Martin_H

Looks like my evening is sorted - been looking forward to this for months!

@romanista Yes, but only released in Japan. It is region free though.

@mjparker77 I have it for the XBox 360, courtesy of Play Asia a long time ago, but it's weird that so many Cave games never seem to get released in the West. Even the ones we do get never seem to get a premium treatment from publishers.

I'm also still bitter that the Android ports of DoDonPachi and Espgaluda 2 were released behind a downloader frontend, which eventually stopped working, and was finally delisted entirely.

This reminds me so much of a flight sim we had for the ZX81. I don't recall if it was set at night, but given the machine was only black and white and we only had a black and white TV back then, I don't suppose it mattered!

I had hours of fun attempting - and failing - to land the plane. When you crashed you got a cool screen breaking effect and a "crash report" would display telling you hit the ground at 200 knots!

I'll have to give this one a try.

What strikes me is how we're all connected these days, but are far more isolated. The days when you could talk to staff in shops to ask about games, books, films, albums etc were far superior to today's product reviews (5 Stars! All the wheels fell off, but it came quickly!)

If I had a time machine I'd go back to the 90s in an instant.

If this was $99 I'd be on it, but not at $180. You can forgive a lot of wonkiness at the sub ton price point, but when you're paying the same amount as an actually good handheld from China not so much.

Sounds exciting! I do love a good level editor, my favourite being Duke 3D's.

I wonder what chip they'll go for? Given the inclusion of the Anbernic button suggests this will be Android, it might need something more than an H700. But at less than $100, well who knows?

Flashback on the MD was such a great game, with some completely broken collision detection! I'm sure I nerfed the last two levels without realising it!

Speaking of which, I bought the remaster and haven't played it yet. To the computer!

I'd love one of those. Would anyone like to buy one for me?

No?

😢

I think what Sony did better than its competitors, especially in the PS1 and PS2 eras, was to understand that a lot of people who grew up with games were now adults with their own disposable income and still interested in games.

Add in all the pop culture stuff, branding, and cool vibes they were off to a winning start.

@BionicDodo well technically the Saroo is a CD Block Emulator. Not only does it emulate the CD Rom interface, it emulates a whole lot of other things too.

@Deuteros yep, I'm with you on that!

I'm going to add this to my 'should I ever win the lottery' list.

I've been wondering for a while now what to do when my New 3DS XL eventually bites the dust. My current solution is an 8" gaming tablet paired with an Abxylute S8. It's not as convenient as a clamshell, but it's pretty good for the price I paid and will emulate just about everything I'm interested in. Plus I'm happier to take it with me than I would be a £400+ device. Oh, and Tate shmups are wonderful on it!

I'm definitely up for this!

Now I've completed SotT multiple times, so the reforge whilst excellent didn't surprise me too much. But I think I've only completed TSM once and that back in the day.

Hopefully, one day, Charles will announce that they're going to re-release In Cold Blood. I've been asking for about twenty years for a sequel, but I'd settle just for a revamp now.

@hisownsidekick 👍

@hisownsidekick It was a bit of a struggle to find, but I found this interview with the people at Orbital Media.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2006/08/24/ign-goes-orbital

Hope it helps!

What was it that Oscar Wilde said? We have everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.

Never a truer word spoken!

Although I never had any of these at the time, I love the idea that Andrew's career is bookended - pun intended - by the release and re-release of these books!

I may put in for the 4 book deal, as that seems reasonable enough for the curiosity factor.

A bobby dazzler, and no mistake!

@hste if it's like the Doom mod, I found it most noticeable on things like item pickups and sprite based 'furniture' which always faced the player in the original but are much more solid and 3d as voxels.

I didn't need an excuse to replay Mole Mania, but this mod pushed it up the priority scale! Jimbe is about to get owned all over again!

I can understand why there might be cultural sensitivity to the flag in places like South Korea, given what the Japanese military got up to in the 30s and 40s. I once made the mistake of reading about Unit 731. It was like staring into the abyss.

