BulkSlash

I actually like the chunkiness of the Nomad, I find it more comfortable to hold than the Switch, even though the right side of it is pretty square-shaped!

Unless this new battery pack is wider, it shouldn't interfere with holding the Nomad as the official battery pack doesn't get in the way when I hold it.

It would be cool of Krikkz could do a low-profile Mega Everdrive to fit the Nomad with less catridge sticking out the top.

If the NAND goes bad while it’s in storage and not being written to, I’m not sure how wear level testing would allow Nintendo to pick up on flawed memory modules.

Nintendo should have instead put a Wii U away in their cupboard for 10 years and then sent it back in time so their engineers could see the results!

Teasing something that won’t actually be announced until March? I don’t see the point, I’ll have likely forgotten about this in 5 minutes time. Unless you’re Nintendo, you can’t get away with hyping something with so little detail like this, better to just announcing whatever it is you’re making rather than playing hard to get.

I play both sides of my Time Crisis 2 machine, it's actually hard work and both my arms are dead tired by the end. I can't do it without dying a lot though. 😅

I'm much better at Time Crisis 1 thanks to practicing on the PS1 version so much back in the day.

@Daniel36 It's definitely 1996, it's a weird device that's why it looks like it belongs in 1986. 😂

It has a powerful for-the-time x86 CPU but a really basic GameBoy style green screen. I guess they thought they needed loads of processing power for a machine to play chess type games. In spite of that it still takes ages to choose a move! 😆

It’s been mentioned already but Turtles in Time was the one that immediately came to mind. It has a few graphical cut backs, but the additions make it the superior game.

Radiant Silvergun’s Saturn mode that retains your upgrades is pretty rad too.

@sdelfin Yeah I think the limit in part must be down to the second player. Playing single player with the number of enemies at 4 is OK, but when going to 5 you do get flicker. So a two-player game with 4 enemies would have had flicker too, but by sticking to 3 it would have been OK.

I decided to experiment a bit, I upped the number of sprites to 6 and aside from the occasional brief priority issue (one enemy would be in front of another when he should be behind) it's actually able to run OK with 6 enemies. Pushing it to 7 works too, but there's some slowdown and there must only be enough palettes for 6 characters as the 7th has wrong colours. I'm actually going to leave it on 6 I think, it's unlikely I'll be playing it two-player any time soon.

Thanks @BillyTime for including both the emulator and file offset, even when I've found something using the memory editor, finding it again in the ROM file is often a pain! 😅

@BillyTime Oh wow, thanks! I’ll try patching that tomorrow, I can’t believe it’s that simple. 😂 I wonder why Capcom left it out of the game? Do you think it could be done with Final Fight Guy too?

@KitsuneNight I've been having similar thoughts. Just about every Windows app I've tried running on my Steam Deck runs perfectly, the only exceptions I've come across are Xenia (the Xbox 360 emulator) and Gears of War 1 (the PC port).

Windows is just getting worse and worse, while the desktop mode of Steam OS has really impressed me with how many native apps are available and also with how well it can run Windows apps under Wine.

The only real thing holding me back is the pain of moving everything on my desktop over to Linux.

I'm nearly onto the second island now, despite being 20fps a lot of the time, it's actually really playable. Also, if you have an ODE the sound quality doesn't need to be crunched to fit onto a CD-ROM like the version John Linneman is playing in the video.

If you think the enemies are bad in the SNES version, try playing the arcade bootleg! I think that game has the opposite of this patch applied, where your character does even less damage than usual (and the enemies do 2x the damage!). 😆

It's great this patch works with the JP version of the game as that's the one I had growing up. There's another FF2 romhack that allows 5 enemies on screen at once, I wish that was compatible with the JP release!

I tried this yesterday on the Steam Deck and it’s really good. It plays a lot like Mario 64 (things like long jumps, triple jumps, wall kicks, side flips, etc). There’s lots of secrets hidden about the place and in the best tradition of Mario 64 there’s often ways to “cheat” and reach areas you shouldn’t through clever acrobatics. I’ll definitely be getting it when it launches.

The issue isn't with games like Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time, it's when you try playing something really obscure that hardly anyone plays that you find will find graphical and accuracy issues.

The most obvious timing issue with the Switch N64 emulator is the ending sequences to Ocarina of Time and Mario Kart 64. The ending visuals finish before the music does on both because it doesn't accurately emulate the slowdown in certain parts. In the case of Ocarina of Time it cuts the music off, in Mario Kart, Mario talks over the music.

You'd think Capcom would insist on six face buttons for a system that will run their beat 'em ups.

This is the second time I've had to get my Deck out at work today...

Hopefully the game will run on the Steam Deck when it launches.

