impurekind

Very cool. I like the simpler non-patterned design best; the patterned one is actually pretty fugly.

Does it have any kind of physical recoil, like say the Point Blank arcade guns did, because that would just make it beyond awesome imo? Or even some good rumble would be welcome at the very least.

I like the idea in principle (I even suggested something similar about releasing the likes of NES/SNES/Mega Drive Classic with a working mini cartridge slot that could actually take compilation carts of around 20 games a piece, and that indies could even develop all new games for too); don't like the look of the thing in this case though.

PlayStation Doom--still the best all round version of the game imo. Sony should have included it on the PlayStation Classic.

The Polymega is looking like a really solid modern-retro console.

I'll always be a SNES guy but I've really grown to appreciate what was so special about the Mega Drive in recent years. I never really got how much it could do due to that faster processor and a couple of little graphical effects that it used regularly. Games like Streets of Rage II, Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy, Thunder Force IV, etc., really show it pushing the number of characters and effects that you just didn't get on the SNES. So, although SNES games could usually look prettier, Mega Drive games also had some very impressive graphics in their own way too. Two truly classic gaming machines.

Good stuff. This is looking like a really high quality all round modern-retro console.

So, overall, slick. This is the kind of retro love I appreciate. When it's done right everyone wins.

Now, let's make a proper Genesis/Mega Drive Mini to the same standard all-round, and with a whole bunch of the very best games for that system onboard. And how about a Saturn Mini while we're at it. A Dreamcast Mini would also be awesome, but that's probably a push at this point.

It boggles my mind that companies just cancel games at the last minute that are basically done like this.

Not letting the developers put in the blood for the original Mortal Kombat was definitely a big blunder for Nintendo back in the day. And I feel it still affects the perception of the company to a degree even to this day, and certainly among people who were gaming back then and part of the whole console wars. Thankfully, Nintendo has now moved passed that kind of silly censoring . . . for the most part.

@AhabSpampurse I'm sad I ditched my copies too. Two of the greatest gaming mags of all time imo.

I want to go to parties like this!

And not a single game shown.

Don't really like the look of it to be honest.

Seriously, with the level of quality these guys have clearly demonstrated in every single other ares of these system's designs and implementation, from the console modules and controllers to the menu design and user interface, I'm surprised people seriously thought they were trying to dupe them with the Saturn emulation. This thing just looks like pure quality from everything I've seen.

@sleepinglion And the parents had the tears.

$50 million in a single day! Wow--very impressive.

I'm really curious to know what the five officially licensed games are for each module.

@JJtheTexan I would think it's totally fine when you're just using it to show a trailer for a console that plays retro games and has a couple seconds of a few of the games it can play, as in this case.

It would be absurd if some company could sue you for somehow infringing their copyright for showing a couple seconds of their game in an ad like this, meaning that using said footage is somehow costing/losing them profit or hurting their corporate image and branding somehow. Because, without there being some legitimate financial loss or damage to the brand to claim from someone else using your work without your permission--and it surely can't just be due to there now being some proper competition in the market, which you're not happy about--using copyright law serves literally zero purpose. The whole point of it is ultimately based around money. And I don't think any company could make any such loss or damage claims that would hold any weight in this situation. But, I'm not a lawyer, so who knows how ridiculous this stuff gets.

I mean, do you think Sega actually paid Nintendo to feature its games in the old Sega ads where Sega was basically saying how much cooler its consoles and games were than Nintendo's, and actually using side by side footage of said games and systems to make its point?

Because, if Sega was breaching copyright law then you know Nintendo would have been on them in a heartbeat, especially in such a situation where it could effectively stop the competition from kicking its ass with much better marketing.

Just imagine that conversation though, pretending Sega did have to get permission from Nintendo or even pay it a use-fee to make these ads:

Nintendo's lawyers: "Of course you can use footage of our consoles and games to paint us as the sad kiddies console that no one wants and basically stick us with that kiddie label from this point onward, Sega, so long as you pay us a few bucks for the use of such copyright material".

Sega's lawyers: "Thanks, Nintendo. We certainly wouldn't have used such footage otherwise, and certainly not to dis you so as to try and outperform you in the games market and win the console war--at least not without your permission first."

@JJtheTexan Eh, you're allowed to put a few seconds of a game in a trailer for marketing a piece of hardware that legally supports those games; that's literally the entire point of something like the Fair Use law. It's not like they've taken entire games and put them on there for you to view from start to finish or something like that.

Very slick. In fact, I'd say it's the slickest of all these new-retro systems so far, from the console itself to the various controllers and everything else.

The design just doesn't work with the phone attached to it imo. It needs to be wireless to make sense. Luckily it's optional.

This and Mean Machines were the absolute top of the list of the classic gaming mags in the '90s imo. CVG was also great too. And the very short-lived MAXIMUM was really good while it lasted as well--man, did that magazine devote a lot of pages and images to each game!

But Mean Machines, followed very closely by Super Play--tops!

http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/mean_machines_all_issues.php

Cool stuff.

Shame, it seems like a few stupid little niggles have kept if from being something special--especially the decision not to include a pixel perfect setting.

And it was systems like this that made so many gamers who grew up in the '80s-'90s hate the idea of any videogame that was even close to being an "interactive movie" (typical CD-ROM affair of the time), which is why to this day it's still hard for some people to get behind games that advertise how great their story and character arcs are above basically everything that actually defines them as an interactive videogame vs any other kind of non-interactive entertainment media. I'm one such gamer.

