Llama soft looks fun; far less excited for those Activision titles myself (also the Activision appears to have the laziest boxart they’ve had thus far, a rainbow strip and a grid of game pics? So bland!)
Blaze/Funstock really seem to be getting put through the wringer with these unstable tarrif decisions. Hopefully they can work something out and have enough customers outside the US to keep the company safe if sales take an unintended hit over the pond.
@romanista quick question for you (or Damien); what's the save/pause situation? I heard it doesn't have save states (which makes sense for the kind of game it is), is there a way to "stop" a run to come back to it later; or is it a case of you have to play to the end of the dungeon/character death each time you boot it up from the start?
This looks fun, will arrange a trip! Do like articles like this as I just wouldn't have heard about it any other way (and even if Youtube showed me that channel I almost certainly would have skipped it!)
Apologies if I’m wrong, but could these devices use a fork like LineageOS/e-OS and still use the same emulators? I know in the phone market those forks will lose key apps that need this Google’s say-so (like WhatsApp); but that’s less of an issue for an emulator device?
Or maybe they will move to using Linux, Raspberry Pi RetroPue setups and Evercade use Linux, seems to have plenty of nicely working emulators.
@Sketcz Agreed; NIghtdive do such a fantasic job with remasters! A bit different as it's not 3D-era, western games like Aspyr/Nightdive; but M2 are typically good with Sega stuff. I've heard good stuff on Digital Eclipse more documentary-meets-remaster work too (Worms/Jeff Minter) but I've not had the chance to try those yet.
Aspyr are just barely serviceable at their best, and truly rubbish at their worst. I wish rights owners would stop using them (particularly Lucasarts with Star Wars games!)
Always Aspyr with the low-effort work on a remaster. I'm always in dread when a remaster is announced that they might be working on it (and delighted when it's Nightdive instead!)
Way late to the party, but got one from Argos at the weekend. Had a great time playing around with it, not really nostalgic for the games but still enjoyed them. The hardware itself is really nice! Feels like it needs some Ultimate games on there, so will get those on a USB!
So glad this is coming to NSO. It's one of those GC games I never got back in the day, and now it's insanely expensive. For all their flaws (which are often minor); the big upside of these services is allowing people to experience these older games, possibly with the correct controller (if they have the NSO controller for that machine!)
@Damo The AI bubble bursting I'm looking forward to in one way (less AI guff in my face at every turn I'm hoping! I don't need AI to order a takeaway, write a message to a friend on WhatsApp or draw a picture for fun); but I'm also terrified that the financial markets will crash and it will hurt people in more precarious positions like these crashes tend too.
"I am allowing that part of my brain to atrophy, to waste away. It's like a muscle, and if we don't exercise it, we stand to lose its power." : this really stood out to me (I also I saw something similar-ish in an article by Marcus Hutchins on Malweartech). I think it puts into words why I feel so off about using AI to write/draw/plan anything for me. I don't want my own written "voice", my drawing creativity, or my ideas to become enslaved to a £9.99 per month Google/MS/OpenAI machine. Even if it is better than me at those things!
"[AI] doesn't ask for a pay raise."; said by someone who doesn't look at the cost of subscriptions from big tech corps, it'd be getting a "pay rise" from our pockets every year to ensure number-goes-up if we decide to bake into our lives how they want!
I'm with you on this. Not saying AI should all go in the bin, but I want to play games for fun; I want to experience people's art and creativity; free of the AI wave that is crashing over almost every corner of my life at the moment. If I can't do that, I will tune out and find my enjoyment elsewhere.
I had seen rumours (maybe on a TE comment thread?) that there was something dodgy about Kai Software when Metal Dragon and Life on Mars came out. I held off buying it, but typically I jump on new indie games on Evercade.
I'm torn on how bad this is from the comments in this thread, but I think I will hold off as it feels off. The line between copy and inspired-by is hard to define, but tracing over exactly to the pixel feels too close to the bone? I've no idea of the legal lines however (and if Blaze might be upset by this as the publisher of a cart)
Came to this off the Evercade cart announcment (must have missed the series when it came out). Is so, so interesting reading about the details of these building and the moments the staff remember (jokes, kindness, parking issues...). I love the human stories behind these games that honestly shaped my life as child of the 80s/90s.
I'm from the area, and it amazes me all this amazing gaming output is from our sleepy area of the country; legends like the Mayles brothers coming from Coalville and it all being in little Ashby! Still seems a bit surreal, but they obviously hit on something that works! (and Playtonic too aren't too far out!)