Jeff Bezos was really keeping the dream alive there! I’m still waiting for ‘90s Arcade Racer… 😫

I must insert my obligatory recommendation of Mighty Gunvolt Burst which is like an 8-bit demake of Mighty No 9 but is actually really good. It’s also made by IntiCreates, I think they struggled with doing a 3D game as their 2D stuff is usually good. Or maybe Mighty No 9 was just taken off them before they could really polish it?

@GravyThief I’ve got 9 CRTs and I can’t see scanlines on any of them. The shadow mask/aperture grille is very evident when looking closely but I can’t see scanlines. I often wondered if it’s a PAL/NTSC thing where the slightly lower line resolution of NTSC meant the scanlines were easier to see?

Grabbing this now before Rockstar’s lawyers get it shut down. I’m hoping I’ll be able to use my original GTA3 release with it as I never bought the broken Trilogy version.

Gave the demo a try last night, it’s just the first section of the first level but it’s pretty impressive, especially as I think I counted 6 enemies on screen at once (albeit with some flicker caused by too many on a single scanline). It’s missing the big skull clowns on motorbikes but the rest of the enemies are there and you can smash enemies against the windows like the SNES version.

I wonder if the SNES could have displayed more enemies if they’d used a FastROM cart? I know there’s a mod for Final Fight 2 that ups the number of simultaneous enemies from 3 to 5 also with some sprite flicker.

That’s got to be the most fake sounding letter from a legal department I’ve ever read.

@Razieluigi Music rights really are insane. For example, Alexander Courage wrote the theme to Star Trek, but Gene Roddenberry went and wrote some lyrics to the tune; this meant Roddenberry always got 50% of the royalties whenever the Star Trek theme was used, even though the lyrics aren’t being sung with it!

Awesome, I still use my 7th gen iPod Classic daily. There is already quite a large modding ecosystem out there with most of these things like replacement case parts, larger batteries, Bluetooth back cases and PCBs to replace the hard drive with Micro SD cards. The majority of it is pretty plug and play too, with only things like USB-C requiring soldering.

That said, IPS screens could be pretty cool, if they can just be dropped in.

@Deuteros I loved all those crazy concept images and the rumours about what the hardware would do. I was genuinely quite surprised when the actual SNES CD prototype turned up and it was just a simple CD-ROM drive with no additional capabilities compared to what the Mega-CD had.

@GravyThief I do that too, Nintendo mapping the buttons to A/B just sucks. I use that remapping for Mario Kart 8 too as I can't get on with A/B as accelerate/brake.

@LuigiBlood The trouble with that toggle is it disables the A button and you also need that for the mini-game. So you've got to remember to release that toggle in time to press the A button. It's just a poor implementation all around sadly.

The lag definitely catches me out when I go from playing Mario World on real hardware to the Switch. I always die on the first enemy because my timing for the jump is off. 😂 After a minute or so I normally acclimate and it's OK, but I could definitely see lag being a problem in Axelay (if we ever get it).

I've moaned about this before, but my big problem with NSO are the controls for N64 games. Some are worse than others, but games like Ocarina of Time are just horrid where the right analogue stick is used to simulate the c-buttons. It's OK in some cases, but things like the frog mini game is virtually impossible.

Not only do the control positions no longer match the layout of the frogs on screen, but even slightly pushing the right stick too close to another axis can result in the game thinking you pushed the wrong c-button thus failing the mini-game. It really is quite horrid and probably makes the N64 look a lot worse to people than it really is.

@KingMike “still finished enough to meet TecToy's quality standards”

🤣 I really need try that version myself to investigate the quality on offer now.

If we could just get a sequel to Devastation... Platinum doing a G1 Transformers game was basically my dream game!

Even though 3D polygons are objectively better, I still love the look of Super Scaler games. They still feel like some sort of exotic future tech, probably because the home consoles never really got any Super Scaler games (outside of a few on the 32X and Saturn) so it has always felt like a technology of the arcade that never made it into the home.

Ooh nice, I wish they'd made the transparent special edition that they made last year available worldwide. Still, I have a black OLED model now so I probably won't be upgrading (I do need more storage though, my 512GB SSD is full and so is my 1TB Micro SD! 😆)

This is quite encouraging, it sounds like it basically is an overclocked SuperFX with access to more ROM space. I was concerned they might go the route of Doom on the Mega EverDrive and just have the FPGA run the game with the SNES just being a dumb passthrough.

It will be cool to see if things like StarFox and Stunt Race can be upgraded to be smoother, I’ve played them with an overclocked SuperFX and the problem is they also run faster, which isn’t ideal.

@-wc- You're welcome! 😉 I have plenty of regrets myself about things I gave away years ago that I wish I'd kept!