@MasterJay Yeah, I know that's why they do it the way they do but I just don't accept that a £300 console today is considered "affordable" and that this is what people are trying to tell me was similarly the case with the SNES--as in it was actually pretty expensive. The SNES actually was affordable back in the day as I recall it. In fact, I recall it seeming actually pretty cheap at the time. A £300 console doesn't seem cheap to me these days, but a £150 console would. So that's just how I see it.

Too many console iterations appears to have been Sega's problem from very early on then, and not just after the Genesis era where things started getting beyond ridiculous.

It's definitely very slick-looking console, from the main machine to the various controllers and even the menu designs.

Now that's pretty slick.

But the overall price of the system is just too high imo.

The one thing that isn't mentioned above, and it's something I personally thought was a major turn off with the machine, was the utterly fugly look of thing. Which cool '90s kid in their right mind would seriously want to have that stupid mushroom sticking out of their pretty slick-looking Genesis/Mega Drive system. I mean, seriously, who honestly thought that was an acceptable product design. It's just as bad as (in fact, it's even worse than) the stupid Jaguar toilet seat add-on:

Good product design does actually matter to a lot of consumers. Many people really do want consumer electronic devices that just look slick and sexy--despite what some ignoramuses and naive people might have you believe.

I genuinely believe one of the biggest reasons a whole lot of people never picked up a 32X was honestly just because it looked utterly ridiculous and they wouldn't want that mushroom-turd sitting under their TV. And nothing about it at the time convinced them it was worth looking like a twit with bad taste.

And this is the kind of thing that led to the death of the Sega as a hardware manufacturer ultimately.

It's such a great little game. The only thing I wish they could have improved was the controls that felt a little unwieldy and unforgiving at times, particularly in the water sections. But a really great game nonetheless, especially once you get into it.

I wish we got more painted covers that looked this awesome these days. There's just so much character and charm to them, and they're actually imaginative and fun rather than just being generic and bland shot of dude on front with gun in boring pose and little else.

@ThanosReXXX To you too!

@ThanosReXXX Cheers--I'll take it.

What a cool thing imo.

And, pretending for a moment that my fantasy idea of the SNES Mini having a working cartridge slot (even a mini one) was actually a reality, Nintendo could have released a small set of multi-game cartridges like this down the line for the SNES Mini, with say 20-50 games on each cart, that ultimately could have contained basically the entire SNES library across the set (where possible), which I think would have been awesome.

Note: The reason I talk about this option rather than just allowing people do download more games to the SNES Mini from some eShop or whatever is because I'm thinking of a solution that's as clean and simple as it was back in the day, without the need for setting up online shopping accounts, probably having to agree to very restrictive EULAs (which would likely say you don't even own the digital versions of the games and Nintendo could take them away at any time), and all that rubbish.

But hey, I just keep coming up with cool ideas--and nobody listens. lol

Yeah, with all the amazing games in its history, it really is sad that Sega hasn't seen fit to release a proper high quality version of any of these modern-retro systems.

Very cool indeed. I wish there was more stores just like this, and one in Edinburgh would awesome.

Impressive improvement with the load times.

That's as good a choice as any, and it goes well with the others since they're all predominantly 2D sprite-based systems.

Yeah, this is starting to sound like it could be something pretty awesome.

"It was nice to have the experience of having your game boot up instantly from a cartridge."

Tell me about it. I sorely miss the days when I could put a game in and start playing within literally a couple of seconds.

In a totally related point: I tried the fan-made OpenTomb Tomb Raider browser-based remake the other day, and I was utterly stunned to see it load basically instantly and be playable without any waiting whatsoever (only really the time it would take for your average web page to load anyway):

http://xproger.info/projects/OpenLara/

This is basically how quickly/immediately you used to be able to get in play games back in the day, kids. Ironically, before the advent of CDs and up to just before the time when this game actually could have existed.

Boy how I wish modern games could at least load the initial starting area that fast, or just some part of the game that I could get into and play pretty much immediately, on current-gen consoles.

"We had a lot of latitude as everything was signed off in-house. I think there was a lot of trust and belief in what we were doing and to not have a bunch of suits micromanaging (no pun intended) every aspect of the project was something that today is maybe unheard of."

Thankfully, this is something that indie development for the likes of Steam and the various App stores has allowed again in modern times. Although, actually making any money, or even just getting any attention whatsoever, is a whole other degree of challenge on these stores that are bloated far beyond anything that could exist in the past.

Well, the console itself certainly looks pretty slick from what I can see.

The review says it all really: Pretty disappointing.

I think I'll just wait for the SNES Classic Edition/Mini.

Although, the AVS is a pretty sweet retro console too:

http://www.inceptional.com/2016/11/10/the-retrousb-avs-is-a-nes-clone-worth-checking-out/

Or the rather expensive but still very cool Analogue NT:

http://www.inceptional.com/2016/08/24/this-analogue-nt-mini-gif-gives-me-the-feels/

And I think there's a couple other good options that I can't quite remember off the top of my head.

Edit: What's that one where you can play multiple different physical game console's games on one system . . . oh, yeah, the Retron 5 too:

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/08/video_hyperkin_retron_5_review_king_of_the_clone_consoles

@Damo I wouldn't cut off my leg . . . but boy would that be a pretty sweet collection to see. Although, I'd get Sega's M2 maestros to do 3D Classics of a bunch of Nintendo greats before I even thought about getting that team to do anything else. The magic they could work with the likes of Super Mario World, A Link to the Past, Super Punch-Out!!, Star Fox, Super Metroid, Yoshi's Island, F-Zero, and maybe even some third party stuff like Contra III, Super Aleste, Street Fighter 2 Turbo, etc. Man, I'm drooling.

The Bitmap Brothers made some pretty awesome games back in the day, and I always kinda loved the particular artistic look/style they had too.