Bruno is currently based in London, teaching, and his English is fluent. If they're not already in contact then I'm sure it'll be a mutually beneficial meeting of minds.
@EarthboundBenjy I said the same thing with Metroid and Zelda ported to SNES, and the fact he didn't bother to add any of the quality of life enhancements modders have added (ie: proper maps to both Metroid and Zelda). These patches are freely available on RHDN, and they are excellent, adding new life to these old games, and greatly improving them. He did zero when porting these NES games. He didn't even bother adding L&R item selection in Zelda, which would be a number one first day addition.
These ports are pointless and I said as much.
And I got shot down.
The lesson is: do not question the guy making cheap, pointless no frills NES to SNES ports.
From past experience, old JP devs often don't think about this unless it's mentioned.
I say gently because a few bad actors online get aggressive and demanding. Even if he does not want it released to the public, we should respect that - the important thing is the EEPROM data is safe.
@KitsuneNight Absolutely. I wonder if they're already in contact - if not, and this article helps bridge a gap, then I am super happy. I'm not on Twitter otherwise I'd be tweeting.
To be honest I've not liked any of the looks over the years, other than the original in-game look on N64 - which was different to the box art even.
I suspect this is nostalgia.
That low poly N64 model, to me, looked exactly like a young Kate Beckinsale from the film Uncovered (1994). In fact if you Google pics you can compare the faces, which are noticeably similar. I had an adolescent crush on Kate, so it's skewed my subjectivity.
The XBLA remaster made her look... For lack of a better description, "more American".
They could make DLC where you can change her look to the original, remaster, and sequel. That would be an interesting experiment to guage the extent of people's reaction.
@RadioHedgeFund Yes, I noticed that too. Looked up the model she's based on, and she has a strong jaw, but the polygon model seems... Even more so?
I miss this old logo. Of the countless games I played which had this logo, I cannot think of any which was less than at least "pretty good", but I can think of many which were all time classics.
@nocdaes
Sadly Nintendo has not preserved all their games. Despite manufacturing all Famicom games, when it came to the FC anniversary they didn't even have certain first party (!) titles for photographing. Nintendo had to go begging Ritsumeikan University to ask if they could find some titles. Developed by Nintendo. Because Nintendo did not have physical copies. Of games Nintendo made. At Nintendo. Nuts!
Source: Pr Nakamura at Ritsumeikan.
EDIT: I was replying to your first comment then read others.
Please, I need to shatter your illusions and everyone else's, who think Nintendo or any other company has physical or digital copies.
They absolutely do not.
Dev computers are routinely junked. Dev hard drives erased. Legacy hardware scrapped. Even big companies like Nintendo are absolutely missing large portions of their own archives.
I know from first hand sources.
When they started doing digital or retro releases, or anniversary photoshoots, these big companies had to go to fans, universities, preservation groups, and ask if anyone had these items mint and complete.
Pause for a minute and consider this: Nintendo developed, manufactured, and published games, and 20 or 30 or 40 years later, they have zero trace of them in any office and had to rebuy them back on the aftersale market.
I was sitting in Ritsumeikan Uni, in Pr Aki's office, and he was telling me how the big N had, quite literally, lost stuff! And then he and others had to find and loan them back games they had made!
Also look up the story on one of N's earliest arcade games. Sky Skipper. That was almost, quite literally, lost forever. It was only thanks to fans it was saved.
Man, what a crazy company Sein / Xain / Zein Soft is!
Half their games unfinished. None leaving Japan. None released on consoles. Totally insane stories (aliens! tug of war!) and strange gameplay (several titles unfinishable). Psycho CEO who would literally commit violence against staff. Mad shenanigans with adverts for games that didn't yet exist. Locking staff in the office. One having to escape to Tokyo to get away from the boss' reach. And ultimately the CEO arrested for money reasons.
This first Tritorn is generally seen as their best and most complete game. Though my favourite of theirs is DIOS - a little buggy, but the PC-88 version has a few scenarios which are just about doable. The author gifted me his personal copy - it is a treasured item in my collection.
Barusa no Fukushu is kinda a spiritual follow up of their to the Tritorn saga.
Yes, the draconian actions of software companies are very much putting preservation at risk. Current copyright laws are so long-lasting, they outlive the physical media these games are stored on. Floppy disks and ROM chips do not last as long as paper or vinyl. They are a fragile medium - especially anything on magnetic media.
"If you care about the history of technology, in fact, you should be thankful that people copy software without permission. It may seem counterintuitive, but piracy has actually saved more software than it has destroyed. Already, pirates have spared tens of thousands of programs from extinction, proving themselves the unintentional stewards of our digital culture."
To be clear, I am not advocating that people be allowed to steal the latest Zelda release on Switch and emulate it.
But right now the law is not nuanced. It's not clear or precise. And it makes zero delineation between a game released today, and a dying 40 year old floppy disk from 1984.
The Internet Archive has special government dispensation to preserve them, and we are lucky for this! But that might be taken away should a corrupt or incompetent politician start meddling.
Japan is the absolute worst for copyright law. In certain instances the preserving of game data, before it decays into nothing, is actually very illegal and carries severe penalties, and so it needs to be done clandestinely, or it needs a laborious technical workaround to make it "technically legal" - which is so insane.
Yes. Nintendo, the ESA, all of these companies are destroying history, due to a lack of understanding, not caring, and chasing profit above all else.
Preserving history does not mean they have to lose out on profit.
Preserving history requires intelligent and nuanced clarification, with exceptions made for age and fragile media.
