Comments 259

Re: Here's Why Controllers Have 'A, B, X & Y' Buttons, And Not 'A, B, C & D'

Zenszulu

I honestly never cared that much what the buttons were called they are just labels. Every console especially earlier ones all had radically different designs as well as button names. It has only become an issue for me in the past several years when switching between Nintendo and Xbox controllers when momentarily pressing the wrong buttons after an onscreen prompt. For the most part though all modern games use the exact same button layout so for many you can play any system without thinking too much about where the buttons are placed regardless of what it is called.

Re: "The Creative Cauldron Of Nintendo Is A Bit Of An Anti-Climax" - 35 Years Ago, The BBC Visited Mario's Birthplace

Zenszulu

He seems unimpressed by all of this but in comparison in the UK even by 1990 many developers of computer games were still working from home and not in any kind of office environment and it was only the larger ones that had any kind of cramped space.

I know he points out that they work on these games and just get a regular salary while Nintendo makes millions but the same could be said for the countless people who worked on movies at the time or anything that involved working on anything media related as it does to this day.

Re: Poll: How Do You Pronounce "Amiga"?

Zenszulu

Didn't realise there was ever a debate on how to say it. But I never ran into anyone that gave it an ger sound at the end and I lived in both the west midlands and south coast growing up.

Re: "Missing" Genesis Beat 'Em Up Paprium Is Finally Playable Under Emulation

Zenszulu

I managed to give it a try and I can't say I am that impressed with the game itself. Sure it looks pretty but it isn't that great at times with poor collision detection and some questionable enemy AI even on the highest difficulty. It has gained more of a reputation because of its history and how impossible it has been to get access to than because it was good game that is worth being sought after.

Re: "The Xbox Project Has Failed" - Picking Up The Pieces After Microsoft's Darkest Day In Gaming

Zenszulu

Their biggest problem is every couple of years they are changing their business strategy rather than trying to focus on one. They went from buying loads of publishers expecting everyone to flock to Xbox and Gamepass as a result. To everything is an Xbox and becoming more third party publisher. But this has gradually been happening since the Xbox 360 days and around the time they launched the Konnect. Since then they have tried to be everything to everyone and they always come up looking second best at everything. They also still haven't recovered from the awful Xbox One reveal which was again trying to be everything to everyone being more focused on anything but gaming.

All the people that thought all the acquisitions they made were going to mean loads of exclusives for Xbox and that they were going to overtake everyone seem to have not taken into account that all those publishers they brought their games were only valuable because they were on just about everything and sold well because of that not because they are system sellers.

They took huge risks thinking it would pay off to benefit their brand but it hasn't really done that if anything it has zero effect on actually boosting sales of consoles or subscriptions.

Re: Digital Eclipse Sounds Keen On Doing A Sega Saturn Fighting Game Collection

Zenszulu

@PopetheRev28 you may have considered it a more interesting game but in terms of it's popularity in both arcades and sales on the Saturn it wasn't that popular. Since Fighting Vipers actually seen some kind of popularity Sega were probably more willing to make a sequel to that than a game that was essential a flop. So it's understandable why they went with that seeing as they were losing money quickly at that point in time.

Re: "The Channel Is Safe. Thank You" - YouTube Retro Channel Slope's Game Room Avoids Deletion

Zenszulu

I do feel bad that he almost lost not only his job essentially but his private photos but he really shouldn't have been exporting whole chat files that were first in another language and second that he didn't even open and check any of the contents. Just about anything could have been in there. Googles algorithm doesn't know the context of why you uploaded the stuff or that you were unaware of what it contained just that you had done it. This is also why I don't upload anything sensitive and work related to a cloud. Same goes for anything that hold sentimental value like family photos which I have backed up more than once on physical storage

Re: Anniversary: The Atari ST, Everyone's Second Favourite 16-bit Home Computer, Turns 40

Zenszulu

Only two real recollections I have of the Atari ST was that first my primary school would host a games club on Thursday evenings and the teacher the teacher than ran it had a few of them set up for us to play.

the second one was my friends uncle used to mix music for adverts on the local radio station using one. I recall my friend taking me around there one day to get something and he had all of this music equipment and the Atari ST hooked up to it all. At the time I remember thinking it all looked so amazing but when I think about it now his place looked a chaotic mess.

