@lemonjellydude I love transparent 90s style consoles! Thankfully, after seeing the pictures (they weren't in the article when I first commented), I don't particularly love either colour scheme so I can resist, for now... I like the blue but not with the yellow buttons.
If they release a Sega/Sonic one thats all transparent blue, or something in tranparent pink / purple then I'll definitley cave in! 😂
I agree that if there was a way to get the "digital only" games playable on all Evercade devices, it would be less triggering to me. Still not ideal, but I could at least handle it and rationalise it to myself. Like how for my Switch collection, I vastly prefer to have physcial games on the shelf but I'll happily buy digital only games if they aren't available and its a title I erally want or an indie dev I want to support. But splintering the Evercade games even more by having specific games only available for specific devices is just beyond frustrating and feels somewhat isulting to the people who've bought all the other hardware thusfar, as if they are just whales to be milked for easy cash (mixed metaphors but you know what I mean! lol).
When the VS launched and it couldn't play the Namco carts, that was really, really annoying - but I understood it wasn't their fault, as when the deal was done, they didn't know they were going to make a home console version. But that should have been the LAST example of games that are locked to a specific piece of hardware - they know what they are doign now, and are just throwing caution to the wind, releasing a huge range of products with no consistency and seeing what sticks. I understand from a business perspective but its like they don't understand / care about their current key demographic and fanbase.
@lemonjellydude Yes its really quite souring me towards the brand, sadly, and I used to be a raving fan in the sense of basically replacing my old retro collecting habit with this one little neat product line and allowing myself to buy each new cart as it comes as a way to get the same "gotta collect them all" feeling but in a more concentrated and affordable way.
I go to retro conventions a lot and move in the same circles as many retro game youtubers, streamers etc and I countless people felt the same way - it was like a product line directly designed to appeal to us. Adding the numbers to the side of the cart pacakging even meant that you'd feel compelled to buy every single cart even if it was a title you weren't as interested in - it was like wanting to maintain a "complete" collection, and it grew at a steady, but affordable, rate.
Then the VS launched, and suddenly I thought "Oh, well, it makes sense to buy so I can play on the TV..." and gave myself and excuse to buy it, £100 more than I was planning to spend. Then the EXP launched, less than a year after, for another £150... I very nearly bit as I could have easily given myself the "well, its got a better screen, they are more experienced now and can build a higher quality unit..." speech. But having the Capcom games built in really didn't sit right with me, and made me feel somewhat distrusting of the direction the brand is going in if they were willing to sell out their core selling point so easily. This new product range is making me feel even more uneasy about if the future of the product line is one I want to be involved with, or whetehr its better just to sell my collection now and go back to only playing roms on a multipurpose handheld and fpga for tv.
I should make it very clear (if it wasn't obvious by my long rants!) that I'm autistic, so I probably care about this more than most would, and take things like this more "personally" than I should - I know its not rational whatsoever. But once brand loyalty has been spoiled, they lose a customer. And I saw many other people online feel a similar way with the launch of the EXP, and I imagine many of those same people will also see this new product as yet another bad sign.
For now, I'm still buying each cart as it comes out. I'm tempted to buy one of these just to have a small, cheap Evercade in a Gameboy formfactor. If there's a Sega one, or one in a colour way I particularly love, I almost certainly will. But I won't be buying every new variant. Depending on how things go, I might stop buying every new Evercade cart and only buy the ones that are particularly relevant to me. I just don't feel as passionate about fully supporting them right now.
@Mgalens Yeah I agree. I absolutely play new games, just as a watch new movies, listen to new music and visit new places. But I always want to know that if I like them, I'll be able to add them to my list of things I'll still go back and play/listen to/watch/visit in the future. If I know something is a "one time only" experience I'll usually either avoid it or make sure I film it and take lots of pictures so I can watch it back and remencise.
For games, you can't really recreate that experience, so games that are online only are just not for me as I know the liklihood of servers existing, and others wanting to play, in 10+ years time is slim.
I rarely watch livestreams for this reason but during the pandemic some close friends of mine became Twitch streamers and I modded for them and was in their chats every night. It was a very fun time! However, I now have a dedicated hard drive of sevearl terrabytes of those streams backed up and categorised, and every now and again I go back and watch them. If I could never see them again, i'd be very sad. I'm aware this isn't how neurotypical people think, and even for someone autistic that's fairly extreme, but it brings me comfort to have that collection of treasured times to be able to revist
I appreciate you letting me know your experience, thank you for sharing! I think its great when people make neurodiversities, mental health differences, cultural differences or any other underrepresented experiences more normalised and help other people understand each other better.
@Krambo42 But Its not less devices, its more. This is the start of a new product line releasing more and more consoles with a limited number of games built in, that you can't get on cart. If you want to play all the games, you'll need all the consoles.
Of course, if you buy one of these instead of an Evercade, its less. But for people already collecting Evercade this either means missing out on a growing collection of games, or collecting a needlessly large amount of separate small consoles. I personally am not compfortable with the space needed to dedicate to this, or teh environmental impact of all the unecessary screens, cpus, memory etc. wasted when one device would have done the job.
@-wc- 1) Sure, but you know what I mean. I can collect games and not be hugely concerned about the space they are going to take up, or the considerable environmental impact in producing the screens, processors etc for a million different "disposable/one off" consoles.
2) I didn't say force them. I said it would be better to just ignore them if you can't reach terms that suit both sides. In the future they may change their minds when they see the userbase has grown. Maybe not.
3) No, not in the slightest. The Switch is a current gen console. The Evercade was specifically created for, and marketed towards, the retro enthusiast who wants something to collect, that gives an affordable way to have a collection of physical games with nice premium feeling packaging, full colour manuals etc. Every review of the systems I've ever seen is praising this exact experience. If you just want roms that you can play, there are plenty of other ways to do it.
I agree with @lemonjellydude that if these were just cheap and cheerful devices with built in games that are coloured and themed to the games that are built in, there could be a market for people who want to collect every new variant when they release it. The "HyperMega Tech" name and the loud 90s style colour ways and transparent variants are very appealing to that 90s aesthetic and if I can see people wanting to collect them. Not me personally, for reasons I stated in answer 1, but I understand the appeal.
But making them Evercade compatible confirms that they are essentially cheaper and smaller versions of the Evercade console, coming from the same company and the same people doing the deals to licenese the roms, making it fairly obvious that the games built into these systems are likely never coming to Evercade carts. It 100% weakens the brand, whereas if they'd have never mentioned Evercade at all, many wouldn't have made the connection.
The "obscure (or at least curated) games on cart only" is exactly the appeal of Evercade. Look at every review from big American YouTubers loving to get a chance to try out a hand picked selection of games for microcomputers they've never played, or UK/European developers they've never heard of. Its a niche product for retro gamers. While its always nice to have the option, retro gamers don't need a new way to play Street Fighter 2 or Bubble Bobble, they probably own a million copies.