@obijuankanoobie I got a 32X a few years back because my brother had one back in the day and I enjoyed Virtua Racing and Star Wars Arcade. It was quite impressive when StarFox was the best 3D I'd seen! 😅

It's not an essential bit of kit at all but it's unbelievable how the prices for them have skyrocketed lately. I remember when you couldn't give them away on eBay but nowadays you'd be lucky to get one for under £250.

I'm sure we've all been there. You load up a Dreamcast game and then have to keep swapping VMUs into slot 1 because that game only checks slot 1 and you can't remember which VMU has your save game on. 😅

I've no idea where my old PSPs are in the garage, I use a PSP Go as my daily driver and so far, the battery seems OK. Hopefully it doesn't expand as there's no easy hatch on the back like on the larger models!

😂 If you’d asked me to guess, I’d have assumed the Space Invaders cab in Fools and Horses was the most seen game!

That’s a six button cab in the caff too, so it probably had some version of SFII in it at some point.

No lies detected! The Dreamcast really was my favourite console of that generation by far.

I recently retired my HDMI modded N64 and went back to an RGB modded one to use on a CRT. It looks so much better over a CRT, there really is no comparison.

I’d consider one of these as a spare if my N64 ever dies but knowing Analogue they won’t make enough and then they’ll dole out limited amounts of new colours which will also sell out immediately. When they stop doing that I’ll buy from them again.

I’d love to see those missing enemies back-ported into Doom 64 itself on the N64!

https://imgur.com/Oj9Thtm

It doesn't look like that for me when using composite, but I have cheated slightly as I don't have composite cables for the Megadrive. 😉

It's a good idea, definitely better than carting around those bulky controllers that fit round the ends of your phone. I think if it was made from stronger plastics and not 3D printed it would be better.

I would also prefer something that just has all the controls on-screen at once, rather than needing to swap to different layouts for different consoles.

I love Tekken 3, Namco managed to squeeze a huge amount into the regular PS1 compared to the upgraded PS1 hardware they used in the arcade version. I still enjoy playing it today.

The one weak spot of Tekken 3 was the Tekken Force mode, it just wasn’t very good. So Michael Murray citing that as the thing he’d want to play from Tekken 3 doesn’t inspire much confidence in his ideas of what makes a good Tekken game.

It sort of reminds me of Jim Ryan’s infamous “why would anybody play this?” quote.

There's some cool scaling effects in that footage. I'm guessing it's not real scaling but the sprites have been pre-rendered at each scale size and stored on the cart because space won't be an issue like it would have been back in the day.

I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about Freakzone Games’ pixel art that makes them instantly recognisable. You can tell it’s the same people who did Manos and AVGN. I’ve never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show but I’m definitely interested in playing this.

@avcrypt lol, that's going to blow up old consoles with tired capacitors. 😆 Are there any bandwidth issues with multiple enhancement chips?

@Poodlestargenerica Dominator is actually my favourite I think. While it does tend towards the brown/bloom look of the era, I really enjoyed the way you could recharge your nitrous bar while using it. It was possible (but not very easy) to boost for an entire race as long as you kept taking risks to recharge the nitrous.

I think it tends to get overlooked because it doesn't have a crash mode and it was released after the 360 launched so people had moved on by then.

@HoyeBoye I think Drainus falls under the narrative non-bullet-hell shmup category too. It's definitely worth a go if you haven't seen it already.

From watching the trailer, Visegunne looks really good. I'll definitely be adding it to my wishlist.

That's weird, doing SuperFX AND MSU-1 at the same time? I always thought you could only have one enhancement chip per game, and I think on the SD2SNES it's actually a memory limitation that you can't do both. Maybe it will be an FXPAK Pro only feature? If you can use as many enhancements chips as you like, why not throw an SA-1 in there too to speed up processing! 😂

I own the arcade machine so technically I don’t need this, but the gun does intrigue me. The OG light gun worked by drawing a fully white frame when the trigger is pulled and because it’s scanning the screen at such a high rate it can tell where it’s pointing.

This AI gun could look for a 16:9 rectangle with a bright white 4:3 square, but there’s the issue of input lag, the gun would see the white frame several frames after the game has processed the collision. So maybe the AI just recognises TVs and infers where you’re aiming based on that?

@HoyeBoye Could be! 😂 I do agree that adding Pi to the name definitely implies a much more affordable solution compared to other FPGAs so there's definitely a benefit there.

I'm confused by the name. It says "Pi" which suggests it's using a Raspberry Pi but as far as I can tell it's entirely FPGA based. It seems odd to pick a name that suggests it's yet another Pi based emulation system and not an FPGA when that's the key selling point. 😵‍💫