This looks absolutely lovely. Really nails the aesthetic. I really like the fact there is no combat and you are just a nice character running round helping people, solving puzzles and navigatign tricky platforming. Those have always been my favourite parts of platform games.
I know its a bit silly, but part of the reason Sonic appealed to me so much as a kid was the fact that he doesn't kill things, he breaks the badnik mechs open to rescue animals trapped inside. Mario just straight up kills goombas and koopas! I have to not think about that too deeply else I start to question it.
Again, I know thats silly. I'm autistic, I can rationalise that now but it was harder to avoid those thoughts when I was young. Still, as an adult I appreciate a cute game with kind helpful characters just working to make the world a better place.
Hogs of War is a brilliant little game. As the article says, its like 3d Worms (and managed it far better than "Worms 3d" imo). Will keep an eye on this.
@HexagonSun @Serpenterror This is why many retro devices (and retro-inspired games) go for 720p (which used to be called "HD compaitble" on tvs), and not 1080p ("Full HD"). Nintendo was wise to chose 720 for their Switch screens, though it initially may have seemed like they were cheaping out.
Ironically its the "full HD" 1080p that looks bad when upscaled to 4k, and also makes 240/480/720 content look bad when upscaled to it - non of them fit properly. Though its a common standard, it really is an ugly interim that was highly inadvisable.
The problems you described for only affect 1080p tvs/monitors, not 720p or 1440p. You wouldn't believe how much of a problem 1080p has caused me in both my day jobs producing movie content and videogames. Its the one common resolution that looks bad, everything else common works beautifully.
240p retro content is 3x scale for 720p... but 4.5x scale for 1080 tvs, either making the image soft, or requiring a border. Similarly, 720p content scales perfectly to 4K, but 1080 doesn't.
Looks like the MS pad isn't just a print but a 3d element, perhaps rubbery? I have no idea what I'd put in it, but I want it in my life. The online link isn't live yet, but I've bookmarked it!
So nice to have some Master System representation. Megadrive, Saturn, Dreamcast and Game Gear get all the Sega Store love.
This is cool! As long as they don't make a sequel where for some unknown reason theres a really obvious laugh track and he's best friends with Rodney the plonker.
Colour me surprised! I genuinely thought with that preview image that this anouncement would be a Neo Geo. I didn't consider that gold on black on the image could be a Zelda hint... An N64 is a much, much more interesting proposal as emulation for N64 is nowhere near 100% perfect. However, I'm really hoping they add some kind of option to remove the blurring on pixel edges like some of the more expensive mods for actual consoles can. I'll wait for a review but I might be tempted to pull the trigger, as a properly modded N64 is expensive.
I went on somewhat of a rant on this site before about how personally I feel this is a very ill advised step for Evercade/Blaze... but much of that comes from my annoyance that this feels like confirmation that we won't see these Taito and Capcom titles (some of which are all time favourites of mine, and I've even bought the physical arcade cabinets of!) on actual Evercade carts. This isn't Blaze's fault but many Evercade fans don't like the concept of digital only games on the system, and making a "compatible" sideline that's not technically part of the Evercade lineup feels like a semi sly workaround.
However, taken on their own merit, its undeniable that these are great value little devices. Good selection of games on both, and at significantly less than the EXP this is a genuine consideration for people wanting to get into Evercade, or VS owners wanting to be able to take their games portably. I actually even prefer the look of these units to the EXP. Feels more retro appropriate with the form factor and colour combinations.
So even though I don't really "like" the fact these exist... I've been very tempted to buy one! Back when anounced, there was one fatal flaw which entirely put me off... Blaze previously stated that the firmware is not updatable, and even said that later carts that require a new firmware (or perhaps beefier hardware specs?) may not work...
However, this review states that Blaze have said that they now do plan to update the firmware to get Cathedral working, and "doesn't plan" to give an update for the control remapping (which surely would be a flat out "its impossible" if they had ruled out updates altogether?). So perhaps my biggest concern about the units has now been changed... I'm still far from confident that Evercade support will be 100% moving forward though, and not being able to remap the controls could be seriously annoying. So I'm still conflicted on them.
Love to see something like this, and those prices are more than fair. Congratulations to him for sticking with it and managing to pull this off. The reviews from back then look promising and the video footage looks great. Glad to see this one saved!
"please, please be patient. Please be understanding. Please don’t think that anything in here is a promise. It’s not a promise, it’s more of an exploration of ideas."
Yup. This has always been clear to me as the problem that Molyneux has had. He's undoubtedly a genius, excellent coder, visionary thinker, creator of some of the best games of all time that everyone else scrambled to copy. But part of his genius is having ideas, getting really excited about the potential of those ideas - trying to explain them to people, them getting hyped about it, and then reality sinking in that what he thought was possible simply wasn't, either because of technology or time limitations.
When its just a highly eccentric independent creator making visionary passion projects this is to be expected. I'm guilty of it myself in whatever movie, game, or other hugely ambitious arts project I create - the fact you can so clearly visualise a super exciting and impressive end result that you want to bring to life is what spurs you to make something in the first place... and the temptation is to share those ideas with everyone else to get their reactions and see if you are on the right track - or even if their feedback helps you to round out those ideas and have an even clearer vision. Every project I've ever made has only about 50% of what I initially planed to include, partly because of feature creep, partly underestimating how long things will take, but also partly because you realise once you start making something for real that sometimes overcomplicating things damages the final product. I'm sure every studio that makes a game finishes with a laundry list of things that they want to include in the sequel or in their next project, and didn't have time/money/space to include. Yoshi was meant to be included in Super Mario Bros, for example! Its the same with ambitious action or sci fi movies... you often end up writing the sequel/prequel as you are making the first, or even realising half way through that this needs to be a trilogy, or multipart series...
The problem with Molyneux was that he quickly grew to be considered somewhat of a godlike figure and was worshiped and seen as almost a spokesperson for the entire industry... and once big money, huge press tours, shareholders expectations, sometimes even the entire future of a major brand like Xbox are put in your hands... its very easy to get carried away and say things that you feel 90% sure you are capable of doing... but then life happens and turns out you have to backtrack and everyone calls you a liar, and says you are commiting investor fraud, pump and dumps etc etc etc... I genuinely don't think it has ever been Molyneux's intention to "lie" in his own mind. Sometimes he said things were true right now when infact he knew they weren't, but in his head they'd be true before release date, so why did it matter, and in any case, he was being "forced" to tell this white lie by the fact the money men were making him make this speech on a specific date for a convention or press event, when in reality, its ready when its ready and if you rush it, thats when things fall apart!
I feel very sorry to hear of his mental health problems, and as a creator in the public eye who occasionally gets caught up in these huge press whirlwinds and gets pushed out of my comfort zone, and is always asked to give both time and price estimates (which become "guarantees" in the eyes of shareholders or even fans) I too have suffered, to the point of having some periods of being almost entirely agrophobic, having breakdowns worrying about letting countless people (creative staff, investors, fans) down.
Sometimes the most creative, eccentric "genius" creators are best left alone to make little passion projects, where they can work on their own schedule and release when they are comfortable with it being ready. I think of my brief time with Richard Williams and the unparalled genius of his doomed masterwork "The Thief and the Cobbler" and the tragedy that befell it, for commercial pressures.
From reading Peter's blog, I feel that this "leave me alone to just make what I want to make and lets see what happens" indie attitude is where he currently is in his journey. I for one am excited to see what he makes - but won't put him under any pressure to release it before he is ready. Following his "ideas" process through and seeing which features actually make it to the finished product, and which seemed like good ideas but didn't actually work in practice, so were cut, will be very interesting indeed. But I can see his fear of people getting enthused about a specific feature then very angry when its cut. I would highly, HIGHLY recomend that he doesn't do any kind of crowd funding for the project, nor take large investment funding from a publisher who will push a time limit, at least until its 95% finished, if funds are needed for physical copies or console licenses etc. He will be best off making a really interesting unique indie game, without having the pressure for it to look like (or financially outpeform) a AAA game.
I was today years old when I discovered that the 3D stages in Saturn Sonic 3D are made with the Nights engine! I wonder why Sonic Team were ok with Travellers Tales using it for this game, but not STi (or whoever) for Sonic X-Treme?!?
Anyway, good excuse for me to step in and say that the 3D stages in Sonic 3D are incredible. I wish there was a simple way to have a mode where you just play them all back to back! Along with the Sonic World section in Sonic Jam, these 2 gamepay experiences really show what a "Mario 64" style game for Sonic on Saturn could have been. I can't tell you how much I want to live in a timeline where that happened.
On first inspection I thought this was like most attempts at "Doom" style gameplay on an Amiga where infact its more a recreation of Wolf 3D's tech with a few more colours, more comparable to Rise of the Triad than Doom. However, the engine seems to be significantly more capable than even that - some of the unecessary but decorative geometry is extremely impressive and varied! Its even a "real" ceiling not just a solid colour, is it can have holes/skylights in it, with a proper skybox - however, its still a far cry from DOOM, everything is on one level - no ramps, no stairs, just very flat, and for teh most part, the ceiling and floor have no texture.
