@Lanmanna Ah, but this isn't the original.

My question: why would you want to play this over the HD remake from a few years back?

@-wc- I reckon cost was a major part of the decision.

Mind you, I do wonder if Evercade are gaining new customers these days or are mostly trying to up-sell the existing customer base.

@KingMike I think you may be confusing the more square ratios like 10:9 and 6:5 used on those older handhelds with 16:10, which is a widescreen format.

I'd probably put the number of Evercade games that support 16:10 natively at zero. That said, having a nice big widescreen display will happily display those 4:3 and square aspect ratios nicely, as long as the user doesn't mind some black bars either side.

I think the lesson here is not to fall for the FOMO pre-order nonsense. It's usually a good bet to wait 2-3 weeks after release for any problems with the device to surface before you buy. Plus you avoid this sort of thing.

This goes for most of the other Chinese retro handheld makers, too. They've all done things like this, or worse, from dangerous batteries, changes from the advertised specifications, to faulty by design products that cannot be firmware fixed.

That $5-20 coupon pre-order discount is never worth it, in my opinion.

I'm sure this will gain a cult following... but it looks, well, miserable. Like Tolkien's elves (Monkey Ball) vs his orks (this).

@slider1983 maybe if they put in SNES Doom, 32x Doom, Playstation Doom, and N64 Doom. A Doom on console history, as it were. That would be worth it.

But plain old Doom with no mods, I have a hard time with.

For me the big pull of Doom these days are all the custom mods and maps the community has built. Without at least some access to that, like Bethesda/Nightdive did with the enhanced version of Doom/Doom II, this package has limited appeal.

@Bot_Bot_69 We didn't have WASD and mouse back then, but Doom definitely had mouse support baked in. I remember reading somewhere John Romero saying it was the preferred way to play the game.

You can please all of the people some of the time. And you can please some of the people all of the time. But you can't please all of the people all of the time.

Revenge of Shinobi is such a classic I think trying to do anything with it is going to be a tricky task. Even Shinobi III, which in its own right is a classic, doesn't really fill Revenge's boots in my opinion.

Still, time and tastes change. I think those of us who remember the heyday of the arcades, eagerly poring over magazine articles, waiting months for games to release, and doing endless paper rounds to afford a single game have a different perspective on games and game design and sometimes what we're really defending are cherished memories

I think the poet W. B. Yeats put it best:

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

@Gs69 Some Samsung TVs and monitors let you set the input mode of the HDMI port which can resolve some issues. I had a TV/Monitor combo that absolutely refused to display my PC correctly - off colours, huge borders around the image. My fix was to "name" the HDMI input to "PC" in the TVs menu. You might also be able to change the HDMI version. If it defaults to HDMI 2 you might be able to change it to 1.4.

If none of that works, I thoroughly recommend the McBazel GBS-C scaler. It's cheap and effective!

@Gs69 What TV are you using?

@PKDuckman I'd have thought LucasArts would be more likely to make a complaint in the US than Europe, if they were going for a copyright thing. It wouldn't make much sense - for them - to do it in Europe.

The story I've heard for both Star Fox and Star Fox 64 is due to a German company called StarVox.

edit
And it was our very own @damo who revealed the Star Fox/Star Vox mystery! https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/09/want_to_know_the_real_reason_star_fox_was_renamed_in_europe

What I miss about physical isn't so much the software medium - be that cassette, floppy disk, cartridge, or optical disc - but the supporting material like manuals, boxes, maps, posters, badges, stickers, tea towels and all the rest of it.

Rebel Assault is one of those games where I fell for the negative reviews and subsequently didn't try it until many years later. It's a much better game than those reviews had led me to believe. Had I played either the DOS or Mega-CD version back in the day, I'd have been blown away.

Great interview - loved the bit about Nintendo's testing requirements!

@RupeeClock In the emulator settings (and I presume the shader) there are options to dial in the grid, ghosting, rot, rot type, dimming, dead lines, and temperature. That should be enough to simulate a GB screen of any age, from brand new to barely functional.

I had actually forgotten a lot of the characteristics of the DMG screen. I think a lot of those memories have been forced out by the Game Boy Pocket's much improved screen.

I remember the film being a big hit and that Bryan Adams song being in the charts for an eternity, but I honestly can't remember any toys, games, or other merchandising from the time. I don't even recognise that Mean Machines cover and I was a monthly reader.

Mind you, I've never really been plugged into the current culture. I got my roof retiled last year and the roofers had their radio tuned to BBC Radio 1. I've never heard such gormless inanity in all my life! And if that's what passes for music these days, we're all doomed. I'm just glad I don't pay for it, having not owned a TV in well over 20 years.

I'll give this a go on my Mister PI over the weekend. I might get a bit more use out of it.

No automap in this day and age? That's a bold move.

I used to love making my own maps back in the day. I even had a special agreement with my maths teacher that I could have as many square paper workbooks as I wanted (within reason) as long as I kept getting A's in class work. In retrospect I should have commercialised those books - I didn't just map, I basically created entire guides to the game.

If you ever find a big box PC rpg at, say, the car boot and it includes an A5 orange maths workbook, it'll be one of mine. Treasure it!

Good news everybody!

Thimbleweed Park was a decent point n click, and it completely nailed the Twin Peaks/Coen brothers aesthetic. If I had any complaints they would be:

None of the characters were particularly likeable.
Some of the puzzles were a little bit too old school.
Overall the game wasn't as memorable as some of the giants of the genre.

I'm looking forwards to see what they can do with a second installment.

Setting aside one's views on AI for the moment, going from nothing to a fully functional port in just seven days is... extraordinary.

@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.