mariteaux

I'm playing through Blue and now Red trying to complete the Pokedex--on Virtual Console, not hardware, so I can't make use of this. I absolutely might've if I was playing on a GB though. What a great idea for a cheat tool.

@Jacoby I did see a New 2DS XL in the shop window at CEX in Cardiff--I don't have a need for another at the moment but it did look very nice. I'll consider it if my 3DS XL ever breaks, since I don't really use the 3D.

@norwichred This feels like a separate issue with this list. With the merging of PC and portables, you'd have to include every single portable ever made, despite them all just playing PC games. It doesn't really feel the same as a bespoke low power handheld with specific graphical and sound hardware, abilities, and a unique library.

I don't know why the Switch is on this list, since it seems wrong to compare low-end portables like the Game Boy and DS with ones that can run full AAA games, but if the Nomad and Steam Deck are also on the list, it's at least consistent. Fair play.

I think the 3DS deserves the top spot--given it can play GBA, DS, DSi, and 3DS games all natively (not even counting emulation), I see no reason at all to go back to playing those consoles and every reason to play their games on 3DS instead. That's a killer library of native titles. The 3DS XL is also the most comfortable handheld I've ever used, and the screens are excellent.

Yeah, this looks really good. I'm picky about retro-style graphics but this one gets it right. This reminds me a lot of watching that Wipeout PC port run at 60FPS, smooth as silk. I'll be watching out for this one.

@wiiware I'm not really sure what prompted the paragraph about Citra, since I was talking about Yuzu.

I'm glad Nintendo has a system seller! Good for them! My message had nothing to do with why Switches move. My point is if that Switch emulation is such a big market that they need to put big boy legal moves on an emulator team that hasn't committed a crime or infringed on their work, maybe they should actually cater to that market instead. Someone else can develop a Switch emulator and the process starts over again. Their plan won't work. Emulation can't be stopped. Serve the market and customers instead of being a legal bully.

@wiiware Let's be real: this is not Tropic Haze having done anything illegal. This is Nintendo being a bully. I don't think that cowering to a bully with no legal standing using their expensive lawyers to shut down fan projects is particularly great. Emulators are not illegal, regardless of if they're making money. That might make it look a little less kosher, but if I'm not selling Nintendo code, IP, or decryption keys, everything is aboveboard. Connectix VGS was a physical boxed product and the court found that the act of being able to play those games in another medium was transformative enough to be fair use.

I don't mind people thinking Yuzu is optically bad, but this is Nintendo being awful to talented people who have committed no crime and I genuinely hate that they have to cower before them.

EDIT: If anyone's concerned about the sales about new games that are playable on Yuzu, perhaps Nintendo and other devs should meet the market demand and produce a native PC version. Piracy is not an issue with goods, it's an issue with services. Time and again, if you produce a better product than the pirates, the pirates lose. This is exactly what iTunes found; P2P filesharing and torrenting went down when it was introduced and has gone back up with streaming-only releases and rollouts that are consumer unfriendly. Make a better product than the pirates and beat the pirates instead of bullying a dev team.

"I quickly realized why they’re trying to push for people to produce identification to join social media for stuff like that."

Easier solution that doesn't require adults to give their full dox to unreliable websites: keep your kids off the Internet, please. No government can keep kids safe, but their parents can.

@wiiware For what it's worth, the GBA, DS, and Wii all had very active emulation scenes during their initial run. Bleem and Connectix literally competed with the PS1 and both won against Sony in court, only losing the war because Sony bled them dry. There is no good emulation or bad emulation, only emulation.

Ridiculous. I'm guessing they just didn't want to keep up with the costs of the lawsuit even though they were almost certainly in the clear (it's not illegal to hack a console to get its decryption keys, and even if it is, Tropic Haze isn't responsible so long as it's not providing the keys with their emulator). Emulators have long been cleared legally and it's a shame Nintendo's bully tactics have caused the team to buckle. Hopefully some other dev team takes up the reigns; Nintendo fans are nuts when it comes to their devotion to emulation and console hacking.

I'm sure the game is fine and fun, and I appreciate the effort in trying to make things look all pixelated, but when the textures are still that high res, it just looks like someone switched the filtering off on a more modern game. I think I'd prefer a simple, clean look to a "retro" one, that seems more in line with the spirit of such old, limited hardware.