Thats not to insult this game in any way though - its done extremely well - as I said the geometry and variety of the scenery is very impressive, the graphics are drawn beautifully, and the fact it can even from on a stock 500+ / 600 at a usable framerate is very very impressive. And most importantly, it looks fun. I'd happily buy a full price big box version of this when its finished!
"and had previously rigged up to receive MIDI commands"
This is the impressive part, not the fact that the GameBoy is playing MIDI through LSDJ. I had no idea it was even possible to convert an entire (analogue, air based) organ to midi (digital input), there must be some crazy tech going on there. I'm intregued. I'll have to wade through his channel - he seems like a really interesting bloke.
"I just love games that are pretty open-ended; you can try things, you can go wherever you want" said David Jones in a 90s interview... Lemmings, Unirally, Body Harvest, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead... yup, I'd say he succeeded!
The DMA / Rockstar team were absolutely amazing in the 90s+2000s, doing things other game developers just weren't able to imagine and pushing the boundaries of how freely explorable and open ended a game could be.
I admire them all but I'd especially like to shout out Mike Dailly who for those that don't know, as well as his work for DMA/Rockstar, was the lead designer and programmer for GameMaker / GML language. He's SO encouraging to new and learning programmers, game designers, solo devs. For my money, GML is the nicest language I've ever used for games programming, and I've used many since the mid 80s. Its just designed so well to streamline the process while never limiting what is possible. Fits the DMA ethos I guess!
@Gerald I would love that! 😍 But sadly this doesn't mean anything - the Switch version likely won't say Sega, that's a video of MAME playing a rom. In the early 80s, Sega licensed many of Konami's games for mass distribution. This is why you often see Sega logos on titles like Frogger in the early 8bit home conversions.
Its absolutely very similar to pipemania, the difference being that instead of trying to make a specific route (for the water) the parts around the outside with smiley faces represent stations with people waiting, so you have to continuously change the target of where you are sending the train to pick them up.
Its a really fun game with a cool concept, though personally I've always found the colour pallets of this early Konami hardware makes the games hard on the eyes (as opposed to Namco games of the time, which are equally basic, but aged better visually imo).
I've long thought that this particular game would really suit a remake, just with slightly upgraded 90s era graphics. I made a bonus minigame for my Hazel adventure where its very similar, but she flies on her broom to pick up then deliver packages, ala Kiki's delivery service 😀 Not entirely ripping off this game as you have to deliver to specific places as well. I guess the same thing could be applied to a modern train based version - picking up then delivering passengers... hmm...
[edit] Just watched a video purporting to be Switch capture and it is still using the rom with the Sega logo. Either way the license doesn't belong to Sega and they didn't make it, just reproduced it for the arcade release. Suprised it wasn't patched out.
MGS is perfectly possible on Saturn in the right hands. Its would have had some areas where it was worse than the PSX, and some where it was better - just like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil etc. Each machine has their strengths and weaknesses. Its a misunderstanding of how history played out to assume the Saturn is "weaker" at 3d than the Playstation, in some ways it beats it by a significant margin...
However the Playstation has the clear advantage in that its much easier to program 3d and several of the effects are pretty much built in (or at least included as drag and drop solutions of library code!) so more developers could (or had the motivation to learn to) get impressive results.
Its a real shame that Konami cancelled MGS but very understandable being that the system was on its last legs and the Dreamcast was very much on the horizon. Judging by their Symphony of the Night conversion, they weren't one of the developers that had fully understood how to use the nature of the multiple processors and chips dedicated to specific tasks of the Saturn. But I don't doubt that in early development they at leats intended to try to make MGS work, if the market was going to be big enough to make it worthwhile... narrators voice "it wasn't".
Looking at this footage, as someone quite familiar with the ins and outs of the tech side of what the Saturn can and can't do, and various workarounds people use, the gameplay looks authentic to me, though of course seeing it running on real Saturn hardware would be far preferable to see if the framerates would be a little lower, which is the only thing I suspect may be slightly off.
BTW the Z-Treme engine link posted is an old version from back in 2019, XL2's game engine is really incredible pushing people's perceptions of what the Saturn could do. Here's some YouTube videos that really demonstrate where its in in more recent times:
@HoyeBoye No worries! its surprisingly difficult to get level design right with Sonic style momentum and speed. Many big "Sonic clones" of the time got this wrong, often the character designs, graphics, music and speed would all be really good, but they'd be frustrating to play. I have a lot of love for them, but you could easily feel this way about Jazz Jackrabbit, Zool, Superfrog, etc....
@KGRAMR Yeah the Jagaur one was really dissappointing as it had so much potential.
I would definitely like to see a 90s cartoon style animated game, that would be awesome! However my own game engine was designed specifically to replicate the look and feel of the retro engine (Sonic Mania etc) with the same base resolution so if I made a Bubsy game, it would be pixel art based.
I could see me making fully animated intro & cutscenes (I studied animation with Don Bluth amongst others and love to make short hand drawn animations)... just not an entire game. I'm very married to the pixel style and having everything based around traditional 16x16 tilesets. I really enjoy making authentic "90s style" games.
If it works out the box, this product is brilliant. Modding HDMI into an Xbox is a difficult fiddly process, and also is quite destructive. From direct captures I've seen, the video quality is very good. The price, while high, is comparable to paying someone to mod your console.
However, MVG's review of this showed comparisson footage and the overall darkening mentioned in this review is extremely noticable in all shadowy areas, to the point of making many games difficult to play by turning everything darker than a certain point to pure black.
Even super bright and colourful games like OutRun 2 turn to complete black when going through tunnels, which are meant to be dark, but you can usually make out their colour, bricks etc. This is unacceptible. I can only imagine how an ultra dark game like Doom 3 would be. Of course some horror games let you adjust the brightness levels in game, so that would fix it, but its far from all games that do this.
While MVG suggested (as does this review) that you could just turn up the brightness on your tv/monitor, many of the comments under the video suggest that no, you can't, as the dark areas are being crushed to black, so adjusting the brightness won't bring back the detail lost, it will just make the black turn grey. MVG then liked some of these comments to imply that they were correct and when trying to do so he found this to be the case.
So, sadly, this product went from an absolute must buy for me, down to a "I really hope they can fix that with a software update". I suspect they've just used the wrong gamma algorthm curve in conversion, so it should be entirely fixable, rather than a permanent hardware flaw.
@Scollurio The only truly awful one is Bubsy 3d, imo. But the 2d platformers are far from perfect because he has the speed & momentum of Sonic but the levels have too many enemies and traps that you need to prepare for, meaning many, many unfair deaths...
The way around this is to carefully tiptoe around and learn the layouts and memorise them, until you know them well enough to play at speed. Most won't have the patience to do this, as it can be very frustrating. Some feel that these criticisms can be aimed at 2D Sonic games, but its much worse with the Bubsy titles.
That said, there is a lot to like about them especially the character designs, level themes and humour (which could get repetitive back in teh day, but now with the capacity for far more storage, that can be avoided). I can totally imagine taking the sprites and tilesets and making a more forgiving and fun game with better level layouts. I actually think there's a lot of potential.
@Teksetter Rebel Assault and Time Gal were games I considered mentioning in my above posts too... I enjoyed them a lot at the time and again were a cut above the usual FMV games. 😀
OMG As someone who's literally spent the last few years making a multipurpose "Sonic-style" engine for all platforms, I could totally make a really, really good 2d Bubsy game... I'd love to try that! 😍 I always liked Bubsy as a character and I remember being totally hyped for the first game to come out. As a kid I used to draw pictures and comics of him and Sonic together!
Yeah my first thought was NeoGeo as well. If not, gold on black would be a weird choice. A system with both an MVS and AES slot would be very nice, especially if paired with a really good quality microswitched arcade joystick.
That said, again, this is using an FPGA for a system that is very easily accurately emulated. Niche market for sure, but the Neo Geo hardcore collectors are known to be willing to spend a fortune for high quality hardware. I imagine this will be a premium priced device rather than for casual consumers who can get their Metal Slug / KOF fix pretty much anywhere nowadays.
@Gerald Yes Core could make the Mega CD sing! One of the only companies to really get it to do "3D" games well, and far more impressively than was possible on other systems, including the Super FX 2. Thunderhawk was really pushed as the first "killer app" for the Mega CD at the time of release and really showed what was possible in the right hands.
Jaguar XJ220 from them was good too - obviously based on the Lotus series for the Amiga and Top Gear series for SNES, but exceeding both by using proper sprite scaling.
Its a real shame their 3 impressive looking 3D games for the 32X were cancelled (only releasing BC Racers) however as soon as they saw the writing on the wall, they moved straight to Saturn development, and started work on Tomb Raider - originally planned as a Sega exclusive!
Also, yes Terminator was a huge upgrade from the Megadrive game. While the CD was criticised for having many "slightly upgraded" ports of MD games, which didn't really push the hardware, there's no denying that if you owned the add-on, you were getting the best versions of many of the games of the time. Of course this article mentions Earthworm Jim & Batman Returns, I'd also give a shout to Mickey Mania as a significant improvement, as well as Mortal Kombat, Puggsy, FIFA, Ecco 1&2, Wolfchild, Pitfall Mayan Adventure, Chuck Rock II, and Road Rash... if that last one counts, its sort of its own game.