It is a bit bittersweet reading this in 2025. Microsoft just cancelled Everwild and it sounds like Rare (like most MS studios) is in the process of getting gutted out. Hopefully they brush off and release more amazing games (or the same people at Playtonic can keep up their stint!)
That was frustrating, and the presenters were annoyingly "BBC" and out of their depths.
However overall it was postive I think!
Nick Poole was ok, and the piece as a whole was nice, very surface level of course, not much of interest to a reader of this site. But it did a decent job. The local report it was built off (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy48w4xxg2jo) was better IMO; and it's nice to see the apparently booming popularity of retro gaming covered in the media at least, even if with a very light touch on detail.
It got a good 10 mins on Breakfast without an "inciting" story in the news, with the piece been filmed outside of London, and with a decent guest; which i think is A Good Thing(tm) overall!
Unless I deeply misunderstood the article, I’m not sure what the anger is about. It’s emulating a SuperFX chip, the Pi 2350, while adding graphical performance beyond what the SuperFX was capable of, is clearly not simply “running the game”; it’s still running on a SNES. Not like you could just stuff a Doom 3 ROM on it!
I think it’s really impressive work. And Bitmap Bureau guys doing some amazing work with a low cost off the shelf microchip! Props to them!
It's a nice idea and a lovely looking device, but like his Iris Trike I think the cost is just too high. £125 is well outside impluse buy territory, I think the Super Pocket (at £49.99 with Capcom/NEOGEO etc games included) would be much better positioned for the kind of sale he is chasing; and even that doesn't have the production capacity to sit in all the Smiths (soon to be Jones?) for impulse buys?
I might get one, I'm a sucker of nice units like this, and I love Pis of any stripe! But I can't see this hitting mega volumes at that cost-to-performance.
I’m so glad more people get to see how excellent Hogs of War is! It was a slightly lost gem even in its time, beloved by reviewers in the UK at least (I think US reviewers were less keen) but didn’t set the world alight sales wise. I’m excited to play it again after all these years (gotta wait, it’s delayed with the NeoGeo Super Pocket!)
Not too bad, but I am a little sad that my Gremlin 2 cart will be a bit delayed too (as I got them in the same order) as I have a trip coming up I was hoping to play some serious Hogs of War on the plane!
Urgh, more gross AI behaviour. Bulterian Jihad is needed! (Although in seriousness the issue is the firms behaviour around copyright more than the tech itself)
Personally this is what I consider the gold-standard 3D platformer on PlayStation, above Croc, Crash and Spyro even. A wonderfully crafted and inventive game.
I don’t expect it, but my dream GigaCart would be the PS1 Resi 1,2,3 in a collection! More Sensible/Codemasters/Dizzy games would be nice, but those lovely new US owners at EA seem to have put a stop to that sort of fun.
More realistically, probably some ZX Spectrum titles on another home computer cart feels like it will arrive soon? I feel like some big PS1 games might come as a headline act…but where do you go after Tomb Raider? (That they can actually licence that is!)
Looks great! There is a modern 40K Ork vehicle combat game called “Speed Freeks” that is in early access (not had a change to play it myself, but apparently is good!). However I think I’d quite like playing this one if it ever leaked out!
Listened to a podcast with Jon Hare recently, and he came across well. Seems to understand that it'll be likely impossible to top Sensible Soccer and has come to terms with that! I've tried Sociable briefly, but it doesn't match up to booting up Sensible on the Evercade. Hope it does well though!
It doesn't seem to have a unique selling point at all! "The unique selling point of Recade is that it will allow you to legally play '70s, '80s and '90s coin-op titles either locally or online, benefitting from features such as screen filters, voice chat, cloud saves and more. The idea is to sell the base unit cheaply and then support the platform's growth with a traditional subscription-based business model."
Surely Antstream already does this? And Evercade if you don't want to follow a subsciption model? They don't have any unique licences, and both AntStream and Evercade have way more beyond arcade and a good deep library.
I’m getting this just for Hogs of War, love that game! Be nice to play 3D Worms before Worms 3D, and to hear Rik Mayall’s great voice work on it again too.
An excellent read, well written and researched! This kind of article is solving the issue somewhat in itself, getting the varied viewpoints of different markets and describing how they interplay.
I felt this bit was important: "(it's worth noting, too, that everyone is guilty of this to some degree; how many British gamers, for example, are aware of video game history in France, Spain, Germany, South Africa, Hong Kong or Brazil? We all do it!)."
