Comments 134

Re: Insanely Rare Sonic Arcade Game Crops Up On Japanese Resale Site

bring_on_branstons

@Ruka I'd be willing to play with an analogue stick regardless! Always wanted to try this.
I don't get companies sitting on oddities like this. It's like Nintendo not releasing the VB games on 3DS which would have been brilliant! Considering how often Sega roll out bloody Megadrive era compilations again and again, why not give us something new and unique like this?
(and also Saturn and Dreamcast games etc etc whilst they're at it!)

Re: 10 Forgotten Gaming Magazines That Are Worth Remembering

bring_on_branstons

Another lesser mentioned mag I enjoyed back in the day was Game Zone. (Edit - started typing this comment so long ago just saw Sketcz also mention this!)

A cheeky chap at my school (whose only machine was the Gameboy so he wasn't bothered about other consoles) used to take Go! out of CVG in the supermarket and place it in the trolley. The unsuspecting cashier would pass it through the till without charging him anything for it - it does say FREE in large letters on it after all!

Re: Rare SNES Prototype Auction Cancelled After Passing The $2 Million Mark

bring_on_branstons

@Azuris IKR! You're spot on. Considering Japan's smaller living spaces and the need to be economical even with things like controller cable length, this seems like a very convoluted and bulky solution. Kinda mad actually.

At the point of this pic (1988) Sega hadn't released the Power Base converter for the Megadrive which is a far more elegant solution.

Considering the whole SNES/SFC CPU debacle and Uemura going for the 5A22 to allow it to play 8-bit games and be backwards compatible, quite why Nintendo never released an official 8-bit adaptor is beyond me.

ie: since they didn't ever use this feature of the CPU and make an adapter, they could and should have put a more powerful processor in the base unit from the start. They knew it was too slow from the off as they were using DSPs in things like Pilotwings and were chatting to Jez San about the SFX chip as early as 1990! Quite why they shot themselves in the foot in this regard is... well.... very Nintendo like!

Re: 30 Years On, And This Iconic Super Metroid Art Lives Again

bring_on_branstons

@rob7979 I don't know this for sure but I'm guessing they didn't ask for permission for the image on Christmas Issue 3! They would have just gone ahead and done it - all the magazines of the era seemed to use artwork from wherever often cutting them out of Japanese mags seemingly with no issues!? Back then maybe this slipped under the radar more easily? Plus this is bespoke artwork so maybe that also helps the copyright issue? Gary Harrod's Mean Machines images also spring to mind like his Turtles and UN Squadron covers which use copyrighted characters.

My issue of RG dropped through the letterbox today and it was a genuine joy to see this image again. Fantastic bit of artwork - what I like about Will's work is it doesn't slavishly copy the original but is his own interpretation but still instantly recognisable.

Another of my absolute fave's Will created (amongst many) is the one for Issue 36 where they reviewed Yoshi's Island.

I'd instantly buy a book with these covers collected together - kickstarter perhaps? I'm sure Will is reading this so how about it eh?!

Re: Here's Some Footage Of A Young Matt Berry Exploring CeX's Legendary Retro Shop

bring_on_branstons

Don't think I ever went to the Whitfield St shop but the Rathbone Place shop was a regular haunt for me in the early noughties. It was right next to where I worked. They had an immense range of Japanese and American games in the basement it was epic. Picked up a mint copy of Super Mario RPG (USA) for only £60.

Something happened though and they were forced to shut down this side of the operation and suddenly all their stock vanished and staff that dealt in the retro section were seemingly let go. It went from having stacked shelves to virtually nothing. Never found out what happened - does anyone know? - but it was never the same again sadly. Good times.

Re: New Book 'Seeing Red' To Shine A Spotlight On Nintendo's Virtual Boy

bring_on_branstons

This looks interesting. Will probably pick this up sooner rather than later as I wonder how big a print run it will have.
If memory serves didn't Jez San talk about (on this very website probably) how he proposed a headset for the SNES with full colour and head tracking but Nintendo decided to go with their own in house system? Hopefully the book includes this story and goes deeper with that side of the story!

