Whirlwound

Jason Brookes was to 90s video game mags what Julian Rignall was to those of the 80s: ridiculously passionate, endlessly creative, and a massive driving force. Without either one of them, I don’t think the gaming newsstands would be anything like they are today.

When most hear two certain words, they’ll think of Pokémon. Not me. I think of his chibified Wil Overton caricature in the Q&A pages of Super Play.

Shine on, the original GameFreak.

Must be doing well if he’s expanding into Grade 2 premises. Rates for those kinda digs must be astronomical. Up in Newcastle, even Starbucks had to shutter its similarly-listed Central Arcade joint five years ago (to be fair there were three almost within a First Down of each other, and another three a further walk away) and the legendary JG Windows music shop has just closed down after 117 years. It’s been in the Central as long as I can remember.

Needs way more Iridis Alpha.

This is really cool to hear. There were some hidden gems on Satellaview - probably the best was Special Tee Shot, which ultimately became Kirby’s Dream Course.

It doesn’t rely on the ridiculous skill set Kirbo has, and the shot selection is way more technical. Got it working on my Miyoo Mini and in OpenEmu, so I’m happy.

“Let’s talk about Mama Llama.” Don’t let the ZZAP!64 crew hear you say that…

The best games in this compilation are all going to be on the C64. No question. He was ridiculously prolific on the old beige breadbin there: Gridrunner, Matrix, the Mutant Camels series, Ancipital… but the ones I’m really buzzed for are Batalyx and Iridis Alpha. There’s been nothing like them for almost 40 years.

Few made them like The Hairy Yak back in the day - you could count solo coders like him on one hand: Braybrook, Maclean, Crowther*, Fasoulas… Minter.

• Granted, Tony Crowther did fart out the same game (a Sega coin-op clone no less) to three different companies and they ALL got published, but still…

What’s next, Digital Eclipse - how about a Graftgold anthology?

@LowDefAl Yeah, that would track with Hellfire not appearing either then. The main contributors to AA are obvious (Namco, Konami, Taito, SNK) and the next tier down (Irem, Tecmo/Tekhan, Nichibutsu, Jaleco, Mitchell) are understandable to a degree - but the rest (Athena, Allumer) can be proper head scratchers at times.

I’ve done very well out of their work on Neo•Geo games, but the non-SNK side is a bit hit-and-miss. Sure, they’ve put out stone cold classics, Sunset Riders, Mappy & Rainbow Islands to name but three, but some of them are less than stellar. Jungler & War of Aero I’d never even heard of, while Gyruss, Wardner, Parodius & Surprise Attack go begging.

Are you daft? What makes you think I have the time to play this? I can't even put a dent in my backlog!

That damn many of them, it’s impossible to pick one. I prefer the ones from the 90s, 2000 at the latest.

Managed to compile the ROM before the patcher was nerfed.

I mean if Valve really gave half a crap they'd do Portal 3, but, welp, that'd make too much sense I guess...

I am buzzed for the near-inevitable C64 version.

I'm all over this. Armalyte truly deserved the Gold Medal it got from ZZAP!64 back in the day - it was easily the best of the H'siffan* trilogy that Thalamus kicked off with.

• And only recently did I notice that H'siffan was 'naffish' backwards.

I wonder if this got as much hammer as Rainbow Arts did for Katakis/Denaris back in the day - along with the original Great Giana Sisters for that matter, although they kinda had the last laugh there..:

A shade under 6ft in her Zero Suit, but it matters not. She’d snap all of us in two, and we’d let her.

Community Rules 2.h: Do not post excessive amounts of images/videos; Posts with many images or videos are a strain on mobile users, so please be courteous. Consider linking to the images remotely rather than using the [ img ] tag.

As such, 'stranger', here are all four images in one... linked from the self same harmless image host I linked from previously.

NiGHTS, Worldwide Soccer’97, Virtual On, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Sega Rally… and now I’m struggling. Daytona & Virtua Fighter 2 at a push.

There’s just wasn’t enough on the Saturn I wanted to play to make it worthwhile. And then the PS1 happened.

@SonOfDracula Oh really?

https://pixhost.to/gallery/WjT1n

And that’s pounds, not dollars. So waaaay more than double.

If you’re seeing any Miyoo Mini Plus items on either Amazon or eBay at £55, it’ll either be for the memory card only or it’ll be bricked:

https://pixhost.to/gallery/cGuCa

@SonOfDracula …where they’re double the price down in this article already, because of freaking course they are.

Needs like 100% more THEC64.

Both mini and maxi are phenomenal efforts for an Indiegogo that only made ⅔ of its target. Despite that they went ahead with it anyway - and while I backed for the handheld that has yet to appear, I’ve got way more out of the gear they’ve sent me than I ever imagined.

Of the ones you’ve listed, the ZipStik will always have a special place in my heart, because I started out in the 8-bit era, and that was the first stick that could stand up to the rigours of C64 HyperSports.

If I’m going off-survey though, I’m loving what 8BitDo are putting out. The SN30 Pro and the Pro 2 are both fantastic, and I will pounce on an Ultimate in a heartbeat once I have the bank for one.

At the other end, however, for my gorilla hands, the Joycon can get in the sea. So much cramp even holding the damn thing. Still, at least it does mean mine won’t ever get drift…