I agree, I as a Brit am very guilty of mostly knowing about my nation, the USA and Japan. I really don't know about even France or Germany when it comes to gaming history. However I would say the big issue that causes so much consternation is when US-centric journalists presume that all those other markets were either exactly like the US no matter what locals say; or non-US markets/cultures are simply of no value to history and should be forgotten ASAP. That's the attitude Grubb (and others) have show regarding gaming history that gets people's goat up, in my opinion. Rather than saying "I don't really know" and letting others deal with it, or finding out something new, it's attacked as "a scene" or "of no importance".
I swear we did this when we were kids playing splitscreen (dying same time and drawing 1st), but hearing how unlikely it is, now I think it's probably a Mandela Effect!
@Mini8401 read the entire comment for pity’s sake. I pulled out some random numbers quickly (something Grubb who make the original WRONG claim didn’t do). There were many more models of micros than consoles, the total sales in the UK per head of population were easily comparable to consoles per capita in the US in the 80s; and they were used almost exclusively for games.
It’s just a damn fact; there wasn’t a gaming crash in the UK (and much of Europe) as micro computers were the main way people played games. It’s fact, we all lived through it and it’s well documented. Why do Americans keep making claims that they cannot back up as thy weren’t in the UK or even around at the time!? It’s infuriating.
@tektite_captain They were popular in the UK, it’s not an impression. Many firms and full print magazines will full staff existed around them. That is literally the point, it WAS a big deal over here. It wasn’t in the US. Different places, different histories.
I’m not going to debate it any more in bad faith, those numbers easily rival the NES in the US (30 mil over 6 years), particularly per head of pop. You asked for numbers, I gave some, I’d say the onus is on the “journalist” making the claim in the first place to provide numbers, not those disagreeing in comments.
@tektite_captain they weren’t comparatively small in Europe though; that’s the point, they sold great guns during the crash in the US! Quick figure I got on my phone: The ZX Spectrum alone sold over 5 million units, around 2/3 of the 17 million C64 were sold in Europe, 1.5 million BBC Micros, 3 million Amstrad CPC, as well as countless other models from those companies (smaller time between models than consoles, for example over 1.5 million ZX81s before Spectrum), and many other firms (Dragon32, Apple 2, IBM…).
He’s wrong to dismiss it as nothing just because it was nothing much in the US. The games market on them were huge, loads of big firms came out of that era in the UK alone (Rare, DMA/Rockstar, Codemasters, ARM…) as it was a huge and important part of gaming history outside the USA (where the micro didn’t take off compared to consoles). It’s literally the point of the entire article.
@tektite_captain I don’t think that’s fair. It’s not the thrust at all. It’s more, stop telling us our history didn’t happen. Grubb does the same as many “historians” and claims (wrongly) only American history happened and the rest of the world was so insignificant we should stop pretending anything happened there. It’s ridiculous and clearly wrong. The home computer scene was huge and important, the effects are still felt today.
I mean it kind of sums up the amount of though the heads of these mega corps put in. Don’t know the studio name, don’t know the people,place or games; but their failure after 1 game sold badly was all down to them and nothing to do with higher up management/marketing etc from us. Why let that studio learn from that mistake, throw that experience and the many successes before out the door. And they’ll then wonder outloud how Nintendo does so well when it doesn’t fire staff at the first sign of poor sales.
I think most firms like Activision succeed despite the “Bobby Koticks” of this world, and not because of them. In charge of Nintendo he would have fired Miyamoto after Wii Music and the hardware team after the GameCube.
All the signs point to an abandoning of mini-consoles/old games on eShops and moving to subscription service. Could be good if they get M2 on it, but they have to offer a really good service to be noticeable at the scale I assume Sega wants.
Bit cynical of him, given they have milked there Mega Drive years more than anyone else I can think of! I never minded, it was a bit much but you couldn’t fail to find ways to play Sonic 1 and 2!
I’m a bit sad as they used to work with Blaze on (quite rubbish) TV-plug-in-consoles before the (quite good) Mega Drive minis, so I was hoping they might do some Evercade carts! Seem unlikely now.
Overreaction. It’s there but “horrible” or “unplayable” are so over the top.