It also desperately needs funding, stewardship, co-operation, and experts in the field being allowed to influence or advise on legally binding decisions.
Right now the whole thing is a trainwreck of competing ideas, and rampant predatory capitalism and greed.
@KingMike
I didn't see it at first either (my brain automatically reads the letters). But on twitter someone made an image showing it.
Separating each out and colouring coding them.
The yo letter for example looks kinda like a dk stuck together.
I now cannot unsee it. I'd class this as a great example of pareidolia. Not knowing the JP script, he forcibly reinterpreted the symbols.
I kinda like it. I don't say that in a mean way. I'm sincerely in awe of the elastic imagination which allowed it.
I think, also, it says a lot about the human ability to reframe information based on limited background knowledge and context, and misinterpret it as something else.
I don't mock the writer of that review. Any one of us can misinterpret things if we have don't have all the information. Their error is a great (and amusing) lesson to us all.
@willstancilfan I hope the mods don't delete this, because I want to deconstruct this strange and nonsensical comment.
How is it Communist or agitprop? The comment is so bizarre I wonder if you're not a bot.
if you click my name at the top you'll see a series of follow up pieces, based on the main conference.
Some are archaeologically important, such as preserving CTW. We've already had a breakthrough on that.
Some are whimsical, such as tracking down an Atari ST one-hit wonder. I thought that was fun.
Others, like the Taito extortion and attempted kidnapping, brings to light significant events only documented in other languages. I suppose if you have zero interest in anything Taito ever did, then sure, this won't appeal to you.
But there were 62 talks. It was only possible to attend 1/3 of them. I attended those which I liked the look of. I enjoyed all of them, though not all of them would be easy to translate into an article.
Right now I'm writing a piece on the Zeebo, based on a talk given by a former employee, sharing inside knowledge. Again, maybe you're not interested in that specific topic. Fair enough. But there's no veneer here - this is proper, solid research.
The ODE in this piece - and I assume all ODEs for 3DO but am not certain - comes with a memory manager, which not only allows deleting of single items, as in the original 3DO, but also allows you to back up the entire NVRAM to USB.
It doesn't allow single items, only the entire thing, but it's handy to have and means you should be able to then re-use the NVRAM in a PC emulator or vice versa. (I was messing around with hacking Virtuoso's save data.)
Anyway, that's a useful thing to know. Since it also in theory allows you to move NVRAM between systems... Though I've not tested that.
I have one of this specific model myself and love it to bits. I also have it for the rare Japanese A/B variant of 3DO, which comes with a built in switch for 240p output, without need for mods. Which not only makes the graphics crisper through S-Video, but also boosts performance since it's not upscaling (some games actually become unplayable, such is the performance enhancement).
There are many, many ODE options for 3DO. Like, weirdly a lot. @KitsuneNight There is one for the Goldstar, I've seen.
At least 3 for the FZ1. Including one for $300 which plugs into the system's expansion port, so need to open it up even.
Ultimately I went for this one due to price and noted reliability online. Do not cheap out with some weird AliExpress clone or something. If you want low cost then Crown Arcade is a good ratio for price / build quality.
It also supports disc swapping for multi-disc games.
@Diogmites You delete a lot of comments? I am intrigued by this statement! I'll edit mine to correct errors, but rarely will I feel it needs a full delete (has happened sometimes). Would it be invasive to ask about the motivation behind this? I'm just very curious now.
@-wc-
Glad to see so many MGS2 mentions.
I bought a Dreamcast, early adopter. Loved it. Of all the videogame playing boys at my school in my year, around 20 maybe, only myself and two others got a DC (10%?). All the others were waiting for the PS2, and every one of them cited MGS2 as the reason.
I didn't care for DVDs. I preferred VHS back then.
I am convinced that if Sega paid enough to make MGS2 exclusive, they would have won the console war.
MGS2 was like the coming of the Messiah circa 2000. (In Suffolk)
I had been thinking the environment must have been doing some lifting (ie: handling control input?)
So it looks like there's textures... Are these actual textures? Or does the code simple allocate colours on a 4x4 pixel grid and plaster that over a flat surface?
My programming is severely limited, so I'm trying to imagine the sort of clever workarounds maybe they used.
For all of the industry's gnashing of teeth over emulation, we're extremely fortunate something like MAME is even possible with videogames. These older electro-mechanical games have no such chance of being replicated and preserved.
I remember reading an article that some racing game on Dreamcast (a 4x4 game?) would have online cross-play with the PC version.
I remember thinking this sounded amazing on a conceptual level.
A quarter of a century later and I still don't see much in the way of cross-play, despite all consoles now being online. Though I've not really followed it too closely.
@KitsuneNight I totally agree - I just suspect the decision is down to the money men, who ask: "Will this bring third quarterly ROI and growth of 24% to placate our shareholders?"
I already have two Saturns with an ODE, and a Dreamcast with an ODE, but I would totally buy a mini of these systems for HDMI output. (Yeah, I also have a DC VGA to HDMI upscaler, but a DC mini sounds like fun.)
@KitsuneNight
Probably purely cost related. The MD et all are just cheap emulators on weak hardware. Despite M2 making the MD mini, it felt VERY slapdash! The scanlines option did not align properly with my 720 resolution, causing banding. It didn't even feel as well made as Nintendo's SNES Mini. So I get the feeling Sega doesn't want to invest much if any money into these things. I was told by one of those on the MD Mini project the problems with the scanline filter were due to budget and time constraints.
A Saturn or DC could totally be done, but it would need a bit of investment.
