Damo

@ChromaticDracula Glad you like it! The design work is all @antdickens, I can't take credit for that

@GrailUK Warsong / Langrisser is one of my all-time favourite video games. I adore it, so was very pleased to see it get included here!

@mus422 I'd imagine so, yeah. And Tempest 2000 is the best game on the system, BTW

@CrispNCrunch @Hikingguy My verdict on Gain Ground is certainly a matter of personal taste and I know it has its fans, but I'm not one of them

I guess a kinder way of addressing is would be to say that there are better games that could have been included over Gain Ground

@Alexface I don't think it will ever be possible to get this working on the MD... despite the title, I don't think it runs on 16-bit hardware. I think that's just to indicate that it's been 'updated' compared to the GG version.

@Hordak None of these openFPGA cores require original media.

@Hikingguy Vay is bloody fantastic, I picked it up for practically nothing in the early 90s and loved every second!

@Kot_Box Thanks! It was fun to write. I live locally and often pass the old offices. I thought once and for all it was time to really dig into their history!

@Bunkerneath This is a press sample of the retail edition, which won't be available to the public until after the KS edition has shipped.

@Gerald Yep, Polymega supports RAM cart games. Load times feel about the same to me, but they might be quicker with Saturn. With NGCD games, load times are removed completely!

@BulkSlash Yeah! I wonder if that is because the cart port is called upon during gameplay, for saves / RAM / ROM etc?

@belmont To the best of my knowledge, you can only use that method to boot CDRs. I might be wrong, though!

@Herna Something had to give, otherwise we'd never have finished the list

@BionicDodo Yup, we've sourced them a few times now. Great site!

@Kosmikat I vaguely recall seeing it in the same cabinet you mention when I visited Rare to cover the development of Natal / Kinect for GamesTM magazine many years ago, and while I took a bunch of photos I didn't, for some reason, take a photo of the Playboy! I actually got to the point of imagining I'd seen it, but it's nice to have it confirmed 100% that it was indeed there!

Happy birthday, Street Fighter!

@Tasuki Fixed!

@BulkSlash Yep, it has gyro

@BJQ1972 Apologies, this wasn't really clear enough. The Liquid Storm power bank I used supplies 5V, but it made no noticeable difference to the lag, at least as far as I could see. Other people have reported the same online.

Yes please! I've never been brave enough to own one of these, so a Mini version would be most welcome.

@Axelay71 It certainly was an amazing time to be a gamer! Both Sega and Nintendo offered unique experiences which made both machines essential; we'll never see a period in gaming like it again.

@GravyThief Thanks!

@mandlecreed @Guitar_bard @BloodNinja Thanks for the kind words, everyone!

@BloodNinja Thanks, it did take a while... and picking the ranking was hard!

@Jackpaza0508 You're most welcome

@ChauceyWillard I hate to use Wikipedia as a source, but here's how it sums up Portable Ops' place in the official timeline:

"This would change when Kojima started the development of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (or MGSPW), a later action-based entry also released on the PSP. Unlike MPO, MGSPW was directed and written by Kojima, much like the numbered console entries of the series. Set four years after the events of MPO, MGSPW would be written as a direct sequel to MGS3 and the events of MPO are only given one brief direct mention by one character. Kojima describes MGSPW as a true mainline installment in the series, contrasting it with MPO and the Acid series (which he regards as spinoffs). The official timelines and retrospectives published by Kojima Productions since then tend to omit MPO as a canonical entry, with the 25th Anniversary page going as far as to describe MGSPW as the "first game in the canonical Metal Gear Saga released for the PlayStation Portable platform", while the summary of MGSPW on the main page describing Metal Gear ZEKE as the "world's first Metal Gear." Kojima would later clarify his stance on MPO, saying that he views the series' canon from an authoritative status, setting apart the Metal Gear games that he personally worked on (which carry the "A Hideo Kojima Game" byline) from the games that he only worked on as a producer or didn't have a direct involvement in its development."

@djsev2000 Polymega units are shipping, though?

@PcTV "Fluff piece"? The title of the interview in question literally casts doubt on the idea of the machine ever being released, and, as I said, we've ran other Amico stories which have been very skeptical (the second ever Amico story, for example).

Giving Tommy the chance to answer questions is not positive PR. We didn't say those words, he did.

@SwitchForce Literally the second piece the site ran on the Amico said the games looked bad.