But, these little cheap systems, put in supermarkets to sell to a more casual market? I can totally see them selling just as the "Mortal Kombat" and "PacMan" all-in-one systems did 15-20 years ago, or even the NES Classic.
If "HyperMega Tech" was just a completely different product line for a different customer base, it would be a success and people like me wouldn't feel uneasy about it. But theres plenty of people who've put £500+ into Evercade products specifically because they liked the early promise of the brand that was tailored as a very niche product for a certain demographic. They are weakening the strength of the Evercade brand, whilst not really increasing the appeal of the "HyperMega Tech" devices which will either appeal to casual impulse buys, or shelf collectors, neither of whom will care about the cart slot.
@Krambo42 Yes exactly, I was going to add that but I'd already typed a long enough rant and the website would have made me split it into 2 messages! lol They certainly are aware of a large portion of the loyal customers feeling burned by the Capcom situation. It was quite the mini controversy within their niche fanbase. I'm surprised they're not only doubling down but admiting they are planning to do so again multiple times in the future.
As a collector of every Evercade cart, as well as the original system and the VS (been waiting on the EXP, partly because the Capcom situation soured me and I worried it would be a sign of things to come) I'm now disapointed as it feels like this is almost certainly confirmation we won't be getting a Taito collection on Evercade. One of my main wishes was for a Bubble Bobble collection, I don't see that happening now.
Feels like the Evercade brand might be on the downturn. I hope not, as for a while it was a really unique product that I really enjoyed collecting for. The fact they are releasing so much hardware so rapidly and moving away from the "physical only" nature is really souring my feelings towards it.
On the one hand, the price is good, and I actually like this form factor better than the EXP. I'm actually quite interested in getting one of the clear ones for playing Evercade carts on the go in a "Gameboy" style...
But here's the thing. This is exactly what we all feared would happen when the EXP launched with Capcom games built in, which werent' available on cartridge. Sure, Blaze/Evercade couldn't secure the rights, probably for the same reason that the Namco carts don't play on the VS system - games companies want more money (or outright refuse) for home console rights, or perhaps even for carts in general rather than being built into an "all in one" device.
Its not Blaze/Evercade's fault that these companies won't give the rights to put the games on carts. But the arguement of "well free built in games are better than none" doesn't hold water because it opened the floodgates. Now, we have 2 Capcom devices and no Capcom games on cart, and 1 Taito device, with no Taito cart collection. And they've made clear that there are more dedicated handheld systems on the way, presumably with more games that won't be available on cart. I don't want an ever growing collection of hardware, none of which can play every game. This is why people stopped buying those cheap plug-and-play systems in "fun" shapes after the novelty of the first 1 or 2 wore off.
For me at least, Its ruining the appeal of "Evercade" as a brand and collecting the carts. Every single review I see of Evercade products (including EXP reviews just this week from big youtubers!) talk about how cool and unique it is to have a modern platform with physical games, printed manuals etc, and a somewhat hand selected set of titles rather than just thousands of unsorted roms. It appeals to the collector and if you start making it impossble to have a 100% complete collection on your shelf because you're splintering it with built in "bonus" games it takes away from the unique selling point and you may as well just buy yet another rom playing device that can play everything.
The brand would have been stronger if they just never broke their rule of games only on carts... and if certain big players like Capcom, Taito and Namco won't play ball, just ignore them and keep releasing collections of more obscure gems, computer titles and indie/homebrew stuff. Part of the appeal is discovering new games you've not heard of/played before. Don't get side tracked and burn out everyone by releasing a never ending stream of hardware people can't/won't keep up with. Maybe as the platform grows, those bigger companies will see they are missing out on money and come around.
Seriously though it was sad what happened to this guy. He got so much hate and overwhelming media attention. The fact he took the game down despite the fact it was making so much money shows just how much distress it was causing him.
In my line of work, I've seen what unimagined mental distress it can cause for someone to suddenly become famous / infamous. I hope he kept at least some of the money and made good use of it.
@EarthboundBenjy Yes I've been burnt a couple of times by getting really into mobile games, working hard on building my world or stats and even spending a decent amount of money - only to suddenly have them disapear overnight. Thankfully for the games I care about, people have preserved them and I can emulate, but all my progress and the money spent is completely gone - of course this is only possible for single player games and multiplayer ones or where the majority of the code is server side can't even be preserved in any way. I've basically learned to never play mobile games, because of how much these bad experiences have soured me to them. I'd rather never play them at all, rather than enjoy them one minute and have them taken away the next.
Kelsey is awesome, and I really appreciate the work she does. She's right, unfortunately its unlikely to get any better. This is why its important that people "resort to piracy" and make digital copies of games, crack protections, develop emulators and FPGA solutions so they are playable on new hardware...
However as far as new games go, I think its a losing battle, considering how many modern games require online servers and are unusable once they go down. I know some will think its silly but this is the main reason I don't play online multiplayer focused games - they might be fun now, but I hate the idea of something becoming my new "favourite game" but then not being able to go back and play it in the future whenever I want.
I love playing old games, listening to old music, watching old movies just as much as I also enjoy consuming new products. I hate the idea of enjoying something now but then not being able to experience it in the future. Things like Nintendo only making Mario 99 available for a month or whatever just makes me not want to play it at all.
I'm not sure if its relevant as to why I feel this way, but I'm autistic. I don't deal well with things being non-permanent. For example, I prefer going on holiday to places I already know that I like, rather than exploring somewhere new. If I do go somewhere new, and I have a good time, I instantly know that I'll want to come back in the future. Its the same with the media I consume - if I like it the first time, I will want to play / listen / watch again.
@UK_Kev Yes I agree with that... but as you said, it wouldn't have been a major success. Personally, I prefer 2d to 3d games so I'd have eaten it up - the games I develop myself are essentially similar to Sonic Mania in a "what if the 16bit style generation had near infinite memory, colours and processing power?" kind of way. I like to feel that my games are the kinds of things people might imagine running on Saturn or a Neo Geo. But clearly at the time, 3d was the new thing people wanted and the "next big step"
As I said if they had just kept the Saturn how it was but waited a few months until they had impressive software, and put money into advertising it as "coming soon, it'll be worth waiting for" (just as Nintendo did with the N64 and Sony did with PS2) there would have been a good chance Saturn could have been a real competitor.
If they hadn't have had the follies of the 32X and Mega CD the consumer, retaillers and 3rd party devs would have been a lot more keen to support them too. Selling at a loss would have been a perfectly valid tactic for the Saturn and affordable for them if they hadn't have previously wasted so much money, and launched with enough "must have" games... as I said, Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop and Nights all launched at once and would have been more than enough to sell the system at launch, and make it actually look more powerful than Playstation (even though we know it wasn't). I imagine most people would have bought 2/3 games with each console, immediately offsetting the loss.
