Love the Keikzz brand and entire range of carts. I've never had problems with Krikzz. Build quality is solid. Sturdy. High compatibility.
To the point where I'm more than happy to pay the premium prices. I've seen various carts on places like AliExpress for a fraction of the price, and alongside them complaints on forums about things not working or damaging hardware.
Buy cheap, buy twice.
This GB X7 works great on Analogue Pocket, Super Game Boy, and GameCube GB Player. I can move it between each while retaining all my save data, which is why I never went with a GB core on AP.
@bring_on_branstons I think we chatted in the comments years ago about this topic, but worth repeating. Spot on about the fabricated drama of the dam level. I died once, on my first play through, and then forever after this found it not only easy but really enjoyable.
I don't understand how or why people get stuck on it. There's like what, three branching paths? And only one of them requires taking and doubling back.
There were maps in magazines back in the day.
It's such a short maze anyone with a basic attention span can get through it. And by the end there's always plenty of time left over. The whole urban myth about the dam being impossible for everyone to complete feels like an egregious fabrication.
I used to suck at games when I was a kid. And I did not like difficult games. But this dam level was not one of them.
As for the rest of the game... I really like it, but I can appreciate if others don't.
Does this port include SRAM saving between levels? Failing that I suppose the level select still works...
Anyone else secretly hoping Danielle enters the ring to throw counter claims at Harry, airing his most sordid of secrets, so we have a proper 1980s style WWF wrestlemania grudge match ?
@KGRAMR Carl Forhan is such a nice, friendly, reasonable, well adjusted person, isn't he? I get the feeling you too have enjoyed delightful interactions with this perfectly normal human being?
There is nothing wrong with old monochrome low-res images. They add charm, to be honest.
My imagination is perfectly good at colourising the b&w photo inside my mind.
And everyone is right. It's going to become exponentially more difficult to preserve history, now that AI exists. Even now, researching anything via Google is a nightmare because the algorithm brings up slop or Reddit, rather than actual old information, and the proliferation of AI written text and images makes good sources harder.
I genuinely feel I would not be able to produce The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers if I'd started the project in 2025. The tools available are broken and less functional than they were in 2013.
I had such an awful wretched experience dealing with Songbird once, including being directly threatened by the owner with legal action if I spoke negatively about them in public tha...
Songbird is a lovely company and I will happily buy from them again. So professional. So pleasant.
Look at the photo from 2022. NATO ships training alongside Japanese maritime defence ships.
The flag is still being flown! It's still in use! This is not something anyone should compare to Nazism. Please enjoy some further reading on the topic.
"At present, the flag is flown by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, and an eight-ray version is flown by the Japan Self-Defense Forces and the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. The rising sun design is also seen in numerous scenes in daily life in Japan, such as in fishermen's banners hoisted to signify large catches of fish, flags to celebrate childbirth, and in flags for seasonal festivities."
The flag is still being flown, right now, in Japan, as you read this statement.
The rising sun flag with rays is still in use. You can still find it in real life in Japan, unlike the German Nazi flag which is illegal. The Germany government needs to allow special dispensation for films, like Indiana Jones, to be shown in the country if it depicts the flag. Unlike the rising sun flag - ergo the comparison is wrong.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with this flag, it is a part of Japanese cultural heritage which predates WWII.
I do not have first hand knowledge of what executives at Capcom and Nintendo personally think. But given that it is not illegal, my guess - and this is pure assumption on my part - is that removal of the flag is due foreign sensitivity outside Japan, either in neighbouring East Asian countries, or in America which is especially sensitive to such things.
If you notice, one of the big complainants regarding the flag at the Olympics in 2020 was Alexis Dudden, from Connecticut. As far as I'm concerned, I'm filing complaints against the Japanese flag in my mind under tearing down statues and other benign historical artefacts.
Some people might not like the flag and feel triggered, but please, let's stop being inaccurate and saying this is like the Nazi flag, when it 100% is nothing like it.
@BrianJL I bought that Gravis pad. The shell was replicated 1:1 for the Philips CDi controller. So I reskinned my CDi pad, so it looks like a clown now. The CDi pad didn't have numbers or letters, but rather: • •• •+••
When I was a contestant on Games World they had import copies of this from Japan, which is how I discovered it. Loved it.
Square was on fire during the PS1 era. Einhander, Parasite Eve, Xenogears, Tobal series, Ehrgeiz, not even counting its "other" flagship RPG series. (I realise the fighting games were only published by Square, not developed by them, but the sentiment is that the company was publishing so many great games.)
@Kazin
@BrianJL
You know, I never thought to try using the stand to alleviate some of the weight. I'd just seen photos of it resting directly on a person's face, so attempted that. I'll give this a try later. Thanks.
My usual set up is a weighted shoe box on a desk. The stand on the box. A lowered chair. Thus I can sit with my back bolt upright, resting slight on the chair back; it's pulled in under the desk, and the shoe box offers some slight overhang. It's almost comfortable, but at this elevation the controller cable isn't quite long enough for my hands to rest in my lap.
Also if anyone gets a VB, buy a third party power adapter. Don't use batteries, lol.
Also just to reiterate the article text and various comments:
Please take the official health recommendations seriously; they aren't just there due to overzealous precaution. I never play for longer than 30 minutes now without breaks.
@KingMike Intriguing. Not seen that AVGN episode. Or played the SFC version, truth be told. I only played the VB game and concluded it's a bit pointless when there are nice full colour versions of it. Had I known about the oddities on SFC, I'd have asked Yokoh about it. Ah well.
@mariteaux
Sitting and thinking about it: I actually genuinely agree with you. Something I've found is I dislike very recent modern sports games, because they're excessively complicated and just not fun for me. But the older sports games, the good ones, are simple enough to convey a basic recognisable facsimile of any given sport while being intuitive, and thus excelling in multiplayer since it allows friends of any skill to join in. I still pick up and enjoy a game of Super Soccer on SNES, single player or two player, but when I tried the newest FIFA, I was absolutely lost and got bored quickly. Same thing with NBA Jam. Sadly, as pointed out, older sports games across the generations tend to be dismissed due to not looking very pretty compared to the newest titles, even if playing them is still fun today.
The Virtual Boy has multiple flashcarts available, and high quality repro carts are also available, as are repro boxes and manuals.