"While the Sega CD included an application-specific integrated circuit graphics chip which allowed the system to rotate and scale sprites and backgrounds – very much like the SNES did with its Mode 7 graphics feature – it actually did very little to bolster the base power of the Genesis / Mega Drive."
Wait, wutt?
In addition to the new GPU, it added an extra 12.5mhz CPU (on top of the 7.6mhz CPU on the Megadrive, which was already nearly double the SNES**), added an extra 4Mb of main RAM, and added 10 new sound channels to the Megadrive for far more complicated real time music, not just streaming redbook.
The fact not many games really used the full power (if any?) there's no doubt that on paper its hugely more powerful than the SNES in every area except colour pallette and simultaneous colours on screen, which is annoyingly bottlenecked by the by the MD's video out. This was fixed by the 32X which re-routed the output and allowed for a full 32,768 colours which is why the CD32X FMV games have far improved video quality.
And as for the "very much like the SNES did with its Mode 7 graphics feature"... not really, it far surpasses it. Mode 7 can only scale and rotate a single background layer, not sprites. This is why when "sprites" use the feature, like bosses in Super Mario World, they are on a plain black background - they are actually a giant black square with the "sprite" drawn on it. Any actual sprite "scaling" on stock SNES games is faked with multiple frames of different sizes. The GPU of the MegaCD can of course replicate Mode 7 style effects on background layers, but also properly scale and rotate multiple sprites at the same time. The only way the SNES could do this was by adding a Super FX2 chip in carts, like Yoshi's Island.
** Though its not entirely fair to the SNES to directly compare Mhz as the arcitecture of the chips is so different, there's little doubt the MD's stock processor was already faster than the SNES, and then the MCD makes the combined speed 165% faster than the stock MD.
Really nice list. I've recounted this story before here and on NL in more detail but basically as a huge Sega fan but with little money I lusted over the CD and 32X in magazines reading about all the games but thinking I could never afford them... but then because they both failed so quickly and everyone moved on to PSX & Saturn, in 95 it was extremely cheap to pick them up second hand, and the games were all on extreme clearance - I think the most I paid for a single game was £5, and most were £3-4 each. Easily the best Summer holidays of gaming in my life was picking up all these incredible titles and playing through them, when just a year before that would have seemed like an impossible dream! I'll never not be fond of them, and stand up for the good games that are available if you can sift through the dross.
@Ganner Yes Tomcat Alley was far and away the best FMV game on the system at the time of its release - they'd improved the video quality exponentially but also it was far more interactive than most previous titles, I actually felt like I was controlling a movie, not just playing "Simon" while watching some unrelated video.
@KingMike IIRC it was never released in the States because they legally weren't allowed to while Commodore was having financial problems. I heard some units were released in Canada but I've never seen one nor known anyone who had even heard of it (and I work in Canada quite a lot and have a lot of Canadian frirends).
Really neat that they've used the original assets but also the original grid based control scheme - making it a bit like Prince of Persia / Flashback etc... which were clearly the inspirations for the 3d version originally. It all comes full circle... or rather full "square based grid".
Those are indeed very impressive, I don't recall seeing anyone ever making anythnig actually good with this software before! Then again, almost no-one actually owned the 64DD so thats not surprising.
It was a real shame they didn't release the DD drive sooner, and have more games available for it. There was real potential with the hardware, and I remember as a launch day 64 owner I was really anticipating it... but by the time it came out there was barely any support and even the 64 itself looked to be on the way out.
This is a really fun little game with some great ideas and puzzle/physics elements not common in 16bit titles. I don't recall having any language barrier problems playing it before, but I always very much appreciate people putting in the time to make these patches so games can be more accessible!
I love my Retrobit Saturn pads. I use them all the time for both use on a real Saturn and for emulating any retro game that works better with the 6 button arcade layout or a rolling dpad.
These look kinda hideous on first glance, but perhaps its just because there is an uncanny valley effect and I will get used to the design over time? I think I'd still prefer the OG analogue controller for Nights though, and a modern pad for games that need 2 sticks and the extra shoulders.
@Blast16 RMC Retro collaborated on designing and building a consolised version called the MiSTer Multisystem which essentially is preassembled and does everything for you. I'd not tried it myself but I know Neil and he is a really good bloke and would not puty out a product that wasn't up to snuff.
Personally for me the MiSTer still isn't really up to teh task of replacing the 32/64/128 bit consoles well enough to replace a real console and I'm hoping that a new "standard" system comes along that is powerful enough to recreate them before I throw a large amount of cash into an FPGA, however if you want to dip your toes into the MiSTer water but want a simple solution, I think that would be a raelly good way to start.
@DestructoDisk I agree with a lot of your points, but it entirely depends how you frame it. For me, its absolutely a rival to the Analogue Pocket for what I want. In fact far from being just another chinese emulation device, its the only one I'm considering instead of the Pocket.
I've been considering buying an Analogue Pocket since they were anounced, not because its an FPGA device, but because of the screen's 1:1 aspect ratio and ability to play GB games in their original green colours with a quality dot matrix filter. I've not seen any other cheap chinese device that can do this, looks like this one can... and its cheaper, and I prefer the form factor.
For me, they are absolutely comparable because the factors that would make me consider buying one are met by both, so personally the choice isn't emulation vs fpga (GB emulation is at the point where I find it indistinguishable from the real thing) its price, build quality and form factor. I'm sure the Analogue Pocket is built better, and this review states so. But I'm held off from buying one because of the high price and the fact I actually don't think it looks like I'd find it comfortable to use.
I know FPGA's are awesome, but as I've discussed elewhere on this site I'm holding back till there are more powerful devices and more complex cores that can cover some of the systems where emulation isn't perfect, and probably won't ever be. At that point, I'll happily lay down a huge amount of money on a full FPGA setup. But the Pocket is simply overkill when all I want to do is play Gameboy (and hopefully other 8bit portable) games. Its very neat that the Pocket can play original carts, and I've got loads of them... but for me, the appeal in a portable device is in convenience and practicality when travelling so whether do chose this device or the pocket, I'd only be playing roms. So again, in my particular usecase, these two deveices are very much a direct comparison. I don't feel its a click bait title, it makes perfect sense, if you frame it in that light.
@Duffman92 I can understand that point of view for sure. However, as you say, pretty much every gamer, especailly retro gamer, has downloaded and played roms at some point, hell most of the biggest retro fans with vast collections probably worth more than their house still play roms because they are convenient, so its useful to be kept informed about new devices to do so.
Now, I admit that for my personal taste, there may be too many of these devices covered, and too often, and there is a never ending slew of such devices coming thick and fast and most of them are much of a muchness and just chinese companies wanting to make a quick buck. But when a device is less generic and has one or more standout features that actually make it especially desirable to descerning retro gamers, I really apprecaite being made aware of it, and I absolutely trust Damo to give a fair and balanced review.
I ignore most of the "yet another alsoran device" articles but for my personal wants, I'm extremely glad that I was made aware of this particular device, a 1:1 720p screen in a horizontal form factor is exactly what I've been hoping for, and I'm sure many other gamers wanting a specific device for playing GB/GBC/NGPC games have too. I wouldn't have known that it existed without this site, so I think its a very relevant thing to post on a site dedicated to retro gamers.
Like I said though, I totally understand why you'd feel otherwise.
This looks like a really full featured rom hack, really nice job to the creator, the main character is really cute and nicely drawn. Really great variety in location tilesets and background graphics too!
@VideoGameBoy No, you are right, rom hacks (and fan games) may only be distributed for free. Even if the creator gives them away but has a patreon or accepts donations they can run into problems, its best to only make this kind of thing if you are willing to give it away entirely free.
@wiiware Yeah, looks like they have started to include retro features as well as gameplay, I know Alex and Zion (maybe Felix also?) from the NintendoLife channel have / will be making content for it.
@ralphdibny From the wesbite it looks like there may be 2 micro SD slots, one for the OS, and one for games. They sell the system with 16gb for the OS, and you can have 64gb / 128gb bundled.
It says that each slot supports up to 256gb, but the implication is that only the 1 slot (and therefore 256gb max) can be used for games.
Oh, now this is very interesting - I prefer the form factor of this and it might be a really good device for me to use to play GB, GB and NGPC roms on the go. I've been weighing up various options, but that 1:1 screen is a big selling point for me, I get really irrationally annoyed by borders. And 720 is the exact sweet spot vertical resolution for perfect integer scaling of most retro content, allowing for either perfect crisp even pixels or a grid filter with no shimmering.
@Damo Great review! You wrote "With the right screen filters, you can make the image look just as authentic as it does on the Analogue Pocket" - can I assume that this includes a decent looking "pea soup" style DMG pallette with a pixel grid shader? If so, I'm sold.
@DestructoDisk I would assume that roms were added to review copies sent out to avoid wasting money accidentally sending devices to people that aren't tech savvy enough to get roms or work out how to install them. Certainly their website says nothing about including games of any kind when selling to the public.
