KD
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Post by KD on Sept 19, 2021 12:43:52 GMT
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Cappy
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Post by Cappy on Sept 19, 2021 12:53:06 GMT
At those sorts of prices you could just buy another two or three working consoles if the current unit has an unrepairable drive. The only utility I can see is for people who don't own much in the way of games already and just want to pirate.
The ridiculous costs have always been my issue with all these 'enhance' your old console devices. The only way it can be justified is somebody running a mental cost vs. benefit calculation using all the games they can now play without buying them.
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Post by richarddavies on Sept 19, 2021 14:22:18 GMT
People buy them because all bull aside its just not realistic for most people to retro collect anymore. It can literally cost you thousands to get a half decent saturn collection for example.
Mode and sd solutions are a cost effective way of being able to reminisce without getting a bank loan.
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Cappy
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Post by Cappy on Sept 19, 2021 15:31:36 GMT
I believe piracy is a personal choice and it's nobody else's business... However where I do have an issue is individuals building businesses off the back of copyrighted content that they don't own. Like the guy selling every arcade game ever on DVD via eBay, these devices owe their value and utility to piracy.
That's just my perspective though. I'll freely admit that's the perspective of somebody who has game collections that are effectively complete when it comes to back catalogue that I actually want to play. I filled out the gaps in my Dreamcast, Gamecube and N64 collections etc. when not many people wanted the games.
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LFace
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Post by LFace on Sept 19, 2021 15:59:06 GMT
Highly agree. I love my retro gaming, built a bartop arcade that's got every arcade game under sun on it, run various emulators on my Nvidia shield with full sets of systems I had as a kid like megadrive etc but it winds me up something rotten seeing targeted adverts on Facebook for premade retro systems with 10,000 games on and cost a little over £100. They are raspberry pi with two nasty cheap controllers and people lap them up. Do your research and get the same for much much less without funding piracy. They are clearly the free premade RetroPie builds you can get online.
Rom sites are obviously shady and I don't think anyone would say that it isn't piracy but we all dabble. But it's one thing to download games you owned as a kid, and another to sell what you've downloaded for a steep price.
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Post by docrob on Sept 19, 2021 16:41:27 GMT
Thanks. I actually downloaded Fuse yesterday and it seems to work well - aside from the fact that the folder it installed to vanished completely and hasn’t reappeared even when hidden files are visible! - but I couldn’t figure out how to configure the joystick options at all. The menu makes no sense at all. The Spectrum was great, and Ultimate (who became Rare, of course) made the best games for it. But one childhood memory I had suppressed was that, for some bizarre reason, they insisted on mapping their keyboard controls to QWERT, rather than any remotely sensible layout. Spent a fun 5 minutes rediscovering 10-year-old me’s difficulties in trying to play Atic Atac.
Found a video on Youtube which explains how to do it. Yay for the internet...
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KD
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RIP EG
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Post by KD on Sept 19, 2021 16:44:29 GMT
It's a small market and this sd card replacement isn't cheap, other options don't work on either console and cost more.
Also these 2 consoles have been the same ones I had when younger, friends who are not alive anymore played on them and all sorts of other things, I even have the same crt to use them on. Keeping them alive is the priority when right now the saturn is useless with a dead CD drive and the dreamcast was last powered up at Xmas.
I'd worry about playing a switch on emulator when all games are still out to purchase, denying devs money but once a console is not on sale and games not stocked anymore sod it.
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Zyrr
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Post by Zyrr on Sept 19, 2021 18:45:16 GMT
I own a considerable amount of original games, most of which I bought back when the consoles were new and are boxed away in the garage, but on the piracy front I look at it like this:
Is the game still commercially available? Then buy it legally.
If not, then I can't really see what harm it does. I'd rather download a copy of say, Moonstone on the Amiga than pay some chancer £250+ for a boxed copy. The original Devs are getting exactly zero of that money anyway.