@UK_Kev Oh I'm definitely aware of all those delays that SGi caused. I was one of the people who were so put off by the weak looking launch lineup of the Saturn, but so excited by the potential of the "Ultra 64" that I just ignored 32bit consoles (except my 32x) and waited for my pre-order. Those multiple, repeated delays were painful, especially being in the UK and not finally getting N64 til 1997, nearly 2 years after I put down my pre-order. Eeesh.
I wasn't necessarily saying they should have accepted the offer from SGi, more that it should have been further proof that the industry was leaning towards impressive high level 3d graphics at home, and if they didn't go with Sgi, probably another competitor would, so they'd need something to compete.
As for arcade games at home increasing people playing in arcades, as they could practice at home, that was definitely the case with Street Fighter 2 helping the SNES/SFC, it was the reason I and many of my friends bought one. With Virtua Fighter being as enormous as it was in Japan, its strange that they didn't think the same would apply, and concentrate on their machine being capable of playing a decent rendition of the game and its innevitable sequels from the start, rather than as an afterthought.
My only logical assumption is that they thought it was impossible to mnake home ports of $10K arcade hardware, or that they thought it would cut the "novelty" factor of their high end arcade games. I think the "people buying to practice at home" most applies to competitive fighting games, whereas more single player arcade "experiences" were based on the novelty of how impressive the graphics were. He sounded surprised that the Playstation was able to replicate arcade harware so convincingly, perhaps they really did think it was impossible before then.
On a separate note to my rant above, I don't feel the Saturn was a "mistake" in any measure. The hardware itself could have been made easier to develop for, sure, but was plenty powerful enough and if it had sold well and been the most popular platform, devs would have learned to use it to its highest potential.
Rushing it to release early made it seem weak compared to the Playstation because launch games like Virtua Fighter and Daytona were glitchy unfinished messes, compared to the near arcade perfect Ridge Racer and Tekken of Playstation's launch. However, just six months later, Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop and Nights absolutely trounced anything in the Playstation's launch window from a tech perspective. Sure, technically the PS1 was more capable for 3d when pushed to its limits as we'd see in the long run (circa 97-99), but in the early days, they were very comparable, and both had unique strengths - PS was easier to make transparencies and lighting effects, but Saturn had no texture warping/glitching and z buffer issues (when programmed correctly! Grr VF1).
If they had delayed the launch and put out some "sure, you could buy Playstation... but wait for the REAL system!" (which was exactly the tactic Nintendo were using with the N64, and that Sony themselves used with the Playstation 2) the system would have left a far better first impression. You wouldn't have angered all the retailers that felt burned by the stealth launch. Also, obviously the redesigned "American" pad was a huge mistake. The Japanese pads is one of the best controllers of all time.
While I love them both dearly and they are responsible for some of my happiest gaming memories, the Mega CD and especially 32X are responsible for the majority of Saturn's failure, and subsequently the demise of the Dreamcast and Sega pulling out of the hardware market. Consumers, retaillers and third party devs all felt burned by them. Sega were also haemorhaging money throwing them at weird unecessary hardware - Multimega/CDX, WonderMega/X'Eye, MegaJet, Neptune, Nomad, MegaPC, Terradrive, LaserActive etc... not to mention over 200 theme parks & mega arcades...
I know many of those things mentioned were joint ventures with other companies but they should have been laser focused on what worked: Making a single, all conquering follow up to the Megadrive/Genesis and fully commiting to it, making quality mainline Sonic games, and making industry leading arcade experiences. Everything else just wasted money and weakened the brand in the eyes of the public, retailers, and developers.
However, there is still validity in Irimajiri's statement that initially they wanted to make the ultimate 2d powerhouse with some minor 3d capabilities... but then seeing the Playstation and the industry reaction to it made them have to change the design of the Saturn very quickly. Its interesting that this is still his opinion and recollection - its probably entirely accurate, but it shows how little weight they gave to the opinion of Sega of America, even back then.
If they had listened to Sega of America, considered the offer from SGi (another American company) they would have been able to see that the industry was very much skewing this way. There was a large culture of Sega of Japan not really caring the opinion of the Americans or Europeans, which has never really made sense considering those were their primary markets and the ones that had actually made their home consoles successful and their name a household brand.
But even ignoring that and just saying "ok but Japanese companies are going to prioritise Japan" (fair enough if you prize inovation over profit) I still have never understood why they couldn't see that 3d was the future... when in Japan their business/profit was 90% coming from their booming arcade division and all their biggest earners were 3d games. Did they think it was impossible to satisfactually replicate games like Virtua Fighter or Daytona USA at home? Or did they think it would be a bad idea as having these experiences at home would kill their arcade business? Its probably the latter, but we'll never know.
These are beautiful! Great attention to detail, love the designs.
As for this hack itself, its fantastic and similar to how I feel about Amy being added to Sonic Origins, its nice to have Winston finally playable in this game. I always felt a huge sadness that he wasn't included. Feels like an unjust history being corrected
I'm never quite sure how I feel about someone selling a romhack without paying the creators of the hack, I hope they at least contacted them first and asked for unofficial blessing. Regardless I it looks like this is just a fan project hand made to order with love and I assume isn't turning a profit of any kind. Once they start being massproduced and appearing on Aliexpress its a different story, sadly that often happens with these fan projects, without the permission of the original handmade fan versions.
I own a few similar things like physical Master System copies of fan made Game Gear ports and there is definitely a special feeling about holding something that feels like its from an alternate dimension with slightly different history. My Triple Trouble and Sonic Drift copies sit especially beautifully on the shelf along with the other 8bit Sonic games
To begin with when watching that video I assumed it was "just" a dungeon crawling rpgs style grid system with fixed movement as was common on 8bit computers... but as the video progresses, the areas become far more intricate and the freedom of movement is extremely imrpessive for the system. Obviously its not "real" Doom but thats a hell of a lot closer than I would have imagined.
Its worth noting that while this article links to the Vic-20 version, that video is an old one and since then the framerate has been doubled! Only when looking it up now to compare the performances of both systems did I realise how vastly improved its been since I first heard about that version, originally wrote it off as an unplayable novelty - it now looks very impressive also. The fact this is possible on a Vic-20 (not even a C64!) is incredible and as a Commodore programmer as a kid would have blown my mind. (I was busy making Petscii based dungeon crawlers / 3d Pac Man style games for the PET which still pushed the syst6em far mroe than it was intended for)
@HammerGalladeBro @CammyUnofficial I figured it was yellow for the "golden arches" of the McDonalds logo, plus its an established GameBoy cart colour. Purple would be cool though, and fit the Nintendo theme, Gamecube, GBA etc.
