SlangWon

@N00BiSH Robot magic? Lol, that's silly. LLMs and AI-driven software solutions are no robots but tools. Operated and controlled by humans with the proper knowledge.
The artist behind Logic Moon is not lazy. He simply does not have the resources for such a massive commission, nor does he want one.
Film restoration is a question of balance and cost, not some ideological crusade. The results can be very good or bad.
https://museumsandheritage.com/advisor/posts/human-vs-ai-film-restoration-balancing-artistry-and-automation/

@N00BiSH Sure, hot shot:
AI-enhanced -> basically most of the stuff that is done digitally with the recent iterations of Photoshop. Also film restauration tools are mostly AI-driven now.
AI-genarated -> for example the beautifully dark and evocative "worlds" of the Musician/Youtuber "Logic Moon". He accompanies his digitally produced music with AI-generated images/animations. My understanding is he's using his very own LLM, trained on a very specific set of data, though it seems Midjourney is also used.

@Razieluigi That is simply not true. There is lots of AI-enhanced or even AI-generated content that can be considered very good on a purely aesthetical level. What you do is a counterproductive simplification, AI = bad.
Even in Photoshop there are several AI-based tools, so that your favourite artist is probably already using AI without you knowing it. The devolopment of these tools will continue.

Imho, the problem here is that it looks ***** and not that they used AI.
Btw, I'm pretty sure one or two Mortal Kombat Mugens have already used AI for the announcer and music with pretty good results.

@Antman1686 @hste That may be, but he's right on this one. Highly addictive arcade shooter with a killer soundtrack. It doesn't have the bells and whistles of their Cave ports but Pacifist mode is a pretty fun arrange mode.
Also using the Cyber Stick or Thrustmaster T.Flight Hotas One should make it even more arcadey

Finally spent an hour or so with it and I really like it - definitely an arcade style game, means short with lots of replayability for score and mastering. It definitely needs more options like deadzone and sensitivity. Has anyone tried to play it with a flight stick?

Youtuber Videogame Esoterica loves it apparently and he seems to have played the original quite a bit. I did play a lot of Space Harrier over the years so I'm truly looking forward to spend some time with NSG.

@JJtheTexan You clearly haven't read all the comments 😅 Btw, AI is still a tool and judging by the quality of this article TE should probably use chatgpt more often to make it sound less like a rant on some forum😉

@jojobar Googling something always produced mixed results. Especially when you just Google for pics...Guess it's back to books

Clearly a picture from an alternate timeline where WANUS ruled the Japanese arcades!
Had an awesome Amiga port too, lol.

It's s interesting how the DS and 3DS live on without the support of Nintendo. The comparison to real hardware is problematic because we talk about old used hardware that can break down any moment. Nintendo should have kept the DS line alive as an alternative to the switch and a true portable device.

@Whirlwound Your comparison is nonsense. The swastika in a nonhistorical propaganda context is simply banned by law in Germany. The Rising Sun Flag is not banned and nobody is marching with such a flag through the streets of Seoul which would be the equivalent to your silly comparison.
The message sent with my wallet is simple - screw censorship and don't butcher perfectly legal works of art/entertainment because you think someone somewhere might be offended.

@Whirlwound Everything has a context. But who gets to decide which context justifies censorship?
This is a laughable double standard masked as political correctness.

So removing the rising sun flag is ok but somehow removing swastikas from Wolfenstein was considered censorship among gamers...
Can't remember Ninty having an issue with those.

This whole AI-art hysteria is quickly turning into the next Satanic Panic...smart artists use AI as another efficiency tool.

Pleasent surprise! Hopefully the beautiful mechsuit from the second game will also be playable.

They could have ported/remastered R-type 3 or LEO but instead decided to do...this. Why?

Co-op sounds cool! BUT online or offline?!

"Overly political, tedious and divisive garbage."

...and a cheap grab for attention.
This site is quickly evolving into the alternative version of IGN.

@Daggot The screen is monochrome but the whole experience is not since the overlays play a big part.
The overlay for Vector Pilot for example is a rather important part of the experience. Since it is positioned in front of the screen with a small gap, it even adds a sort of three dimensional effect. Unless you apply some sort of really cool shader effect you'll end up emulating the system but not the experience.

I own a Vectrex and play it regularly.
Difficult to judge by these short videos but if the screens used on the minis can't replicate the razor sharp glowy vector graphics 100% these things won't make any sense. The interaction between a beautiful color overlay and these timeless vector graphics is what makes the Vectrex even today completely unique.
It would make much more sense to produce some sort of Vectrex gameboy with a high resolution AMOLED/OLED screen. Even as a vectrex owner I would buy one. The graphics of a vectrex game are stylish but ultimately simple so it should be perfectly readable on a small screen.
The best games are imho the homebrew arcade titles by Kristof Tuts.

@Robocod Yeah! Uridium II was awesome, so was Battle Squadron.

Loved the original on the Amiga. Back then, the nature theme was sometihing truly different and original. Today, after experiencing the beauty of Mushihimesama I'm not sure it hits the same way...but damn, this music is still so amazing!

"The EXA version runs on a system that’s much more powerful than the Mega Drive, so it can’t be ported directly to home consoles. At this time, we don’t have any plans to bring that version to home platforms."