Unless you're a hardcore collector who absolutely needs to own the originals (fair play and respect to you), the rest of us have plenty of means of playing these games.
I got a flashcart, tested every single game, then bought repros of what I liked. Jack Bros was fantastic, and the repro cost £30, as did repros of other carts.
I have no moral problems owning a repro, because ***** ebay scalpers charging £1000 for Jack Bros. I'm very happy with my £30 repro.
Not owning a Gizmondo I don't know where to find it or how to get it running. But it seems like an essential thing to try finding? Like it did more with the system than anything else.
Lost Levels ran a feature on it. There's a super disturbing gameplay element where if you get arrested you can choose to bribe your way out of prison with money, or... voluntarily submit to being sexually assaulted by other inmates. The Lost Levels link below covers the game and this aspect, so consider yourself warned about the content.
As for the sticky coating, my old MP3 player had that same crap on it. I just got some 98% isopropyl alcohol and it rubbed off real easily. I would guess the Gizmondo is the same?
@wollywoo
Exactly! I'd had the Monster in my Pocket toys several years before, and they were dumb silly fun, and Pokemon leant into that psychological feeling, before playing it - at least, before it blew up and gained its own identity.
I'm just re-reading various comments from people on their feelings of discovering Pokemon as kids, and loving it, and I'm chuckling at these executives, thinking: COME ON! It's a no brainer. Just read the one line elevator pitch.
"You collect and swap monsters and they fight!"
And you had executives going: "We don't know what we're looking at? Is this a thing kids will want? Do kids like monsters? Do kids like trading stuff? There's only one Mickey Mouse!"
Like, WTF?
I'm sure everyone who "didn't get it" would be defensive now. But like, I want to sit them down and have them talk me through their thinking, in baby steps, so I can somehow understand how people in the business of toys just couldn't get it.
This is the like New Coca Cola of business mistakes!
If you wanted to convey it via what already existed, you could say:
"Imagine the world of trading cards, but it's like Monster in my Pocket. Kids trade the monsters in the game, and we can make toys, and cards, and lunch boxes, to go with it."
Pokemon wasn't even really that "new" of an idea at the time. It was a collection of pre-existing ideas mixed together and repackaged as an RPG. And it was fantastic.
I imported the US version on release day, ages before it even reached the UK. I got Red, my brother got Blue, and we both got 150 monsters, enjoying it before it went huge. (We did a trade and game restart to get all 3 of the starting monsters.)
I recall N64 magazine hyping the Japanese GB game long before it got localised.
I struggle to understand how no one saw the appeal.
Had they never seen kids trading stickers, trading cards, or other stuff? That concept is like pure opium to a kid's brain. They literally call them "trading cards". Kids also trade toys, especially if it's something where you can end up with duplicates.
So a game where you trade in-game monsters, even as a kid I knew that was going to be big.
All these big toy people going: "Derp derp, trade stuff? Kids don't like that, derp derp!"
Amusing as heck, LOL.
I'm not saying I'm smart for thinking it would be big; I'm saying that in the business of selling crap to kids, anyone who couldn't see it, is not fit for their job. A blind man with one could have SEEN the explosive potential here!
The full tweet by JayF encapsulates things perfectly. My biggest concern with a Panzer Dragoon Saga remake is that by smoothing and cleaning up the low poly, low resolution graphics, you'll lose that gritty broken feeling. The distinctive Saturn 3D actually enhances the feeling of an alien, post-apocalyptic wasteland.
The rough look is part of its identity.
I didn't like the PD1 remake, and I don't like the look of this.
@smoreon Exactly! My feelings are because so much of games history was the result of groups who couldn't predict how big or important they would become. I'd say almost every interview regarding 40 or 30 years ago has similar sentiments.
I suppose there's an argument to be made that not knowing this in a way fostered a carefree creative attitude?
It is what it is. But I still look back at some decisions and wonder... What do other timelines look like.
A little shocked, surprised, and saddened that all these games, which meant so much to so many, were partially the result of pawning them off to some clueless ad agency.
@Johnny_Arthur I forgot I'd posted here! So a while back Steam stopped supporting Windows 7, which is what my main game rig runs on. I had to permanently disable it updating, since once updated it also locked me out of running any of my Steam games on that computer. It's to do with the browser the Steam client is based on. I tested it with my laptop - updated Steam, and then every single Steam failed to load. It just auto-crashed every time. They officially said they were no longer supporting Win7, despite there at the time being more Win7 users than Linux.
Since this post I was gifted a handheld gaming PC, so I am again able to use Steam.
A remaster of Panzer Saga is my dream too. But only a gentle remaster. Increase the draw distance. Keep everything else the same - including the dirty blocky textures. They really enhanced the feeling of it being a ruined and decayed world.
I'm not sure Snatcher needs a remaster. Konami redid the PC-88 version for PCE and MCD, then redid those for PS1 / Sat. The 32-bit versions were inferior, replacing crisp pixel art with cheap CG.
Could a remaster incorporate parts from all the versions, so you can toggle between them? PC-88 synth audio with PS1 CG visuals?
Apple is a large company today with iconic logo. It's right there in full colour on the unit. Surely anyone who uses any technology today will recognise it as an Apple product, not a Microsoft or MS compatible one.
I am now convinced this has to be rage-bait to encourage viewer interaction. Like when Starbucks "hilariously" writes your name wrong so you post on social media and give them free advertising.
@MontyMole
Internet Archive has the full series of Spartakus, dubbed, uploaded by the original creator using the highest quality transfers I've seen. Enjoy!
@MontyMole Your mentioning of Cities of Gold caught my interest. Did you also ever watch Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea? It was often broadcast alongside Cities of Gold in various places.
@Soupbones Shame! Give the poor thing a blanket and some warm soup. But if it needs repairing, there are several Vectrex repair people out there. I can think of two or three in the UK (I used Rude Dog Retros). Not sure about the US. It probably just needs a full recap.
@CopyX1982 I found a Vectrex at a market for like £20 once. Bought it, loved it, sold it for £100, regretted it, and then to rebuy cost me £300+ in addition to mods and a full repair clean.
So these are extremely expensive. And PC emulation is not great - it doesn't "look" right.
I bought a flashcart where I could add homebrew, since there are... Hundreds of homebrew games? Checking my folder shows a tightly curated list of 89 games. There's lot of stuff I deleted because I didn't like them. Plus the official list. And new homebrew comes out all the time. I actually dropped £70 on A Crush of Lucifer. I even owned the 3D visor at one point.