Some game have issues, but I’d say they are mostly on the N64, and they are still mostly playable just slightly inferior. But the average player isn’t going to bother buying a Tritron and OG hardware just to dabble with an old game, when he can do it with 2 clicks and a bit of lag they probably won’t notice (and save states/rewind etc)
I’m hopeful that a visible backlash against AI slop like this will be partly self-regulating: in that a game made without it will be a selling point (“hand-crafted” if you will). I don’t know where regulation can/will sit in future, but recent examples have shown that ideas pushed by tech interests can be pushed back into a niche with this kind of coverage (remember how much stuff was needlessly Crypto related a couple of years ago?), and that makes emotive articles like this worthwhile I feel. Keep some semblance of consumer input and choice.
Saw one on display in a shop window in Hinckley when I went to see the Brett Jones exhibit and didn’t realise it wasn’t out yet or in such demand! Should have swooped on it!
I don’t have many memories of the Spectrum, it was before my time really, but it seems likes a really good unit for those that have nostalgia for it!
@RootsGenoa scratch that, found it on a YouTube descriptions, it’s “Chao Games Show” (Expo). It’s a virtual event held by a website called “Hedgehog Institute” to show off sonic related fan games.
Comments 145
Re: Evercade's Next Two Carts Feature Activision And Llamasoft, And You Can Pre-Order Them Now
Llama soft looks fun; far less excited for those Activision titles myself (also the Activision appears to have the laziest boxart they’ve had thus far, a rainbow strip and a grid of game pics? So bland!)
Re: Evercade Seller Funstock Freezes US Orders Until Further Notice
Blaze/Funstock really seem to be getting put through the wringer with these unstable tarrif decisions. Hopefully they can work something out and have enough customers outside the US to keep the company safe if sales take an unintended hit over the pond.
Re: Review: Roguecraft DX (Evercade) - The Ultimate Version Of The Award-Winning Amiga Roguelike
@romanista quick question for you (or Damien); what's the save/pause situation? I heard it doesn't have save states (which makes sense for the kind of game it is), is there a way to "stop" a run to come back to it later; or is it a case of you have to play to the end of the dungeon/character death each time you boot it up from the start?
Re: "We Think We've Found The UK's Best Arcade"
This looks fun, will arrange a trip! Do like articles like this as I just wouldn't have heard about it any other way (and even if Youtube showed me that channel I almost certainly would have skipped it!)
Re: Google Could Be Killing Android Emulation With Its New Policy Update
Typically rubbish decision from Google.
Apologies if I’m wrong, but could these devices use a fork like LineageOS/e-OS and still use the same emulators? I know in the phone market those forks will lose key apps that need this Google’s say-so (like WhatsApp); but that’s less of an issue for an emulator device?
Or maybe they will move to using Linux, Raspberry Pi RetroPue setups and Evercade use Linux, seems to have plenty of nicely working emulators.
Re: Review: Roguecraft DX (Evercade) - The Ultimate Version Of The Award-Winning Amiga Roguelike
Excited for this, love the support for new indie titles on Evercade, really enhances the consoles value I feel. It looks lovely too graphically!
I enjoyed Full Void a lot; and this seems to have a similar downside (on the short side), but I imagine less so than Full Void?
Re: OutRun Comes To The Game Boy Color Thanks To This Unofficial Port
This look incredible!
@Lup The Switch version (by M2) is really, really good!
Re: "Not Cool. Not Classy" - Tomb Raider Co-Creator Responds To Remaster AI Accusations
@Sketcz Agreed; NIghtdive do such a fantasic job with remasters! A bit different as it's not 3D-era, western games like Aspyr/Nightdive; but M2 are typically good with Sega stuff. I've heard good stuff on Digital Eclipse more documentary-meets-remaster work too (Worms/Jeff Minter) but I've not had the chance to try those yet.
Aspyr are just barely serviceable at their best, and truly rubbish at their worst. I wish rights owners would stop using them (particularly Lucasarts with Star Wars games!)
Re: "Not Cool. Not Classy" - Tomb Raider Co-Creator Responds To Remaster AI Accusations
Always Aspyr with the low-effort work on a remaster. I'm always in dread when a remaster is announced that they might be working on it (and delighted when it's Nightdive instead!)
Re: Review: The Spectrum - Does Sir Clive Sinclair's Legacy Proud
Way late to the party, but got one from Argos at the weekend. Had a great time playing around with it, not really nostalgic for the games but still enjoyed them. The hardware itself is really nice! Feels like it needs some Ultimate games on there, so will get those on a USB!