The new game looks like a visual novel rather than a new animation? I got excited when I thought there was going to be a full sequel - either animated or a "proper" game. Oh well, visual novels can be fun and its a free addition, so thats cool!
I've always found the fact that Sega was essentially running an online games streaming / download subscription service way back in 1994 is completely insane. I know Nintendo had the Satellaview stuff in Japan at around the same time so I'm not trying to be "Sega vs Nintendo" its just more that these kinds of service didn't become mainstream until pretty recently. They were both 15+ years ahead of the curve here.
For me as a kid in the UK, with no-one I knew (not even school or library) having internet access of any kind, and where games for the 16 bit consoles could easily cost £60-£100 in 90s money, this would have been absolutely gamechanging and seemed like magic.
I'm very grateful for this dude and everyone else who helps preserve this stuff so we can go back and vicariously experience it
@KingMike Yes the Mega CD version is entirely redrawn - they worked out the best keyframes for the lower frame rate, and then traced over but with a more bold colour block / cell shaded look, to avoid the usual dithered pattern from converting video to the lower colour depth allowed by the Megadrive's output. This limitation of the original Megadrive is why standard Mega CD videos looked so grainy. (the reason 32X-CD games can have more colour is they output through the 32X not the Megadrive.)
I've gotta say, they did a fantastic job. The first time I experienced Time Gal was on the Mega CD in the 90s and I was amazed how much better the cartoony visuals looked compared to other FMV games I owned. It also plays pretty well and it was my favourite FMV game - I also loved the character and all the different settings - cute anime girl in bikini starts first level running away from dinosaurs? I was definitely sold.
Years later I discovered that there was an arcade port, and finally got to see the original animation - its wonderful, I'm definiltey looking forward to playing this and the other games through on Switch.
@Serpenterror Well, mostly they got beaten by DVD. Laserdisc wasn't used for data, the games code were on rom chips, teh laserdisc just had the video footage. (theres extremely rare edge cases for LD-ROM but never in arcade hardware to my knowledge.)
Of course, many Laser Disc arcade games were converted to CD-ROM for the Mega-CD, CDi, 3dO, CD32 etc. but the viedoquality was always worse. It wasn't til DVD ports of these games started coming that we got equal / better quality.
However, @N00BiSH was quoting an old Homestar Runner episode.
The 2 new collections are a no-brainer. excellent games on both!
As for the new handheld, I'm tempted, a nice upgrade over the original, especially the TATE mode, though I'm not sure how comfortable it will be. £129 is a very fair price, especially including a cart that good! I think I actually prefer the standard white version, though its annoying (and baffling) that hard case is exclusive to the limited edition set.
Yeah Ironically it will be far easier hardware and software wise to emulate the Dreamcast than the Saturn (which the Polymega already does a decent job at) so running isos or pirated discs (which were compressed by cracking groups to fit on normal CDs) is easily possible, but the stumbling block will be getting official disks to run.
There has been some minor debate elsewhere around the diversity, including by the presenter, but as a poster above said, the original 90s series was pretty diverse actually, I've rewatched all of them fairly recently. I was happy with it then, I'm happy with it now.
However, there is a YouTube comment where someone asked "Where the hell are all the white people?"... 🤔 Eh? I just watched back and spotted 16 "white" looking people, and 13 people of colour. Some black, some asian, etc, so if you were to separate them by individual race, "white" would be the vast majority, but even if just counting "white" and "non white" (which seems needlessly divisive) "white" people are still the majority. The only noticable descrepancy I could see was 7 females vs 22 males, assuming their gender is what they appear to present as in these tiny clips. However, I don't really feel there is any point in breaking down labels and trying to divide people into groups...
In reality what we are looking at is 29 gamers. Can't we just be happy gamers are getting represented on TV again?
PS, I tried responding that to the actual comment on YouTube, and it was instantly deleted. I wonder whether it was flagged as potentially offensive - if so there's something seriously wrong with the algorithm that the original comment was fine but my debunking it was problematic somehow! 😂
@Darknilious Yes its going on their YouTube channel even before its shown on TV
@Woodyshoe Yes sadly there haven't been any Amiga versions of games yet, perhaps they haven't got an emulator working properly yet or got a workaround for the bios legality, so all titles so far that many of us think of as "Amiga" games are the decent but inferior Megadrive ports.
@KIRO The Dizzy games are all the NES/Aladdin versions. So if by "rock hard" you mean like the 8bit Spectrum/C64/CPC versions, no, they are a lot more forgiving controlswise. They are more akin to the Amiga versions, if those are more familiar.
Also, if you grew up with the 8bit micro versions, you'll realise that though the names are often different, the games on the collection are adaptations (like "special editions" with minor changes, extra puzzles) of the classics you remember, rather than complately new games. Its a great collection, and the reason I bought an Evercade.
My only minor complaint is the inclusion of the NES Fantastic Dizzy, where the Sega 8bit versions are the most complete and polished (which I'm aware is weird when there are 16bit versions, but those were missing certain QOL features).
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Re: HyperMega Tech's 'Super Pocket' Is A Game Boy-Style Handheld Which Plays Evercade Carts
@lemonjellydude I love transparent 90s style consoles! Thankfully, after seeing the pictures (they weren't in the article when I first commented), I don't particularly love either colour scheme so I can resist, for now... I like the blue but not with the yellow buttons.
If they release a Sega/Sonic one thats all transparent blue, or something in tranparent pink / purple then I'll definitley cave in! 😂
Re: HyperMega Tech's 'Super Pocket' Is A Game Boy-Style Handheld Which Plays Evercade Carts
@Krambo42 Sorry, I didn't see your first message.
I agree that if there was a way to get the "digital only" games playable on all Evercade devices, it would be less triggering to me. Still not ideal, but I could at least handle it and rationalise it to myself. Like how for my Switch collection, I vastly prefer to have physcial games on the shelf but I'll happily buy digital only games if they aren't available and its a title I erally want or an indie dev I want to support. But splintering the Evercade games even more by having specific games only available for specific devices is just beyond frustrating and feels somewhat isulting to the people who've bought all the other hardware thusfar, as if they are just whales to be milked for easy cash (mixed metaphors but you know what I mean! lol).
When the VS launched and it couldn't play the Namco carts, that was really, really annoying - but I understood it wasn't their fault, as when the deal was done, they didn't know they were going to make a home console version. But that should have been the LAST example of games that are locked to a specific piece of hardware - they know what they are doign now, and are just throwing caution to the wind, releasing a huge range of products with no consistency and seeing what sticks. I understand from a business perspective but its like they don't understand / care about their current key demographic and fanbase.