I'm not saying all this to brag - I'm saying this because I am super happy that people who are not collector maniacs (such as myself) can now enjoy not just the games, but also the form factor. It will allow one to enjoy the experience, better than just emulation.
I hope so anyway. Emulation can't replicate the perfect lines of a vector display. But I'm wondering about this new fancy screen they're using. With a high enough resolution it might? Hopefully you get the "feel" of the device.
I dislike the controllers though. The original ones are serviceable, because they're large. Something that tiny looks very uncomfortable, especially for games that require fast reflexes.
I bought a modded NeoGeo CD controller which runs on the Vectrex, and it is sublime. Massively improved my game at the annual Vectrex tournament. About 50 enter on the Veccy forums, and I went from a position in the mid-teens to... I think 7th or 8th place last year? You need a decent controller. Hopefully if it's wireless it will allow other controllers to be used?
My only question now is: the annual Vectrex tournie mandates only original hardware. Not emulation. How will we categorise this? Perhaps we can run it alongside, OG and Mini veccies. It's a friendly community.
The homebrew coming out for the system is also incredible. There's a lot of love and passion put into creating something which only a few people can access. More need to experience it.
@PKDuckman Damn. I now have anxiety over them getting their hands on anything else. TR isn't the worst that could happen, but I keep thinking they're poisoning the well. If they botch a remaster, it's not like another company will remaster it again - that game is now forever tainted.
@Grackler I played through the Jeff Minter collection, and it was exquisite. Lots of nice photos, videos, and write ups, giving some nice historical context to the man and his portfolio. Lots of scanned documents too. I saw it got some negative reviews from people who had no idea who Minter was, but for me it was exactly what I'd want from such a collection. Good shout - Digital Eclipse are great for these very old legacy collections. I eagerly look forward to more from them. The overall package conveys a love of and respect for the source material.
@Grackler Same. Was tempted by the Soul Reaver remaster, saw it was Aspyr, read up on it, discovered they added a day/night cycle without rebalancing or checking it didn't break the game. It does break the game and can't be switched off. Decided it was a hard pass. (Same with anything by Limited Run; that CDR debacle will never be forgotten.)
At this point, it's Night Dive or nothing. I've yet to play a Night Dive release and feel anything less than complete satisfaction. They are the top tier platinum standard which all companies should look up to.
Someone called "hasnopants" worked on a NSFW hentai game.
I approve.
Glad to see adult games getting fan-translated despite the puritanical times we find ourselves in!
(I recognise the hasnopants name from the Team Innocent translation for PCFX; that was a really great job they did, so it's also nice to see further projects from the group; there's a really good podcast the team did regarding the project, which is worth a listen if you enjoy these super obscure JP titles.)
@KingMike You are very astute to think this - well done! I am a diehard enthusiast of ET on the 2600 and will always take the opportunity to discuss it.
Howard Scott Warshaw is, in my opinion, a genius level programmer and game designer. His 2600 game Raiders of the Lost Ark is to this day a fantastic complex adventure, almost bordering on Zelda-style action-RPG. It's one of a few Atari 2600 games which require TWO joysticks to play! (Another is Riddle of the SPhinx, also a great and complex game.) The 2nd joystick is just for your inventory - you even have currency to buy items.
He often says he made the best game on the 2600 (Yar's Revenge) and the worst (ET). Now, I don't like Yar's at all. It's dull and boring. Raiders is in my top 5 for the system. But his ET is in no way the worst.
As you astutely stated: for 1982, and the hardware, it's really not bad at all. But you absolutely need to read the manual! (Same with Raiders.)
ET on the Atari 2600 features a realistic 3D cuboid map. You ever play a game where you warp from the left to the right side of the map, or top to bottom? That's not how you map a sphere to a 2D plane - what you've created is a torus. It always bugged me with Skies of Arcadia, because it meant they existed not on a planet, but a weird 3D donut shape.
ET on the 2600 has a proper map, with the screens mapping to a 6 sided cube, with each screen edge correlating to the proper adjacent screen. You go off the edge and you land on the next correct screen, as if walking around the surface of a 6 sided dice / die.
So right from the start it's doing something interesting.
The rest of the game is a collect-em-up as you retrieve telephone pieces. You can also collect, if I recall, Reese's pieces, to get the boy to find a phone item for you, like a shortcut? So it has secrets or little tricks. The items are random, the enemies too, so no two games are the same - it's almost procedurally generated? There's an organic flow to the gameplay which changes every time you boot the system. You can't just learn patterns to win, you need to understand the game and adapt to changing situations.
So it's a free-roaming, non-linear, semi-procedural collect-em-up. Not quite the adventure that Raiders was, but Scott only had a few weeks to code it, and honestly I'm amazed what he achieved. That 3D map alone makes it worth looking at. Because as I say, for the next 40+ years games developers continued to fail in understanding how Euclidean space functioned. EUCLIDEAN SPACE!
This guy's page converted me. Read the words. Gain the knowledge. Join us. Join our secret cult of ET enthusiasts! Would you like a boiled egg and some prune juice?
@jamess Did he? Very good. Thank you for mentioning it.
I am happy to publicly state it: I don't care which party - I will vote for whoever unbans me in the UK and restores my freedoms. This silencing, censoring, and oppression is intolerable. I am not a criminal!
@jamess A friend pointed out to me this morning that content was being pulled due to payment providers, being lobbied by some puritan groups. A journalist trying to document it was silenced and the articles removed.
@jamess Same. Itch seems to be blocked. This is my personal games page. It won't let me access it: https://szcz.itch.io/
I get this crap:
Content unavailable in your region We're sorry — this content is not available in your region.
Due to regulatory requirements established by the United Kingdom’s communications regulator (Ofcom), this page has been restricted from access within the UK due to the Online Safety Act.
We value our users around the world and are committed to complying with local laws and regulations. While we are currently unable to provide this specific content or service to users in the UK, we continue to evaluate our offerings and compliance framework, and we hope to make more content available in the future.
@jamess
Thanks - I'm OK, it's nothing to do with here. I live in the UK and am seeing, in real time, the country descend into anarcho-tyranny.