@Mario500 My initial pitch was the main feature linked at the start of this piece, describing the three day conference and listing a few interesting talks which didn't warrant a standalone article. (The Little Wars book talk for example; great to learn about as the precursor to D&D and RPGs in general, but difficult to then write about.)
After this initial piece I envisioned several "satellite" articles based on specific talks (or groups of talks) which warranted a deeper look. As in: this mini piece now orbits the main starter feature like a satellite.
Really I just wanted to draw attention to what Jaro had made me aware of regarding CTW.
@KitsuneNight I'm secretly hoping there's a veteran developer out there, like Jeff Minter for example, who happened to just put one after the other in a shed or the loft, and kinda forgot about them, but didn't need to move house, so they're just sitting there.
And then someone will tell someone, and they'll tell this person, and they'll be like: so someone wants all these old things? Sure! Come round and collect all 800 of them.
@gingerbeardman Thank you kind sir, for diligent service to the cause! I had been wondering who had been involved!
I've looked on those scans so often.
My point still kinda stands though. One of the people involved in helping preseve / disseminate this Japanese mag was an Englishman. Someone whose native language is different, and yet you still took an interest.
I hope we find CTW. Trade papers are fascinating. The tone is less about how cool stuff is, and usually more: this will make you money.
Sherriff had made line graph with a steady incline, showing the total number of Smashes over 8 years. Averaged out it shows they actually didn't change the number awarded each month, generally. Fluctuations were small.
A second graph showed the number of games inthe charts which were CS awards. It starts off really high - I don't have it to hand, but more than half. And there's a steady decline over time.
Which can be interpreted in several ways as shown.
It was quite a technical talk, but if you were a Speccy owner it would probably be interesting.
A fair section was on how Smiths attained an 18% market share as distributor, and influenced what would be sold.
Pity it wasn't filmed. He teaches in London. You could tweet him for more, or I could send his PowerPoint, if you have a PPX reader.
@RetroBillyT Technically that list is just interesting stuff I saw, but wasn't sure about expanding on. So provided a quick taste.
There's a few panels, not listed, which I plan to cover more in depth.
My thinking was: short list of cool stuff, with a brief descriptor, then some short articles exploring specific others. Satellite pieces basically.
For example, Sebag's magic systems talk I didn't attend (3 ran at once and you had to pick 1). He described it afterwards though, and shared his slides, so I had to at least name-check it in the brief list.
But, one of the satellites is about Computer Trade Weekly, so I'll try to incorporate some of Sherriff's chart analysis talk into that, since the two had some connection.
It's the best kind of awful. Caen's interview by Protonjon is deranged.
The pre-release beta is actually better than the retail game, because it was before WB meddling.
The game has easily accessed cheats, allowing you to skip to any level quickly. Bought a loose cartridge for £5 and spent several days dissecting it.
Ironically, the ring levels were the most "fun". Like a weird version of Pilotwings.
The interior stuff though? Wow. Not much to add to what's been said.
All the obvious bad design choices. The dumb Lex quiz. The broken camera. The collision detection, on real hardware, which will send you falling through the floor. The unrelenting vertical cliff of difficulty.
The best bit: you finish the game and it won't show you the proper ending unless you finish it on the highest difficult. Nice. Feels like the devs were just straight up trolling players by that point.
Like, I feel if they maybe just gave you infinite lives and halved the damage enemies did, and removed time limits, it would be crap but not so insidiously difficult. Like you could play through it to the end comfortably.
The astronomical difficulty makes it very hate-able.
@Zenszulu Indeed! Emulation also helps, as do flash carts. Before, they had to burn EEPROM chips to test. Or possibly use an in-circuit emulator, but that tied you to the computer.
@Zenszulu In the earlier article Komabayashi talks about multi-layering the sprites to work around the 3 colours + 1 transparency, inherent in all FC/NES sprites. It's an expensive technique because the more sprites you use this on, the less you have for individual bullets and enemies. I think the NES allows 64 sprites? Plus of course too many on any given horizontal row causes flickering (more than 8); he covered that too.
It reminds me of the ZX Spectrum, and some developers describing how, with very careful effort, they could create graphics without any colour clash, but you had really control how elements interacted.
Also sorcery. Actual sorcery was employed in making this.
Both astute points. Actually, this is all part of research I dug up for something which is going to be published in a few days - this being a side diversion.
There's an interview between Miyamoto and Endou, where Miyamoto describes having the Druaga cabinet in his office at Nintendo. So there is absolutely a direct line of influence.
Miyamoto doesn't mention Hydlide, that I've seen. But Tokihiro Naito, creator of Hydlide, admits to taking direct inspiration from Druaga.
However! We also know that Japanese companies scouted out the UK for computer games. Hudson sent Takashi Takebe to London to research the ZX Spectrum. This ultimately led to Eric and the Floaters, and other Hudson games. So JP companies were aware of the UK's output. It's a gloriously complex tapestry!
@Kushan No, there's no link - this was in a group email Devin sent to us. Thinking about, he should really put it online (in TCRF page for example), rather than leave it confined to email.
In my youth I dreamed of being a game developer - and it was specifically this era I imagined working in.
In hindsight I'm glad I never went down that path, because today's world of gaming is so far removed from this 1997 footage.
I'd probably have ended up doing textures on rocks, a faceless drone in a team of 200 people, working on some lame online-only DLC season pass garbage.
Still. At least I got to live that era and will always have the memories.
@Poodlestargenerica True, but when I've encouraged this I'm told Saturn emulation is more trouble than it's worth. I've even gone as far as making bespoke zipped emulator packages for friends - to show them it's not.