However, also on the subject of the ethics of sharing roms rather than selling them, a large amount of "legally licensed roms" on cheap retro machines, compilations for consoles, or streaming services are actually extremely innethical and often not even truly legal, just paying money to copyright/patent trolling grifters who claim to own the rights and no-one can afford/bother to dispute them. They all regularly rebrand the companies, logos, and which individuals are the current "director" so its a bit like playing whack-a-mole.
Of course, its illegal to sell devices with roms on, like how Soulja Boy was doing. But these types of devices are designed to have roms put on them as soon as you buy them anyway, so from a moral rather than legal standpoint, if you are buying a device like this, you have already decided you are ok with using them. And as I said, in some cases, its actually more ethically sound to use downloaded roms than pay for fake/unethically sourced but legally unchallenged "licenses". Tis a bit of a minefield, for sure, but neither is 100% right or wrong, from an ethical, or sometimes even legal standpoint.
Its difficult to sift through which "legal" collections are genuine without going down big rabbit holes and sifting through government records (often these companies obscure themselves through countless shell companies like money launderers and tax avoiders) but as soon as I cotton on to a particular "license" being "owned" by one of these people I actively avoid supporting such activity which is far more immoral in my personal opinion. Especially as some of the biggest names behind it are very nasty and sometimes dangerous individuals commiting widescale fraud & harassing whistleblowers.
Ultimately, I think its up to the individual to decide what they are morally comfortable with. Just know that its not as black and white as "paying for a rom / retro collection / device with licensed built in games is an ethical way to legally own/play them" as often its neither ethical or legal. Like food labelling pretending to be "healthy", take it with a grain of salt, sugar, fat and chemicals.
Wow this is really impressive! Finding your way around the Saturn's architecture is no mean feat.
As a Saturn owner, I first played the first Tomb Raider there and its still my prefered retro version, especially as it was the intended original development platform. Sure, the PS1 version looks better in some ways, but certainly not all, and perhaps because its what I first played, I prefer controlling Lara with the Saturn's sublime S-Pad.
I was very annoyed when Sony bought console exclusivity for both Tomb Raider 2 and Resident Evil 2. But I must admit, this was when I seroiusly started considering also buying a Playstation, so it obviously worked.
@Poodlestargenerica I was confused by your statement too. Of course you are entitled to your opinion, I'm just curious. You find the pocket screen to be worse that the original DMC Gameboy?
Personally I find the DMG's more chunky design more comfortable to hold, but I can't go back to using it without modding the screen. The Pocket's screen (while it could of course do with a backlight, at least Japan got a frontlit model) is so much clearer and has far less ghosting than the stock DMG. And surely the look & feel of the body and buttons, are very similar to the GBC?
Admittedly, I don't have too much experience using the Pocket, back in the day I jumped straight from DMG to GBC, and nowadays I use a modded DMG for all my GB games and GBA for GBC titles because personally I find the smaller Pocket and GBC less comfortable. But saying the pocket is objectively the worst isn't a sentiment I've heard before. Just intregued me is all.
@AJB83 I wish it was that simple. As soon as you start charging money (even via donations) whilst using the IPs of the games to drive people to that Patreon, that's where the legal jackals jump in. Sure, the product they will make will be perfectly legally fine to make and distribute if it erquires the original game to run. But if they did a Patreon, they would NEVER be able to mention the games in the same tweet, youtube video etc, or mention the games, or link to the builds in said Patreon. They'd have to just make a generic "Night Dive" Patreon, without any claims or posts on it, and not link to it on social media except in completely unrelated posts.
Source: I've seen this happen and cause problems time and time again for people making free fangames, fan art, fan fiction... its all good til you set up a Patreon or link a Kofi or Paypal etc.
@SpecialT @UK_Kev Yeah they feel like entirely different games. Even though I'm usually an arcade racing fan, I have always much prefered the 3do version of the original NFS. I miss the "Road and Track", cool 90s atyle "rad" menus/presentation, and "X Man" FMV stuff in the DOS and console ports too.
By the way, the emulator "3DO Play" can overclock the CPU so you can up the framerate to 30fps, making it far more barable to play my today's standards, and still retain the original game.
@Sketcz Thats not your system being faulty, its a common issue with certain games combined with certain models.
The reason it happens is on bootup the system OS is loaded into RAM. Even though the specs for 3DO standard were locked, different manufacturers made their own slightly different OS, mostly just changes in the boot logos and sound. Some of these were slightly bigger than others and meant that games that max out the RAM wouldn't work on these systems as the data was still unflushed.
That's what you get when you essentially get manufacturers of VHS players and Stereos who know nothing about games development to make clones of your hardware. The hardware spec was identical but they ruined that with their custom OS, all for the sake of trying to have the nicest fancy boot logo and not knowing it was taking away precious memory that the games needed 😂
The way around this would have been for the 3DO standard to have the OS stored on each game, rather than on the consoles themselves, which would just have a simple boot bios only. Poor planning in an otherwise well designed system spec.
@Damo Oh absolutely, of course sites covering current games will get higher traffic. But hopefully with the right SEO and word of mouth etc this site can grow too - I feel retro articles that cover historical content has potential to be far more evergreen in the long run if it can work its way up the google page ranks.
I think its very smart what you've done by mostly having the retro content here, and then having the articles appear in the feeds of NL, PS, PXB, to organically temp people accross and make them aware of the site. Having the coloured outline to indicate when this is the case is a really nice touch that means it doesn't feel annoying or misleading. I think its a really nice, organic way to hopefully spread some of the users from the larger sites to this one too!
I still to this day find it hard to believe they designed a portable games console where you have to remove the battery in order to change the cartridge. Nor that they thought it was a good idea to port widescreen aspect ratio games to a vertical screen.
Its a shame, as it was a nice idea and impressively powerful, considering the time. But combining a games console and a phone, ended up with a device that wasn't really very good at being either. A GBA and a 3310 combined would have cost about the same and been infinitely better.
At the very least, the second model was an improvement, and the price was lowered. Still kinda hilariously cack though.
@Blast16 Yeah I have much of what you mentioned including modded consoles with everdrives / virtual optical drives and the upscalers and cables to make them look their best etc... however most of the time I just use my gaming PC as it can do everything and emulation is good enough most of the time, even "perfect" for most older systems and games. I have a pretty large retro game collection but nowadays its mostly for display, or away in storage. I'm considering selling most of it to make space. Once an FPGA solution can have perfect results for everything "retro" that I want to play, I'll get that, as while my PC can do everthing, its still a fiddly solution, and it sits in my office, not infront of my main TV.
@no_donatello @-wc- Yeah I'm in the same boat as both of you, in that I really liked the game, but I don't remember actually finishing it 🤔 I remember it very fondly though and can recall a lot about it. Maybe I got stuck at some point... oh well, all the more reason for them to release it on switch so we can all actually finish it this time!
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Re: 'Cavern Of Dreams' Is A New Love Letter To '90s Platformers, Available Now On Steam
This looks absolutely lovely. Really nails the aesthetic. I really like the fact there is no combat and you are just a nice character running round helping people, solving puzzles and navigatign tricky platforming. Those have always been my favourite parts of platform games.
I know its a bit silly, but part of the reason Sonic appealed to me so much as a kid was the fact that he doesn't kill things, he breaks the badnik mechs open to rescue animals trapped inside. Mario just straight up kills goombas and koopas! I have to not think about that too deeply else I start to question it.
Again, I know thats silly. I'm autistic, I can rationalise that now but it was harder to avoid those thoughts when I was young. Still, as an adult I appreciate a cute game with kind helpful characters just working to make the world a better place.
Re: Random: A Shiba Inu Is Going To Speedrun At AGDQ 2024
That is a very good boy right there. My interest in Gyromite just increased tenfold.
Re: New Hidden Characters Discovered In NBA Jam Tournament Edition on Sega Saturn
But no Bill Clinton or Al Gore? 🤭
Re: Random: Programmer Goes To Exceptional Lengths To Play Worms 2
Ahhh this kind of video is my bread and butter. Thank you! I shall enjoy this and his other videos. Rollercoaster Tycoon you say? Sold.
Re: A Kickstarter For A Hogs Of War Remaster Has Just Gone Live
Hogs of War is a brilliant little game. As the article says, its like 3d Worms (and managed it far better than "Worms 3d" imo). Will keep an eye on this.
Re: Analogue 3D Is An FPGA-Based N64 With 4K Output
@HexagonSun @Serpenterror This is why many retro devices (and retro-inspired games) go for 720p (which used to be called "HD compaitble" on tvs), and not 1080p ("Full HD"). Nintendo was wise to chose 720 for their Switch screens, though it initially may have seemed like they were cheaping out.
Ironically its the "full HD" 1080p that looks bad when upscaled to 4k, and also makes 240/480/720 content look bad when upscaled to it - non of them fit properly. Though its a common standard, it really is an ugly interim that was highly inadvisable.
The problems you described for only affect 1080p tvs/monitors, not 720p or 1440p. You wouldn't believe how much of a problem 1080p has caused me in both my day jobs producing movie content and videogames. Its the one common resolution that looks bad, everything else common works beautifully.
240p retro content is 3x scale for 720p... but 4.5x scale for 1080 tvs, either making the image soft, or requiring a border. Similarly, 720p content scales perfectly to 4K, but 1080 doesn't.