For example... Uncontrollable knife crime and moped muggings, while the govt flounders, targetting law abiding citizens with ever greater tyrannical laws - Italy too it seems, given this article. Plus things like the Internet Archive coming under attack. In conjunction to all this, we have the rise of AI, first with visual slop everywhere, then Google becoming hopelessly broken for searches, and the looming spectre of AI being used for crime detection, benefits calculations, etc. MPs like Clegg et al are chomping at the bit for AI, despite the fact we're still reeling from the catastrophe of the Horizon postal scandal. I anticipate many such scandals under AI.
Have you seen the film Brazil? It portrays a dystopia like the one we're sliding into.
I hadn't thought too much about the risks of AI monitoring online discourse. Now I'm wondering: if I write an article and make reference to an ODE, will the pigs come knocking?
The pigs are doing less than nothing about violent crime. They want to ban kitchen knives thinking it will fix everything. But they're quite keen to come down on members of the public over trivial matters such as playing old ROMs.
Old games and reading TE are my brief respites from such lunacy. But it gets harder as time goes on.
Here's another good example:
UK govt forced through the online safety act. Total nonsense that does more harm than good.
I visit Moby Games to look up info on Creature Shock. I'm sitting at a talk being given by the programmer and want to look up some details while he speaks to the audience, and screens.
Moby Games says that under new EU rules it can't show me sections of the game's profile page unless I can verify I'm 18.
I just gave up looking at that point.
This is anarcho-tyranny.
And this is why I'm frustrated by things.
I can't walk around London browsing my phone due to moped gangs, and I can't browse Moby Games because the government is keeping me safe from a nasty videogame.
I barely have the words to articulate this insanity. And then I have AI being handed more powers, and previous champions of freedom like Int Arch and WBM being targetted.
Comments 687
Re: Capcom Almost Didn't Reissue Resident Evil 1-3 On GOG Because We Already Have Their HD Remakes
"Munee? What is this so-called mah-knee you keep talking of, and why do we want it?"
= a Capcom executive, allegedly
Re: McDonald's Japan Launches Special Street Fighter-Related Burgers
Am I the only one secretly hoping for a SFII rom hack that makes this real and playable?
Every character with Maccy D related special moves and sprites?
Re: Review: EverDrive GB X7 - The Best Game Boy Flash Cart, Now With Save State Support
Love the Keikzz brand and entire range of carts. I've never had problems with Krikzz. Build quality is solid. Sturdy. High compatibility.
To the point where I'm more than happy to pay the premium prices. I've seen various carts on places like AliExpress for a fraction of the price, and alongside them complaints on forums about things not working or damaging hardware.
Buy cheap, buy twice.
This GB X7 works great on Analogue Pocket, Super Game Boy, and GameCube GB Player. I can move it between each while retaining all my save data, which is why I never went with a GB core on AP.
Re: "We Are A Community Geared Toward Authentic Creativity" - OC ReMix Makes Its Position On GenAI Music Clear
@hisownsidekick
"Imagine 'culinary arsenic' getting popular enough that a bakery felt the need to assure us it doesn't use any."
I love this analogy so much.
Welcome to 2025!
Re: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Is The Next NES Classic To Get A Native SNES Port
@bring_on_branstons
I think we chatted in the comments years ago about this topic, but worth repeating. Spot on about the fabricated drama of the dam level. I died once, on my first play through, and then forever after this found it not only easy but really enjoyable.
I don't understand how or why people get stuck on it. There's like what, three branching paths? And only one of them requires taking and doubling back.
There were maps in magazines back in the day.
It's such a short maze anyone with a basic attention span can get through it. And by the end there's always plenty of time left over. The whole urban myth about the dam being impossible for everyone to complete feels like an egregious fabrication.
I used to suck at games when I was a kid. And I did not like difficult games. But this dam level was not one of them.
As for the rest of the game... I really like it, but I can appreciate if others don't.
Does this port include SRAM saving between levels? Failing that I suppose the level select still works...
Re: Random: "F**K YOU, DANIELLE!" - NSFW Fighting Game Variable Geo's English Translation Has Equally NSFW Patch Notes
Anyone else secretly hoping Danielle enters the ring to throw counter claims at Harry, airing his most sordid of secrets, so we have a proper 1980s style WWF wrestlemania grudge match ?
Bring the HEAT!
Re: Random: "F**K YOU, DANIELLE!" - NSFW Fighting Game Variable Geo's English Translation Has Equally NSFW Patch Notes
"a second patch is included here that removes the adult content so you can focus on the gameplay"
Is there a third patch that instead removes the gameplay? Asking for a friend...
Re: The Atari Jaguar Is Set To Get A New 3D, Multi-Directional Shoot 'Em Up & A New Virtua Cop-Style Shooter Next Year
@KGRAMR Carl Forhan is such a nice, friendly, reasonable, well adjusted person, isn't he? I get the feeling you too have enjoyed delightful interactions with this perfectly normal human being?
Re: "You Are Vandalising Your Own History" - Taito Caught Using AI To "Undermine" Its Gaming Past
I feel a bit sick to be honest.
There is nothing wrong with old monochrome low-res images. They add charm, to be honest.
My imagination is perfectly good at colourising the b&w photo inside my mind.
And everyone is right. It's going to become exponentially more difficult to preserve history, now that AI exists. Even now, researching anything via Google is a nightmare because the algorithm brings up slop or Reddit, rather than actual old information, and the proliferation of AI written text and images makes good sources harder.
I genuinely feel I would not be able to produce The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers if I'd started the project in 2025. The tools available are broken and less functional than they were in 2013.
We have regressed as a species.
Re: The Atari Jaguar Is Set To Get A New 3D, Multi-Directional Shoot 'Em Up & A New Virtua Cop-Style Shooter Next Year
I had such an awful wretched experience dealing with Songbird once, including being directly threatened by the owner with legal action if I spoke negatively about them in public tha...
Songbird is a lovely company and I will happily buy from them again. So professional. So pleasant.
Re: Ghost In The Shell On PS1 Happened Because Masamune Shirow Loved Jumping Flash
One of the absolute best games on the PS1, Ghost in the Shell.
Regret selling my copy for peanuts.
The ability to walk on any surface is still mindblowing.
Re: "Nintendo Has Made Serious Objections" - Last Ninja Collection Delayed On Consoles
Just to double down on this.