@Solomon_Rambling I just realised I didn't need to reply because you took the words right out of my mouth.

@PcTV Lots of news stories about things we haven't actually played yet (games, hardware) will be based on PR material, because that's all we'll have been given at that point. We report in the same way on many other things (Nintendo games included) based on PR, so why not say the same thing about that, too?

@PcTV That's just one story we ran, here are some others:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/03/new_game_footage_suggests_the_intellivision_amico_will_struggle_to_pull_families_away_from_switch
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/08/intellivisions_wii-like_amico_console_gets_delayed_for_a_third_time
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/02/tommy-tallarico-has-stepped-down-as-ceo-of-intellivision
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/02/intellivision-admits-its-wii-like-amico-console-may-never-see-release

@PcTV Reporting on something isn't "supporting" it. That's like claiming that news outlets support murder because they report on it.

@syrupdash Because you'd be able to digitise your collection. You'd only need to hook the DC up once to download all of your games to the Polymega.

@NotSoCryptic It's funny you should say that because the recessed screen on this thing reminds me 100% of the Game.com

@NotSoCryptic Most of these emulation devices don't have retro-themed case designs. This looks like something Tiger would have put out in the late '90s; cheap, colourful and aimed at kids.

@KoopaTheGamer Thanks for pointing out the obvious, you shouldn't have to do that - but we appreciate it all the same

@abdias We happen to give Polymega a lot of coverage because it's an amazing product which currently does something that no other device on the market can do - play original media. We love covering these kind of systems (check out our coverage of the Evercade, Anbernic handhelds, Retroid 2, etc) but the Polymega really is unique in that it can play original games, has its own internal database of game info AND is expandable.

We've covered plenty of other emulation devices in the past, not just Polymega. We cover all of the Analogue devices, for example. We cover Nintendo systems an awful lot, too, so does that not set your alarm bells ringing as well?

@Specter_of-the_OLED FPGA support would mean an even more expensive machine and no PSX and Saturn support at launch - and no N64 support, either. FPGA isn't the magic bullet you think it is.

@Mattock1987 It can, but they don't run that well.

@Malanta7 I imagine that's the cost of components going up?

@farrgazer Fixed!

@InkIdols I think keeping silent and allowing people to make out we were 100% in on this all along is much worse, if I'm honest.

@doctorhino "I never said it had to be money"

What you said was:

"I also don't trust anything this site does anymore as they hide advertising as articles. Damien did the same thing with the polymega but at least that is real."

"Advertising" means money.

I honestly can't believe we have to keep saying this as journalists, but we don't get paid off to write articles. We cover things we think are interesting. The Polymega certainly falls into that category - it's my dream machine and the positive feedback from other customers since it launched backs up what I said about the beta unit a few years back.

In the case of the Amico, I also found it an interesting system as I A) have young kids and B) love retro, so it was reasonable to assume our readers would want to hear about it, too. It's a shame that it may never see release because new hardware is almost always a positive thing for the industry; it gives developers and the general public more options.

The irony of being called 'shills' in this case is that we didn't actually give any positive coverage for the machine while its original funding drive was active - the only news article we did during that period was this one:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/03/new_game_footage_suggests_the_intellivision_amico_will_struggle_to_pull_families_away_from_switch

@doctorhino See my comment above. We cover all kinds of games and hardware on this site; to assume money has changed hands when we write about something more than once is rather naïve.

@nessisonett With all due respect, how do you figure that one? Our initial news coverage was "these games look pretty bad" and even the interview with Tommy had the headline "Will Intellivision get its chance?" Hardly what you'd call positive promotion.

This is hardly glowing coverage:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/03/new_game_footage_suggests_the_intellivision_amico_will_struggle_to_pull_families_away_from_switch

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/07/feature_intellivisions_tommy_tallarico_wants_to_follow_in_nintendos_footsteps_but_will_he_get_his_chance

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/02/tommy-tallarico-has-stepped-down-as-ceo-of-intellivision

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/02/intellivision-admits-its-wii-like-amico-console-may-never-see-release

If negative articles like these now constitute "shilling" then I think we may need to reassess the meaning of the term 😂

@Darthroseman Thanks for the kind words!

@RR529 Yup.

@EmmatheBest This isn't playing GB games. It's a filter that makes other games look like Game Boy games.

@HamatoYoshi It's spot-on - you can see Saturn emulation in action in our video.