Re: Random: The Fashion Retailer Zara Is Now Selling Master System Phone Cases
Looks like the MS pad isn't just a print but a 3d element, perhaps rubbery? I have no idea what I'd put in it, but I want it in my life. The online link isn't live yet, but I've bookmarked it!
So nice to have some Master System representation. Megadrive, Saturn, Dreamcast and Game Gear get all the Sega Store love.
Re: Random: New Game Boy Color Game Turns Frasier Into A Turn-Based RPG
This is cool! As long as they don't make a sequel where for some unknown reason theres a really obvious laugh track and he's best friends with Rodney the plonker.
Re: Analogue 3D Is An FPGA-Based N64 With 4K Output
Colour me surprised! I genuinely thought with that preview image that this anouncement would be a Neo Geo. I didn't consider that gold on black on the image could be a Zelda hint... An N64 is a much, much more interesting proposal as emulation for N64 is nowhere near 100% perfect. However, I'm really hoping they add some kind of option to remove the blurring on pixel edges like some of the more expensive mods for actual consoles can. I'll wait for a review but I might be tempted to pull the trigger, as a properly modded N64 is expensive.
Re: Review: Hyper Mega Tech Super Pocket - A Wonderful Game Boy-Style Retro Gift
Great review!
I went on somewhat of a rant on this site before about how personally I feel this is a very ill advised step for Evercade/Blaze... but much of that comes from my annoyance that this feels like confirmation that we won't see these Taito and Capcom titles (some of which are all time favourites of mine, and I've even bought the physical arcade cabinets of!) on actual Evercade carts. This isn't Blaze's fault but many Evercade fans don't like the concept of digital only games on the system, and making a "compatible" sideline that's not technically part of the Evercade lineup feels like a semi sly workaround.
However, taken on their own merit, its undeniable that these are great value little devices. Good selection of games on both, and at significantly less than the EXP this is a genuine consideration for people wanting to get into Evercade, or VS owners wanting to be able to take their games portably. I actually even prefer the look of these units to the EXP. Feels more retro appropriate with the form factor and colour combinations.
So even though I don't really "like" the fact these exist... I've been very tempted to buy one! Back when anounced, there was one fatal flaw which entirely put me off... Blaze previously stated that the firmware is not updatable, and even said that later carts that require a new firmware (or perhaps beefier hardware specs?) may not work...
However, this review states that Blaze have said that they now do plan to update the firmware to get Cathedral working, and "doesn't plan" to give an update for the control remapping (which surely would be a flat out "its impossible" if they had ruled out updates altogether?). So perhaps my biggest concern about the units has now been changed... I'm still far from confident that Evercade support will be 100% moving forward though, and not being able to remap the controls could be seriously annoying. So I'm still conflicted on them.
Re: Unreleased SNES Platformer 'Mr. Tuff' Finally Goes On Sale 28 Years Later
Love to see something like this, and those prices are more than fair. Congratulations to him for sticking with it and managing to pull this off. The reviews from back then look promising and the video footage looks great. Glad to see this one saved!
Re: Peter Molyneux Starts Blog To Share Process Behind His Latest Game
"please, please be patient. Please be understanding. Please don’t think that anything in here is a promise. It’s not a promise, it’s more of an exploration of ideas."
Yup. This has always been clear to me as the problem that Molyneux has had. He's undoubtedly a genius, excellent coder, visionary thinker, creator of some of the best games of all time that everyone else scrambled to copy. But part of his genius is having ideas, getting really excited about the potential of those ideas - trying to explain them to people, them getting hyped about it, and then reality sinking in that what he thought was possible simply wasn't, either because of technology or time limitations.
When its just a highly eccentric independent creator making visionary passion projects this is to be expected. I'm guilty of it myself in whatever movie, game, or other hugely ambitious arts project I create - the fact you can so clearly visualise a super exciting and impressive end result that you want to bring to life is what spurs you to make something in the first place... and the temptation is to share those ideas with everyone else to get their reactions and see if you are on the right track - or even if their feedback helps you to round out those ideas and have an even clearer vision. Every project I've ever made has only about 50% of what I initially planed to include, partly because of feature creep, partly underestimating how long things will take, but also partly because you realise once you start making something for real that sometimes overcomplicating things damages the final product. I'm sure every studio that makes a game finishes with a laundry list of things that they want to include in the sequel or in their next project, and didn't have time/money/space to include. Yoshi was meant to be included in Super Mario Bros, for example! Its the same with ambitious action or sci fi movies... you often end up writing the sequel/prequel as you are making the first, or even realising half way through that this needs to be a trilogy, or multipart series...
The problem with Molyneux was that he quickly grew to be considered somewhat of a godlike figure and was worshiped and seen as almost a spokesperson for the entire industry... and once big money, huge press tours, shareholders expectations, sometimes even the entire future of a major brand like Xbox are put in your hands... its very easy to get carried away and say things that you feel 90% sure you are capable of doing... but then life happens and turns out you have to backtrack and everyone calls you a liar, and says you are commiting investor fraud, pump and dumps etc etc etc... I genuinely don't think it has ever been Molyneux's intention to "lie" in his own mind. Sometimes he said things were true right now when infact he knew they weren't, but in his head they'd be true before release date, so why did it matter, and in any case, he was being "forced" to tell this white lie by the fact the money men were making him make this speech on a specific date for a convention or press event, when in reality, its ready when its ready and if you rush it, thats when things fall apart!
I feel very sorry to hear of his mental health problems, and as a creator in the public eye who occasionally gets caught up in these huge press whirlwinds and gets pushed out of my comfort zone, and is always asked to give both time and price estimates (which become "guarantees" in the eyes of shareholders or even fans) I too have suffered, to the point of having some periods of being almost entirely agrophobic, having breakdowns worrying about letting countless people (creative staff, investors, fans) down.
Sometimes the most creative, eccentric "genius" creators are best left alone to make little passion projects, where they can work on their own schedule and release when they are comfortable with it being ready. I think of my brief time with Richard Williams and the unparalled genius of his doomed masterwork "The Thief and the Cobbler" and the tragedy that befell it, for commercial pressures.
From reading Peter's blog, I feel that this "leave me alone to just make what I want to make and lets see what happens" indie attitude is where he currently is in his journey. I for one am excited to see what he makes - but won't put him under any pressure to release it before he is ready. Following his "ideas" process through and seeing which features actually make it to the finished product, and which seemed like good ideas but didn't actually work in practice, so were cut, will be very interesting indeed. But I can see his fear of people getting enthused about a specific feature then very angry when its cut. I would highly, HIGHLY recomend that he doesn't do any kind of crowd funding for the project, nor take large investment funding from a publisher who will push a time limit, at least until its 95% finished, if funds are needed for physical copies or console licenses etc. He will be best off making a really interesting unique indie game, without having the pressure for it to look like (or financially outpeform) a AAA game.
Re: Random: Fan Discovers A Bunch Of Cool New Hacks Inside Sonic 3D Blast For Saturn
I was today years old when I discovered that the 3D stages in Saturn Sonic 3D are made with the Nights engine! I wonder why Sonic Team were ok with Travellers Tales using it for this game, but not STi (or whoever) for Sonic X-Treme?!?
Anyway, good excuse for me to step in and say that the 3D stages in Sonic 3D are incredible. I wish there was a simple way to have a mode where you just play them all back to back! Along with the Sonic World section in Sonic Jam, these 2 gamepay experiences really show what a "Mario 64" style game for Sonic on Saturn could have been. I can't tell you how much I want to live in a timeline where that happened.
Re: Grind Aims To Finally Give The Amiga The Doom Clone It Deserves
On first inspection I thought this was like most attempts at "Doom" style gameplay on an Amiga where infact its more a recreation of Wolf 3D's tech with a few more colours, more comparable to Rise of the Triad than Doom. However, the engine seems to be significantly more capable than even that - some of the unecessary but decorative geometry is extremely impressive and varied! Its even a "real" ceiling not just a solid colour, is it can have holes/skylights in it, with a proper skybox - however, its still a far cry from DOOM, everything is on one level - no ramps, no stairs, just very flat, and for teh most part, the ceiling and floor have no texture.
Thats not to insult this game in any way though - its done extremely well - as I said the geometry and variety of the scenery is very impressive, the graphics are drawn beautifully, and the fact it can even from on a stock 500+ / 600 at a usable framerate is very very impressive. And most importantly, it looks fun. I'd happily buy a full price big box version of this when its finished!
Re: Random: YouTube Musician Uses Modded Game Boy To Play Church Organ
"and had previously rigged up to receive MIDI commands"
This is the impressive part, not the fact that the GameBoy is playing MIDI through LSDJ. I had no idea it was even possible to convert an entire (analogue, air based) organ to midi (digital input), there must be some crazy tech going on there. I'm intregued. I'll have to wade through his channel - he seems like a really interesting bloke.
Re: The Making Of: Body Harvest - The N64 Cult Classic That Went Through Development Hell
"I just love games that are pretty open-ended; you can try things, you can go wherever you want" said David Jones in a 90s interview... Lemmings, Unirally, Body Harvest, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead... yup, I'd say he succeeded!