South Korea also had some very strict rules about Japanese cultural imports until comparatively recently, so I'm not altogether surprised Nintendo are a bit leery of things like this.

I can't think of a reason that System 3 shouldn't provide reasonable localisation adjustments, if they want to sell into a particular market.

@The_Nintendo_Pedant At least you missed out on the satanic panic. That was something else, particularly if you were the child of newly converted born again types. Fortunately they saw sense, after a time.

Probably my favourite magazine of all time. Somehow or other it managed to be irreverent and serious at the same time. When they scored a game 90%+ you knew it was worth buying,
and you could bet your monkey-ass on it!

True story: my younger cousin struggled with reading. While we were on a family holiday I showed him my copy of Mean Machines. To start with I got him to read some of the smaller box-outs. Initially he was a bit resistant... but that soon changed when he started reading some of the ruder content! By the end of the two weeks he was happily reading entire articles by himself.

What's worrying me is that BallisticNG, Wipeout's spiritual successor and which I put many hours into during the recent global health unpleasantness, is already approaching its seventh birthday.

I honestly think that when I hit my mid-thirties someone decided to crank the time dial into fast-forward.

@Slider2711 well I stand corrected!

I reckon Nintendo Power made that answer up from whole cloth.

In CAD x, y and z are 3D coordinates. Also, it wouldn't make any sense to say that A and B are primary but X and Y are secondary, either from a CAD point of view or an implementation point of view.

Who is that Lance guy anyway? Probably somebody who had nothing to do with the design of the pad, if he exists at all!

@MartinPiper Wow! That's even more impressive!

If you're ever inclined to exhibit the machine at a retro/computer show, do let us know. I'd love to see it hands on!

I've always wanted to use the word flabbergasted in a real world context, and now I can. I'm flabbergasted!

Did Martin actually write his own version of After Burner to run on this?

Personally I think women should be discouraged from the corporate world... But so should men!

I don't know how we got into such a miserable state where people who make things are nothing but employees of these massive corporate entities, but it needs a rethink.

And in doing so there should be a rebalancing of talent rather than sex.

For me it was Space Invaders on the ZX81. Black and white, no sound, your bullets being nothing more than a capital letter I heading up the screen, that terrible keyboard... I was instantly hooked!! I can still picture the cassette inlay which was black and white, with dark pink highlights, and featured a cool looking alien on the front.

I find it difficult to express - particularly to people who grew up with mass computing - quite how transformative that experience was. This was something none of your neighbours or friends had, no one in your family had experienced anything like it before, and yet here it was plugged into the TV letting you control what was happening on screen.

Sadly the computer was only borrowed and had to be returned. It wasn't until a couple of years later we got a computer at home. Still, it was that moment that kicked everything off for me in terms of computing and video gaming.

What I found is that the games aren't very good. Worth exploring as a curiousity, but nothing you'll ever want to return to.

@smoreon well there's definitely something up with the old grey matter. The only other retro Dave I can think of is Dave from This Week in Retro.

But if you showed me a picture of MVG I'd definitely say "I know him, that's Dave from MVG".

Well good on Françoise for standing up to this. As I've said before, AI isn't necessarily the problem, but the people who use it is.

However, I feel there's an important question here that's been missed:

Does French Lara sound sexier than English Lara?

If nothing else, it puts a smile on your face!

I must be having my own Mandela Effect moment.. I'm sure MVG used to call himself "Dave" on his channel.

@slider1983 Welcome to the club!

Well fair play to new Commodore. I would never have predicted there'd be that many people on the lookout for a new C64.

They had me up to "Quick Solder install". Last time I attempted to solder anything I ended up with 2nd degree burns and a lot of melted plastic. Never again.

If you have the skills to actually do the mod, 30 euros seems like a pretty good price for the features.

AYANEO are becoming the new Anbernic - a new release if the day ends in a 'Y'!

I think it's great, though. Compared to where we were 5, 10, 15 years ago the sheer number of decent, powerful, well made systems is staggering. There literally is something for everyone.

