Martin_H

@smoreon I just might try that... check back with me in 35 years 😁

"I had fully expected the language barrier to present problems"

As I get older I'm starting to question some of my life choices. I suspect I'm like other people in that I've spent the last 35 odd years wanting to play some Japanese games, but couldn't due to the language barrier. So why is it it that I spent precisely 0 of those years learning the language? You'd think 35 years would be more than enough time to become fluent, and probably a lot less than that.

@-wc- "You are in control of how many games you download, and which games, specifically!"

While this is undoubtedly true, it took me an almost embarrassingly long time to realise that truth. When I first got in to emulation I downloaded full rom sets for just about every system I could find. The state of rom dumps and collections at the time meant this included bad dumps, hacks, multiple regions and so on. So many games, yet so few of them played - and a lot of the games I did play were only for a few minutes each at best.

My advice for anyone who wants to start emulating, but doesn't know where to begin is:
1) Start with games you remember from the past.
2) Seek out top x games for system y lists. These can reveal some true classics.
3) Have a look at some properly curated retro collections (eg Taito Legends). The best of these have gem after gem.
4) See if you can find a "Let's play..." community. Not only will you find great games you've never heard of, but I find it's more fun to play a game with other people either competitively or just for fun.
5) Have a hunt through magazine archives to see what was well reviewed at the time. I've found lots of games this way.
6) Don't overload yourself. I suggest having a list of 5-10 games that you're actually going to play is more than enough for most people. Some games you're just going to keep going back to, so you can put those on your keepers list and cycle something else into your list of games to try.

If this comes to anything, which I doubt, it'll be a lazy Christmas market thing. Something you get for that older male relative who's difficult to buy for.

I remember years and years ago wandering the North Laines in Brighton and happening across a fantasy/sci-fi shop, a bit like a Forbidden Planet but more shabby-chic. Inside was a complete treasure trove of fantasy books, artwork, models, figurines, games, trinkets and pretty much you name it.

Anyway, amongst those treasures was a complete set of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! illustrated by John Blanche, which I snapped up for about £7. An absolute steal given how much they go for now.

@Sketcz Amazing! A mystery solved... but with many questions!

What was the deal with all the secrecy? That episode of Bad Influence went out on 8th December 1992, two weeks after Sonic 2sDay. I guess the Japan feature was recorded well in advance, so maybe Sega were genuinely concerned about leaks? Or maybe Bad Influence was just trying to be cool?

I thought the GG and MS versions of Sonic 2 were developed by a different company than Sega. Makes me wonder how closely Sega worked with its partners give our man Hiroshi seems to be heavily involved and gets a "thanks" in the credits.

Why show Bad Influence the GG and/or MS version of the game? Secrecy again? Giving Bad Influence the fob-off? Maybe Hiroshi was the only person available or willing on the day?

Anyway, thanks very much @Sketcz for digging into this! Big thanks to your contact as well. I feel we've uncovered a bit of gaming archaeology that may otherwise have been lost to time.

I still rate the Taito Legends collections as some of the best value retro compilations. I picked them both up for PS2 on ebay still shrink-wrapped for £5 each. That's where I first played Cameltry, although as I recall it wasn't compatible with the paddle controller in the special version of Cleopatra Fortune for PS1.

I must get around to getting some sort of paddle affair for my PC, then I can MAME it.

Thanks @Sketcz - hopefully your contact can clear this up for us!

@ojisan Yeah, but in the world where everybody is skint it costs a small fortune!

A Commodore branded tablet straight from China is my guess.

A colour LCD screen in 1987 would have been ambitious... and likely pretty awful! Had it come about it might have forced Nintendo's hand along the same lines.

Still, a fascinating look at what could have been. I get the sense that 40 years from now it will be much harder to find gems like this from the current day.

@Sketcz nice one, thanks!

Thanks @Guru_Larry - I wonder if Sketcz can identify him...

@Sketcz Do you recognise the Sonic 2 team member who appears at about 7 minutes into the Bad Influence episode linked by Guru_Larry?