Reminded me of the ghost dad racer story, and the one where someone got letters from their late mother in Animal Crossing (right in the feels). Also that depressing Sonic short film about the lonely kid.
Interesting that we've reached an era where film makers who grew up with games are increasingly incorporating them.
@GhaleonUnlimited Good luck! I like CJ, we chatted back in the HG101 days, but he seems like he stretches himself waaay too thin. I use a MCD ODE flashcart on PAL modded MD - email me if you guys want a tester for SR.
I just thought of another Saturn exclusive thanks to @DexTepa
BOMBERMAN!
You think every system has BM?
Not 10 player.
It dissapointed me hugely that online BM ganes on PS3 and X360 did not support 10 player games, despite higher resolution and online capabilities.
I played it once in 10p mode. At the Barbican Gane On exhibit. Technically it was 6 player, byt we set the other 4 as CPU.
No other home system has 10 player Bomberman. Only Saturn. (I think...)
The more I ponder it, the more I feel the Saturn was my fave of the PS1/Sat/N64 war. Purely for these unique oddities.
Comments 534
Re: The Quest To Preserve And Document Tectoy's Zeebo Console
Bruno is currently based in London, teaching, and his English is fluent. If they're not already in contact then I'm sure it'll be a mutually beneficial meeting of minds.
Re: Run-And-Gun Classic Contra Has Been Ported To SNES
@EarthboundBenjy I said the same thing with Metroid and Zelda ported to SNES, and the fact he didn't bother to add any of the quality of life enhancements modders have added (ie: proper maps to both Metroid and Zelda). These patches are freely available on RHDN, and they are excellent, adding new life to these old games, and greatly improving them. He did zero when porting these NES games. He didn't even bother adding L&R item selection in Zelda, which would be a number one first day addition.
These ports are pointless and I said as much.
And I got shot down.
The lesson is: do not question the guy making cheap, pointless no frills NES to SNES ports.
Re: A Copy Of The Lost Famicom Title Moeyo Butaman Has Been Found
Someone should very gently suggest it be dumped.
From past experience, old JP devs often don't think about this unless it's mentioned.
I say gently because a few bad actors online get aggressive and demanding. Even if he does not want it released to the public, we should respect that - the important thing is the EEPROM data is safe.
Re: The Quest To Preserve And Document Tectoy's Zeebo Console
@KitsuneNight Absolutely. I wonder if they're already in contact - if not, and this article helps bridge a gap, then I am super happy. I'm not on Twitter otherwise I'd be tweeting.
Re: Poll: What Do You Think Of Jo's New Look In Perfect Dark?
To be honest I've not liked any of the looks over the years, other than the original in-game look on N64 - which was different to the box art even.
I suspect this is nostalgia.
That low poly N64 model, to me, looked exactly like a young Kate Beckinsale from the film Uncovered (1994). In fact if you Google pics you can compare the faces, which are noticeably similar. I had an adolescent crush on Kate, so it's skewed my subjectivity.
The XBLA remaster made her look... For lack of a better description, "more American".
They could make DLC where you can change her look to the original, remaster, and sequel. That would be an interesting experiment to guage the extent of people's reaction.
@RadioHedgeFund
Yes, I noticed that too. Looked up the model she's based on, and she has a strong jaw, but the polygon model seems... Even more so?
Re: Random: Who Designed Konami's Famous "Bacon Strips" Logo?
I miss this old logo. Of the countless games I played which had this logo, I cannot think of any which was less than at least "pretty good", but I can think of many which were all time classics.
Re: Talking Point: Is Nintendo Erasing Its Own History In Its War On ROM Sites?
@avcrypt You're part of the movement preserving these games? You're doing the Lord's work - may your data remain uncorrupted.
Re: Talking Point: Is Nintendo Erasing Its Own History In Its War On ROM Sites?
@nocdaes
Sadly Nintendo has not preserved all their games. Despite manufacturing all Famicom games, when it came to the FC anniversary they didn't even have certain first party (!) titles for photographing. Nintendo had to go begging Ritsumeikan University to ask if they could find some titles. Developed by Nintendo. Because Nintendo did not have physical copies. Of games Nintendo made. At Nintendo. Nuts!
Source: Pr Nakamura at Ritsumeikan.
EDIT: I was replying to your first comment then read others.
Please, I need to shatter your illusions and everyone else's, who think Nintendo or any other company has physical or digital copies.
They absolutely do not.
Dev computers are routinely junked. Dev hard drives erased. Legacy hardware scrapped. Even big companies like Nintendo are absolutely missing large portions of their own archives.
I know from first hand sources.
When they started doing digital or retro releases, or anniversary photoshoots, these big companies had to go to fans, universities, preservation groups, and ask if anyone had these items mint and complete.
Pause for a minute and consider this: Nintendo developed, manufactured, and published games, and 20 or 30 or 40 years later, they have zero trace of them in any office and had to rebuy them back on the aftersale market.
I was sitting in Ritsumeikan Uni, in Pr Aki's office, and he was telling me how the big N had, quite literally, lost stuff! And then he and others had to find and loan them back games they had made!
Also look up the story on one of N's earliest arcade games. Sky Skipper. That was almost, quite literally, lost forever. It was only thanks to fans it was saved.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/games/2023/sep/11/the-quest-for-sky-skipper-the-rarest-nintendo-arcade-machine-in-the-world
Games companies could not care less.
They only care about appeasing shareholders at the next quarterly profits meeting.
Re: "Thank You, Margaret Thatcher!" - How The UK Played A Leading Role In Eastern European Computing
@Krull
I've come to find that many, so many of my all-time favourite games were made in Europe.