Hmmm, maybe something got lost in translation here...Exa games run on a pretty midrange PC-based system. Ports to PS4 and especially Steam shouldn't be a problem at all.
If Exa helped out and wants an exclusive in return, why not being transparent about it?
I bought the emulation release on Steam but decided to skip the cartridge and keep playing it from an Everdrive Pro. I'll double dip when the Exa version gets ported.

The best way to play on PC right now is newest Rom + Retroarch + Genesis Plus X + Second Instance Run-Ahead turned on. It's less laggy than the Steam emulation, gives you save states for training and more shader options for the visuals.
The best version of the game overall is the in every regard superior Exa arcade version.
Most hardcore Megadrive fans play their games from an Everdrive, preferably an Everdrive Pro.
Not offering the Rom was a bad decision.

@HammyHavoc Yeah, sure. It's always the others who are trolling.
@Exerion76 Nearly all of the fixes in patch 2.0.1 are connected to the emulator. The only two that are not are visibility and challenges. Strangely, visibility was never a problem with Exa. Btw, I compared blastem emulator to the emu used in the steam version and know for a fact that steam version has more lag. Especially after applying graphical shaders.
I stand by my opinion, not selling a rom was a bad decision and Exa-exclusive content should be timed.

@HammyHavoc No problem, I tell you again - the game is finished, these bugs you talk about are mainly emulation related. That's why the Exa version is also finished. The emulator the Steam version is using is inferior to the emulators that are available for free and have been developed over a time of many years.

@HammyHavoc "It not being ready yet is exactly why there isn't a physical version yet"
Which is clearly not the case and can be seen by everybody who plays through the whole game using Everdrive Pro or an emulator like BlastEm. You can always polish here and there but the game is obviously finished. They could have sold roms first and cartridges later which has worked for several indie studios before but the incompetent tools at Limited Run Games got greedy.

@HammyHavoc Your pretentious talk about art and patience can't mask the fact that on a larger scale these are poor business decisions. They annoy their customers by massively delaying the og version and then proceed to annoy even more by announcing a superior version that 99% of the people who were backing them can't play. Good luck with that.

@HammyHavoc What arcade? There are no arcades where I live. Outside of Japan, Exa is all about collectors. Exclusivity in video games should be timed.

Exa Version with exclusive content devalues the original version. The majority will never have the chance to play the best version without resorting to piracy. Stop the exclusivity bs and support your paying customers.

Seems the Exa version will be vastly superior to ALL home versions:
-Better sound quality, especially voices
-Better visibility
-No slowdown
-Hypermode
-A bezel around the gamescreen that has lots of actually useful info

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbsD-RRGjl4&list=FLPs-mecHyoMt7mJyRD0zc2Q

Cool product with an interesting use of ai tech. Would love to know more. The slight delay in gun movement is a bit worrying but let's wait for the final results.
Would be even more awesome to couple this tech with a ps5 in order to play some recent light gun titles...

@kirby2000 Doesn't have to be bad. Gunvein and Star of Providence have both roguelike modes and are very good shmups.
I'm really looking forward to it even if it turns out to be a mixed bag.

The gameplay of the second game didn't age well...but the music and whole presentation still rock! Awesome news:-)

@Damo When I remember correctly both the Metal Slug Anthology for PSP and the steam version of Metal Slug 3 are also emulation based and introduced autofire for the standard pistol. The reason for this was a known problem - hammering the buttons of an arcade machine might be fun but trying the same with your thumb on a pad is not, especially on a handheld. This is one of the many reasons why people love M2 - they don't ignore such details and put a lot of thought into how the player will play the game on the targeted platform.

@Damo Was a paid licence also needed for autofire in something like Metal Slug?
Seems they also managed to skip the one game suited best for quick rounds on the go - Turf Masters.

Autofire? Save states? Dip switch menus?

Yup, Rom or it didn't happen.
Honestly, these videos suggest that the MD version is pretty much finished...and yet it got pushed to the end of the line☹️
Btw, ZPF rocks on a real MD! Just saying.

Yeah, I also wish the tide to turn so TE can start publishing their AI-rants in a less shallow and childish way...

"It's a middle finger to everybody."
We will see...it's Netflix.

Dig Dug: Digging Strike for the NDS was a cool extension of the classic arcade formula and is still very playable.
Kinda strange that they never attempted to do a modern take on Mr. Do! which is the best one of all the onescreen maze arcade games imho.

@romanista And they realised that now? Come on
Btw, production time for cartridges is not a problem and I highly doubt there will be much patching outside of the PC side.
They know people are impatient and are going to double dip.

Considering that it started out as an MD oldschool shmup the massive delay is disappointing.

@Scollurio I highly doubt this. The game has been from the ground developed for the MD. If they would develop it for a modern system it'd look (and play) completely different. More likely for financial reasons - they want MD owners to double dip, which they wouldn't if they'd release the original version first. All other versions are simply ports of a MD game.

ChatGPT simply has some respect for the elderly...unlike many humans

All of their videos are high quality and very informative, even for non-gamers. These documentaries should be shown in videogame museums.

Does "HD Boosted" mean that they simply Upscaled the emulated PS1 version with a 16:9 hack on top? This classic deserves the full M2 treatment. Anything less is a waste of resources imho.

@Sketcz Thanks for the info. I'll give it a shot!
The spiritual successor Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is also highly recommended

I would rather like to celebrate with a Jet Set Radio Future remaster. The industry sucks.

I would love to see a Bartop Arcade with all 4 classic Mortal Kombat arcade games.