Re: HyperMega Tech's 'Super Pocket' Is A Game Boy-Style Handheld Which Plays Evercade Carts
@lemonjellydude Yes its really quite souring me towards the brand, sadly, and I used to be a raving fan in the sense of basically replacing my old retro collecting habit with this one little neat product line and allowing myself to buy each new cart as it comes as a way to get the same "gotta collect them all" feeling but in a more concentrated and affordable way.
I go to retro conventions a lot and move in the same circles as many retro game youtubers, streamers etc and I countless people felt the same way - it was like a product line directly designed to appeal to us. Adding the numbers to the side of the cart pacakging even meant that you'd feel compelled to buy every single cart even if it was a title you weren't as interested in - it was like wanting to maintain a "complete" collection, and it grew at a steady, but affordable, rate.
Then the VS launched, and suddenly I thought "Oh, well, it makes sense to buy so I can play on the TV..." and gave myself and excuse to buy it, £100 more than I was planning to spend. Then the EXP launched, less than a year after, for another £150... I very nearly bit as I could have easily given myself the "well, its got a better screen, they are more experienced now and can build a higher quality unit..." speech. But having the Capcom games built in really didn't sit right with me, and made me feel somewhat distrusting of the direction the brand is going in if they were willing to sell out their core selling point so easily. This new product range is making me feel even more uneasy about if the future of the product line is one I want to be involved with, or whetehr its better just to sell my collection now and go back to only playing roms on a multipurpose handheld and fpga for tv.
I should make it very clear (if it wasn't obvious by my long rants!) that I'm autistic, so I probably care about this more than most would, and take things like this more "personally" than I should - I know its not rational whatsoever. But once brand loyalty has been spoiled, they lose a customer. And I saw many other people online feel a similar way with the launch of the EXP, and I imagine many of those same people will also see this new product as yet another bad sign.
For now, I'm still buying each cart as it comes out. I'm tempted to buy one of these just to have a small, cheap Evercade in a Gameboy formfactor. If there's a Sega one, or one in a colour way I particularly love, I almost certainly will. But I won't be buying every new variant. Depending on how things go, I might stop buying every new Evercade cart and only buy the ones that are particularly relevant to me. I just don't feel as passionate about fully supporting them right now.
Re: Shocking Study Reveals 87% Of Classic Games Are "Critically Endangered"
@Mgalens Yeah I agree. I absolutely play new games, just as a watch new movies, listen to new music and visit new places. But I always want to know that if I like them, I'll be able to add them to my list of things I'll still go back and play/listen to/watch/visit in the future. If I know something is a "one time only" experience I'll usually either avoid it or make sure I film it and take lots of pictures so I can watch it back and remencise.
For games, you can't really recreate that experience, so games that are online only are just not for me as I know the liklihood of servers existing, and others wanting to play, in 10+ years time is slim.
I rarely watch livestreams for this reason but during the pandemic some close friends of mine became Twitch streamers and I modded for them and was in their chats every night. It was a very fun time! However, I now have a dedicated hard drive of sevearl terrabytes of those streams backed up and categorised, and every now and again I go back and watch them. If I could never see them again, i'd be very sad. I'm aware this isn't how neurotypical people think, and even for someone autistic that's fairly extreme, but it brings me comfort to have that collection of treasured times to be able to revist
I appreciate you letting me know your experience, thank you for sharing! I think its great when people make neurodiversities, mental health differences, cultural differences or any other underrepresented experiences more normalised and help other people understand each other better.
Re: HyperMega Tech's 'Super Pocket' Is A Game Boy-Style Handheld Which Plays Evercade Carts
@Krambo42 But Its not less devices, its more. This is the start of a new product line releasing more and more consoles with a limited number of games built in, that you can't get on cart. If you want to play all the games, you'll need all the consoles.
Of course, if you buy one of these instead of an Evercade, its less. But for people already collecting Evercade this either means missing out on a growing collection of games, or collecting a needlessly large amount of separate small consoles. I personally am not compfortable with the space needed to dedicate to this, or teh environmental impact of all the unecessary screens, cpus, memory etc. wasted when one device would have done the job.
Re: HyperMega Tech's 'Super Pocket' Is A Game Boy-Style Handheld Which Plays Evercade Carts
@-wc- 1) Sure, but you know what I mean. I can collect games and not be hugely concerned about the space they are going to take up, or the considerable environmental impact in producing the screens, processors etc for a million different "disposable/one off" consoles.
2) I didn't say force them. I said it would be better to just ignore them if you can't reach terms that suit both sides. In the future they may change their minds when they see the userbase has grown. Maybe not.
3) No, not in the slightest. The Switch is a current gen console. The Evercade was specifically created for, and marketed towards, the retro enthusiast who wants something to collect, that gives an affordable way to have a collection of physical games with nice premium feeling packaging, full colour manuals etc. Every review of the systems I've ever seen is praising this exact experience. If you just want roms that you can play, there are plenty of other ways to do it.
I agree with @lemonjellydude that if these were just cheap and cheerful devices with built in games that are coloured and themed to the games that are built in, there could be a market for people who want to collect every new variant when they release it. The "HyperMega Tech" name and the loud 90s style colour ways and transparent variants are very appealing to that 90s aesthetic and if I can see people wanting to collect them. Not me personally, for reasons I stated in answer 1, but I understand the appeal.
But making them Evercade compatible confirms that they are essentially cheaper and smaller versions of the Evercade console, coming from the same company and the same people doing the deals to licenese the roms, making it fairly obvious that the games built into these systems are likely never coming to Evercade carts. It 100% weakens the brand, whereas if they'd have never mentioned Evercade at all, many wouldn't have made the connection.
The "obscure (or at least curated) games on cart only" is exactly the appeal of Evercade. Look at every review from big American YouTubers loving to get a chance to try out a hand picked selection of games for microcomputers they've never played, or UK/European developers they've never heard of. Its a niche product for retro gamers. While its always nice to have the option, retro gamers don't need a new way to play Street Fighter 2 or Bubble Bobble, they probably own a million copies.
But, these little cheap systems, put in supermarkets to sell to a more casual market? I can totally see them selling just as the "Mortal Kombat" and "PacMan" all-in-one systems did 15-20 years ago, or even the NES Classic.
If "HyperMega Tech" was just a completely different product line for a different customer base, it would be a success and people like me wouldn't feel uneasy about it. But theres plenty of people who've put £500+ into Evercade products specifically because they liked the early promise of the brand that was tailored as a very niche product for a certain demographic. They are weakening the strength of the Evercade brand, whilst not really increasing the appeal of the "HyperMega Tech" devices which will either appeal to casual impulse buys, or shelf collectors, neither of whom will care about the cart slot.