The flag is NOT like the Nazi flag!
https://www.pacom.mil/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/3058491/nato-ships-train-with-japan-maritime-self-defense-force-in-mediterranean-sea/
Look at the photo from 2022. NATO ships training alongside Japanese maritime defence ships.
The flag is still being flown! It's still in use! This is not something anyone should compare to Nazism. Please enjoy some further reading on the topic.
@Zach
@jfp
@JohnnyMind
@RupeeClock
@Exerion76
@Damo
Direct image hotlink:
https://media.defense.gov/2022/Jun/09/2003014981/600/400/0/220606-O-ZZ099-0101.JPG
Re: "Nintendo Has Made Serious Objections" - Last Ninja Collection Delayed On Consoles
It is not remotely like the Nazi flag - everyone saying this is putting my teeth on edge due to the sheer wrongness of such statements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_Flag
"At present, the flag is flown by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, and an eight-ray version is flown by the Japan Self-Defense Forces and the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. The rising sun design is also seen in numerous scenes in daily life in Japan, such as in fishermen's banners hoisted to signify large catches of fish, flags to celebrate childbirth, and in flags for seasonal festivities."
The flag is still being flown, right now, in Japan, as you read this statement.
The rising sun flag with rays is still in use. You can still find it in real life in Japan, unlike the German Nazi flag which is illegal. The Germany government needs to allow special dispensation for films, like Indiana Jones, to be shown in the country if it depicts the flag. Unlike the rising sun flag - ergo the comparison is wrong.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with this flag, it is a part of Japanese cultural heritage which predates WWII.
I do not have first hand knowledge of what executives at Capcom and Nintendo personally think. But given that it is not illegal, my guess - and this is pure assumption on my part - is that removal of the flag is due foreign sensitivity outside Japan, either in neighbouring East Asian countries, or in America which is especially sensitive to such things.
If you notice, one of the big complainants regarding the flag at the Olympics in 2020 was Alexis Dudden, from Connecticut. As far as I'm concerned, I'm filing complaints against the Japanese flag in my mind under tearing down statues and other benign historical artefacts.
Some people might not like the flag and feel triggered, but please, let's stop being inaccurate and saying this is like the Nazi flag, when it 100% is nothing like it.
Re: Here's Why Controllers Have 'A, B, X & Y' Buttons, And Not 'A, B, C & D'
@BrianJL
I bought that Gravis pad. The shell was replicated 1:1 for the Philips CDi controller. So I reskinned my CDi pad, so it looks like a clown now. The CDi pad didn't have numbers or letters, but rather:
•
••
•+••
Re: Remember Square's Einhänder? The Developer Behind Metal Crisis Certainly Does
When I was a contestant on Games World they had import copies of this from Japan, which is how I discovered it. Loved it.
Square was on fire during the PS1 era. Einhander, Parasite Eve, Xenogears, Tobal series, Ehrgeiz, not even counting its "other" flagship RPG series. (I realise the fighting games were only published by Square, not developed by them, but the sentiment is that the company was publishing so many great games.)
Re: You Can Now Grab Two Of The Best Castlevania Games For Less Than $5 On PS4/PS5
Nonuple dip? Why not!
Re: "I Still Think The Virtual Boy Was Probably Just Too Ahead Of Its Time" - Japanese Developers On Nintendo's Most Infamous Flop
@Kazin
@BrianJL
You know, I never thought to try using the stand to alleviate some of the weight. I'd just seen photos of it resting directly on a person's face, so attempted that. I'll give this a try later. Thanks.
My usual set up is a weighted shoe box on a desk. The stand on the box. A lowered chair. Thus I can sit with my back bolt upright, resting slight on the chair back; it's pulled in under the desk, and the shoe box offers some slight overhang. It's almost comfortable, but at this elevation the controller cable isn't quite long enough for my hands to rest in my lap.
Also if anyone gets a VB, buy a third party power adapter. Don't use batteries, lol.
Also just to reiterate the article text and various comments:
Please take the official health recommendations seriously; they aren't just there due to overzealous precaution. I never play for longer than 30 minutes now without breaks.
Re: "I Still Think The Virtual Boy Was Probably Just Too Ahead Of Its Time" - Japanese Developers On Nintendo's Most Infamous Flop
@KingMike
Intriguing. Not seen that AVGN episode. Or played the SFC version, truth be told. I only played the VB game and concluded it's a bit pointless when there are nice full colour versions of it. Had I known about the oddities on SFC, I'd have asked Yokoh about it. Ah well.
Re: These New SNES ROM Hacks Aim To Make The Super Star Wars Trilogy A Whole Lot Fairer
"Snowspeeder side scrolling level removed"
I never played this, but extra lives and continues, why remove a level?
Is it really that bad?
Re: Sega Dev Kit Raid "A Preservation Disaster" For "Collectors, Archivists, And The Gaming Community"
This latest update about private companies being given access to a civilian's place of residence is... insane and horrifying.
That's not how the law works. This isn't Shadowrun, where the megacorps own the police.
If a crime was committed only the police are allowed access to investigate.
Is this being escalated somewhere? Some sort of watchdog?
Absolute insanity.
Re: The Best-Selling Sega Saturn Game In North America Might Surprise You (But Then Again, It Might Not)
@mariteaux
Sitting and thinking about it: I actually genuinely agree with you. Something I've found is I dislike very recent modern sports games, because they're excessively complicated and just not fun for me. But the older sports games, the good ones, are simple enough to convey a basic recognisable facsimile of any given sport while being intuitive, and thus excelling in multiplayer since it allows friends of any skill to join in. I still pick up and enjoy a game of Super Soccer on SNES, single player or two player, but when I tried the newest FIFA, I was absolutely lost and got bored quickly. Same thing with NBA Jam. Sadly, as pointed out, older sports games across the generations tend to be dismissed due to not looking very pretty compared to the newest titles, even if playing them is still fun today.
Re: One Of The Virtual Boy Games Coming To Switch Is "Worth $10,000"
The Virtual Boy has multiple flashcarts available, and high quality repro carts are also available, as are repro boxes and manuals.
Unless you're a hardcore collector who absolutely needs to own the originals (fair play and respect to you), the rest of us have plenty of means of playing these games.
I got a flashcart, tested every single game, then bought repros of what I liked. Jack Bros was fantastic, and the repro cost £30, as did repros of other carts.