Resi Gaiden (GBC) - UK
Alien 3 (SNES & GB versions) - UK
Goldeneye / Perf Dark (N64) - UK
Jeff Minter games - UK
Sacred Armour of Antiriad (Spectrum) - UK
Pathologic (PC) - Rus
Stalker (PC) - Ukr
Gothic (PC) - Ger
Elex (PC) - Ger
EYE: Divine Cybermancy (PC) - France
Witcher series (PC) - Pol
This list could go for ages. One just needs to dig a little.
Re: PC-88 Action-RPG Tritorn Is Making The Journey To Switch
Man, what a crazy company Sein / Xain / Zein Soft is!
Half their games unfinished. None leaving Japan. None released on consoles. Totally insane stories (aliens! tug of war!) and strange gameplay (several titles unfinishable). Psycho CEO who would literally commit violence against staff. Mad shenanigans with adverts for games that didn't yet exist. Locking staff in the office. One having to escape to Tokyo to get away from the boss' reach. And ultimately the CEO arrested for money reasons.
This first Tritorn is generally seen as their best and most complete game. Though my favourite of theirs is DIOS - a little buggy, but the PC-88 version has a few scenarios which are just about doable. The author gifted me his personal copy - it is a treasured item in my collection.
Barusa no Fukushu is kinda a spiritual follow up of their to the Tritorn saga.
Re: Chasm Creator Reveals Wolfhound, A Slick-Looking Metroidvania Set During World War II
Looks ace. Sadly I'm on PS4 and GOG for PC since Steam no longer works.
Re: Poll: What's The Best Ganbare Goemon / Mystical Ninja Game?
I loved the first N64 adventure more than Mario 64. Loved it to bits. My favourite N64 game after Pilotwings 64.
I miss the Goemon series. If I owned a Switch I'd play its spiritual successor, Mameda no Bakeru.
This now has a fan-translation, if you have a modded Switch, btw.
Re: Talking Point: Is Nintendo Erasing Its Own History In Its War On ROM Sites?
Yes, the draconian actions of software companies are very much putting preservation at risk. Current copyright laws are so long-lasting, they outlive the physical media these games are stored on. Floppy disks and ROM chips do not last as long as paper or vinyl. They are a fragile medium - especially anything on magnetic media.
I love this article on the topic:
https://www.technologizer.com/2012/01/23/why-history-needs-software-piracy/index.html
"If you care about the history of technology, in fact, you should be thankful that people copy software without permission. It may seem counterintuitive, but piracy has actually saved more software than it has destroyed. Already, pirates have spared tens of thousands of programs from extinction, proving themselves the unintentional stewards of our digital culture."
To be clear, I am not advocating that people be allowed to steal the latest Zelda release on Switch and emulate it.
But right now the law is not nuanced. It's not clear or precise. And it makes zero delineation between a game released today, and a dying 40 year old floppy disk from 1984.
The Internet Archive has special government dispensation to preserve them, and we are lucky for this! But that might be taken away should a corrupt or incompetent politician start meddling.
Japan is the absolute worst for copyright law. In certain instances the preserving of game data, before it decays into nothing, is actually very illegal and carries severe penalties, and so it needs to be done clandestinely, or it needs a laborious technical workaround to make it "technically legal" - which is so insane.
Yes. Nintendo, the ESA, all of these companies are destroying history, due to a lack of understanding, not caring, and chasing profit above all else.
Preserving history does not mean they have to lose out on profit.
Preserving history requires intelligent and nuanced clarification, with exceptions made for age and fragile media.
It also desperately needs funding, stewardship, co-operation, and experts in the field being allowed to influence or advise on legally binding decisions.
Right now the whole thing is a trainwreck of competing ideas, and rampant predatory capitalism and greed.
Re: Random: Hilarious Puyo Puyo SUN Review Mistake Resurfaces Online
@KingMike
I didn't see it at first either (my brain automatically reads the letters). But on twitter someone made an image showing it.
Separating each out and colouring coding them.
The yo letter for example looks kinda like a dk stuck together.
I now cannot unsee it. I'd class this as a great example of pareidolia. Not knowing the JP script, he forcibly reinterpreted the symbols.
I kinda like it. I don't say that in a mean way. I'm sincerely in awe of the elastic imagination which allowed it.
I think, also, it says a lot about the human ability to reframe information based on limited background knowledge and context, and misinterpret it as something else.
I don't mock the writer of that review. Any one of us can misinterpret things if we have don't have all the information. Their error is a great (and amusing) lesson to us all.
Re: History Of Games 2024 Offered An Embarrassment Of Riches, But Games Media Isn't Listening
@willstancilfan I hope the mods don't delete this, because I want to deconstruct this strange and nonsensical comment.
How is it Communist or agitprop? The comment is so bizarre I wonder if you're not a bot.
if you click my name at the top you'll see a series of follow up pieces, based on the main conference.
Some are archaeologically important, such as preserving CTW. We've already had a breakthrough on that.
Some are whimsical, such as tracking down an Atari ST one-hit wonder. I thought that was fun.
Others, like the Taito extortion and attempted kidnapping, brings to light significant events only documented in other languages. I suppose if you have zero interest in anything Taito ever did, then sure, this won't appeal to you.
But there were 62 talks. It was only possible to attend 1/3 of them. I attended those which I liked the look of. I enjoyed all of them, though not all of them would be easy to translate into an article.
Right now I'm writing a piece on the Zeebo, based on a talk given by a former employee, sharing inside knowledge. Again, maybe you're not interested in that specific topic. Fair enough. But there's no veneer here - this is proper, solid research.