Re: HyperMega Tech's 'Super Pocket' Is A Game Boy-Style Handheld Which Plays Evercade Carts
@Krambo42 Yes exactly, I was going to add that but I'd already typed a long enough rant and the website would have made me split it into 2 messages! lol They certainly are aware of a large portion of the loyal customers feeling burned by the Capcom situation. It was quite the mini controversy within their niche fanbase. I'm surprised they're not only doubling down but admiting they are planning to do so again multiple times in the future.
As a collector of every Evercade cart, as well as the original system and the VS (been waiting on the EXP, partly because the Capcom situation soured me and I worried it would be a sign of things to come) I'm now disapointed as it feels like this is almost certainly confirmation we won't be getting a Taito collection on Evercade. One of my main wishes was for a Bubble Bobble collection, I don't see that happening now.
Feels like the Evercade brand might be on the downturn. I hope not, as for a while it was a really unique product that I really enjoyed collecting for. The fact they are releasing so much hardware so rapidly and moving away from the "physical only" nature is really souring my feelings towards it.
Re: HyperMega Tech's 'Super Pocket' Is A Game Boy-Style Handheld Which Plays Evercade Carts
On the one hand, the price is good, and I actually like this form factor better than the EXP. I'm actually quite interested in getting one of the clear ones for playing Evercade carts on the go in a "Gameboy" style...
But here's the thing. This is exactly what we all feared would happen when the EXP launched with Capcom games built in, which werent' available on cartridge. Sure, Blaze/Evercade couldn't secure the rights, probably for the same reason that the Namco carts don't play on the VS system - games companies want more money (or outright refuse) for home console rights, or perhaps even for carts in general rather than being built into an "all in one" device.
Its not Blaze/Evercade's fault that these companies won't give the rights to put the games on carts. But the arguement of "well free built in games are better than none" doesn't hold water because it opened the floodgates. Now, we have 2 Capcom devices and no Capcom games on cart, and 1 Taito device, with no Taito cart collection. And they've made clear that there are more dedicated handheld systems on the way, presumably with more games that won't be available on cart. I don't want an ever growing collection of hardware, none of which can play every game. This is why people stopped buying those cheap plug-and-play systems in "fun" shapes after the novelty of the first 1 or 2 wore off.
For me at least, Its ruining the appeal of "Evercade" as a brand and collecting the carts. Every single review I see of Evercade products (including EXP reviews just this week from big youtubers!) talk about how cool and unique it is to have a modern platform with physical games, printed manuals etc, and a somewhat hand selected set of titles rather than just thousands of unsorted roms. It appeals to the collector and if you start making it impossble to have a 100% complete collection on your shelf because you're splintering it with built in "bonus" games it takes away from the unique selling point and you may as well just buy yet another rom playing device that can play everything.
The brand would have been stronger if they just never broke their rule of games only on carts... and if certain big players like Capcom, Taito and Namco won't play ball, just ignore them and keep releasing collections of more obscure gems, computer titles and indie/homebrew stuff. Part of the appeal is discovering new games you've not heard of/played before. Don't get side tracked and burn out everyone by releasing a never ending stream of hardware people can't/won't keep up with. Maybe as the platform grows, those bigger companies will see they are missing out on money and come around.
Re: Super Mario World ROM Hacker Reveals His New "Magnum Opus"
Wow, those new sprites and tiles are stunning! Its a whole new game!
Re: Flappy Bird Soars Onto Analogue Pocket
FINALLY the killer app so I can take the plunge!
Seriously though it was sad what happened to this guy. He got so much hate and overwhelming media attention. The fact he took the game down despite the fact it was making so much money shows just how much distress it was causing him.
In my line of work, I've seen what unimagined mental distress it can cause for someone to suddenly become famous / infamous. I hope he kept at least some of the money and made good use of it.
Re: Best ROM Hacks, Mods And Homebrews Of 2023
"Catslevania" nyaa? 😻
Re: Shocking Study Reveals 87% Of Classic Games Are "Critically Endangered"
@EarthboundBenjy Yes I've been burnt a couple of times by getting really into mobile games, working hard on building my world or stats and even spending a decent amount of money - only to suddenly have them disapear overnight. Thankfully for the games I care about, people have preserved them and I can emulate, but all my progress and the money spent is completely gone - of course this is only possible for single player games and multiplayer ones or where the majority of the code is server side can't even be preserved in any way. I've basically learned to never play mobile games, because of how much these bad experiences have soured me to them. I'd rather never play them at all, rather than enjoy them one minute and have them taken away the next.
Re: Shocking Study Reveals 87% Of Classic Games Are "Critically Endangered"
Kelsey is awesome, and I really appreciate the work she does. She's right, unfortunately its unlikely to get any better. This is why its important that people "resort to piracy" and make digital copies of games, crack protections, develop emulators and FPGA solutions so they are playable on new hardware...
However as far as new games go, I think its a losing battle, considering how many modern games require online servers and are unusable once they go down. I know some will think its silly but this is the main reason I don't play online multiplayer focused games - they might be fun now, but I hate the idea of something becoming my new "favourite game" but then not being able to go back and play it in the future whenever I want.
I love playing old games, listening to old music, watching old movies just as much as I also enjoy consuming new products. I hate the idea of enjoying something now but then not being able to experience it in the future. Things like Nintendo only making Mario 99 available for a month or whatever just makes me not want to play it at all.
I'm not sure if its relevant as to why I feel this way, but I'm autistic. I don't deal well with things being non-permanent. For example, I prefer going on holiday to places I already know that I like, rather than exploring somewhere new. If I do go somewhere new, and I have a good time, I instantly know that I'll want to come back in the future. Its the same with the media I consume - if I like it the first time, I will want to play / listen / watch again.
Re: Former Sega Boss On The "Huge Strategic Blunder" Of 32X And Saturn
@UK_Kev Yes I agree with that... but as you said, it wouldn't have been a major success. Personally, I prefer 2d to 3d games so I'd have eaten it up - the games I develop myself are essentially similar to Sonic Mania in a "what if the 16bit style generation had near infinite memory, colours and processing power?" kind of way. I like to feel that my games are the kinds of things people might imagine running on Saturn or a Neo Geo. But clearly at the time, 3d was the new thing people wanted and the "next big step"
As I said if they had just kept the Saturn how it was but waited a few months until they had impressive software, and put money into advertising it as "coming soon, it'll be worth waiting for" (just as Nintendo did with the N64 and Sony did with PS2) there would have been a good chance Saturn could have been a real competitor.
If they hadn't have had the follies of the 32X and Mega CD the consumer, retaillers and 3rd party devs would have been a lot more keen to support them too. Selling at a loss would have been a perfectly valid tactic for the Saturn and affordable for them if they hadn't have previously wasted so much money, and launched with enough "must have" games... as I said, Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop and Nights all launched at once and would have been more than enough to sell the system at launch, and make it actually look more powerful than Playstation (even though we know it wasn't). I imagine most people would have bought 2/3 games with each console, immediately offsetting the loss.