Re: The Making Of: Chibi-Robo - How Miyamoto Saved A Cult Hit From The Scrapheap
So glad this is coming to NSO. It's one of those GC games I never got back in the day, and now it's insanely expensive. For all their flaws (which are often minor); the big upside of these services is allowing people to experience these older games, possibly with the correct controller (if they have the NSO controller for that machine!)
Re: Talking Point: A Curious Contradiction At The Core Of "New" Commodore Makes Me Uncomfortable
@Damo The AI bubble bursting I'm looking forward to in one way (less AI guff in my face at every turn I'm hoping! I don't need AI to order a takeaway, write a message to a friend on WhatsApp or draw a picture for fun); but I'm also terrified that the financial markets will crash and it will hurt people in more precarious positions like these crashes tend too.
"I am allowing that part of my brain to atrophy, to waste away. It's like a muscle, and if we don't exercise it, we stand to lose its power." : this really stood out to me (I also I saw something similar-ish in an article by Marcus Hutchins on Malweartech). I think it puts into words why I feel so off about using AI to write/draw/plan anything for me. I don't want my own written "voice", my drawing creativity, or my ideas to become enslaved to a £9.99 per month Google/MS/OpenAI machine. Even if it is better than me at those things!
Re: Talking Point: A Curious Contradiction At The Core Of "New" Commodore Makes Me Uncomfortable
"[AI] doesn't ask for a pay raise."; said by someone who doesn't look at the cost of subscriptions from big tech corps, it'd be getting a "pay rise" from our pockets every year to ensure number-goes-up if we decide to bake into our lives how they want!
I'm with you on this. Not saying AI should all go in the bin, but I want to play games for fun; I want to experience people's art and creativity; free of the AI wave that is crashing over almost every corner of my life at the moment. If I can't do that, I will tune out and find my enjoyment elsewhere.
Re: Developer Of New €60 Mega Drive / Genesis Game Accused Of Using Stolen Artwork
I had seen rumours (maybe on a TE comment thread?) that there was something dodgy about Kai Software when Metal Dragon and Life on Mars came out. I held off buying it, but typically I jump on new indie games on Evercade.
I'm torn on how bad this is from the comments in this thread, but I think I will hold off as it feels off. The line between copy and inspired-by is hard to define, but tracing over exactly to the pixel feels too close to the bone? I've no idea of the legal lines however (and if Blaze might be upset by this as the publisher of a cart)
Re: "I've Put My Entire Heart & Soul Into Creating This Tribute To The Past" - UK Arcade Blast From The Past Set To Close
What a shame. Glad the article is ahead of the closure at least, if I can find the time before then I may pop down!
Re: Sacred Spaces: Rare's Manor Farm HQ - Nintendo's '90s Hit Factory
Came to this off the Evercade cart announcment (must have missed the series when it came out).
Is so, so interesting reading about the details of these building and the moments the staff remember (jokes, kindness, parking issues...). I love the human stories behind these games that honestly shaped my life as child of the 80s/90s.
I'm from the area, and it amazes me all this amazing gaming output is from our sleepy area of the country; legends like the Mayles brothers coming from Coalville and it all being in little Ashby! Still seems a bit surreal, but they obviously hit on something that works! (and Playtonic too aren't too far out!)
It is a bit bittersweet reading this in 2025. Microsoft just cancelled Everwild and it sounds like Rare (like most MS studios) is in the process of getting gutted out. Hopefully they brush off and release more amazing games (or the same people at Playtonic can keep up their stint!)
Re: Rare And The ZX Spectrum Are Coming To Evercade
A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one!
Blaze have really hit it out of the park with evercade partnerships lately.
Re: BBC Recently Covered The Rise Of Retro Gaming - See If You Can Spot The Problem
That was frustrating, and the presenters were annoyingly "BBC" and out of their depths.
However overall it was postive I think!
Nick Poole was ok, and the piece as a whole was nice, very surface level of course, not much of interest to a reader of this site. But it did a decent job. The local report it was built off (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy48w4xxg2jo) was better IMO; and it's nice to see the apparently booming popularity of retro gaming covered in the media at least, even if with a very light touch on detail.
It got a good 10 mins on Breakfast without an "inciting" story in the news, with the piece been filmed outside of London, and with a decent guest; which i think is A Good Thing(tm) overall!