Re: Review: USB To 3DO ODE - A $60 Gateway To Interactive Multiplayer Bliss?
@KitsuneNight
A good point about memory managers.
The ODE in this piece - and I assume all ODEs for 3DO but am not certain - comes with a memory manager, which not only allows deleting of single items, as in the original 3DO, but also allows you to back up the entire NVRAM to USB.
It doesn't allow single items, only the entire thing, but it's handy to have and means you should be able to then re-use the NVRAM in a PC emulator or vice versa. (I was messing around with hacking Virtuoso's save data.)
Anyway, that's a useful thing to know. Since it also in theory allows you to move NVRAM between systems... Though I've not tested that.
Re: Review: USB To 3DO ODE - A $60 Gateway To Interactive Multiplayer Bliss?
I have one of this specific model myself and love it to bits. I also have it for the rare Japanese A/B variant of 3DO, which comes with a built in switch for 240p output, without need for mods. Which not only makes the graphics crisper through S-Video, but also boosts performance since it's not upscaling (some games actually become unplayable, such is the performance enhancement).
There are many, many ODE options for 3DO. Like, weirdly a lot.
@KitsuneNight
There is one for the Goldstar, I've seen.
At least 3 for the FZ1. Including one for $300 which plugs into the system's expansion port, so need to open it up even.
Ultimately I went for this one due to price and noted reliability online. Do not cheap out with some weird AliExpress clone or something. If you want low cost then Crown Arcade is a good ratio for price / build quality.
It also supports disc swapping for multi-disc games.
Re: Taito's Chairman Was Almost Kidnapped By His Own Employees
@Diogmites
Thank you for sharing - heal well Diogmites.
Re: Taito's Chairman Was Almost Kidnapped By His Own Employees
@Diogmites
You delete a lot of comments? I am intrigued by this statement! I'll edit mine to correct errors, but rarely will I feel it needs a full delete (has happened sometimes). Would it be invasive to ask about the motivation behind this? I'm just very curious now.
Re: Taito's Chairman Was Almost Kidnapped By His Own Employees
@Diogmites
I read your comment, then it vanished? Deleted?
It was a good comment, noting that Abba's story would indeed be fascinating, and based on what others have said about him, he was a decent person.
Re: Modern Vintage Gamer Digs Into The PS2's Much-Hyped "Emotion Engine"
@-wc-
High five fellow DCer!
Sorry, no, I meant hypothetically. Like if Sega had dumped its Shenmue budget to buy MGS2.
I have never heard or read of talks between Sega and Konami in this regard.
To be clear: I was fantasising, though perhaps chose poor wording to convey this.
I apologise - this is not even a rumour, it was a personal fantasy!
Re: Modern Vintage Gamer Digs Into The PS2's Much-Hyped "Emotion Engine"
@-wc-
Glad to see so many MGS2 mentions.
I bought a Dreamcast, early adopter. Loved it. Of all the videogame playing boys at my school in my year, around 20 maybe, only myself and two others got a DC (10%?). All the others were waiting for the PS2, and every one of them cited MGS2 as the reason.
I didn't care for DVDs. I preferred VHS back then.
I am convinced that if Sega paid enough to make MGS2 exclusive, they would have won the console war.
MGS2 was like the coming of the Messiah circa 2000. (In Suffolk)
Re: This Tribute To Quake Is Just 13 Kilobytes In Size
@amongtheworms I see! Thank you.
I had been thinking the environment must have been doing some lifting (ie: handling control input?)
So it looks like there's textures... Are these actual textures? Or does the code simple allocate colours on a 4x4 pixel grid and plaster that over a flat surface?
My programming is severely limited, so I'm trying to imagine the sort of clever workarounds maybe they used.
Re: We Helped Unite A GTA Developer With His Missing BAFTA After 25 Years
An injustice has been corrected. Nicely done.
Though it should never have happened in the first place.
How was it Bennun lost out despite being there on the night? Who at T2 orchestrated such shenanigans? Madness.
Re: This Tribute To Quake Is Just 13 Kilobytes In Size
That was extremely good fun! How did this fit into 13kb? What's the science behind it?
Re: Random: Never Seen Yoshi Pop A Cap? Then You've Clearly Not Played Game & Watch Gallery
Yoshi and Shadow the Hedgehog need to team up for a cross-over game.
Yoshi's dialogue needs to go full gangsta, but in that adorable squeaky voice of his.
Admit it, you want to see this.
Re: Did You Know Ireland Has A Secret History Of Coin-Ops?
@Poodlestargenerica
Same.
For all of the industry's gnashing of teeth over emulation, we're extremely fortunate something like MAME is even possible with videogames. These older electro-mechanical games have no such chance of being replicated and preserved.
Re: Remember When PS2 And Dreamcast Had Cross-Play In 2001?
I remember reading an article that some racing game on Dreamcast (a 4x4 game?) would have online cross-play with the PC version.
I remember thinking this sounded amazing on a conceptual level.
A quarter of a century later and I still don't see much in the way of cross-play, despite all consoles now being online. Though I've not really followed it too closely.
Re: Sega Wants You To Know It Isn't Announcing Any New 'Mini' Hardware In 2024
@KitsuneNight I totally agree - I just suspect the decision is down to the money men, who ask: "Will this bring third quarterly ROI and growth of 24% to placate our shareholders?"
Or something.
Re: Sega Wants You To Know It Isn't Announcing Any New 'Mini' Hardware In 2024
That's what they WANT you to think!