The DMA / Rockstar team were absolutely amazing in the 90s+2000s, doing things other game developers just weren't able to imagine and pushing the boundaries of how freely explorable and open ended a game could be.
I admire them all but I'd especially like to shout out Mike Dailly who for those that don't know, as well as his work for DMA/Rockstar, was the lead designer and programmer for GameMaker / GML language. He's SO encouraging to new and learning programmers, game designers, solo devs. For my money, GML is the nicest language I've ever used for games programming, and I've used many since the mid 80s. Its just designed so well to streamline the process while never limiting what is possible. Fits the DMA ethos I guess!
Re: Konami's 'Guttang Gottong' Is This Week's Arcade Archives Release
@Gerald I would love that! 😍 But sadly this doesn't mean anything - the Switch version likely won't say Sega, that's a video of MAME playing a rom. In the early 80s, Sega licensed many of Konami's games for mass distribution. This is why you often see Sega logos on titles like Frogger in the early 8bit home conversions.
Its absolutely very similar to pipemania, the difference being that instead of trying to make a specific route (for the water) the parts around the outside with smiley faces represent stations with people waiting, so you have to continuously change the target of where you are sending the train to pick them up.
Its a really fun game with a cool concept, though personally I've always found the colour pallets of this early Konami hardware makes the games hard on the eyes (as opposed to Namco games of the time, which are equally basic, but aged better visually imo).
I've long thought that this particular game would really suit a remake, just with slightly upgraded 90s era graphics. I made a bonus minigame for my Hazel adventure where its very similar, but she flies on her broom to pick up then deliver packages, ala Kiki's delivery service 😀 Not entirely ripping off this game as you have to deliver to specific places as well. I guess the same thing could be applied to a modern train based version - picking up then delivering passengers... hmm...
[edit] Just watched a video purporting to be Switch capture and it is still using the rom with the Sega logo. Either way the license doesn't belong to Sega and they didn't make it, just reproduced it for the arcade release. Suprised it wasn't patched out.
Re: Hobbyist Developer Claims To Have Got Metal Gear Solid Running On A Sega Saturn
MGS is perfectly possible on Saturn in the right hands. Its would have had some areas where it was worse than the PSX, and some where it was better - just like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil etc. Each machine has their strengths and weaknesses. Its a misunderstanding of how history played out to assume the Saturn is "weaker" at 3d than the Playstation, in some ways it beats it by a significant margin...
However the Playstation has the clear advantage in that its much easier to program 3d and several of the effects are pretty much built in (or at least included as drag and drop solutions of library code!) so more developers could (or had the motivation to learn to) get impressive results.
Its a real shame that Konami cancelled MGS but very understandable being that the system was on its last legs and the Dreamcast was very much on the horizon. Judging by their Symphony of the Night conversion, they weren't one of the developers that had fully understood how to use the nature of the multiple processors and chips dedicated to specific tasks of the Saturn. But I don't doubt that in early development they at leats intended to try to make MGS work, if the market was going to be big enough to make it worthwhile... narrators voice "it wasn't".
Looking at this footage, as someone quite familiar with the ins and outs of the tech side of what the Saturn can and can't do, and various workarounds people use, the gameplay looks authentic to me, though of course seeing it running on real Saturn hardware would be far preferable to see if the framerates would be a little lower, which is the only thing I suspect may be slightly off.
BTW the Z-Treme engine link posted is an old version from back in 2019, XL2's game engine is really incredible pushing people's perceptions of what the Saturn could do. Here's some YouTube videos that really demonstrate where its in in more recent times:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZpa0ABrypc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpcjkDDLoXM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs3l5SDlIJ8
All those videos are direct capture from real unaltered Saturn hardware running in realtime. XL2 is a miracle worker.
Re: Atari Is Open To Pitches For A New Bubsy Game
@HoyeBoye No worries! its surprisingly difficult to get level design right with Sonic style momentum and speed. Many big "Sonic clones" of the time got this wrong, often the character designs, graphics, music and speed would all be really good, but they'd be frustrating to play. I have a lot of love for them, but you could easily feel this way about Jazz Jackrabbit, Zool, Superfrog, etc....
Re: Atari Is Open To Pitches For A New Bubsy Game
@KGRAMR Yeah the Jagaur one was really dissappointing as it had so much potential.
I would definitely like to see a 90s cartoon style animated game, that would be awesome! However my own game engine was designed specifically to replicate the look and feel of the retro engine (Sonic Mania etc) with the same base resolution so if I made a Bubsy game, it would be pixel art based.
I could see me making fully animated intro & cutscenes (I studied animation with Don Bluth amongst others and love to make short hand drawn animations)... just not an entire game. I'm very married to the pixel style and having everything based around traditional 16x16 tilesets. I really enjoy making authentic "90s style" games.
Re: Atari Is Open To Pitches For A New Bubsy Game
@KingMike Yeah I'd agree the first is the best. The real shame for me was the exclusive Jaguar title - really cool ideas but not at all executed well.
Re: Review: EON XBHD HD Adapter For Xbox - Bring Your OG Console Into The Modern Age
If it works out the box, this product is brilliant. Modding HDMI into an Xbox is a difficult fiddly process, and also is quite destructive. From direct captures I've seen, the video quality is very good. The price, while high, is comparable to paying someone to mod your console.
However, MVG's review of this showed comparisson footage and the overall darkening mentioned in this review is extremely noticable in all shadowy areas, to the point of making many games difficult to play by turning everything darker than a certain point to pure black.
Even super bright and colourful games like OutRun 2 turn to complete black when going through tunnels, which are meant to be dark, but you can usually make out their colour, bricks etc. This is unacceptible. I can only imagine how an ultra dark game like Doom 3 would be. Of course some horror games let you adjust the brightness levels in game, so that would fix it, but its far from all games that do this.
While MVG suggested (as does this review) that you could just turn up the brightness on your tv/monitor, many of the comments under the video suggest that no, you can't, as the dark areas are being crushed to black, so adjusting the brightness won't bring back the detail lost, it will just make the black turn grey. MVG then liked some of these comments to imply that they were correct and when trying to do so he found this to be the case.
So, sadly, this product went from an absolute must buy for me, down to a "I really hope they can fix that with a software update". I suspect they've just used the wrong gamma algorthm curve in conversion, so it should be entirely fixable, rather than a permanent hardware flaw.
Re: Atari Is Open To Pitches For A New Bubsy Game
@Scollurio The only truly awful one is Bubsy 3d, imo. But the 2d platformers are far from perfect because he has the speed & momentum of Sonic but the levels have too many enemies and traps that you need to prepare for, meaning many, many unfair deaths...
The way around this is to carefully tiptoe around and learn the layouts and memorise them, until you know them well enough to play at speed. Most won't have the patience to do this, as it can be very frustrating. Some feel that these criticisms can be aimed at 2D Sonic games, but its much worse with the Bubsy titles.
That said, there is a lot to like about them especially the character designs, level themes and humour (which could get repetitive back in teh day, but now with the capacity for far more storage, that can be avoided). I can totally imagine taking the sprites and tilesets and making a more forgiving and fun game with better level layouts. I actually think there's a lot of potential.
Re: Best Sega CD Games Of All Time
@Teksetter Rebel Assault and Time Gal were games I considered mentioning in my above posts too... I enjoyed them a lot at the time and again were a cut above the usual FMV games. 😀
Re: Atari Is Open To Pitches For A New Bubsy Game
OMG As someone who's literally spent the last few years making a multipurpose "Sonic-style" engine for all platforms, I could totally make a really, really good 2d Bubsy game... I'd love to try that! 😍 I always liked Bubsy as a character and I remember being totally hyped for the first game to come out. As a kid I used to draw pictures and comics of him and Sonic together!
Re: Analogue Is Teasing Something For Next Week
Yeah my first thought was NeoGeo as well. If not, gold on black would be a weird choice. A system with both an MVS and AES slot would be very nice, especially if paired with a really good quality microswitched arcade joystick.
That said, again, this is using an FPGA for a system that is very easily accurately emulated. Niche market for sure, but the Neo Geo hardcore collectors are known to be willing to spend a fortune for high quality hardware. I imagine this will be a premium priced device rather than for casual consumers who can get their Metal Slug / KOF fix pretty much anywhere nowadays.
Re: Best Sega CD Games Of All Time
@Gerald Yes Core could make the Mega CD sing! One of the only companies to really get it to do "3D" games well, and far more impressively than was possible on other systems, including the Super FX 2. Thunderhawk was really pushed as the first "killer app" for the Mega CD at the time of release and really showed what was possible in the right hands.
Jaguar XJ220 from them was good too - obviously based on the Lotus series for the Amiga and Top Gear series for SNES, but exceeding both by using proper sprite scaling.
Its a real shame their 3 impressive looking 3D games for the 32X were cancelled (only releasing BC Racers) however as soon as they saw the writing on the wall, they moved straight to Saturn development, and started work on Tomb Raider - originally planned as a Sega exclusive!
