Sketcz

Now everyone will know of JAD THE TAFF!

Videogaming's first Welshman?

Also, is "taff" considered offensive?

I can think of more than one game which was recalled or modified suddenly through patches to correct or remove potentially offensive material, after someone complained.

There's probably a feature in this: the history of games recalled or modified due to causing or potentially causing offence.

There's been several interesting game competitions over the years.

There was that British kid who got to visit Nintendo Japan, who was interviewed online about it a few years back (I forget his name).

Plus that big Alien 3 compo, where you could win every version of Alien 3, plus an actual tank top by Ripley (the guy who won it posted on the Insert Credit forums many years back).

Mysteries like this are pretty cool to uncover.

I have, sadly, never won any of the game competitions I've entered.

Sounds like a classic case of pareidolia to me.

@bippity_bop Novelisations of films are a secret fascination of mine. They're usually based on very early script drafts and, I've found, contain scenes later cut from the movie. I've not read Last Starfighter, but the film was scripted by Jonathan Betuel, and I read the novel of his next film, My Science Project, which contained several scenes cut from the movie. I know they were filmed because the credits contain still out-takes, and some of the dialogue in the film references earlier scenes which never made it - so it wasn't just artistic license on the part of the author.

In a way, it's like peeking into an archive.

If you ever did watch the film, I wonder what differences you would find?

I saw the trailer. It did not excite me. But I genuinely, without irony, loved the 1993 movie. I actually only saw it last year, for the first time.

I avoided it back in the day due to bad reviews, and only in 2021 did I watch it. And you know what? I loved it. Everyone complains the film is confusing, when actually it's very coherent. The plot is easy to follow and makes sense. Just watch Rick & Morty to get a handle on multiple universes.

The brotherly love between the bros feels authentic - maybe the result of the actors bonding over how difficult the shoot was?

Also the female characters all have agency to them. Princess Daisy is the heroine of the film; the villainess Lena, played by Fiona Shaw, is also an agent of change.

The visual effects are great, with minimal CG and lots of practical, and again - the story made sense.

On a deeper level it's a criticism of populism and fascist governments, depicting a downtrodden and oppressed society. The film is more relevant today than ever before.

Finally, I love seeing cross-media adaptations of my favourite source material, reimagined through entirely different eyes. I would like to see more of my favourite things reimagined differently (the Virtua Fighter AI characters is a good example).

I regret listening to the critics back in the day - the 1993 movie is the perfect game to movie adaptation.

I had a Famicom as a kid, and my brother and I would spend hours on this, since it was one of the few simultaneous two player games we owned. One of us would play guard duty, shooting oncoming enemies, while the other player (usually my brother) would run to grab the items that cleared a level.

I must admit I have a strong fondness for Ikki. There weren't many levels, but each was full of weirdness. A random single instance power-up, strange collectibles which seemingly did nothing, mazes you could get stuck in, a bonus level that was impossible, just really baffling "secrets" you'd stumble upon.

And it's live!

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/6674/

Seriously guys. If you like Souls games, you gotta try this.

The shortlist for this feature was twice as long before we trimmed to a sensible length - please keep the recommendations coming! There's a lot to discover on the X68000 and it's through word of mouth that everyone will know which gems to home in on.

As for save states, XM6 Pro is a good emulator and easy to set up:
https://mijet.eludevisibility.org/

No roms there, just the legally available emulator.

I was literally reaching for my Krikzz SNES flashcart as I was reaching this and then... It's does not work on original hardware.

The side-scrolling Zelda games were remade not long ago, with improved framerate, smoother controls, better jumping mechanics, but the same excellent graphics, music, and level layout. The author released them for free on PC. A quick Google should yield results.

I'm not kidding - they really are fun games. The speedrun community was having a blast going through them.

Does the greatest PC game ever made, Brigand: Oaxaca, work on it?