Re: Developer Of SNES DOOM Defends The Tech Behind Limited Run's 2025 Update
Unless I deeply misunderstood the article, I’m not sure what the anger is about. It’s emulating a SuperFX chip, the Pi 2350, while adding graphical performance beyond what the SuperFX was capable of, is clearly not simply “running the game”; it’s still running on a SNES. Not like you could just stuff a Doom 3 ROM on it!
I think it’s really impressive work. And Bitmap Bureau guys doing some amazing work with a low cost off the shelf microchip! Props to them!
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair's Nephew Has Created A Gift Card-Sized Gaming System
It's a nice idea and a lovely looking device, but like his Iris Trike I think the cost is just too high. £125 is well outside impluse buy territory, I think the Super Pocket (at £49.99 with Capcom/NEOGEO etc games included) would be much better positioned for the kind of sale he is chasing; and even that doesn't have the production capacity to sit in all the Smiths (soon to be Jones?) for impulse buys?
I might get one, I'm a sucker of nice units like this, and I love Pis of any stripe! But I can't see this hitting mega volumes at that cost-to-performance.
Re: Review: Gremlin Collection 2 (Evercade) - We Wanna Get Loaded And Have A Good Time
I’m so glad more people get to see how excellent Hogs of War is! It was a slightly lost gem even in its time, beloved by reviewers in the UK at least (I think US reviewers were less keen) but didn’t set the world alight sales wise.
I’m excited to play it again after all these years (gotta wait, it’s delayed with the NeoGeo Super Pocket!)
Re: Neo Geo And Data East Super Pocket Handhelds Hit With Small Delay
Not too bad, but I am a little sad that my Gremlin 2 cart will be a bit delayed too (as I got them in the same order) as I have a trip coming up I was hoping to play some serious Hogs of War on the plane!
Re: ChatGPT Translated An Article About Space Harrier, Then Suggested "Tailoring" It For Retro Gamer
Urgh, more gross AI behaviour. Bulterian Jihad is needed! (Although in seriousness the issue is the firms behaviour around copyright more than the tech itself)
Re: The Making Of: Ape Escape, Sony's Groundbreaking Platformer That Unlocked The DualShock's Potential
Personally this is what I consider the gold-standard 3D platformer on PlayStation, above Croc, Crash and Spyro even. A wonderfully crafted and inventive game.
Re: Talking Point: What Do You Want To See From Tomorrow's Evercade Showcase?
I don’t expect it, but my dream GigaCart would be the PS1 Resi 1,2,3 in a collection! More Sensible/Codemasters/Dizzy games would be nice, but those lovely new US owners at EA seem to have put a stop to that sort of fun.
More realistically, probably some ZX Spectrum titles on another home computer cart feels like it will arrive soon? I feel like some big PS1 games might come as a headline act…but where do you go after Tomb Raider? (That they can actually licence that is!)
Re: Free Warhammer 40k: Boltgun Spin-Off Pays Tribute To Sega's 'Typing Of The Dead' Series
Looking forward to this immensely!
Re: New Details Emerge For Cancelled Warhammer Racing Game 'Kult Of Speed'
Looks great! There is a modern 40K Ork vehicle combat game called “Speed Freeks” that is in early access (not had a change to play it myself, but apparently is good!). However I think I’d quite like playing this one if it ever leaked out!
Re: Interview: "I'm The Last Person Who Wants To F**k Sensible Soccer Up" - Jon Hare On Sociable Soccer & What's Next
Listened to a podcast with Jon Hare recently, and he came across well. Seems to understand that it'll be likely impossible to top Sensible Soccer and has come to terms with that! I've tried Sociable briefly, but it doesn't match up to booting up Sensible on the Evercade. Hope it does well though!
Re: Recade Wants To Be Netflix For Arcade Games, But It Needs Your Help
It doesn't seem to have a unique selling point at all!
"The unique selling point of Recade is that it will allow you to legally play '70s, '80s and '90s coin-op titles either locally or online, benefitting from features such as screen filters, voice chat, cloud saves and more. The idea is to sell the base unit cheaply and then support the platform's growth with a traditional subscription-based business model."
Surely Antstream already does this?
And Evercade if you don't want to follow a subsciption model?
They don't have any unique licences, and both AntStream and Evercade have way more beyond arcade and a good deep library.
This just seem too late to the party.
Re: Evercade's First Neo Geo Products Are A Handheld And Game Collection Cartridge
No overlap is interesting! I don’t have a Super Pocket, but I’m tempted on this as the games are different to the cart.