I have no moral problems owning a repro, because ***** ebay scalpers charging £1000 for Jack Bros. I'm very happy with my £30 repro.
Re: Here Are The Best-Selling Dreamcast Games Of All Time (In The US)
@Deuteros
Indeed! A top 25 where I stopped at 23, with Illbleed. I'm sold on it already. Cheers for the link.
A few I dislike but it doesn't matter - all 25 showcase the breadth of what was available. So many charming oddities and solid core games.
Re: Here Are The Best-Selling Dreamcast Games Of All Time (In The US)
I genuinely love so, so many games in the DC library.
Sadly very few of these are in either of the top 20 lists.
I guess I was playing weird stuff while everyone else was really into sports?
Re: "The Worst Console Of All Time" Turned 20 This Year – Is Gizmondo Worth A Look In 2025?
@Damo
I believe Colors was leaked. This guy on YT is playing it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr-rohPdYqQ
Not owning a Gizmondo I don't know where to find it or how to get it running. But it seems like an essential thing to try finding? Like it did more with the system than anything else.
Lost Levels ran a feature on it. There's a super disturbing gameplay element where if you get arrested you can choose to bribe your way out of prison with money, or... voluntarily submit to being sexually assaulted by other inmates. The Lost Levels link below covers the game and this aspect, so consider yourself warned about the content.
http://www.lostlevels.org/200609/
As for the sticky coating, my old MP3 player had that same crap on it. I just got some 98% isopropyl alcohol and it rubbed off real easily. I would guess the Gizmondo is the same?
Re: Nintendo Of America Didn't Think Pokémon "Was Going To Take Off In The US", And It Wasn't Alone
@wollywoo
Exactly! I'd had the Monster in my Pocket toys several years before, and they were dumb silly fun, and Pokemon leant into that psychological feeling, before playing it - at least, before it blew up and gained its own identity.
I'm just re-reading various comments from people on their feelings of discovering Pokemon as kids, and loving it, and I'm chuckling at these executives, thinking: COME ON! It's a no brainer. Just read the one line elevator pitch.
"You collect and swap monsters and they fight!"
And you had executives going: "We don't know what we're looking at? Is this a thing kids will want? Do kids like monsters? Do kids like trading stuff? There's only one Mickey Mouse!"
Like, WTF?
I'm sure everyone who "didn't get it" would be defensive now. But like, I want to sit them down and have them talk me through their thinking, in baby steps, so I can somehow understand how people in the business of toys just couldn't get it.
This is the like New Coca Cola of business mistakes!
If you wanted to convey it via what already existed, you could say:
"Imagine the world of trading cards, but it's like Monster in my Pocket. Kids trade the monsters in the game, and we can make toys, and cards, and lunch boxes, to go with it."
Pokemon wasn't even really that "new" of an idea at the time. It was a collection of pre-existing ideas mixed together and repackaged as an RPG. And it was fantastic.
I imported the US version on release day, ages before it even reached the UK. I got Red, my brother got Blue, and we both got 150 monsters, enjoying it before it went huge. (We did a trade and game restart to get all 3 of the starting monsters.)
Re: Nintendo Of America Didn't Think Pokémon "Was Going To Take Off In The US", And It Wasn't Alone
I recall N64 magazine hyping the Japanese GB game long before it got localised.
I struggle to understand how no one saw the appeal.
Had they never seen kids trading stickers, trading cards, or other stuff? That concept is like pure opium to a kid's brain. They literally call them "trading cards". Kids also trade toys, especially if it's something where you can end up with duplicates.
So a game where you trade in-game monsters, even as a kid I knew that was going to be big.
All these big toy people going: "Derp derp, trade stuff? Kids don't like that, derp derp!"
Amusing as heck, LOL.
I'm not saying I'm smart for thinking it would be big; I'm saying that in the business of selling crap to kids, anyone who couldn't see it, is not fit for their job. A blind man with one could have SEEN the explosive potential here!
Re: "Reject This Ugly Husk And Play The Original" - Panzer Dragoon II Zwei Remake Isn't Going Down Well With Fans
The full tweet by JayF encapsulates things perfectly. My biggest concern with a Panzer Dragoon Saga remake is that by smoothing and cleaning up the low poly, low resolution graphics, you'll lose that gritty broken feeling. The distinctive Saturn 3D actually enhances the feeling of an alien, post-apocalyptic wasteland.
The rough look is part of its identity.
I didn't like the PD1 remake, and I don't like the look of this.
Re: How Super Mario 64 Fixed Princess Peach's Ad-Agency Induced Naming Mishap
@smoreon
Exactly! My feelings are because so much of games history was the result of groups who couldn't predict how big or important they would become. I'd say almost every interview regarding 40 or 30 years ago has similar sentiments.
I suppose there's an argument to be made that not knowing this in a way fostered a carefree creative attitude?
It is what it is. But I still look back at some decisions and wonder... What do other timelines look like.
Re: How Super Mario 64 Fixed Princess Peach's Ad-Agency Induced Naming Mishap
A little shocked, surprised, and saddened that all these games, which meant so much to so many, were partially the result of pawning them off to some clueless ad agency.
Re: 'Chasm' Creator's World War II Metroidvania 'Wolfhound' Looks Better Than Ever In This New Footage
@Johnny_Arthur
I forgot I'd posted here! So a while back Steam stopped supporting Windows 7, which is what my main game rig runs on. I had to permanently disable it updating, since once updated it also locked me out of running any of my Steam games on that computer. It's to do with the browser the Steam client is based on. I tested it with my laptop - updated Steam, and then every single Steam failed to load. It just auto-crashed every time. They officially said they were no longer supporting Win7, despite there at the time being more Win7 users than Linux.
Since this post I was gifted a handheld gaming PC, so I am again able to use Steam.
But I will never forget Gabe's turncoat betrayal!
Re: "Life's Too Short, You Know?" - Atari's CEO Wants To Remaster Snatcher And Panzer Dragoon Saga
A remaster of Panzer Saga is my dream too. But only a gentle remaster. Increase the draw distance. Keep everything else the same - including the dirty blocky textures. They really enhanced the feeling of it being a ruined and decayed world.
I'm not sure Snatcher needs a remaster. Konami redid the PC-88 version for PCE and MCD, then redid those for PS1 / Sat. The 32-bit versions were inferior, replacing crisp pixel art with cheap CG.