"Delays like this are frustrating, especially when the community is excited and ready for the product."

I don't think you can call the three people who actually want this a "community",

@Guru_Larry You're bound to know this: Who was it Violet Berlin interviewed when she visited Sega's Sonic team on Bad Influence?

I think we've all worked with somebody like that during our careers.

It does make you wonder what the point of AI is if nobody can afford a device to interface with it.

I saw the other day that somebody's been rattling Tony Blair's cage, and he's very in to AI. Probably as a means of the state spying and prying and generally interfering with people.

As I've said before, I'm generally optimistic about how AI can be a benefit to humanity. But we do need to make sure that is what it is being used for.

@Daniel36 A hidden object game? It looks more like a Choose Your Own Adventure/Fighting Fantasy type book very popular back in the day.

Speaking of which, does anybody else remember the two Prince of Shadows books (Mean Streets and Creatures from the Depths) by Chalk and Kerrigan? They were absolutely amazing adventures with a really gritty dark fantasy undertone. I don't know what happened to my copies, but I wish they'd be reprinted or brought back for the digital age in some form.

@mjparker77 You couldn't go wrong at that price. I remember a mate of mine thinking I was unwell as I hadn't been down the pub for more than a week. I was perfectly fine, just playing Tempest 2000 into the early hours!

Atari won't actually be moving there of course, they'll just have a nice brass plate on the front of some anonymous building.

When I bought my Jaguar from (EB, Game, Virgin?) in the mid to late 90s for £40 and please take as many of these games as you can carry, this was one of them. Still haven't played it.

@-wc- Reminds me of that lunatic anti-piracy "campaign" 'You wouldn't steal a car'. To which my answer was always, 'I just might, depending on the circumstances'.

I really want one - it just looks like something I want to hold, even if that isn't the most rational position to have.

One for the Christmas list.

@heligo It's going to be horizontal, with a 4:3 screen. They're planning to make the controls modular so you can swap them about to suit your preference / the game.

A request I made was to make the screen swivel so it can do Tate and mate modes. Not sure if that will happen, though.

This is next on my list after replaying the Phantasy Star games (upto 4). And I've been saying that for at least the last 15 years.

@Santar The acting, the script, the fiendish puzzles, the beautiful music, Mr. Shiny, the Templars!

I'm such a fan of Broken Sword, especially the first game... but this news fills me with trepidation. I hope they don't ruin it.

@h3s they are fun games, but really I was comparing the experience we all thought we were missing back then to the actual experience. I think if I had an AES back then I'd also want a SNES or Mega Drive (both!) too.

@gmar "Come to think of it, the exchange between East and West wasn't as active back then as it is now."

Not sure I agree. Japanese companies, games, and systems had an enormous impact on British gaming in the 90s. I think the difference is by the time SNK were really hitting their stride 3D games were the big news, arcades were becoming less important, better than arcade experiences could be had at home, and almost nobody had an AES due to the price.

I keep meaning to get into an SNK fighter. Forum goers (the most under used feature of TE) may remember I was planning to devote last October to mastering one. Then life got in the way.

Still, there's always this October.

Looks like a good book. I've got the CRPG one and that is fantastic.

I have very fond memories of arcades back when I was a regular visitor (80s-mid 90s). Lots of machines and games, interesting cabinets, the sounds, flashing lights, the smell of fried onion and cigarettes and candyfloss. People actually queuing to have a go on the latest and greatest! Good times.

These photos with their rows upon rows of soulless Astro City cabs... it just looks joyless.

@Thad True, but @mjparker77 was asking about his modded 3DS.

@mjparker77 Short answer: nowt.

It's good for unmodded systems, though, and for people who bought dud R4 cards.

It might be slightly more convenient for playing DS games on your modded 3DS. I use my R4 card this way as it saves having to go into Twilight, waiting for that to boot, selecting the game etc.