Re: Has This Indie Dev Completely Maxed Out The Genesis / Mega Drive?

bring_on_branstons

@RetroGames Yeah you hit the nail on the head - the SNES has it's own set of strengths I'd love to see pushed even more. With the massive gains programmers are getting out of the MD and also for eg the GBA (Tomb Raider!!) these days, imagine what might be done.
A good example is the Sonic 1 Greenhill Zone level running on SNES (minus enemies and early prototype) - I don't remember seeing it taken any further than a tech demo but it looked great and pushed the boundaries by all accounts.
The MD is getting really cool new ports of SF2 and Final Fight which seem to go beyond the expectations of what we thought the machine could do in the 90s - would love to see the same done on other properties on the SNES!

Re: Has This Indie Dev Completely Maxed Out The Genesis / Mega Drive?

bring_on_branstons

Man I love this website!
That's so cool - imagine if we had seen this implemented in a game in the early 90s...!
There's so much cool stuff being done on the Megadrive these days in the homebrew scene with ports and games that we thought were impossible back in the day!
I wish more people were trying to push the SNES the same way people are pushing the MD - is it just me or do we not see as much as stuff being done? I'd love to see more SA-1 and Fast ROM games implemented on early SFC games!

Re: CeX Retro Watch: March 2024

bring_on_branstons

Great selection - much better than my local store.
Depending on the condition, Spiderman Mega CD aint too bad at £65. Chillout have had a few copies of that around the £100 mark in the last year or so...
Also £55 for Mario Bros G+W seems quite good but again depends on condition...

Re: Interview: "An Enormous Headache" - The Amazing Story Behind Indiana Jones & The Fate Of Atlantis

bring_on_branstons

What a treat of an interview, thanks Jack. I loved this back in the day and beat all 3 paths. Golden period of adventure games from LucasArts. I remember there was some puzzle when you get to Crete and you had to use a surveyor's viewfinder thing to find an entrance or smth? And it drove me mad trying to make it work properly, but I guess I solved it eventually. Also the first time I'd seen the nautical use of Head to describe a toilet! This would be a great one to get remastered. Till then ScummVM will have to suffice.

Re: Fans Rebuild Two Forgotten F-Zero SNES Games Previously Lost To Time

bring_on_branstons

@JohnnyMind Yeah agreed - it seems so obvious doesn't it!
One of the nice things about the GBA Mario Advance 4 (SMB 3) on NSO is the inclusion of the Card Reader only levels which I don't believe were ever released over here at the time?
(I think people who bought a 3DS early on might have got them as a sweetener when Nintendo dropped the price so soon after launch?)
I recently played through them and had a blast and it was a great inclusion and extra incentive to check the title out - otherwise I'm just playing OG SMB3 on the NES which I prefer to the All Stars version.
Quite why they're not making these extra features available for all games is a mystery and classic Ninty sitting on cool things but doing nothing about it despite having the perfect platform to do so...!

Re: Fans Rebuild Two Forgotten F-Zero SNES Games Previously Lost To Time

bring_on_branstons

@JohnnyMind THIS! I own a load of bootleg cartridges and have the Satalleview Zelda and BS F Zero Grand Prix 1 carts and they're great fun. (Also have a fan made English language translation of Marvelous Another Treasure Island which is simply wonderful and a crime it never got an official Western release!)
Surely it's so easy with today's digital market places and Switch Online to release these games to the masses. They did it with the first Mother so there's always hope? And why stop at Satalleview games - 64DD as well. Yes I'm looking at you F-Zero X Expansion Pack...

Re: Iconic Issues: Nintendo Magazine System #1 And Mean Machines Sega #1

bring_on_branstons

Mean Machines 1-24 are video game magazine royalty. The GOAT. Along with CVG Paul Davies era and Super Play, I had the best time reading each issue and seeing what delights were within. Pre internet it was amazing how comparatively we got by on so little - and it was grand. You can stick your YouTube trailers and play throughs which show too much (if you watch em) - having slightly blurred CRT images, even ones pasted in upside down, and letting your imagination wonder how the game played was ironically far better and made getting the game far more fun. The anticipation was off the scale by seeing less.
But yeah - NMS and MMS were also great but lacked that je ne sais quoi MM had. Something special was lost when they split the mag and the team up. Sure I moved over and bought one or sometimes both of NMS and MMS and enjoyed them, but it was never as good.
Halcyon days for sure, what a great time to be into games.