I already have two Saturns with an ODE, and a Dreamcast with an ODE, but I would totally buy a mini of these systems for HDMI output. (Yeah, I also have a DC VGA to HDMI upscaler, but a DC mini sounds like fun.)
@KitsuneNight
Probably purely cost related. The MD et all are just cheap emulators on weak hardware. Despite M2 making the MD mini, it felt VERY slapdash! The scanlines option did not align properly with my 720 resolution, causing banding. It didn't even feel as well made as Nintendo's SNES Mini. So I get the feeling Sega doesn't want to invest much if any money into these things. I was told by one of those on the MD Mini project the problems with the scanline filter were due to budget and time constraints.
A Saturn or DC could totally be done, but it would need a bit of investment.
Re: The Race Is On To Save A Valuable Resource Of Video Game History
@Mario500 My initial pitch was the main feature linked at the start of this piece, describing the three day conference and listing a few interesting talks which didn't warrant a standalone article. (The Little Wars book talk for example; great to learn about as the precursor to D&D and RPGs in general, but difficult to then write about.)
After this initial piece I envisioned several "satellite" articles based on specific talks (or groups of talks) which warranted a deeper look. As in: this mini piece now orbits the main starter feature like a satellite.
Really I just wanted to draw attention to what Jaro had made me aware of regarding CTW.
Re: 10 Forgotten Gaming Magazines That Are Worth Remembering
Electronic Games is fantastic. I own several.
I also own several VG&CE and... It's weirdly very racist. Maybe not "racist", but nearly every issue I own has an overt anti-JP sentiment.
"Do we want these Japanese games in America? Do you want us even to cover these Japanese games rather than good ol' homegrown American games?"
I'm not kidding. It's tonally bizarre. These issues are pre-SNES. Later it mellowed a bit.
An American friend told me this was common circa the late 80s, because of a fear of Japanese industry taking over.
My fave obscure mag is GAME ZONE, by the Your Sinclair staffers.
Re: New Short Film Shows How Video Games Can Connect Us Across Generations
@Chocoburger Ghost dad racer and sick mother AC are sweet
Lonely Sonic kid is Black Mirror dark
Re: The Race Is On To Save A Valuable Resource Of Video Game History
@KitsuneNight Retro Revival is next week. I've asked Paul Drury, who is giving a talk, to ask around. Lots of old devs will be there. Fingers crossed!
Re: The Race Is On To Save A Valuable Resource Of Video Game History
@KitsuneNight I'm secretly hoping there's a veteran developer out there, like Jeff Minter for example, who happened to just put one after the other in a shed or the loft, and kinda forgot about them, but didn't need to move house, so they're just sitting there.
And then someone will tell someone, and they'll tell this person, and they'll be like: so someone wants all these old things? Sure! Come round and collect all 800 of them.
That's the fantasy at least.
Positive thoughts.
Re: The Race Is On To Save A Valuable Resource Of Video Game History
@gingerbeardman Thank you kind sir, for diligent service to the cause! I had been wondering who had been involved!
I've looked on those scans so often.
My point still kinda stands though. One of the people involved in helping preseve / disseminate this Japanese mag was an Englishman. Someone whose native language is different, and yet you still took an interest.
I hope we find CTW. Trade papers are fascinating. The tone is less about how cool stuff is, and usually more: this will make you money.
The tonal difference is useful.
Thank you Matt.
Re: History Of Games 2024 Offered An Embarrassment Of Riches, But Games Media Isn't Listening
@RetroBillyT
https://www.timeextension.com/features/the-race-is-on-to-save-a-valuable-resource-of-video-game-history
Towards the end.
Sherriff had made line graph with a steady incline, showing the total number of Smashes over 8 years. Averaged out it shows they actually didn't change the number awarded each month, generally. Fluctuations were small.
A second graph showed the number of games inthe charts which were CS awards. It starts off really high - I don't have it to hand, but more than half. And there's a steady decline over time.
Which can be interpreted in several ways as shown.
It was quite a technical talk, but if you were a Speccy owner it would probably be interesting.
A fair section was on how Smiths attained an 18% market share as distributor, and influenced what would be sold.
Pity it wasn't filmed. He teaches in London. You could tweet him for more, or I could send his PowerPoint, if you have a PPX reader.
Re: History Of Games 2024 Offered An Embarrassment Of Riches, But Games Media Isn't Listening
@RetroBillyT Technically that list is just interesting stuff I saw, but wasn't sure about expanding on. So provided a quick taste.
There's a few panels, not listed, which I plan to cover more in depth.
My thinking was: short list of cool stuff, with a brief descriptor, then some short articles exploring specific others. Satellite pieces basically.
For example, Sebag's magic systems talk I didn't attend (3 ran at once and you had to pick 1). He described it afterwards though, and shared his slides, so I had to at least name-check it in the brief list.
But, one of the satellites is about Computer Trade Weekly, so I'll try to incorporate some of Sherriff's chart analysis talk into that, since the two had some connection.
Re: Anniversary: 25 Years Ago, One Of The Worst Video Games Of All Time Hit The N64
I love Superman 64.
It's the best kind of awful. Caen's interview by Protonjon is deranged.
The pre-release beta is actually better than the retail game, because it was before WB meddling.
The game has easily accessed cheats, allowing you to skip to any level quickly. Bought a loose cartridge for £5 and spent several days dissecting it.
Ironically, the ring levels were the most "fun". Like a weird version of Pilotwings.
The interior stuff though? Wow. Not much to add to what's been said.
All the obvious bad design choices. The dumb Lex quiz. The broken camera. The collision detection, on real hardware, which will send you falling through the floor. The unrelenting vertical cliff of difficulty.