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Post by One_Vurfed_Gwrx on Sept 19, 2021 19:05:11 GMT
I own a considerable amount of original games, most of which I bought back when the consoles were new and are boxed away in the garage, but on the piracy front I look at it like this: Is the game still commercially available? Then buy it legally. If not, then I can't really see what harm it does. I'd rather download a copy of say, Moonstone on the Amiga than pay some chancer £250+ for a boxed copy. The original Devs are getting exactly zero of that money anyway. This is pretty much how I do things too. I prefer originals but not paying OTT second hand prices. |
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Post by RadicalRex on Sept 19, 2021 22:37:26 GMT
I’m interested in getting into retro gaming. I feel increasing fatigue with modern gaming, much of which just feels so bloated and demanding. I frequently ask myself why I spent so much money on a PS5 and Oled TV when I’m just increasingly drawn to 16-bit-style indies and retro games. Habit? Addiction? For me it really took off when I bought a SNES Mini and just couldn't stop playing games like Castlevania 4. There's something addictive about them that I just don't get from most modern 3D games. I believe part of the reason is that A) there's just something so simple and intuitive about 2D games and B) thanks to the limitations of the time, those games were made with a strong focus on replayability. If you know what you're doing, a Mega Man game is finished in an hour or even less, so they designed them in a way that it's super addictive to come back again and again. None of that padding nonsense to stretch out one playthrough to 50 or 100 hours. |
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KD
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Post by KD on Sept 19, 2021 23:23:32 GMT
I own 4 of those mini consoles, with an amiga on preorder, so glad those took off.
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zagibu
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Post by zagibu on Sept 19, 2021 23:31:55 GMT
Can anyone recommend a decent vertical shmup that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? The whole genre seems expensive. Been collecting for Dreamcast lately but I'd consider any system |
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Post by RadicalRex on Sept 19, 2021 23:55:11 GMT
Axelay (SNES) is three levels side-scrolling and three levels "vertical" scrolling with a fake 3D effect, and it's fairly widespread. I give it a shout out because it's pretty good and a little technical marvel, Konami showing off what they could do with the SNES. Was very impressive back in the days, in terms of graphics and soundtrack it destroyed most other shmups on the system. Each level and each boss got their own soundtrack! Except for the last level which got two and the last boss which also got two.
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Post by Vandelay on Sept 20, 2021 8:16:20 GMT
I want to get more into retro gaming. I've been watching a lot of a Twitch channel recently called Retro Pals and it has really given me an itch to dig out the oddities from the past. Also, playing Astro's Playroom has me realising just how much of a blank I have for so much of the PlayStation back catalogue.
It seems such a shame to me that so much of these games from the past are no longer commercially available. Film has had a poor history of preserving some of its earliest works, but I can still quite easily get copies of plenty of Buster Keaton films or Metropolis or Universal's early monster movies. There are 100s of films dating back 100 years easily available on DVD or Blu-ray that can be played on any player.
Want to pick up 25 year old game and pop it into your modern system? Maybe if it is a PC game you might be able to get it going, but no chance if you are trying on a console. Maybe if it is a big name franchise, like a Mario you might be able to get an over priced re-release, but good luck finding anything that wasn't already in the top 10 sellers of the time.
GOG has done some good for the PC space. It is far from all encompassing, but it is a big improvement. It would be great to see something similar in the console world too, although it is likely to prove hugely more complicated.
Looking emulation as an alternative to something official, one of the big things that could have pulling the trigger on a Steam Deck is the possibility of using it as an emulation system. Seems ideal to be able to do that.
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Cappy
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Post by Cappy on Sept 20, 2021 9:48:11 GMT
Can anyone recommend a decent vertical shmup that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? The whole genre seems expensive. Been collecting for Dreamcast lately but I'd consider any system The only vertical shooter I know of that's still relatively cheap is Psyvariar for the PS2. It was a budget release in the EU and was £3-5 for years but in the last year or so the price has tripled.
If you want to go horizontal, R-Type Final is still available for about £10. Otherwise, you'd be obtaining games digitally and waiting for sales, shooters just don't come cheap anymore.
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marcp
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Post by marcp on Sept 20, 2021 12:16:33 GMT
Highly agree. I love my retro gaming, built a bartop arcade that's got every arcade game under sun on it, run various emulators on my Nvidia shield with full sets of systems I had as a kid like megadrive etc but it winds me up something rotten seeing targeted adverts on Facebook for premade retro systems with 10,000 games on and cost a little over £100. They are raspberry pi with two nasty cheap controllers and people lap them up. Do your research and get the same for much much less without funding piracy. They are clearly the free premade RetroPie builds you can get online. Rom sites are obviously shady and I don't think anyone would say that it isn't piracy but we all dabble. But it's one thing to download games you owned as a kid, and another to sell what you've downloaded for a steep price. I've just bought one because it's fun just diving into a system and playing random shit now and again. That said, I own approx 100 Arcade Archives / Neo Geo titles, and a stupid amount of Shmups, and I've sprung for the Evercade Vs Founder's Edition so I'm supporting the devs that are still at it. |
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Post by Lurker on Sept 20, 2021 12:53:24 GMT
I finally got round to finishing off my long term Amiga 1200 project over the weekend.