Could a remaster incorporate parts from all the versions, so you can toggle between them? PC-88 synth audio with PS1 CG visuals?
Re: Random: "Surely They're Trolling" - After The NES-Cart-In-A-SNES Debacle, The BBC Marks Windows 95's 30th With An Apple Mac
Apple is a large company today with iconic logo. It's right there in full colour on the unit. Surely anyone who uses any technology today will recognise it as an Apple product, not a Microsoft or MS compatible one.
I am now convinced this has to be rage-bait to encourage viewer interaction. Like when Starbucks "hilariously" writes your name wrong so you post on social media and give them free advertising.
Re: "With Love, Anything Is Possible" - Could Parodius Finally Get A Genesis / Mega Drive Port?
As pointed out by @RupeeClock - Treasure games explode with colour.
I was playing Gunstar Heroes today on a CRT.
If the MD can run GSH and Dynamite Heddy, it can run anything.
It's less about raw colours, and more about clever visual design and using what's available.
Re: Vectrex Mini Is The Next Micro Console You'll Need To Own
@romanista
https://vectorgaming.proboards.com/board/20/vectrex
Re: "It's The Game We Wish Had Existed 40 Years Ago" - Ulysses 31 Is Finally Getting A Video Game
@MontyMole
Internet Archive has the full series of Spartakus, dubbed, uploaded by the original creator using the highest quality transfers I've seen. Enjoy!
Re: "It's The Game We Wish Had Existed 40 Years Ago" - Ulysses 31 Is Finally Getting A Video Game
@MontyMole
Your mentioning of Cities of Gold caught my interest. Did you also ever watch Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea? It was often broadcast alongside Cities of Gold in various places.
Re: Vectrex Mini Is The Next Micro Console You'll Need To Own
@Soupbones
Shame! Give the poor thing a blanket and some warm soup. But if it needs repairing, there are several Vectrex repair people out there. I can think of two or three in the UK (I used Rude Dog Retros). Not sure about the US. It probably just needs a full recap.
@CopyX1982
I found a Vectrex at a market for like £20 once. Bought it, loved it, sold it for £100, regretted it, and then to rebuy cost me £300+ in addition to mods and a full repair clean.
So these are extremely expensive. And PC emulation is not great - it doesn't "look" right.
I bought a flashcart where I could add homebrew, since there are... Hundreds of homebrew games? Checking my folder shows a tightly curated list of 89 games. There's lot of stuff I deleted because I didn't like them. Plus the official list. And new homebrew comes out all the time. I actually dropped £70 on A Crush of Lucifer. I even owned the 3D visor at one point.
I'm not saying all this to brag - I'm saying this because I am super happy that people who are not collector maniacs (such as myself) can now enjoy not just the games, but also the form factor. It will allow one to enjoy the experience, better than just emulation.
I hope so anyway. Emulation can't replicate the perfect lines of a vector display. But I'm wondering about this new fancy screen they're using. With a high enough resolution it might? Hopefully you get the "feel" of the device.
I dislike the controllers though. The original ones are serviceable, because they're large. Something that tiny looks very uncomfortable, especially for games that require fast reflexes.
I bought a modded NeoGeo CD controller which runs on the Vectrex, and it is sublime. Massively improved my game at the annual Vectrex tournament. About 50 enter on the Veccy forums, and I went from a position in the mid-teens to... I think 7th or 8th place last year? You need a decent controller. Hopefully if it's wireless it will allow other controllers to be used?
My only question now is: the annual Vectrex tournie mandates only original hardware. Not emulation. How will we categorise this? Perhaps we can run it alongside, OG and Mini veccies. It's a friendly community.
The homebrew coming out for the system is also incredible. There's a lot of love and passion put into creating something which only a few people can access. More need to experience it.
Re: "Not Cool. Not Classy" - Tomb Raider Co-Creator Responds To Remaster AI Accusations
@PKDuckman
Damn. I now have anxiety over them getting their hands on anything else. TR isn't the worst that could happen, but I keep thinking they're poisoning the well. If they botch a remaster, it's not like another company will remaster it again - that game is now forever tainted.
Re: "Not Cool. Not Classy" - Tomb Raider Co-Creator Responds To Remaster AI Accusations
@Grackler
I played through the Jeff Minter collection, and it was exquisite. Lots of nice photos, videos, and write ups, giving some nice historical context to the man and his portfolio. Lots of scanned documents too. I saw it got some negative reviews from people who had no idea who Minter was, but for me it was exactly what I'd want from such a collection. Good shout - Digital Eclipse are great for these very old legacy collections. I eagerly look forward to more from them. The overall package conveys a love of and respect for the source material.
Re: "Not Cool. Not Classy" - Tomb Raider Co-Creator Responds To Remaster AI Accusations
@Grackler
Same. Was tempted by the Soul Reaver remaster, saw it was Aspyr, read up on it, discovered they added a day/night cycle without rebalancing or checking it didn't break the game. It does break the game and can't be switched off. Decided it was a hard pass. (Same with anything by Limited Run; that CDR debacle will never be forgotten.)
At this point, it's Night Dive or nothing. I've yet to play a Night Dive release and feel anything less than complete satisfaction. They are the top tier platinum standard which all companies should look up to.
Re: NSFW Dating Sim 'Gambler: Queen's Cup' Has Been Translated Into English
Someone called "hasnopants" worked on a NSFW hentai game.
I approve.
Glad to see adult games getting fan-translated despite the puritanical times we find ourselves in!
(I recognise the hasnopants name from the Team Innocent translation for PCFX; that was a really great job they did, so it's also nice to see further projects from the group; there's a really good podcast the team did regarding the project, which is worth a listen if you enjoy these super obscure JP titles.)
Re: Random: This PS1 E.T. Game Includes An Insult Directed At A Terrorist Leader, But You'll Need A Cheat Code
@Daniel36
Not a war! The cult welcomes all. Come, sit Daniel. One of the acolytes will take your coat. No need to be afraid.
Re: Random: This PS1 E.T. Game Includes An Insult Directed At A Terrorist Leader, But You'll Need A Cheat Code
@Daniel36
@KingMike
EUCLIDEAN SPACE MADE MANIFEST!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8bR4xsNgIA&t=1s
Not even Skies of Arcadia thought to do this.