I love this new Atari. I'm glad someone is at the helm who recognizes Atari's place in the world and has ideas for where they should go next. The VCS struck me as silly, the 2600+ strikes me as a really good evolution of the Flashback idea. I also love that they're making new versions of their old controllers, that's really important as hardware ages. I've got a 7800 CX-78 on the way and I'm gonna get an adapter to use it on my PC.

I'm not saying I'm in a rush to play his existing games, but I do think he's adorable and I would like to see at least one unironically good official Bubsy game. I don't care if there's "better" mascots, I want a redemption arc, dammit.

@Poodlestargenerica Saying "kids" in the general sense implies you're referring to a majority. The 90s were literally the golden age of random electronic remixes as well, so if it is a thing with Kids These Days, it's been a thing with quite a few generations of kids.

@Poodlestargenerica I know lots of people my age who listen to stuff that isn't electronic, what are you on about?

I can't listen to Song 2 without hearing Country Sad Ballad Man afterwards. That album is absolutely phenomenal.

As long as the game itself isn't changed, it's ultimately a good compromise. I don't like the idea of history being changed in any context, be it games, old cartoons, or literature. Folks' tastes will change, but that doesn't mean we should pretend we were always like that.

3DS. I've never had a more comfortable, absorbing experience gaming than playing on my 3DS, especially Virtual Console games. I lose track of time like I can't with any other console.

I'm gonna stick to GT2. It does everything I like and none of the later games have added anything to it that make me feel some burning need to play through another one. I also quite like its bizarre unrealistic physics. Using other cars as cushions is fun.

That controller is quite tempting. If only they'd make a reproduction 5200 controller with decent quality parts, especially since the 400 Mini can emulate 5200 games.

@Arcata More powerful, yes, but with 4KB of texture memory that caused every game to become a smeary mess unless they used solid colors. Polys aren't everything when the textures on them are soft and monotone. You can prefer that, but I also think listing off a bunch of good games isn't a response to "the hardware wasn't what was promised", which is again objectively true. I personally would take Spyro any day to SM64, but that's just like my opinion man.

@Arcata To be fair, the hardware can be completely wonky and still have amazing games produced for it. The N64 was objectively backwards in some ways, same as the Saturn/Jaguar/PS3/your favorite bizarrely designed console here. It has no bearing on the games, but next to the bright and crisp PS1, the N64 looks mushy. You can like the mush, but that doesn't mean it isn't mush. It's not hate to call it what it is.

I tried to play Pokemon many times as a kid, but FireRed at 14 on my childhood cart when I was suspended from school was what finally made it click. I was obsessed with those games for years, and I just got back into it last year with Blue on 3DS VC. I still have that old FireRed save, but I transferred most of what I caught to SoulSilver when I was 16--and I still have THAT save too, so thankfully, all my Pokemon are still extant and well...

I dunno, memory cards are still really cool to me. I discovered a bunch last time we were cleaning our house, and some of those saves dated back to when I was a kid in the 2000s. Genuinely amazed they're still around, and really cool to see my childhood saves again. I know SD/MicroSD cards are TECHNICALLY memory cards, since they're cards with flash memory for data, but I don't see them as the same thing. One's for general purpose data and cameras and phones as much as it is for game consoles.

You know, I never appreciated Pole Position until I had to try and win the Grand Prix without crashing for a RetroAchievements set. It's actually a really fun and unique racing game if you sit down and actually try to beat it. I don't own a Switch or a PS4 but definitely nice to see.

I can't blame him for being frustrated. What an absolute waste of such a strong brand by the Tramiels. I would've loved to see an Atari be able to compete in the 90s, but it just didn't blow that way. At least their consoles are getting a reappraisal and lots of homebrew now.

Not for nothing, but something being made with passion doesn't mean someone can't share a negative opinion on it. The vast majority of any kind of art is made with passion and effort, anyone who says otherwise is a contrarian. "Passionate homebrew devs" are still producing games at the end of the day, games people are supposed to play, and if it doesn't play well (and this really doesn't look like it'd play well from that tweet, it seems slow and the pixelation is hideous), it's kind of a moot point. I can appreciate the effort that went into something while also saying I don't really see the appeal. The first comment was more than reasonable imo.