The best bit: you finish the game and it won't show you the proper ending unless you finish it on the highest difficult. Nice. Feels like the devs were just straight up trolling players by that point.
Like, I feel if they maybe just gave you infinite lives and halved the damage enemies did, and removed time limits, it would be crap but not so insidiously difficult. Like you could play through it to the end comfortably.
The astronomical difficulty makes it very hate-able.
Re: Hands On: Mind-Blowing NES Shmup Chouyoku Senki Estique Just Keeps Getting Better
@Zenszulu Indeed! Emulation also helps, as do flash carts. Before, they had to burn EEPROM chips to test. Or possibly use an in-circuit emulator, but that tied you to the computer.
Re: Hideo Kojima Has Found His "Perfect" Solid Snake Actor
I will only ever see David Hayter as Snake.
On my lottery to do list:
Hire Dave to record all the lines spoken by Sutherland and release this audio as a free fan-patch.
Re: Hands On: Mind-Blowing NES Shmup Chouyoku Senki Estique Just Keeps Getting Better
@Zenszulu In the earlier article Komabayashi talks about multi-layering the sprites to work around the 3 colours + 1 transparency, inherent in all FC/NES sprites. It's an expensive technique because the more sprites you use this on, the less you have for individual bullets and enemies. I think the NES allows 64 sprites? Plus of course too many on any given horizontal row causes flickering (more than 8); he covered that too.
It reminds me of the ZX Spectrum, and some developers describing how, with very careful effort, they could create graphics without any colour clash, but you had really control how elements interacted.
Also sorcery. Actual sorcery was employed in making this.
Re: Did The Stampers Really Think Miyamoto Copied Sabre Wulf With Zelda?
@LowDefAl @_NetNomad
Both astute points. Actually, this is all part of research I dug up for something which is going to be published in a few days - this being a side diversion.
There's an interview between Miyamoto and Endou, where Miyamoto describes having the Druaga cabinet in his office at Nintendo. So there is absolutely a direct line of influence.
Miyamoto doesn't mention Hydlide, that I've seen. But Tokihiro Naito, creator of Hydlide, admits to taking direct inspiration from Druaga.
However! We also know that Japanese companies scouted out the UK for computer games. Hudson sent Takashi Takebe to London to research the ZX Spectrum. This ultimately led to Eric and the Floaters, and other Hudson games. So JP companies were aware of the UK's output. It's a gloriously complex tapestry!
Sneak preview, you can see Sabre Wulf in the top row of games, chronologically:
https://x.com/kierannolan/status/1793953899386130460
Re: Secret Messages In X68000 Phalanx Chart A Descent Into Crunch-Induced Madness
@Kushan No, there's no link - this was in a group email Devin sent to us. Thinking about, he should really put it online (in TCRF page for example), rather than leave it confined to email.
Re: Flashback: It's 1997, And The BBC Is Hyping Up The Battle Between N64, PS1 And Saturn
What an era to have lived through.
In my youth I dreamed of being a game developer - and it was specifically this era I imagined working in.
In hindsight I'm glad I never went down that path, because today's world of gaming is so far removed from this 1997 footage.
I'd probably have ended up doing textures on rocks, a faceless drone in a team of 200 people, working on some lame online-only DLC season pass garbage.
Still. At least I got to live that era and will always have the memories.
Re: We Never Got A Panzer Dragoon Saturn Console, But This Is The Next Best Thing
@Poodlestargenerica True, but when I've encouraged this I'm told Saturn emulation is more trouble than it's worth. I've even gone as far as making bespoke zipped emulator packages for friends - to show them it's not.
Re: We Never Got A Panzer Dragoon Saturn Console, But This Is The Next Best Thing
Stunning.
I wish every human being on Earth had easy access to the original Panzer Dragoon Saga. Not a remake; a remaster only if it the changes are miniscule.
Because the original is an absolute masterpiece.
The low polygons and texture resolutions of the Saturn enhance's the feeling of a decayed world filled with mutated creatures.
This Saturn art enhances that even further.
(Though Azel's face is a little wonky in that top image...)
Re: Ever Wondered What The Symbols On The PlayStation Controller Really Mean?
@Poodlestargenerica Same. I always disliked how similar the pink and orange are, aesthetically.
Also, no mention of Skyblazer? Published by Sony. With those symbols in its password screen.
It was devved by Ukiytoei (spelling is wrong). Always wanted to know.
Re: New Short Film Shows How Video Games Can Connect Us Across Generations
Reminded me of the ghost dad racer story, and the one where someone got letters from their late mother in Animal Crossing (right in the feels). Also that depressing Sonic short film about the lonely kid.
Interesting that we've reached an era where film makers who grew up with games are increasingly incorporating them.
Re: Is It Time To Change The Narrative On The Sega Saturn?
@GhaleonUnlimited Good luck! I like CJ, we chatted back in the HG101 days, but he seems like he stretches himself waaay too thin. I use a MCD ODE flashcart on PAL modded MD - email me if you guys want a tester for SR.
I just thought of another Saturn exclusive thanks to @DexTepa
BOMBERMAN!
You think every system has BM?
Not 10 player.
It dissapointed me hugely that online BM ganes on PS3 and X360 did not support 10 player games, despite higher resolution and online capabilities.
I played it once in 10p mode. At the Barbican Gane On exhibit. Technically it was 6 player, byt we set the other 4 as CPU.
No other home system has 10 player Bomberman. Only Saturn. (I think...)
The more I ponder it, the more I feel the Saturn was my fave of the PS1/Sat/N64 war. Purely for these unique oddities.