Accelerator installed, along with WHDLoad running off a Compact Flash card with a zillion games.
I had great fun playing some of the old classics.
I guess the only thing I need to do now is replace the capacitors to keep it alive but I've never soldered a thing in my life.
Talking of Shmups, I played Battle Squadron which is still a good game (I think this also came out on the Megadrive if I remember correctly).
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Onny
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Post by Onny on Sept 20, 2021 15:18:50 GMT
Last Christmas my wife bought me the sf2 Arcade1up cab - it’s very good although the stock controls are a bit ropey. Anyway, as a lockdown 2021 project I replaced the insides with a mini PC and replaced the controls for decent ones and now it runs a bunch of old classics. Even configured scan lines and a slight curve to make it feel more like a CRT. And it works really well! My son especially enjoys a lot of the older scrolling beat ‘em ups like Final Fight. If you have a spare £350 or so and want a 2/3 size arcade machine in your house, I’d recommend it.
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cubby
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Post by cubby on Sept 20, 2021 15:27:44 GMT
I want to get more into retro gaming. I've been watching a lot of a Twitch channel recently called Retro Pals and it has really given me an itch to dig out the oddities from the past. Also, playing Astro's Playroom has me realising just how much of a blank I have for so much of the PlayStation back catalogue. It seems such a shame to me that so much of these games from the past are no longer commercially available. Film has had a poor history of preserving some of its earliest works, but I can still quite easily get copies of plenty of Buster Keaton films or Metropolis or Universal's early monster movies. There are 100s of films dating back 100 years easily available on DVD or Blu-ray that can be played on any player. Want to pick up 25 year old game and pop it into your modern system? Maybe if it is a PC game you might be able to get it going, but no chance if you are trying on a console. Maybe if it is a big name franchise, like a Mario you might be able to get an over priced re-release, but good luck finding anything that wasn't already in the top 10 sellers of the time. GOG has done some good for the PC space. It is far from all encompassing, but it is a big improvement. It would be great to see something similar in the console world too, although it is likely to prove hugely more complicated. Looking emulation as an alternative to something official, one of the big things that could have pulling the trigger on a Steam Deck is the possibility of using it as an emulation system. Seems ideal to be able to do that. In this sense the 3DS was/is pretty good. Not strictly in that for GBA and GBC games you need to *ahem* use the virtual console, but for DS games it works perfectly. I'm currently playing Metroid Zero Mission on mine at the moment. As an aside the analogy to blu rays and dvds kinda isn't an example of perfection. In about 5 years time blu ray players will be pretty rare in most shops other than specialists. Physical media in films is probably shrinking at a faster rate than gaming at the moment. |
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LFace
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Post by LFace on Sept 20, 2021 16:24:26 GMT
Last Christmas my wife bought me the sf2 Arcade1up cab - it’s very good although the stock controls are a bit ropey. Anyway, as a lockdown 2021 project I replaced the insides with a mini PC and replaced the controls for decent ones and now it runs a bunch of old classics. Even configured scan lines and a slight curve to make it feel more like a CRT. And it works really well! My son especially enjoys a lot of the older scrolling beat ‘em ups like Final Fight. If you have a spare £350 or so and want a 2/3 size arcade machine in your house, I’d recommend it. My bartop has a mini pc in as well and it's great. Mame, final burn, atomiswave and Naomi. I'm possibly tempted in future to get another for vertical only games. Either build my own, flatpack kit, or Arcade 1-up Pacman like machine I can mod. Found some really good arcade games I never saw in the flesh as a kid. I too use a curved CRT with scanlines shader. |
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Onny
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Post by Onny on Sept 20, 2021 16:26:52 GMT
Curved scanlines ftw!
So the pc I’m using is ancient and dies any time something 3d happens; I’ve read that the RPi 4 does a decent job with atomiswave / Naomi stuff so I might get one to replace it.. maybe a lockdown 2022 project.
