protocol_penguin

The issues I had with the PS Vita, beyond the obvious, was that it was just too fragile-feeling to be really viable as a portable system, particularly with the limited battery life.

I remember Raze basically being a relaunch of The Games Magazine, minus the 8-bit computer games coverage, and much more focus on the emerging console scene. And with the noteworthy editorial chaos. Wasn't particular great, really. Could've been a strong contender with more focus and direction...

Never liked Arcade, to be honest. It was a wannabe Lads' mag that seemed like it was embarrassed to cover games. It's emblematic of elements of '90s culture that have thankfully mostly vanished.

@RetroGames the PS(1) and N64 both look positively svelte compared to the bulky Sega Saturn. Being most off-the-shelf components, the Saturn was never going to be compact and neatly designed inside, and I suspect there was little possibility of a significantly slimmer redesigned Saturn at a later date.

Honestly, I don’t think that the naive people who are blasé about the implications of AI and genAI realise what’s coming. Whole industries and occupations are going to become unviable or disappear within the next 5-10 years. Millions of people are going to be put out of work. It’ll be an economic bloodbath.

Shame that, for obvious reasons, the glasses-free 3D won't be an option - that still looks great on a New 3DS, and will be a function of the machine that likely won't be able to be preserved beyond the original hardware.

(Not that I rate these emulation handhelds at all beyond "barely adequate", to be honest.)

“A trash Chinese knockoff handheld is comparable to a MiSTer” is the 2020s version of “PAL via composite is good enough for retro games, only snobs care about NTSC, RGB etc”.

@scottishwildcat Well, that depended on the game. Earlier 16Kb games didn't take as long to load as 48Kb games, which didn't take as long as 128Kb games, of course. Then there were the multi-load games which became the norm from 1989 onwards, and likely the most annoying issue, a tape load crashing seconds before the game fully loaded, requiring a rewind of the tape and a second attempt...

Presumably they’re gearing up to release one of more of the games as part of Arcade Archives. I guess.

Modded the cart slot, not the carts.

I don’t think young’uns realise how widespread MD import games were at one point. Every indie games shop (yes, those were the norm, not chains like Game) seemed to stock import MD games, which looked extra exotic with all that Kanji on the box art. Even places like WH Smith would stock Genesis branded MD games along with the non grey import games, or at least until Sega put region protection chips on the carts.

@BionicDodo I’m assuming that the hardware is just an off-the-shelf design. Given it looks cheap and nasty.

Theres’s two music videos with games in that I can think of: The video for Blue Monday (1983 version) by New Order has brief clips of Zaxxon.
The video for Wild Wood by Paul Weller has footage of a guy playing an Outrun arcade machine.

Quite liked Total. Had a warmly entertaining feel to it. Was right on the money reviews-wise about a fair amount of games too. Didn’t really like it once the original team left and it became a generically ‘laddish’ games mag, though.

Blimey, Homestar Runner. I don’t think I’ve heard that name in almost 18 years. Was an almost ubiquitous thing in the latter days of Web1.0.

More of this sort of content please!

The book and not the Manic Street Preachers’ albums? Shame!

Don’t want to sound like a miserable old bugger, but… Reviving GamesMaster? They’d have more chance of success giving CPR to a pile of ashes.

Of all the old gaming hardware brands to revive, why Intellivision? I mean, a console that was past its prime even 40 years ago and wasn’t exactly a success outside of America…

Being assembled in Myanmar? Seriously? That’s the worst “dog ate my homework” type excuse in corporate history.

I really hope that the seedier, dodgier elements of Szczepaniak's original books have been excised by ROM. (The books had interesting content in places, but desperately needed professional editing and removal of troublesome content.)