Re: Evercade's Gremlin Collection 2 Revives Four PS1 Classics, Including Loaded And Re-Loaded
I’m getting this just for Hogs of War, love that game! Be nice to play 3D Worms before Worms 3D, and to hear Rik Mayall’s great voice work on it again too.
Re: Next Week's Evercade Showcase Will Reveal "Upcoming Neo Geo Products And More"
I'm hoping for a nice mix of retro and quality indie/homebrew titles. Other than a new Super Pocket I'm not sure if new hardware is needed yet?
Re: Nike's Newest Sneaker Pays Tribute To One Of The N64's Finest
Wasn't it DK Mode back in Goldeneye, with elongated arms to go with the big heads?
Re: Looking Beyond America - How Game History Is Connected On A Global Scale
An excellent read, well written and researched! This kind of article is solving the issue somewhat in itself, getting the varied viewpoints of different markets and describing how they interplay.
I felt this bit was important: "(it's worth noting, too, that everyone is guilty of this to some degree; how many British gamers, for example, are aware of video game history in France, Spain, Germany, South Africa, Hong Kong or Brazil? We all do it!)."
I agree, I as a Brit am very guilty of mostly knowing about my nation, the USA and Japan. I really don't know about even France or Germany when it comes to gaming history. However I would say the big issue that causes so much consternation is when US-centric journalists presume that all those other markets were either exactly like the US no matter what locals say; or non-US markets/cultures are simply of no value to history and should be forgotten ASAP. That's the attitude Grubb (and others) have show regarding gaming history that gets people's goat up, in my opinion. Rather than saying "I don't really know" and letting others deal with it, or finding out something new, it's attacked as "a scene" or "of no importance".
Re: Something Just Happened In GoldenEye 007 That Has Never Been Seen Before
I swear we did this when we were kids playing splitscreen (dying same time and drawing 1st), but hearing how unlikely it is, now I think it's probably a Mandela Effect!
Re: "Poorly Analyzed US-Centric Garbage" - Why Do Americans Keep Ignoring European Gaming History?
@Mini8401 read the entire comment for pity’s sake. I pulled out some random numbers quickly (something Grubb who make the original WRONG claim didn’t do). There were many more models of micros than consoles, the total sales in the UK per head of population were easily comparable to consoles per capita in the US in the 80s; and they were used almost exclusively for games.
It’s just a damn fact; there wasn’t a gaming crash in the UK (and much of Europe) as micro computers were the main way people played games. It’s fact, we all lived through it and it’s well documented. Why do Americans keep making claims that they cannot back up as thy weren’t in the UK or even around at the time!? It’s infuriating.
Re: "Poorly Analyzed US-Centric Garbage" - Why Do Americans Keep Ignoring European Gaming History?
@tektite_captain They were popular in the UK, it’s not an impression. Many firms and full print magazines will full staff existed around them. That is literally the point, it WAS a big deal over here. It wasn’t in the US. Different places, different histories.
I’m not going to debate it any more in bad faith, those numbers easily rival the NES in the US (30 mil over 6 years), particularly per head of pop. You asked for numbers, I gave some, I’d say the onus is on the “journalist” making the claim in the first place to provide numbers, not those disagreeing in comments.
Re: "Poorly Analyzed US-Centric Garbage" - Why Do Americans Keep Ignoring European Gaming History?
@tektite_captain they weren’t comparatively small in Europe though; that’s the point, they sold great guns during the crash in the US! Quick figure I got on my phone: The ZX Spectrum alone sold over 5 million units, around 2/3 of the 17 million C64 were sold in Europe, 1.5 million BBC Micros, 3 million Amstrad CPC, as well as countless other models from those companies (smaller time between models than consoles, for example over 1.5 million ZX81s before Spectrum), and many other firms (Dragon32, Apple 2, IBM…).
He’s wrong to dismiss it as nothing just because it was nothing much in the US. The games market on them were huge, loads of big firms came out of that era in the UK alone (Rare, DMA/Rockstar, Codemasters, ARM…) as it was a huge and important part of gaming history outside the USA (where the micro didn’t take off compared to consoles). It’s literally the point of the entire article.
Re: "Poorly Analyzed US-Centric Garbage" - Why Do Americans Keep Ignoring European Gaming History?
@tektite_captain I don’t think that’s fair. It’s not the thrust at all. It’s more, stop telling us our history didn’t happen. Grubb does the same as many “historians” and claims (wrongly) only American history happened and the rest of the world was so insignificant we should stop pretending anything happened there. It’s ridiculous and clearly wrong. The home computer scene was huge and important, the effects are still felt today.