EDIT: They're planning a Kickstarter for this, according to some replies on that tweet. If money is being exchanged for a product, I think virtually any criticism of it is reasonable. No one says "well you can't criticize PC indie games", and certainly no one says AAA games are immune from criticism--I see no reason to treat homebrew devs any different. If anything, criticism is the way homebrew as a medium gets pushed forwards.

@fox_mattcloud Seconded on Geometry Wars Galaxies! That game kept me entertained for a month and change of literally daily play trying to pass four million in Retro Evolved mode. You really need the Classic Controller for it, but it's one of the finest slices of arcade heaven ever put onto a console, and frankly better than the original on XBLA. Might seem a little underwhelming next to all the big long adventure games on the Wii, but I was seriously hooked.

Duckstation or nothing, sorry. Open source, great GUI, RetroAchievements support, disassembler, superb accuracy, runs great. Every other emulator is either user-hostile (Mednafen's lack of GUI, RetroArch's settings being horrifically organized, XEBRA and Bizhawk being a nightmare to set up controllers with) or developed by, uh, unsavory actors (RetroArch and ePSXe). Duckstation feels like a testbed for the stuff that will eventually go in Dolphin and PCSX2 (since stenzek works on those as well), and they're both top-shelf emulators too, so I think it's in good company.

Nah, I like Bubsy. I think there's definitely charm and humor the right person could wring out of specifically that character. It might take putting something of a spin on him (and I've never been too attached to the gameplay of any of them so do with that what you will), but I would like to see at least one unironic banger of a Bubsy game someday.

So glad DVP got included on this list. I checked this just to see if it was here. I think the text was literally hacked into most of the games, and it's just super authentic looking. Phenomenal video.

This is the kinda stuff that keeps me coming back to Time Extension. Not just some blog that regurgitates false easy information and stuff people recognize to get clicks, but actual research and deep dives into the hazy parts of gaming's past. Reminds me of why I enjoy watching Karl Jobst's videos, just with fewer people cheating at games

@KainXavier I definitely understand the caution, given that Atari hasn't been managed by the best people really since the sale to the Tramiels, let alone anyone else. I am optimistic, though. All the stuff you say, plus some of their new merch is seriously cool looking; I just bought a Tempest poster from their flash sale a week or two ago, complete with the 2600 Tempest prototype in the design, which is a surprisingly deep reference for a company like Atari to be making. I have zero place to put any of their arcade cabinets but I keep getting emails for them and I am so tempted. (I'm also on the younger side, since you mentioned it; I postdate the PS1, but not the Xbox, so it's only through 2000s YouTube and the retrogaming community I learned about and got into Atari in the first place.)

I actually really like the idea of a modern Atari box with compatibility for the 7800 (which I've never owned and always wanted to), old controllers, and the ability to play carts, and hearing it uses Stella means I have no doubts basically every game will eventually be playable on it (and most already are, if you see Atari's compatibility list). I think nostalgia plays a big factor; you have to be much older to have grown up with Atari than Nintendo or the PS1, so people who grew up with those probably think this just looks kinda lame. I've always loved Atari and golden-age arcade stuffs (though I'm like half its age, so make of that what you will), so this will definitely be something I keep a watch out for.

Surprised to see the omission of some of these games' Xbox-exclusive features on this list! San Andreas let you rip CDs to the hard drive and listen to them as their own radio station, and THPS3 had an exclusive level. Not really a glaring issue, just one I find interesting because Xbox multiplats tended to be upgrades over the PS2 version. Feel that's worth a mention. (Also Project Gotham Racing 2 gave us Geometry Wars, which is basically half my interest in that game alone.)

I think Pitfall instead of Pitfall II is a missed opportunity. I've beaten both, and Pitfall II is not only a lot more fun to play (no time limit, no lives), it's got screens that scroll all over the place and a really great soundtrack that changes depending on game events. It's super ahead of its time and really impressive on the Atari. Pitfall is fun, but it's more a memorization game if you actually want to beat it, and I think after you do, you'll never really want to come back to it. I can also think of a ton of other racers I'd include on this list instead of Pole Position (Indy 500 comes to mind, as does Enduro if you still want the behind the car view). Otherwise pretty good list.