Aero Blasters is great. I love the way the levels progress from the cityscape of level 1 (which gets destroyed mid-level, in to the tight, twisty, Scramble-like maze of level 2, then ascending through the clouds of level 3 into the upper atmosphere and then on to space for level 4 and through the junk of destroyed spaceships.

I've never seen further than that, though. The game is rock hard.

@sdelfin I can't find a reference to it, but I remember reading around the time that a senior exec at SoJ recorded a two-hour rant berating the design team for the failures of the Saturn's hardware.

My personal opinion, and this may be unfair, is that Sega of the time was a company where the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing. I'm sure there were people who absolutely knew the next gen would all be about 3D, but those people were in other departments doing other things. Then Sony showed up.

@KingMike From what I've read over the years, the big rift between SoJ and SoA was between approaches to the next gen. SoA saw it's huge installed Genesis base and wanted to keep that going with a stop-gap, where SoJ wanted to go full guns on the Saturn.

As history shows (in a rather delicious irony) neither of them was correct! The 32X was the wrong product for the market at that time and price; the Saturn was the wrong next gen console for the time and price.

I was a big Sega fanboy back then, and it utterly baffled me that a company that did so much to innovate 3D in the arcades bungled the design of the Saturn and then had two divisions of the same company competing with each other.

Still that's what makes all this stuff interesting. It's a human story that crosses cultural boundaries, business priorities, competing egos, tech innovation, and all the excitement of the mid-90s gaming scene.

@Zedecks I do. The 32X was a very interesting, but ultimately destructive, diversion Sega took. The promise was fast 3D graphics on the Mega Drive and it delivered. It's just a shame it was released too late, cost too much on launch, and wasn't supported properly due to lack of sales and Sega's internal politics.

Will he make the defective chassis available for purchase? I'd buy a couple for a decent price. There's nothing I can't bodge together with hot glue and duct tape.

@Maulbert All the more reason for @damo to report on it. Just because we've heard of this mofo and his antics, doesn't mean everybody has. Consumer awareness and anti-scam reporting is a thing.

Quick edit: Daniel aka Slope is in this thread thanking TE for covering it!

@weekendroady That's my take too. A wannabe surrealist, but Dali he ain't.

Fans of the original probably wouldn't like it, but I wish they'd include shadows so you get an idea of depth. That would help with some of the frustrating jumps.

One of my favourite games of all time, Landstalker on the Mega Drive, has the same problem. I can't believe I actually managed to complete it back in the day without save states. I must have had the patience of a saint back then.

I hope Piko will do something decent preservation wise. Oddball flops like the Super A'Can deserve a place in gaming history alongside the big hitters.

I'm not going to pretend I understand the technical details, but this is good news all round!

What I haven't seen yet is a convincing argument about why the "creative industries" deserve a special status and protection.

What do these people actually contribute that shouldn't be democratised by AI?

@-wc- I think it's more of a case of what fans of a system can do versus the half-arsed efforts of a mega corp.

If we left it up to the 'official' , 'legal' route none of these games would exist and there would be no means to play them except for original hardware.

@SuperRetro64 Stop asking questions! We've got a witch hunt going on here!

I remember encountering the NeoGeo library for the first time in the mid 2000s via emulation. I had that "wow" moment, which lasted for about an hour. Then it sunk in: it was all about the hype.

Once you peel away the graphics, both the the SNES and Mega Drive had far superior games to anything that appeared on SNKs machine.

It's not clear to me how AI was used in this work or what sort of AI was employed. Everyone is assuming Gen AI, but it could be he used AI to isolate a subject from a background. Or maybe some form of generative fill or expand?

Either way, if the image really took weeks to complete it's nowhere near the same as lazy prompt jockeying to splurge some rubbish on a social media account.

@MisterStu 100% He should be funding Restore and Rupert Lowe.

@KingMike "Well, it is one of the most imitated games in existence, so it would be great to see the original available."

Breakout called. It would like to have a word!

@-wc- Sums up the Dreamcast. So much unfulfilled potential.

I wish I had bought one at the time. I had no reason not to, except somehow or other I convinced myself I was a one console person, that being the PS2.