That said the trick is NOT to buy everything. It's easy to fall into that trap when you see all the YouTubers (and others) touting the latest and greatest they got sent for free. My advice is, if you're interested, wait for the price to drop (it will - or be on AliExpress cheaper with free delivery), enjoy it and then pay no more attention to the scene for at least 12 months.

I'm about an hour in. Nice little game so far, it reminds me most of Solomon's Key. It is a bit bare bones, however, and lacks a save feature but does feature a level select...

...which is why having the rom is great. Load up in an emulator and save states ahoy!

I remember Ben the Boffin on the Big Breakfast describing the first game as "Hard even on easy"!

I beat all three in the late 90's when I was ~19-20, and they certainly were hard games. They were an enjoyable challenge, though. I may try these patches out, because I doubt I still have the reflexes to complete the originals!

So the no. 1 ranked game made NFL 2K [Sega Sports] dollars and shipped a whopping Sonic Adventure number of units!

I love the Dreamcast, but didn't get one until ~2004/5 - one with a multi region mod at that.

So far ahead of its time it really deserved to do better... and it didn't because of people like me who were waiting for the PS2 to release. Thinking back, I could have afforded both but must have had a mental block about owning two (or more) systems concurrently.

Still, them's the breaks and Sega did themselves no favours earlier in the decade. Who's up for some co-op Power Stone?

If you like this style of driving game I can highly recommend 1000 Miglia: Great 1000 Miles Rally by Kaneko.

I first encountered it at a caravan site on the Isle of Wight where I probably spent too many evenings in the game room trying to complete it (which I did!).

There's a lot more to come out of this story. I'm intrigued to know why City of London police were involved. It could be that the seller lives within the bounds of the City, but I think it's an odd location for somebody who buys and resells used electronics for a living - not least because of the price of property! - and that Sega's offices are nowhere near.

(For those who don't know, the City is a tiny district in the middle of London that has a lot of historic quirks, tax exemptions, unique governance, powers, Lord Mayor, and its own police force to name a few. The rest of London is covered by the MET Police)

Does anybody know if the Android versions of DoDonPachi and Espgaluda (2?) have been resurrected anywhere? I had them both, but the last time I looked they'd gone completely. The time before that, you could still install the "downloader" but it wouldn't download anything.

I wish I still had the phone they were originally installed on.

I thought the remake of the first game was decent, but I was expecting Backbone/Digital Eclipse levels of polish so it did disappoint a bit.

It just goes to show that updating and remastering classics takes a great deal of skill and talent and, crucially, enthusiasm and love for the thing being worked on.

I think the Gizmondo is a classic case of what could have been. The device itself was actually pretty good. Had it been cheaper, had the games come, and had the company not been run by crooks I think it could have been successful, at least in Europe.

When they dropped the price I almost bought one, but as it didn't have any games I wanted to play and it didn't look like there'd be any more games, I gave it a miss. I almost regret that now, but I bought a GP2X instead which suited me better (mostly emulation and its ability to play movies).

Pro tip: use a solvent like nail varnish remover or petrol to remove rubbery coatings. Works a treat.

Additional thought: I don't rate Game Trailers list of worst consoles. They include 3DO, Jaguar, Mega-CD and 32x. These weren't bad consoles, just unsuccessful.

Wow. Where does 30 years go? I remember it as if it were yesterday, to paraphrase RLS.

I didn't get my PS1 until '97, but I remember the magazines at the time, especially Edge, covering the machine in detail. But it wasn't until I loaded up T-Rex from the demo disc and saw it for myself on my PlayStation and on my TV that I realised we were in a completely new era of gaming.

I couldn't tell you the exact date, but I still recall - as if it were yesterday - the walk into town, withdrawing money from the building society, buying the machine from Woolworths, going to McD's for lunch, going to the bookshop to see if the latest Robin Hobb was out yet (it wasn't), and then going to Superdrug to buy shower gel and deodorant (99p each or 3 for 2!), before walking home tremendously excited. It lived up to that excitement!