Re: Former Sega Boss On The "Huge Strategic Blunder" Of 32X And Saturn
@UK_Kev Oh I'm definitely aware of all those delays that SGi caused. I was one of the people who were so put off by the weak looking launch lineup of the Saturn, but so excited by the potential of the "Ultra 64" that I just ignored 32bit consoles (except my 32x) and waited for my pre-order. Those multiple, repeated delays were painful, especially being in the UK and not finally getting N64 til 1997, nearly 2 years after I put down my pre-order. Eeesh.
I wasn't necessarily saying they should have accepted the offer from SGi, more that it should have been further proof that the industry was leaning towards impressive high level 3d graphics at home, and if they didn't go with Sgi, probably another competitor would, so they'd need something to compete.
As for arcade games at home increasing people playing in arcades, as they could practice at home, that was definitely the case with Street Fighter 2 helping the SNES/SFC, it was the reason I and many of my friends bought one. With Virtua Fighter being as enormous as it was in Japan, its strange that they didn't think the same would apply, and concentrate on their machine being capable of playing a decent rendition of the game and its innevitable sequels from the start, rather than as an afterthought.
My only logical assumption is that they thought it was impossible to mnake home ports of $10K arcade hardware, or that they thought it would cut the "novelty" factor of their high end arcade games. I think the "people buying to practice at home" most applies to competitive fighting games, whereas more single player arcade "experiences" were based on the novelty of how impressive the graphics were. He sounded surprised that the Playstation was able to replicate arcade harware so convincingly, perhaps they really did think it was impossible before then.
Re: Former Sega Boss On The "Huge Strategic Blunder" Of 32X And Saturn
On a separate note to my rant above, I don't feel the Saturn was a "mistake" in any measure. The hardware itself could have been made easier to develop for, sure, but was plenty powerful enough and if it had sold well and been the most popular platform, devs would have learned to use it to its highest potential.
Rushing it to release early made it seem weak compared to the Playstation because launch games like Virtua Fighter and Daytona were glitchy unfinished messes, compared to the near arcade perfect Ridge Racer and Tekken of Playstation's launch. However, just six months later, Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop and Nights absolutely trounced anything in the Playstation's launch window from a tech perspective. Sure, technically the PS1 was more capable for 3d when pushed to its limits as we'd see in the long run (circa 97-99), but in the early days, they were very comparable, and both had unique strengths - PS was easier to make transparencies and lighting effects, but Saturn had no texture warping/glitching and z buffer issues (when programmed correctly! Grr VF1).
If they had delayed the launch and put out some "sure, you could buy Playstation... but wait for the REAL system!" (which was exactly the tactic Nintendo were using with the N64, and that Sony themselves used with the Playstation 2) the system would have left a far better first impression. You wouldn't have angered all the retailers that felt burned by the stealth launch. Also, obviously the redesigned "American" pad was a huge mistake. The Japanese pads is one of the best controllers of all time.
While I love them both dearly and they are responsible for some of my happiest gaming memories, the Mega CD and especially 32X are responsible for the majority of Saturn's failure, and subsequently the demise of the Dreamcast and Sega pulling out of the hardware market. Consumers, retaillers and third party devs all felt burned by them. Sega were also haemorhaging money throwing them at weird unecessary hardware - Multimega/CDX, WonderMega/X'Eye, MegaJet, Neptune, Nomad, MegaPC, Terradrive, LaserActive etc... not to mention over 200 theme parks & mega arcades...
I know many of those things mentioned were joint ventures with other companies but they should have been laser focused on what worked: Making a single, all conquering follow up to the Megadrive/Genesis and fully commiting to it, making quality mainline Sonic games, and making industry leading arcade experiences. Everything else just wasted money and weakened the brand in the eyes of the public, retailers, and developers.
Re: Former Sega Boss On The "Huge Strategic Blunder" Of 32X And Saturn
@DestructoDisk This. 100%
However, there is still validity in Irimajiri's statement that initially they wanted to make the ultimate 2d powerhouse with some minor 3d capabilities... but then seeing the Playstation and the industry reaction to it made them have to change the design of the Saturn very quickly. Its interesting that this is still his opinion and recollection - its probably entirely accurate, but it shows how little weight they gave to the opinion of Sega of America, even back then.
If they had listened to Sega of America, considered the offer from SGi (another American company) they would have been able to see that the industry was very much skewing this way. There was a large culture of Sega of Japan not really caring the opinion of the Americans or Europeans, which has never really made sense considering those were their primary markets and the ones that had actually made their home consoles successful and their name a household brand.
But even ignoring that and just saying "ok but Japanese companies are going to prioritise Japan" (fair enough if you prize inovation over profit) I still have never understood why they couldn't see that 3d was the future... when in Japan their business/profit was 90% coming from their booming arcade division and all their biggest earners were 3d games. Did they think it was impossible to satisfactually replicate games like Virtua Fighter or Daytona USA at home? Or did they think it would be a bad idea as having these experiences at home would kill their arcade business? Its probably the latter, but we'll never know.
Re: Ghostbusters: Special Edition Hack Gets Incredible Glow-In-The-Dark Physical Release
These are beautiful! Great attention to detail, love the designs.
As for this hack itself, its fantastic and similar to how I feel about Amy being added to Sonic Origins, its nice to have Winston finally playable in this game. I always felt a huge sadness that he wasn't included. Feels like an unjust history being corrected
I'm never quite sure how I feel about someone selling a romhack without paying the creators of the hack, I hope they at least contacted them first and asked for unofficial blessing. Regardless I it looks like this is just a fan project hand made to order with love and I assume isn't turning a profit of any kind. Once they start being massproduced and appearing on Aliexpress its a different story, sadly that often happens with these fan projects, without the permission of the original handmade fan versions.
I own a few similar things like physical Master System copies of fan made Game Gear ports and there is definitely a special feeling about holding something that feels like its from an alternate dimension with slightly different history. My Triple Trouble and Sonic Drift copies sit especially beautifully on the shelf along with the other 8bit Sonic games
Re: Fancy Playing Doom On Your Atari XL/XE? Well, Now You Can!
To begin with when watching that video I assumed it was "just" a dungeon crawling rpgs style grid system with fixed movement as was common on 8bit computers... but as the video progresses, the areas become far more intricate and the freedom of movement is extremely imrpessive for the system. Obviously its not "real" Doom but thats a hell of a lot closer than I would have imagined.