Re: Terminator 2D: No Fate Is "The T2 Game We Should Have Had Back In Our Youth"
Looks good, hope it is! Would love a physical version on Evercade if that’s possible!
Re: Ex-Activision Boss Forgets Name Of "Bad Acquisition" Behind Project Gotham Racing, Blur And Geometry Wars
I mean it kind of sums up the amount of though the heads of these mega corps put in. Don’t know the studio name, don’t know the people,place or games; but their failure after 1 game sold badly was all down to them and nothing to do with higher up management/marketing etc from us. Why let that studio learn from that mistake, throw that experience and the many successes before out the door. And they’ll then wonder outloud how Nintendo does so well when it doesn’t fire staff at the first sign of poor sales.
I think most firms like Activision succeed despite the “Bobby Koticks” of this world, and not because of them. In charge of Nintendo he would have fired Miyamoto after Wii Music and the hardware team after the GameCube.
Re: Blaze Announces Price Increase For New & Existing Evercade Carts
Perfectly fine. Inflation, increased business costs in the UK, and growing ambitions at Blaze (more staff, more expensive licences etc).
They seem to have gotten on top of cart quality as well which is nice. Hoping for some big hitters this year!
Re: Retro Computer Museum Hit By "Devastating" Flood Damage
That is tragic, I’ve not got round to going even though it’s not too far away. Flooding has been bad in the area.
I’ll drop some money to help them, and finger crossed the exhibits aren’t damaged too much.
Hoping to see some positive updates on TE in the future.
Re: Sega's Western CEO Isn't Interested In Saturn And Dreamcast Mini Consoles
All the signs point to an abandoning of mini-consoles/old games on eShops and moving to subscription service. Could be good if they get M2 on it, but they have to offer a really good service to be noticeable at the scale I assume Sega wants.
Bit cynical of him, given they have milked there Mega Drive years more than anyone else I can think of! I never minded, it was a bit much but you couldn’t fail to find ways to play Sonic 1 and 2!
I’m a bit sad as they used to work with Blaze on (quite rubbish) TV-plug-in-consoles before the (quite good) Mega Drive minis, so I was hoping they might do some Evercade carts! Seem unlikely now.
Re: "Absolutely Horrid" - Is Nintendo Switch Online's Emulation Really That Bad?
Overreaction. It’s there but “horrible” or “unplayable” are so over the top.
Some game have issues, but I’d say they are mostly on the N64, and they are still mostly playable just slightly inferior. But the average player isn’t going to bother buying a Tritron and OG hardware just to dabble with an old game, when he can do it with 2 clicks and a bit of lag they probably won’t notice (and save states/rewind etc)
It will never be perfect, but it’s fine.
Re: Accusations Of AI Art Deflate Archer Maclean's DropZone 40th Anniversary Announcement
A lot of comments! And some spirited debate.
I’m hopeful that a visible backlash against AI slop like this will be partly self-regulating: in that a game made without it will be a selling point (“hand-crafted” if you will). I don’t know where regulation can/will sit in future, but recent examples have shown that ideas pushed by tech interests can be pushed back into a niche with this kind of coverage (remember how much stuff was needlessly Crypto related a couple of years ago?), and that makes emotive articles like this worthwhile I feel. Keep some semblance of consumer input and choice.
Re: Review: The Spectrum - Does Sir Clive Sinclair's Legacy Proud
Saw one on display in a shop window in Hinckley when I went to see the Brett Jones exhibit and didn’t realise it wasn’t out yet or in such demand! Should have swooped on it!
I don’t have many memories of the Spectrum, it was before my time really, but it seems likes a really good unit for those that have nostalgia for it!
Re: Two Lost Sega Channel Games Have Been Found And Preserved
Amazing these have been found. And Chessmaster Sega Channel version looks like a solid improvement on the Game Gear one!
Re: The ZX Spectrum Just Got An Amazing New Donkey Kong Port, But Don't Expect It To Be Around Long
Very impressive port, but foolish to charge openly for it. The odds of a takedown massively increase doing that sadly!
Re: 8-Bit Sonic The Hedgehog 2 Is Getting An Impressive Fan-Made Remake
@RootsGenoa scratch that, found it on a YouTube descriptions, it’s “Chao Games Show” (Expo). It’s a virtual event held by a website called “Hedgehog Institute” to show off sonic related fan games.