Martin_H

@Thad Nah. People who want accuracy buy real hardware, possibly mod it for convenience, and prefer CRTs even over high-end scalers.

@Scollurio @1040STF I highly recommend getting the ES-DE emulation frontend for Android. It's not free, but fairly cheap at £4.50.

I'm feeling a bit philosophical, by which I mean I'm three-sheets-to-the-wind and going strong.

I was thinking about the Atari games/movie licencing article from the other day. Specifically all the "what could we even do with it" type comments.

Here seems to be the exact opposite. Here's a movie, how can you turn it into a game with all of these constraints?

Seems to me that the video game developers back then had a lot more gumption, creativity and derring-do than the current crop of Hollywood "script writers".

I was thinking of running a short-fiction just-for-fun competition. Pick any of the Atari games mentioned and submit a short story of no more than 5000 words around it.

Robert Englund's website is unintentionally amusing. In some of the pictures of his Hollywood Star it looks like he has just released a cloud of noxious trouser gas.

Time for another can of Ace.

I'm sure this story did the rounds a few years ago. The reason I remember it is because I thought and commented at the time that preservation is more than just game code, it's manuals, boxes, reviews, marketing etc.

I can think of lots of things you could do with these games:

Asteroids: A story of family reconciliation, where ex-convict Mike rebuilds relationships with his estranged family over the restoration of an Asteroids cab.

Centipede: An action comedy along the lines of Honey, I shrunk the kids! The sequel is baked in with Millipede.

Missile Command: An action/thriller featuring the deep state, industrial military complex, CIA black-ops, international conspiracies, and a whistleblower determined to reveal the truth.

Pong: A light-hearted coming of age adventure, where a group of friends travel across America to compete in Pong tournaments.

@RupeeClock It's a shame that the only Sonic game I like is Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed!

@smoreon I'll take your word for it - I honestly can't remember anything about it!

I don't think we got this over here. We did get at least one Nintendo themed cartoon, but that featured some dude with the NES light gun and a gamepad attached to his belt. I can't remember anything else about it...

... except after the credits rolling a kid saying "DIC!" - which was very amusing at the time.

Up until this moment I was blissfully unaware of both Generation Amiga (what sort of obnoxious site prevents the copying of text?) and the Sonic and the Black Knight recomp (I'm all for preservation... but with all of the good Wii games, really?)

According to a recent report, half of what is posted online is now created by AI

That surprises me. I don't use social media at all, so maybe I'm protected from it a bit. That said, I don't use the internet that much anyway. Banking, bus times, limited shopping... and a handful of core sites I visit either because I need to or want to... like TE!

Very impressive demo. I think the clever use of dithering and the tiles used for the road and offroad, rather than the banded colours we were familiar with, are what elevates it above anything we saw back then.

It would be amazing to see something like Road Rash re-imagined with similar features, although the Improved mods help with framerate.

@shiningpikablu252 That would be cool to see.

I'm still waiting for some further news on the Hyperkin x GameSir modular controller. Seems to have gone awful quiet...

PC Gamer's senior editor, Wes Fenlon, summed up the problem with these AI-powered decomps as follows: "The paradox of current tools making it easier than ever to start projects means anyone can vibe code their way to a partially working port, but shaping it into an accurate, crash-free, feature-rich version of a game is a different story."

I don't see how this is a problem. If somebody wants to waste their time on such a project that is entirely their choice and their problem if it doesn't work out. It doesn't affect you, me, or your aunt Sally. It doesn't stop other people having a go - look at how many emulators there are for the same systems! - or choosing to play the game in another way.

There are serious conversations to have about AI, a very big one is the intrusion of the surveillance state. This isn't one of them.

@Thad Well every prediction that AI has reached its limits, hit a wall, can't progress any further has proven to be false.

I think it's pretty amazing that the AI tools have come so far that this is possible. It'll only be a few years from now when you'll be able to point the tools at a ROM or ISO and have it spit out a perfect - or better than perfect - version you can play on the device of your choice.

Real Star Trek stuff.

@MontyCircus Sliced bread. Every day of the week and twice on Sundays. It's the most benefit to the most people.

Who's moonwalking now? Still every kid wants a lightsabre!

@Razieluigi I ain't afraid of no pies!

