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Wipeout, and all the other cool games we knew.

If it were not for games magazines showcasing the games, this advert would have lost Sony at least a couple of customers at my school. Artistic, sure. Good for selling consoles? Just awful.

Sony's marketing, to someone who loved games, was utterly wretched. Where was the game footage FFS?

@John_Deacon Not really. Loading a game ROM on an Everdrive on N64 and playing the original cart will provide an identical experience. Except without the eye watering cost of some original N64 games.

The above experience will be very different to emulating the N64 on a PC or N64, even if you opt for original settings like resolution etc.

Even cycle accurate emulation, for example the SNES and Higan, the experience of emulating it on a PC, even running on an LCD TV, is very different from a real SNES on CRT. The real hardware will have the real controller, and the image and speed is identical to when I played an RGB SCART SNES in the 1990s. Higan has horizontal blur since I can't run it on a CRT.

The difference is: SNES games like Hagane cost £1000. Whereas my flashcart for the SNES cost about £100 and runs Hagane identically to an original cart, since it's pumping the ROM data into the SNES CPU in exactly the same way.

@mattitudemf put it well too

Several examples.

Contra (NES) - as pointed out by bigheadwillie
Mercs (MD)
Radiant Silvergun (Sat)

Also, it might not be better, but I have a real soft spot for Avenging Spirit on Game Boy. I like the arcade original, but there's a cute little charm to holding it in your hands.

I usually prefer home ports where they add an exclusive mode, usually with some sort of levelling up aspect, to rebalance the game for home play, rather than quarter munching.

The above list are pure ports, but there's loads of games where the home "ports" are not ports at all, but completely reimagined sequels or new games. Such as:

Ninja Warriors (SNES - hated the arcade original and its authentic ports)
Ninja Gaiden (NES / SMS)

@smoreon Yes, good comparison! Harmony of Despair styled. I'm kinda surprised we don't see more like that.

Whatever the resolution, I love the idea of dinky little sprites against an enormous maze.

Recently played through the 2D iterations. I like the checkpoints of the Mega CD, but prefer the chiptunes of the Mega Drive. On CD it was totally new composed music.

I tried to replace the redbook audio tracks from the CD with ripped tracks from the cartridge, but it was impossible given they didn't do a 1:1 replacement. Some levels reused tracks in completely different ways. IE: track A was on levels 1, 3, and 5, on CD, but on cart a different track A was on 1, 3, and 6, with 5 instead using the track from level 2.

It was a strange set of alterations which changed the tone of levels.

I also noticed, given the SD resolutions, IMAGINE: a 4K version of the original 2D games, but the ENTIRE level shown onscreen at once! With a teeny dolphin swimming about.

I wish Sega would do this.

Saw the screenshot, read "new patch", and had an adrenaline rush thinking the fan translation was finally done.

Alas no.

@slider1983 I just pasted it randomly on a few vids.

let's see what happens - as you might say!

@slider1983
Did you get a ban or soft deletion? I can believe.

I'm afraid to upload or comment.

It feels like an insane hostage taker has the wheel. You hope that by following instructions you won't get executed, but he'll shoot you anyway for kicks.

He ported Tetris to the IBM for Alexei Pajitnov. The backstory I heard was: he was very young when he did it, and when Tetris blew up Pajitnov rushed to Gerasimov's mother's place in the middle of the night and insisted her son sign over all rights to the work he did.

Always seemed kinda skeezy to me, what Pajitnov did. Since technically Gerasimov had a share in the original.

Gerasimov speaks English and is easily contactable. Might make a good interview for Time Extension.

I've been there - it's a wonderful museum. This is very sad.