ArugulaZ

There’s always Code Mystics, comprised of most of the old guard from Digital Eclipse in the 1990s and 2000s.

♫ Oh, those Infogrames!
Oh, those Infogrames!
Wears Atari like a pelt
and buys up all they see! ♫

Remember playing Kung Fu Master and thinking it was kind of clunky? Then you played Kung Fu minus the Master on the NES and the gameplay was significantly tightened up. Vigilante goes back to the old habits of Kung Fu Master and somehow makes them worse. Enemies take too many hits and your hero is about as agile as a Buick.

I hate the feeling of being lost and not knowing where to go next. I typically don’t finish Metroid-alikes for that reason… I inevitably get stuck and don’t know how to proceed, or which magic bauble I need to unlock a door or reach a platform that’s just outside my jumping range.

Typically, the M30 by 8BitDo. It’s the most like the Sega Arcade Pad and the Sega Saturn controller that I used to use back in the 1990s. I have a TON of game controllers and thus a ton of options for playing games, but that’s what I use the most. If I’m feeling especially fancy, I’ll break out a joystick like my MadCatz Street Fighter IV stick (modified with hair-trigger Sanwa buttons), a modified Hori PS fighting stick, or the ridiculously small Street Fighter II Champ joystick released by Numskull. (I think it was Numskull. I don’t really remember, honestly.)

A question. What’s the development environment like for Spectrum games? I know even ten year olds are making games as classroom projects, so it doesn’t seem like it would be that tough. Problem is, the Spectrum is pretty limited even by the standards of 1980s home computers.

Grazi.

How do I subscribe to these as a Kbin user?

Great resource, along with the aforementioned Cutting Room Floor, and ROMhacking.net, and Game Designers’ Research Institute. And Hardcore Gaming 101!

Twenty… pence? What is that, thirty cents in American money? You’d be lucky to get a piece of candy for that price these days. Yeah, Pops really got screwed on that sale. And so did you, by association.

I don’t think anything was going to save the Saturn; the hardware was too specialized.

My Super Nintendo can’t Mode 7 properly anymore. I don’t know what the problem is… maybe it needs a new graphics chip. Maybe it just needs the chip it’s already got soldered down properly. You know how old consoles can be.

Don’t sweat it, Dominican Lou, Wiis are still pretty cheap. I’ve got like, three. The first was bought at retail price, the second cost me ten bucks. The third was left in a free bin, but the thrift store lady thought it was a mistake and demanded SOMETHING for it. She was happy with two bucks.

It gets better, homeskillet. The system can be augmented with an ODE (optical drive emulator), opening the door to tons of games. Even Atomiswave games, which are basically the same as Dreamcast games, but not released for the Dreamcast!

I semi-sorta regret selling my Gizmondo, but really, anything it can do, the PSP can do better. Plus I’ve heard the system has been melting in users’ hands due to its rubberized shell. It felt great in your hands back in 2008! Maybe not so much now.

I kinda wish I still had my Atari 7800, too. Not a great system, but Rikki and Vikki suggests that it could have been pushed a lot harder than what we actually got.

Has Mednafen been made more user friendly? Because last time I used it, it very much was not.

It flopped. It adds mystique to the system, since so many did not play it when it was actively supported. You see this a lot with game systems that crashed and burned… the Turbografx-16, the 3DO, the Nuon, and one of Sony’s rare bombs, the Playstation TV.

Like NBC used to say, “if you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!” That’s doubly true for game systems. People want to know what they missed.

That’s where I currently draw the line. Unfortunately, there’s a perception that obsolete is not necessarily retro. Typically, a machine that was just abandoned (ie the Xbox One) is not considered fashionably retro… just old.

Things were a lot easier back in the 1990s where the line was more easily drawn. Everything before the video game crash was retro; everything after was modern. But time marched on and the 21st century arrived, and the rules changed. Now even game systems with polygons are retro! Now even game systems with hyper-realistic graphics, like the Xbox 360, are retro! I feel like Danny Glover. I’m getting too old to keep track of this shit.

Those TI joysticks are just the absolute worst. Most underwhelming video game joysticks I’ve ever used, by far.