Never in my life would I expect a list containing both The Birth of a Nation and Beyonce!

And Star Wars getting edged out by Michael Jackson's Thriller?

Personally, I think we're living in the greatest gaming era there's ever been. We're absolutely spoilt for choice not only in what we play, but how we play.

Perhaps the big studios are risk-averse. If they were the only ones making games, that would be a problem. But happily they aren't!

@Sketcz Ah, well you've answered one question anyway... I wondered why you had a Polish surname!

I'm intrigued to know how your dad got out of Poland, not usually an easy feat back behind the Iron Curtain. Although I do know a number of Poles who left on holiday... and simply never went back!

@Sketcz A fitting conclusion to the trilogy!

I've found the whole series fascinating. I mentioned before that the only news we tended to get about SA back then was focused on apartheid, riots, and police crackdowns, so it's been amazing to get some new perspectives from people who lived it during the same period.

A question: Did SA miss out on 8 and 16-bit computing? If there was no television broadcasts until the 1980s, does that also imply no television sets? Or would people connect up VCRs and computers to imported TVs and monitors?

@KingMike You'd be surprised - well I certainly was - just how computationally cheap this sort of CPU player logic is. The sorts of algorithms used are blisteringly fast, even on old hardware.

It's nice to have Panic Bomber W as a freebie, but it's one of those games where I look at expert plays and am completely baffled at how they make massive chains. That ability to think 10 steps ahead is beyond me.

What a bunch of self-entitled whingers!

As I mentioned on another article, it's the contraction of choice I don't like. There are some games, books, films, albums where I absolutely want a physical copy. Other times I'm perfectly happy with digital.

I'm also very cautious of what Sony's idea of a digital future looks like. My guesses:

A completely locked down ecosystem.
A single store owned and operated by Sony - no price competition.
The benefits of digital - infinite reproduction at near zero cost - not passed on to customers.
Games disappearing for no other reason than some beancounter deciding they aren't worth the harddrive space in some data center.
Regulatory bodies siding with Sony when it comes to consumer rights.
Monopolistic practices.

Preservation and so on is another concern.

I doubt there's any going back, though. I think those of us who genuinely care about physical are the minority. Once all the big players switch to digital only it will only be a matter of time before most people won't know anything else.

Meanwhile in China: The Genovo G02 launches.

@-wc- "flip out ...power prongs (am I having a stroke? wtf do you call this? 😂)"

A plug?

In all this AI outrage, I think we're missing something...

SEGA want to sell you these naff found-as-prizes-in-a-2p-pusher keyrings for $9.99! The equally as naff Crazy Taxi air freshener? $7.99!

I expect there's P&P on top of that, too.

@mjparker77 I realised some years ago that I will never be rich as I always overestimate how clever people are.

I think the loom band craze is what clarified that for me. I couldn't believe that people, in the millions, would pay for packets of over-priced rubber bands.

I'm tempted to set up a crowd fund for my London Bridge repatriation scheme.

@shanghailoz @Sketcz

Interesting. Growing up in the UK, my perception of SA was that it was entirely segregated. Mind you, the only news we'd get about SA would be about riots and brutal police crack downs. Until Mandela was released, of course.

Thanks for bringing some new perspectives.

@Sketcz Thanks for part 2!

Would it be fair to say that the toys, comics, games, and video games were mostly the preserve white SA children or was the situation more nuanced than that?

When the phone was announced I thought it was something Gareth from The Office would have... Now the holster is out!

Truxton!

My first introduction to it was via Mark from Classic Game Room. His enthusiasm for it rubbed off on me, but it's devilishly hard.

This sequel looks amazing.

I'm not opposed to digital - my Steam and GOG libraries attest to that, not to mention my XBLA games stuck on my 360 - but I am opposed to the contraction of choice.

People like physical things. It's nice to have a physical copy of your favourite book, film, album, game. People also like choice. If I want to pay extra for a physical release, why not give me that choice?

I love the Vita - I have three of them: an OLED and two slims (one is a Japanese model in a nice light-blue colour).

Sony gave up on it far too early. It had the power to do some truly impressive stuff, but it's a classic example of excellent hardware without the software support. There are quite a few decent Vita games to be had, though, so it's not as if it's a dead weight, it's just that the library deserved to be much bigger.