Re: Barcode Battler, The Early '90s Classic That's So Crap, It's Almost Cool

Zenszulu

@JayJ If it had come out in the 80s where people over here were playing games on 8-bit micros and having to fill in some of the blanks and use their imagination in text adventures and rpgs then more people may have been interested. by the 90s though gaming had moved beyond that and most people wanted a better gui even on something so simple.

Re: Barcode Battler, The Early '90s Classic That's So Crap, It's Almost Cool

Zenszulu

As a child I never seen the appeal of this especially scanning random barcodes. The idea itself is fine but the really simplistic interface was even dated at the time of it's release. However if it had some compatibility with SNES games released in the west like it did in Japan I could have seen it being a bit more successful.

Re: "Saturn Is A Lot More Fun" - 1995 Trade Ad Shows Just How Rattled Sega Was About PlayStation

Zenszulu

It's interesting Sega tried marketing it to stores like they would a general customer in the public. It is amusing they claimed to have unquestionable third party support though as Sony very quickly gained much more due to their much cheaper licencing system. As for their arcade game argument, well it quickly changed that generation that people wanted more than what was on offer in the arcades and much longer gaming experiences something that Sega didn't quite get either.

Also the end part where they specifically pick out negative quotes from magazines about the Playstation and only positive ones about the Saturn probably means most retailers more than likely rolled their eyes at it. Ultimately though if the Saturn had been easier to develop for and more third parties made the better version of a none 2D game for it customer demand would have been higher

Re: Japanese Developer Behind Nintendo's Super Robot Wars Titles Has Gone Bust

Zenszulu

It's not that surprising when they haven't made a game in 13 years they were essentially just a developer in name only because I can't imagine they have been able to pay that many people when they have little to no income over the past decade. There seems to be a lot of Japanese developers that are essentially dormant that had a high output in the 16 and 32-bit eras and then just almost disappeared by the time the following generations came.

Re: Billy Mitchell Has Won His Defamation Lawsuit Against The YouTuber Karl Jobst

Zenszulu

This is a baffling decision. Billy Mitchell is one of those people who lies so much it's hard to tell if he is ever telling the truth. Apparently though simple telling the truth even if it's all true means you are wrong for doing it because it harms his reputation further. Has Billy considered not being a compulsive liar all the time? May help his reputation going forward.

Re: A Long-Lost NES Port Of Populous Has Just Been Discovered After 33 Years

Zenszulu

Not surprising it was in development but I would imagine it would have came out so close to the release of the SNES version and much like Sim City that also got cancelled when it was close to completion.

The Master System version is pretty close to the Amiga version though and there was even an early prototype for a C64 version that didn't seem to get past that stage.

Re: Today I Learned That Metal Gear Solid Roasted People Who Didn't Own A Stereo TV

Zenszulu

I was pretty lucky at the time of playing this I had a small Philips TV that was pretty much made for gaming as it had two large stereo speakers either side of the screen so I got to play every game with stereo sound at the time. Although admittedly many games didn't make the option at the time still and we're all mainly in mono as standard. It wasn't until the next generation where stereo sound was the default.

Re: More Than 20 Years Later, Acclaim Is Back From The Dead, And WWE Legend Jeff Jarrett Is Involved

Zenszulu

Jeff Jarrett isn't exactly known for his good business decisions everything he starts up he either has to sell because he can't maintain it or it goes bust. That is a perfect fit for Acclaim in many ways.

l think people also think the Acclaim name is a recognisable brand when it no longer is and was probably only relevant for a brief period in the late 90s when their output was high and they were really pushing games visually but often many of their games didn't play as great as people remember or were really bad like their wrestling games but were rated highly mainly because the WWE name was slapped on them and the moment it became ECW people thought the games were now bad despite playing the same as the previous ones.

Also one correction he isn't a former wrestler at 57 he is still active and has matches almost weekly much to my dismay.

Re: GamesCare's New Genesis Dev Cart Will Help "Create Games Beyond The Power Of The Console"

Zenszulu

While the idea of this sounds good but if you are using the co-processor in the cartridge to do most or all of the work then you are using very little of the original hardware then the original console is more of a pass though. I get the argument that consoles then often used extra chips on the cartridge to enhance the games but they often worked equally with what the original system could do not replace it. Even the 32X relied on the Mega Drive heavily. This is one reason I wasn't that excited for Paprium as it really just used the colour palette of the system and the vast majority if not all of the game was only using the fpga chip that was used.