Its worth noting that while this article links to the Vic-20 version, that video is an old one and since then the framerate has been doubled! Only when looking it up now to compare the performances of both systems did I realise how vastly improved its been since I first heard about that version, originally wrote it off as an unplayable novelty - it now looks very impressive also. The fact this is possible on a Vic-20 (not even a C64!) is incredible and as a Commodore programmer as a kid would have blown my mind. (I was busy making Petscii based dungeon crawlers / 3d Pac Man style games for the PET which still pushed the syst6em far mroe than it was intended for)
Re: Grimace's Birthday Gets A Physical Edition, With A Catch
@HammerGalladeBro @CammyUnofficial I figured it was yellow for the "golden arches" of the McDonalds logo, plus its an established GameBoy cart colour. Purple would be cool though, and fit the Nintendo theme, Gamecube, GBA etc.
Re: Three Of Taito's Classic '80s LaserDisc Games Are Coming To Nintendo Switch
The new game looks like a visual novel rather than a new animation? I got excited when I thought there was going to be a full sequel - either animated or a "proper" game. Oh well, visual novels can be fun and its a free addition, so thats cool!
Re: Grimace's Birthday Gets A Physical Edition, With A Catch
Aww darn it I was really hoping it was a limited run or kickstarter style deal! This looks really cool, he did a fantastic job.
Re: The Sega Channel Revival Project Is Coming To An End
I've always found the fact that Sega was essentially running an online games streaming / download subscription service way back in 1994 is completely insane. I know Nintendo had the Satellaview stuff in Japan at around the same time so I'm not trying to be "Sega vs Nintendo" its just more that these kinds of service didn't become mainstream until pretty recently. They were both 15+ years ahead of the curve here.
For me as a kid in the UK, with no-one I knew (not even school or library) having internet access of any kind, and where games for the 16 bit consoles could easily cost £60-£100 in 90s money, this would have been absolutely gamechanging and seemed like magic.
I'm very grateful for this dude and everyone else who helps preserve this stuff so we can go back and vicariously experience it
Re: Three Of Taito's Classic '80s LaserDisc Games Are Coming To Nintendo Switch
@KingMike Yes the Mega CD version is entirely redrawn - they worked out the best keyframes for the lower frame rate, and then traced over but with a more bold colour block / cell shaded look, to avoid the usual dithered pattern from converting video to the lower colour depth allowed by the Megadrive's output. This limitation of the original Megadrive is why standard Mega CD videos looked so grainy. (the reason 32X-CD games can have more colour is they output through the 32X not the Megadrive.)
I've gotta say, they did a fantastic job. The first time I experienced Time Gal was on the Mega CD in the 90s and I was amazed how much better the cartoony visuals looked compared to other FMV games I owned. It also plays pretty well and it was my favourite FMV game - I also loved the character and all the different settings - cute anime girl in bikini starts first level running away from dinosaurs? I was definitely sold.
Years later I discovered that there was an arcade port, and finally got to see the original animation - its wonderful, I'm definiltey looking forward to playing this and the other games through on Switch.
Re: Three Of Taito's Classic '80s LaserDisc Games Are Coming To Nintendo Switch
@Serpenterror Well, mostly they got beaten by DVD. Laserdisc wasn't used for data, the games code were on rom chips, teh laserdisc just had the video footage. (theres extremely rare edge cases for LD-ROM but never in arcade hardware to my knowledge.)
Of course, many Laser Disc arcade games were converted to CD-ROM for the Mega-CD, CDi, 3dO, CD32 etc. but the viedoquality was always worse. It wasn't til DVD ports of these games started coming that we got equal / better quality.
However, @N00BiSH was quoting an old Homestar Runner episode.
Re: Intellivision Has Significantly Cut Its Staff To Help Amico Over The Finish Line
They've already pledged to refund everyone!
Tommy Tallarico's dog stepped on a bee.
Re: Evercade Is Getting An "EXP" Upgrade, Complete With Irem And Toaplan Collections
The 2 new collections are a no-brainer. excellent games on both!
As for the new handheld, I'm tempted, a nice upgrade over the original, especially the TATE mode, though I'm not sure how comfortable it will be. £129 is a very fair price, especially including a cart that good! I think I actually prefer the standard white version, though its annoying (and baffling) that hard case is exclusive to the limited edition set.
Re: Dreamcast Support Could Come To Polymega In The Future
Yeah Ironically it will be far easier hardware and software wise to emulate the Dreamcast than the Saturn (which the Polymega already does a decent job at) so running isos or pirated discs (which were compressed by cracking groups to fit on normal CDs) is easily possible, but the stumbling block will be getting official disks to run.
Re: Here's The First Trailer For E4's GamesMaster Reboot
There has been some minor debate elsewhere around the diversity, including by the presenter, but as a poster above said, the original 90s series was pretty diverse actually, I've rewatched all of them fairly recently. I was happy with it then, I'm happy with it now.
However, there is a YouTube comment where someone asked "Where the hell are all the white people?"... 🤔 Eh? I just watched back and spotted 16 "white" looking people, and 13 people of colour. Some black, some asian, etc, so if you were to separate them by individual race, "white" would be the vast majority, but even if just counting "white" and "non white" (which seems needlessly divisive) "white" people are still the majority. The only noticable descrepancy I could see was 7 females vs 22 males, assuming their gender is what they appear to present as in these tiny clips. However, I don't really feel there is any point in breaking down labels and trying to divide people into groups...
In reality what we are looking at is 29 gamers. Can't we just be happy gamers are getting represented on TV again?
PS, I tried responding that to the actual comment on YouTube, and it was instantly deleted. I wonder whether it was flagged as potentially offensive - if so there's something seriously wrong with the algorithm that the original comment was fine but my debunking it was problematic somehow! 😂
@Darknilious Yes its going on their YouTube channel even before its shown on TV
Re: Hardware Review: Evercade VS - A Low-Cost Gateway To Past Nintendo Classics And Much More Besides
@Woodyshoe Yes sadly there haven't been any Amiga versions of games yet, perhaps they haven't got an emulator working properly yet or got a workaround for the bios legality, so all titles so far that many of us think of as "Amiga" games are the decent but inferior Megadrive ports.
Re: Hardware Review: Evercade VS - A Low-Cost Gateway To Past Nintendo Classics And Much More Besides
@KIRO The Dizzy games are all the NES/Aladdin versions. So if by "rock hard" you mean like the 8bit Spectrum/C64/CPC versions, no, they are a lot more forgiving controlswise. They are more akin to the Amiga versions, if those are more familiar.
Also, if you grew up with the 8bit micro versions, you'll realise that though the names are often different, the games on the collection are adaptations (like "special editions" with minor changes, extra puzzles) of the classics you remember, rather than complately new games. Its a great collection, and the reason I bought an Evercade.
My only minor complaint is the inclusion of the NES Fantastic Dizzy, where the Sega 8bit versions are the most complete and polished (which I'm aware is weird when there are 16bit versions, but those were missing certain QOL features).