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LFace
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Post by LFace on Sept 20, 2021 17:00:15 GMT
Curved scanlines ftw! So the pc I’m using is ancient and dies any time something 3d happens; I’ve read that the RPi 4 does a decent job with atomiswave / Naomi stuff so I might get one to replace it.. maybe a lockdown 2022 project. I started with a raspberry pi 3b in my bartop but it struggled with some stuff and so I bought a Lenovo M93P mini pc. Plays just about everything I care about full speed including 3D stuff. I use Batocera as the OS/Interface and designed a custom Emulation Station theme so it's exactly how I want it. Love firing up SF2 or Mortal Kombat every now and then. |
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Post by Danno on Sept 20, 2021 17:10:32 GMT
After the Saturn mini sure, I mean it must happen first? Right? Just me then.... Sign me up, as long as PDS and Radiant Silvergun are on there |
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Post by Vandelay on Sept 20, 2021 22:15:17 GMT
As an aside the analogy to blu rays and dvds kinda isn't an example of perfection. In about 5 years time blu ray players will be pretty rare in most shops other than specialists. Physical media in films is probably shrinking at a faster rate than gaming at the moment. Not sure if it is going to be quicker than games (fully expect next-gen in 6 years or so to ditch physical media - was a little surprised this gen didn't), but certainly true that it is going to get harder and harder. I've been surprised at how limited the selection of 4K blu-rays has been. At least a modern 4K player can still play DVDs though and the selection across DVD, blu-ray and 4k blu-ray is pretty wide. There is certainly bits missing, but you would have to be a really looking for something niche to run into a problem regularly. I'm still clinging onto physical media for films as much as I can. It is going to terrible for accessible preservation when they go. Games has the added technical complication, both the internals and also the controls for many arcade games and some systems. |
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Cappy
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Post by Cappy on Sept 21, 2021 9:49:17 GMT
I'd actually been thinking about the demise of DVDs without an equally successful physical format taking it's place lately. Whilst consolidating all the DVDs stored in various places I was surprised to find I still own about 450-500, just sitting there, for the most just wasting space. I own less than 30 blu-rays and replacing any portion of the DVDs with equivalent Blu-Rays would be prohibitively expensive, they just don't seem to be produced in quantity so you can't even find secondhand bargains. DVDs look lousy on any LCD of even modest size upwards, besides a few things that haven't been released on Blu-Ray or even digitally they're worthless.
Mostly because it's a directly equivalent product but visually inferior. DVD was a better representation of the original than VHS and when a more faithful reproduction came along people transitioned from DVD without hesitation.
I just don't see videogames going non-physical besides smaller 'indie' productions. Games have got so bloated that this industry can't even make a 2D 16-Bit style metroidvania without a 5GB install. Your average game sits at a size that would be a pain to deal with digitally in the long term, I'm constantly deleting games to make room for other games to be installed. Downloading all this stuff would be too much hassle for enough of the audience to keep games around on disc as an option. Besides, as users cycle games on and off the HD somebody is going to feel the pain of how much that bandwidth costs long term, you can bet some platform holders and third parties will try to 'retire' games fast like they do with online functionality. Besides, a videogame tends to be an original rather than derivative representation, not really comparable to DVD. Even the PS3 version of Bayonetta is technically the original representation of that variant, failed port and in it's own way distinct. In years to come people will poke around, speedrun it, maybe even make their own patches and hacks.
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Post by snackplissken on Sept 22, 2021 7:30:08 GMT
Picked up a 32inch CRT last night. Fuck me.. that is heavy. I made a huge mistake. Worth it though as my N64 hasn't looked that good in years!
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Zyrr
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Post by Zyrr on Sept 22, 2021 9:15:34 GMT
I've got a 32" 4:3 Toshiba that weighs about as much as a small car. We're planning on moving next year at some point and I'm really not looking forward to moving that thing  |
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Post by snackplissken on Sept 22, 2021 10:11:25 GMT
I've got a 32" 4:3 Toshiba that weighs about as much as a small car. We're planning on moving next year at some point and I'm really not looking forward to moving that thing Just mental at how heavy they are. I remember having a similar one back in the day and it wasn't as heavy as this. I had planned to put it upstairs but that idea was out the window until I can figure out how to get it up the stairs lol |
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Psiloc
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Post by Psiloc on Sept 22, 2021 11:00:00 GMT
I've gone through a few CRTs now, and honestly the weight and size of the bloody things is what kept me from picking up another one. I'm fully LED and HDMI upscalar now (Retrotink products all the way, FYI, for anyone looking to make the move). I can fit a 55" in less space than I could fit a 32".
The main thing I miss other than light gun games is the proper 4:3 form factor. Of course you can pillarbox the screen but something about the real thing just looks right - possibly the accurate bubble shape to the glass?
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Post by snackplissken on Sept 23, 2021 8:00:53 GMT
Yeah this will be my first and last! Just fancied it for the price point. When it goes I'm taking the wheelbarrow and sticking it in there lol
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