Re: Review: Polymega - Now With N64 Support, But Is It Still Worth A Look In 2024?

bring_on_branstons

My God I want one of these. It seems custom made for me as I have a massive collection of physical retro games.

However despite the positive press I've read on here (it sounds SO good), all the incredibly bad stories about Playmaji being unable to fulfil orders made years ago is a joke and despite really wanting one I'm left in a situation where I don't really know what to do. Do I take a risk and order one now and be prepared to wait ages to get my system with little to no updates from Playmaji (and considering how long it takes them to despatch orders better to get in earlier than later?) or wait till they sort their crap out and actually run things like a professional business and follow through on what they say and get orders out in a respectable time? Also any chance of an official UK release? I think I had more chance of seeing Santa on my rooftop last week than this happening the way things are going.

Yet amazingly, whilst Playmaji cannot sort out their existing orders, they CAN send out a preview unit of their new module for review?! Why not sort out the existing orders rather than developing a new module which might as well be vapour based on what I've read from people waiting to get their orders from years ago.

Bad form. Who is running this company so badly?

I'm actually not trying to dump on Playmaji - but man oh man do you guys have a bad rep from everything I've read over numerous comments on the NL and TE websites. Yes yes there was the pandemic and problems making your system - but geez how long are you going to use this as an excuse.

I ordered an Analogue Pocket in November - ordered it FRIDAY, it arrived in the UK from the USofA MONDAY.

Dang now that's service and how you do things.

And the thing is - despite all this crap I'm reading I still REALLY want your product. Get it together guys as you have a killer system many of us want you to succeed at selling and supporting! PLEASE!!!!!

Re: All Outstanding Polymega Pre-Orders Will Ship This Year, Says Playmaji

bring_on_branstons

Man - I REALLY want one of these things.
It's such a cool product and exactly what I want to play my back catalogue, but all these delays and problems have put me off ordering one...
Crying shame. I was hoping for a European release, wanted to avoid the import duty... seems like the way they are running things there's little chance of that happening.
Are they even serious about this?! Seeing combywomby's comment above suggests otherwise.
Would love an update in the coming months to see if they follow through on this and to hear from other people about their experiences - if they do sort this I might just take the plunge.

Re: Anniversary: Super Mario Bros. 3 Is Now 35 Years Old

bring_on_branstons

@Spider-Kev IKR! But ofc in Japan MarioWorld was subtitled (on the box at least) Super Mario Bros 4, and I still call it that in my head as the UK press at the time all referred to it that way. I think it's a shame they didn't carry that through for the Western releases and one of the reasons I love my SFC copies of the game.

Didn't NCL make a new copyright for Super Mario Bros 4 a few years ago? I have vague memories of reading a rumour about that... Quite what they would then call whatever game that might have become in Japan Lord only knows...!

Re: Anniversary: Super Mario Bros. 3 Is Now 35 Years Old

bring_on_branstons

The first image I ever saw of this was in a free book on an issue of CVG (had Robocop on the front) and they had stickers of upcoming games to put in. It was of world 1-2 with it's green sloping hills. I only had Mario 1 at that point and that single screenshot Blew. My. Mind.

One of my all time faves I still regularly play through it - this and MarioWorld haven't been bettered by anyone as per 2D platformers IMO. I've seen Wonder might be the closest we've had to this style of game since... but I haven't played it yet cos I'm getting it for my Birthday start of November...

...which neatly brings me to this EU release date I constantly see; August 29th? We certainly didn't get it that soon in the UK - we got it later. I'm assuming it was probably released on mainland Europe before us as I see this earlier release date everywhere.

It wasn't reviewed in the UK press till the October 1991 issues (man that review and cover on Mean Machines #13...) and as my Birthday was early November, I have very fond and firm memories of me and my Dad going into our local Dixons and purchasing it on Saturday 2nd November. I knew it had just been released and we weren't even sure they'd have it in stock, such was the way back then. But have it they did and I actually got the last copy. It had literally just been released.

So the UK release date was late October/early November '91. Not in August. Anyone else remember it this way?!