Also, yes Terminator was a huge upgrade from the Megadrive game. While the CD was criticised for having many "slightly upgraded" ports of MD games, which didn't really push the hardware, there's no denying that if you owned the add-on, you were getting the best versions of many of the games of the time. Of course this article mentions Earthworm Jim & Batman Returns, I'd also give a shout to Mickey Mania as a significant improvement, as well as Mortal Kombat, Puggsy, FIFA, Ecco 1&2, Wolfchild, Pitfall Mayan Adventure, Chuck Rock II, and Road Rash... if that last one counts, its sort of its own game.
Re: Best Sega CD Games Of All Time
"While the Sega CD included an application-specific integrated circuit graphics chip which allowed the system to rotate and scale sprites and backgrounds – very much like the SNES did with its Mode 7 graphics feature – it actually did very little to bolster the base power of the Genesis / Mega Drive."
Wait, wutt?
In addition to the new GPU, it added an extra 12.5mhz CPU (on top of the 7.6mhz CPU on the Megadrive, which was already nearly double the SNES**), added an extra 4Mb of main RAM, and added 10 new sound channels to the Megadrive for far more complicated real time music, not just streaming redbook.
The fact not many games really used the full power (if any?) there's no doubt that on paper its hugely more powerful than the SNES in every area except colour pallette and simultaneous colours on screen, which is annoyingly bottlenecked by the by the MD's video out. This was fixed by the 32X which re-routed the output and allowed for a full 32,768 colours which is why the CD32X FMV games have far improved video quality.
And as for the "very much like the SNES did with its Mode 7 graphics feature"... not really, it far surpasses it. Mode 7 can only scale and rotate a single background layer, not sprites. This is why when "sprites" use the feature, like bosses in Super Mario World, they are on a plain black background - they are actually a giant black square with the "sprite" drawn on it. Any actual sprite "scaling" on stock SNES games is faked with multiple frames of different sizes. The GPU of the MegaCD can of course replicate Mode 7 style effects on background layers, but also properly scale and rotate multiple sprites at the same time. The only way the SNES could do this was by adding a Super FX2 chip in carts, like Yoshi's Island.
** Though its not entirely fair to the SNES to directly compare Mhz as the arcitecture of the chips is so different, there's little doubt the MD's stock processor was already faster than the SNES, and then the MCD makes the combined speed 165% faster than the stock MD.
Re: Best Sega CD Games Of All Time
Really nice list. I've recounted this story before here and on NL in more detail but basically as a huge Sega fan but with little money I lusted over the CD and 32X in magazines reading about all the games but thinking I could never afford them... but then because they both failed so quickly and everyone moved on to PSX & Saturn, in 95 it was extremely cheap to pick them up second hand, and the games were all on extreme clearance - I think the most I paid for a single game was £5, and most were £3-4 each. Easily the best Summer holidays of gaming in my life was picking up all these incredible titles and playing through them, when just a year before that would have seemed like an impossible dream! I'll never not be fond of them, and stand up for the good games that are available if you can sift through the dross.
@Ganner Yes Tomcat Alley was far and away the best FMV game on the system at the time of its release - they'd improved the video quality exponentially but also it was far more interactive than most previous titles, I actually felt like I was controlling a movie, not just playing "Simon" while watching some unrelated video.
@KingMike IIRC it was never released in the States because they legally weren't allowed to while Commodore was having financial problems. I heard some units were released in Canada but I've never seen one nor known anyone who had even heard of it (and I work in Canada quite a lot and have a lot of Canadian frirends).
Re: Fanmade Tomb Raider 2 Remake Reimagines The Game As A 3D Sidescroller
Really neat that they've used the original assets but also the original grid based control scheme - making it a bit like Prince of Persia / Flashback etc... which were clearly the inspirations for the 3d version originally. It all comes full circle... or rather full "square based grid".
Re: Second-Hand Nintendo 64DD Offers Up Some Welcome Surprises For New Owner
Those are indeed very impressive, I don't recall seeing anyone ever making anythnig actually good with this software before! Then again, almost no-one actually owned the 64DD so thats not surprising.
It was a real shame they didn't release the DD drive sooner, and have more games available for it. There was real potential with the hardware, and I remember as a launch day 64 owner I was really anticipating it... but by the time it came out there was barely any support and even the 64 itself looked to be on the way out.
Re: Game Freak's Manga Tie-In 'Magical Taruruto-Kun' Gets An English Translation
This is a really fun little game with some great ideas and puzzle/physics elements not common in 16bit titles. I don't recall having any language barrier problems playing it before, but I always very much appreciate people putting in the time to make these patches so games can be more accessible!
Re: Saturn Pro Controller Is Available For Pre-Order Now
I love my Retrobit Saturn pads. I use them all the time for both use on a real Saturn and for emulating any retro game that works better with the 6 button arcade layout or a rolling dpad.
These look kinda hideous on first glance, but perhaps its just because there is an uncanny valley effect and I will get used to the design over time? I think I'd still prefer the OG analogue controller for Nights though, and a modern pad for games that need 2 sticks and the extra shoulders.
Re: Could MiSTer Rival MARS FPGA Be The New King Of Retro Gaming?
@Blast16 RMC Retro collaborated on designing and building a consolised version called the MiSTer Multisystem which essentially is preassembled and does everything for you. I'd not tried it myself but I know Neil and he is a really good bloke and would not puty out a product that wasn't up to snuff.
Personally for me the MiSTer still isn't really up to teh task of replacing the 32/64/128 bit consoles well enough to replace a real console and I'm hoping that a new "standard" system comes along that is powerful enough to recreate them before I throw a large amount of cash into an FPGA, however if you want to dip your toes into the MiSTer water but want a simple solution, I think that would be a raelly good way to start.
Re: Powkiddy RGB30 - A $90 Analogue Pocket Rival? You'd Better Believe It
@DestructoDisk I agree with a lot of your points, but it entirely depends how you frame it. For me, its absolutely a rival to the Analogue Pocket for what I want. In fact far from being just another chinese emulation device, its the only one I'm considering instead of the Pocket.
I've been considering buying an Analogue Pocket since they were anounced, not because its an FPGA device, but because of the screen's 1:1 aspect ratio and ability to play GB games in their original green colours with a quality dot matrix filter. I've not seen any other cheap chinese device that can do this, looks like this one can... and its cheaper, and I prefer the form factor.
For me, they are absolutely comparable because the factors that would make me consider buying one are met by both, so personally the choice isn't emulation vs fpga (GB emulation is at the point where I find it indistinguishable from the real thing) its price, build quality and form factor. I'm sure the Analogue Pocket is built better, and this review states so. But I'm held off from buying one because of the high price and the fact I actually don't think it looks like I'd find it comfortable to use.
I know FPGA's are awesome, but as I've discussed elewhere on this site I'm holding back till there are more powerful devices and more complex cores that can cover some of the systems where emulation isn't perfect, and probably won't ever be. At that point, I'll happily lay down a huge amount of money on a full FPGA setup. But the Pocket is simply overkill when all I want to do is play Gameboy (and hopefully other 8bit portable) games. Its very neat that the Pocket can play original carts, and I've got loads of them... but for me, the appeal in a portable device is in convenience and practicality when travelling so whether do chose this device or the pocket, I'd only be playing roms. So again, in my particular usecase, these two deveices are very much a direct comparison. I don't feel its a click bait title, it makes perfect sense, if you frame it in that light.
Re: Powkiddy RGB30 - A $90 Analogue Pocket Rival? You'd Better Believe It
@Duffman92 I can understand that point of view for sure. However, as you say, pretty much every gamer, especailly retro gamer, has downloaded and played roms at some point, hell most of the biggest retro fans with vast collections probably worth more than their house still play roms because they are convenient, so its useful to be kept informed about new devices to do so.
Now, I admit that for my personal taste, there may be too many of these devices covered, and too often, and there is a never ending slew of such devices coming thick and fast and most of them are much of a muchness and just chinese companies wanting to make a quick buck. But when a device is less generic and has one or more standout features that actually make it especially desirable to descerning retro gamers, I really apprecaite being made aware of it, and I absolutely trust Damo to give a fair and balanced review.
I ignore most of the "yet another alsoran device" articles but for my personal wants, I'm extremely glad that I was made aware of this particular device, a 1:1 720p screen in a horizontal form factor is exactly what I've been hoping for, and I'm sure many other gamers wanting a specific device for playing GB/GBC/NGPC games have too. I wouldn't have known that it existed without this site, so I think its a very relevant thing to post on a site dedicated to retro gamers.
Like I said though, I totally understand why you'd feel otherwise.
Re: This Awesome ROM Hack Turns Super Metroid Into An Entirely New Game
This looks like a really full featured rom hack, really nice job to the creator, the main character is really cute and nicely drawn. Really great variety in location tilesets and background graphics too!
@VideoGameBoy No, you are right, rom hacks (and fan games) may only be distributed for free. Even if the creator gives them away but has a patreon or accepts donations they can run into problems, its best to only make this kind of thing if you are willing to give it away entirely free.
Re: Anniversary: Nokia's N-Gage Turns 20 Today
@wiiware Yeah, looks like they have started to include retro features as well as gameplay, I know Alex and Zion (maybe Felix also?) from the NintendoLife channel have / will be making content for it.