Re: Capcom's SNES Shooter 'Super Pang' Is Getting An Unofficial Mega Drive Port

Zenszulu

@Zeebor15 Pang is co-owned by Capcom. If I am correct, so while whoever picked up the rights that Mitchell Corporation is also co-owner it is probably why there haven't been many re-releases of the games because it involves too much negotiations across multiple parties. This is why a lot of these old games get lost to time because the publisher usually used a third party developer that had some of the original rights and one or both are long gone and the rights distributed to random holding companies. Even Sega said last year a lot of their older games they aren't fully sure if the own all of the rights or not because of situations like this.

Re: Four Years Later, The Revival Of The SNES Run 'N Gunner 'Nightmare Busters' Gets Its First Trailer

Zenszulu

I have a copy of the SNES games released by Super Fighter Team back in 2013. Admittedly I have only played it a small handful of times. Very surprised it never got released back in 1994 as it was definitely a good looking and sounding game. Although I do wonder if there is any demand for a sequel and I am honestly not a fan of the hand drawn art style for this particular one and think a pixel art would have looked better especially because the original holds up well.

Re: WaterMelon Insists Its Terminally Delayed Brawler Paprium Isn't Dead

Zenszulu

People to this day keep on about dumping the rom for the game but that would be worthless on its own as the "custom" chip it uses has never been cracked and unless it ever is dumping the game will get you no where. That doesn't take into account no emulator would be able to run it either as the chip used is considerably more powerful than the original hardware so you would need completely custom emulators too. If I recall this game didn't even like running on non-official Sega hardware either as it was pretty much programmed not to do so. Fonzie being the retro hardware snob he is pretty much went out of his way to make sure as few people as possible could play the game and then blamed everyone else as the reason why. He attitude alone is the reason it's had so many issues so he deserves no more money.

Re: Random: The Gloriously Unhinged SuperSega Saga Now Has Its Own Song

Zenszulu

This guy has no self awareness in how he comes across. If you were to picture a sleazy con man in your head chances are it would be someone that looks like him. He seems to crave the attention this brings and feels he can convince everyone that despite his lies being obvious that he can some how change people's opinion by talking more and coming up with a story more crazy than the last one.

Re: With The 233-Year-Old WH Smith's Future In Doubt, We Could Be Losing A Gaming Print Media Institution

Zenszulu

Where I live we lost WH Smith about 3 years ago after everything started opening back up in the city centre but even the next nearest one 4 or 5 miles away never seems to be busy. News agents and stores of that ilk like WH Smith or a dying thing due to most people being able to get the information they need online for free. Even the other stuff they sell you can usually find better specialist stores nearby. I am honestly surprised they have lasted as long as they have. Then again as the article says they make most of their money from travel locations and hospitals which is understandable when people try and fill that time with something to read.

Re: SuperSega Refunds Are Still Missing As Creator "Cheats Death"

Zenszulu

He seems to think that the more he talks the more convincing he is. A smart con man would have long disappeared at this point but no one ever accused him of being smart. Even the people that he claims can confirm they have had refunds are all Spanish and seem to all have accounts with similar emails or account names or something and they are either him or people he knows in all likely hood. He seems to be acting in a really bad telenovela.

Re: 8BitDo's Solution For Smartphone Retro Gaming Is Revealed

Zenszulu

It just doesn't look practical to me just like the majority of these things for phone. If you want to play retro games on the go though there are plenty of dedicated handhelds that are fairly cheap that would be better suited to that task over a smartphone and you don't have to remove the controls from the screen every time you exit the game and the emulator you are in goes full screen.

Re: We Didn't Get 'WipEout Kart' Because Phil Harrison Thinks "Kart Games Are Where Franchises Go To Die"

Zenszulu

Ah yes making a kart racing game out of a racing game... seems more redundant than anything and more like a separate mode in one of the regular games than anything. But his view of Kart racing games seems misguided if the game is good and high quality it won't effect the main games that it's a spin-off from. There is one huge piece of proof in this with Mario Kart being one of the best selling game series in history even separate from the mainline Mario games. Both Sonic and Crash have had moderately successful ones to that did kill their mainline games.