However, if you've never owned one today you can pick up a boxed example very cheaply and put custom firmware on it.

CFW really opens up the device. You can use SD2Vita cards that let you use SD cards instead of the Sony cards. You can find all sorts of homebrew and ports. You can install custom mods to tailor the device how you like and/or fix various issues like stick-drift or the colours on the LCD models. The Adrenaline emulator turns the Vita into a pumped PSP - playing PSP games at the Vita's resolution (which is exactly 2x the PSPs) looks amazing. And then there's pkgj.

Additionally you can buy all sorts of accessories for the Vita on AliExpress. Screen protectors, grips, L2 R2 triggers, cases (including cases that can accomodate the Vita in its grip). You can get all sorts of more convenient charging options from hardware soldering mods to simple plug and play USB to Vita type cables. Parts are also available if you need to replace sticks, buttons, or batteries.

I thoroughly recommend getting one.

The anti AI folk: Will nobody think of the real artists!

Marketing people: This AI stuff is way quicker than Photoshop!

One thing I've wondered is why the powers that be adopted the word piracy for the unauthorised copying and distribution of material.

Not only is the offence nothing like real-world piracy, in the culture pirates are, and have been, cool for decades.

I do feel a bit for Sandy, though. In his later years my dad suffered from severe mental decline - and eventually dementia. Only in retrospect were the warning signs apparent. Starting in his early 70s he'd make up stuff that he'd done, take credit for things he hadn't, and generally misremember events, and/or blame people for historic slights that never were. I have no idea if those signs had been recognised earlier if anything could have been done.

I hope that isn't the case for Sandy.

@slider1983 I'm just waiting for the crowd funding options 😉

This all has an Alejandro Martin whiff to it.

@no_donatello Neither of them were developed by or published by 3DO.

This is what makes me wonder what rights have been bought up, except for the name and possibly some games nobody wants. I believe even the hardware was sold off back in the day.

Even if you include games published by the 3DO company for other systems, what remains of licences must surely be some pretty thin gruel.

A fascinating read - the sort of thing you can't get from more mainstream sources!

As technically brilliant and influential as Quake is, the Quake games never really did it for me in the same way as Doom, Duke 3D, Unreal, and Half-Life did.

I did enjoy Quake 3 Arena, but I think that was more for the social aspects of fragging my friends at LAN parties (remember those?!).

Even today they aren't games I go back to. Something like NOLF or the first Red Faction is more likely to get my attention.

@metaphysician The same publisher does other books on video game related topics, of equal or longer length, in full colour for far less.

By the way, don't expect this to be a big coffee table book. It isn't.

Is today "International Ludicrously Expensive Retro Stuff Day"?

$99 repro carts of Sonic.
$400 dumbphones
£14 Atari magazines
and now £35 for a ~250 page book?

What's going on?

I don't know who was in charge of reviews at Sonic the Comic, but those scores are all over the place!

Gunstar Heroes - 80%
Shinobi 3 - 85%
Landstalker - 80% (Includes the telltale sign that the reviewer never really played the game: criticising the long intro).
Jungle Strike - 85%
Final Fight - 75%
Cosmic Spacehead - 90%
Robo Aleste - 75%

If we know one thing about Retroid: if there's a way to muck something up, Retroid will muck it up.

As a dyed-in-the-wool Sega fanboy I can honestly say... I've never liked Sonic! For all of their impressive graphics and speed, I always felt the 16-bit Sonic games lacked depth and lacked control. I never liked the 90s "Attitude" of the character either.

I own both of the Dreamcast outings, but never really got on with them. After that I didn't pay much attention. Somehow Sonic Generations ended up in my Steam library, but I haven't played that.

There is one exception, however: Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed! That game is absolutely awesome!

@Guru_Larry Donnington was the European GP for 1993. There was supposed to be an event in Japan, but it was cancelled and Donnington got to host an event.

I think Bernie Ecclestone was fairly keen for Donnington to host to send a rocket up Silverstone's backside. There were always a lot of complaints about Silverstone's lack of investment and the general crapiness of the facilities.

If I've played Silver Star and Eternal Blue on the Mega-CD and wanted to replay them, is it worth playing the PSX versions over the Mega-CD?