Re: Powkiddy RGB30 - A $90 Analogue Pocket Rival? You'd Better Believe It
@ralphdibny From the wesbite it looks like there may be 2 micro SD slots, one for the OS, and one for games. They sell the system with 16gb for the OS, and you can have 64gb / 128gb bundled.
It says that each slot supports up to 256gb, but the implication is that only the 1 slot (and therefore 256gb max) can be used for games.
Re: Powkiddy RGB30 - A $90 Analogue Pocket Rival? You'd Better Believe It
Oh, now this is very interesting - I prefer the form factor of this and it might be a really good device for me to use to play GB, GB and NGPC roms on the go. I've been weighing up various options, but that 1:1 screen is a big selling point for me, I get really irrationally annoyed by borders. And 720 is the exact sweet spot vertical resolution for perfect integer scaling of most retro content, allowing for either perfect crisp even pixels or a grid filter with no shimmering.
@Damo Great review! You wrote "With the right screen filters, you can make the image look just as authentic as it does on the Analogue Pocket" - can I assume that this includes a decent looking "pea soup" style DMG pallette with a pixel grid shader? If so, I'm sold.
@DestructoDisk I would assume that roms were added to review copies sent out to avoid wasting money accidentally sending devices to people that aren't tech savvy enough to get roms or work out how to install them. Certainly their website says nothing about including games of any kind when selling to the public.
However, also on the subject of the ethics of sharing roms rather than selling them, a large amount of "legally licensed roms" on cheap retro machines, compilations for consoles, or streaming services are actually extremely innethical and often not even truly legal, just paying money to copyright/patent trolling grifters who claim to own the rights and no-one can afford/bother to dispute them. They all regularly rebrand the companies, logos, and which individuals are the current "director" so its a bit like playing whack-a-mole.
Of course, its illegal to sell devices with roms on, like how Soulja Boy was doing. But these types of devices are designed to have roms put on them as soon as you buy them anyway, so from a moral rather than legal standpoint, if you are buying a device like this, you have already decided you are ok with using them. And as I said, in some cases, its actually more ethically sound to use downloaded roms than pay for fake/unethically sourced but legally unchallenged "licenses". Tis a bit of a minefield, for sure, but neither is 100% right or wrong, from an ethical, or sometimes even legal standpoint.
Its difficult to sift through which "legal" collections are genuine without going down big rabbit holes and sifting through government records (often these companies obscure themselves through countless shell companies like money launderers and tax avoiders) but as soon as I cotton on to a particular "license" being "owned" by one of these people I actively avoid supporting such activity which is far more immoral in my personal opinion. Especially as some of the biggest names behind it are very nasty and sometimes dangerous individuals commiting widescale fraud & harassing whistleblowers.
I posted in more detail about this connundrum in various thread here and on NintendoLife, most recently here: https://www.timeextension.com/news/2023/10/kelsey-lewin-is-leaving-the-video-game-history-foundation
Ultimately, I think its up to the individual to decide what they are morally comfortable with. Just know that its not as black and white as "paying for a rom / retro collection / device with licensed built in games is an ethical way to legally own/play them" as often its neither ethical or legal. Like food labelling pretending to be "healthy", take it with a grain of salt, sugar, fat and chemicals.
Re: Tomb Raider Gold Finally Comes To The Sega Saturn
Wow this is really impressive! Finding your way around the Saturn's architecture is no mean feat.
As a Saturn owner, I first played the first Tomb Raider there and its still my prefered retro version, especially as it was the intended original development platform. Sure, the PS1 version looks better in some ways, but certainly not all, and perhaps because its what I first played, I prefer controlling Lara with the Saturn's sublime S-Pad.
I was very annoyed when Sony bought console exclusivity for both Tomb Raider 2 and Resident Evil 2. But I must admit, this was when I seroiusly started considering also buying a Playstation, so it obviously worked.
Now I'd better take off these wet clothes.
Re: Anniversary: Nokia's N-Gage Turns 20 Today
@Poodlestargenerica I was confused by your statement too. Of course you are entitled to your opinion, I'm just curious. You find the pocket screen to be worse that the original DMC Gameboy?
Personally I find the DMG's more chunky design more comfortable to hold, but I can't go back to using it without modding the screen. The Pocket's screen (while it could of course do with a backlight, at least Japan got a frontlit model) is so much clearer and has far less ghosting than the stock DMG. And surely the look & feel of the body and buttons, are very similar to the GBC?
Admittedly, I don't have too much experience using the Pocket, back in the day I jumped straight from DMG to GBC, and nowadays I use a modded DMG for all my GB games and GBA for GBC titles because personally I find the smaller Pocket and GBC less comfortable. But saying the pocket is objectively the worst isn't a sentiment I've heard before. Just intregued me is all.
Re: Nightdive CEO Pitches Potential Way To Remaster More Classic Titles
@AJB83 I wish it was that simple. As soon as you start charging money (even via donations) whilst using the IPs of the games to drive people to that Patreon, that's where the legal jackals jump in. Sure, the product they will make will be perfectly legally fine to make and distribute if it erquires the original game to run. But if they did a Patreon, they would NEVER be able to mention the games in the same tweet, youtube video etc, or mention the games, or link to the builds in said Patreon. They'd have to just make a generic "Night Dive" Patreon, without any claims or posts on it, and not link to it on social media except in completely unrelated posts.
Source: I've seen this happen and cause problems time and time again for people making free fangames, fan art, fan fiction... its all good til you set up a Patreon or link a Kofi or Paypal etc.
Re: Best 3DO Games Of All Time
@SpecialT @UK_Kev Yeah they feel like entirely different games. Even though I'm usually an arcade racing fan, I have always much prefered the 3do version of the original NFS. I miss the "Road and Track", cool 90s atyle "rad" menus/presentation, and "X Man" FMV stuff in the DOS and console ports too.
By the way, the emulator "3DO Play" can overclock the CPU so you can up the framerate to 30fps, making it far more barable to play my today's standards, and still retain the original game.
Re: Best 3DO Games Of All Time
@Sketcz Thats not your system being faulty, its a common issue with certain games combined with certain models.
The reason it happens is on bootup the system OS is loaded into RAM. Even though the specs for 3DO standard were locked, different manufacturers made their own slightly different OS, mostly just changes in the boot logos and sound. Some of these were slightly bigger than others and meant that games that max out the RAM wouldn't work on these systems as the data was still unflushed.
That's what you get when you essentially get manufacturers of VHS players and Stereos who know nothing about games development to make clones of your hardware. The hardware spec was identical but they ruined that with their custom OS, all for the sake of trying to have the nicest fancy boot logo and not knowing it was taking away precious memory that the games needed 😂
The way around this would have been for the 3DO standard to have the OS stored on each game, rather than on the consoles themselves, which would just have a simple boot bios only. Poor planning in an otherwise well designed system spec.
Re: Anniversary: Nokia's N-Gage Turns 20 Today
@wiiware They do! https://www.youtube.com/@TimeExtension64
Re: "Like A Book Or A Movie" - Star Fox Dev Dylan Cuthbert Shares His Vision Of Retro Gaming's Future
@Damo Oh absolutely, of course sites covering current games will get higher traffic. But hopefully with the right SEO and word of mouth etc this site can grow too - I feel retro articles that cover historical content has potential to be far more evergreen in the long run if it can work its way up the google page ranks.
I think its very smart what you've done by mostly having the retro content here, and then having the articles appear in the feeds of NL, PS, PXB, to organically temp people accross and make them aware of the site. Having the coloured outline to indicate when this is the case is a really nice touch that means it doesn't feel annoying or misleading. I think its a really nice, organic way to hopefully spread some of the users from the larger sites to this one too!
Re: Anniversary: Nokia's N-Gage Turns 20 Today
I still to this day find it hard to believe they designed a portable games console where you have to remove the battery in order to change the cartridge. Nor that they thought it was a good idea to port widescreen aspect ratio games to a vertical screen.
Its a shame, as it was a nice idea and impressively powerful, considering the time. But combining a games console and a phone, ended up with a device that wasn't really very good at being either. A GBA and a 3310 combined would have cost about the same and been infinitely better.
At the very least, the second model was an improvement, and the price was lowered. Still kinda hilariously cack though.
Re: Could MiSTer Rival MARS FPGA Be The New King Of Retro Gaming?
@Blast16 Yeah I have much of what you mentioned including modded consoles with everdrives / virtual optical drives and the upscalers and cables to make them look their best etc... however most of the time I just use my gaming PC as it can do everything and emulation is good enough most of the time, even "perfect" for most older systems and games. I have a pretty large retro game collection but nowadays its mostly for display, or away in storage. I'm considering selling most of it to make space. Once an FPGA solution can have perfect results for everything "retro" that I want to play, I'll get that, as while my PC can do everthing, its still a fiddly solution, and it sits in my office, not infront of my main TV.
Re: The Making Of: Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem - GameCube's Horror Classic
@no_donatello @-wc- Yeah I'm in the same boat as both of you, in that I really liked the game, but I don't remember actually finishing it 🤔 I remember it very fondly though and can recall a lot about it. Maybe I got stuck at some point... oh well, all the more reason for them to release it on switch so we can all actually finish it this time!