Re: Random: This PS1 E.T. Game Includes An Insult Directed At A Terrorist Leader, But You'll Need A Cheat Code
@KingMike
You are very astute to think this - well done! I am a diehard enthusiast of ET on the 2600 and will always take the opportunity to discuss it.
Howard Scott Warshaw is, in my opinion, a genius level programmer and game designer. His 2600 game Raiders of the Lost Ark is to this day a fantastic complex adventure, almost bordering on Zelda-style action-RPG. It's one of a few Atari 2600 games which require TWO joysticks to play! (Another is Riddle of the SPhinx, also a great and complex game.) The 2nd joystick is just for your inventory - you even have currency to buy items.
He often says he made the best game on the 2600 (Yar's Revenge) and the worst (ET). Now, I don't like Yar's at all. It's dull and boring. Raiders is in my top 5 for the system. But his ET is in no way the worst.
As you astutely stated: for 1982, and the hardware, it's really not bad at all. But you absolutely need to read the manual! (Same with Raiders.)
ET on the Atari 2600 features a realistic 3D cuboid map. You ever play a game where you warp from the left to the right side of the map, or top to bottom? That's not how you map a sphere to a 2D plane - what you've created is a torus. It always bugged me with Skies of Arcadia, because it meant they existed not on a planet, but a weird 3D donut shape.
ET on the 2600 has a proper map, with the screens mapping to a 6 sided cube, with each screen edge correlating to the proper adjacent screen. You go off the edge and you land on the next correct screen, as if walking around the surface of a 6 sided dice / die.
So right from the start it's doing something interesting.
The rest of the game is a collect-em-up as you retrieve telephone pieces. You can also collect, if I recall, Reese's pieces, to get the boy to find a phone item for you, like a shortcut? So it has secrets or little tricks. The items are random, the enemies too, so no two games are the same - it's almost procedurally generated? There's an organic flow to the gameplay which changes every time you boot the system. You can't just learn patterns to win, you need to understand the game and adapt to changing situations.
So it's a free-roaming, non-linear, semi-procedural collect-em-up. Not quite the adventure that Raiders was, but Scott only had a few weeks to code it, and honestly I'm amazed what he achieved. That 3D map alone makes it worth looking at. Because as I say, for the next 40+ years games developers continued to fail in understanding how Euclidean space functioned. EUCLIDEAN SPACE!
Read this:
https://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-et.html
This guy's page converted me. Read the words. Gain the knowledge. Join us. Join our secret cult of ET enthusiasts! Would you like a boiled egg and some prune juice?
@Daniel36
You may enjoy that page too.
Re: YouTuber Raided For Reviewing Handheld Emulation Consoles Appears To Have Shared ROM Details
@jamess
Did he? Very good. Thank you for mentioning it.
I am happy to publicly state it:
I don't care which party - I will vote for whoever unbans me in the UK and restores my freedoms. This silencing, censoring, and oppression is intolerable. I am not a criminal!
Re: YouTuber Raided For Reviewing Handheld Emulation Consoles Appears To Have Shared ROM Details
@jamess
I hope there's pushback. I've just sent a bulk email to all my contacts that I'm going off grid for a while.
The fact I am now banned in the UK, effectively illegal in my own country, has enraged me more than I can even describe.
I'm not going to be writing or doing anything for a while. I'm sickened by it all.
Re: YouTuber Raided For Reviewing Handheld Emulation Consoles Appears To Have Shared ROM Details
@jamess
A friend pointed out to me this morning that content was being pulled due to payment providers, being lobbied by some puritan groups. A journalist trying to document it was silenced and the articles removed.
Article one:
https://archive.ph/USxe6
Article two:
https://archive.ph/x5cGQ
Now you see why I hate 2025. I'll add this charred corpse to the rest of the dumpster fire.
Re: YouTuber Raided For Reviewing Handheld Emulation Consoles Appears To Have Shared ROM Details
@jamess
Same. Itch seems to be blocked. This is my personal games page. It won't let me access it:
https://szcz.itch.io/
I get this crap:
Content unavailable in your region
We're sorry — this content is not available in your region.
Due to regulatory requirements established by the United Kingdom’s communications regulator (Ofcom), this page has been restricted from access within the UK due to the Online Safety Act.
We value our users around the world and are committed to complying with local laws and regulations. While we are currently unable to provide this specific content or service to users in the UK, we continue to evaluate our offerings and compliance framework, and we hope to make more content available in the future.
Re: YouTuber Raided For Reviewing Handheld Emulation Consoles Appears To Have Shared ROM Details
@jamess
Thanks - I'm OK, it's nothing to do with here. I live in the UK and am seeing, in real time, the country descend into anarcho-tyranny.
For example... Uncontrollable knife crime and moped muggings, while the govt flounders, targetting law abiding citizens with ever greater tyrannical laws - Italy too it seems, given this article. Plus things like the Internet Archive coming under attack. In conjunction to all this, we have the rise of AI, first with visual slop everywhere, then Google becoming hopelessly broken for searches, and the looming spectre of AI being used for crime detection, benefits calculations, etc. MPs like Clegg et al are chomping at the bit for AI, despite the fact we're still reeling from the catastrophe of the Horizon postal scandal. I anticipate many such scandals under AI.
Have you seen the film Brazil? It portrays a dystopia like the one we're sliding into.
I hadn't thought too much about the risks of AI monitoring online discourse. Now I'm wondering: if I write an article and make reference to an ODE, will the pigs come knocking?
The pigs are doing less than nothing about violent crime. They want to ban kitchen knives thinking it will fix everything. But they're quite keen to come down on members of the public over trivial matters such as playing old ROMs.
Old games and reading TE are my brief respites from such lunacy. But it gets harder as time goes on.
Here's another good example:
UK govt forced through the online safety act. Total nonsense that does more harm than good.
I visit Moby Games to look up info on Creature Shock. I'm sitting at a talk being given by the programmer and want to look up some details while he speaks to the audience, and screens.
Moby Games says that under new EU rules it can't show me sections of the game's profile page unless I can verify I'm 18.
I just gave up looking at that point.
This is anarcho-tyranny.
And this is why I'm frustrated by things.
I can't walk around London browsing my phone due to moped gangs, and I can't browse Moby Games because the government is keeping me safe from a nasty videogame.
I barely have the words to articulate this insanity. And then I have AI being handed more powers, and previous champions of freedom like Int Arch and WBM being targetted.
Ugh.