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!
@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!
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!
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...
Congrats Darran and team! Love the mag especially so in a time when printed media is so much rarer. Always a highlight when the mag drops through the letterbox. Here's to the next 20+!
If people want more stories on the waywardness of action movie stars like Van Damme there's a fantastic book on the shenanigans of 80s action stars by Nick de Semlyen called The Last Action Heroes: The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood's Kings of Carnage.
@smoreon Good call - add the original NES Batman in as well and I'd be laughing like the Joker. Loved that game haven't played it in ages and man what graphics and a soundtrack!
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.
@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...!
@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...
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.
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!!!!!
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.
@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...!
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?!
Comments 171
Re: New Book 'Seeing Red' To Shine A Spotlight On Nintendo's Virtual Boy
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?
@RetroGames Hadn't seen that later build or the hypothetical discussion - awesome thanks! Love the PSX version too.
Re: Has This Indie Dev Completely Maxed Out The Genesis / Mega Drive?
@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?
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: Duck Hunt Gets Pocket-Sized Demake For The Game Boy
@Martijn87 Couple that with the SEGA Virtua Cop games on Wii! We got Ghost Squad but to not give us the Cop games was a crime!!!
Re: CeX Retro Watch: March 2024
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: "I Spent The First Year Worrying I'd Get Replaced" - Retro Gamer Magazine Turns 20
Congrats Darran and team! Love the mag especially so in a time when printed media is so much rarer. Always a highlight when the mag drops through the letterbox. Here's to the next 20+!
Re: 1994's Maligned Street Fighter Movie Is Free To Watch On YouTube, But Only In The US
@Poodlestargenerica JCVD is Belgian - not German.
If people want more stories on the waywardness of action movie stars like Van Damme there's a fantastic book on the shenanigans of 80s action stars by Nick de Semlyen called The Last Action Heroes: The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood's Kings of Carnage.
Re: 'Sunsoft Is Back! - Retro Game Selection' Coming Soon To Steam
@smoreon Good call - add the original NES Batman in as well and I'd be laughing like the Joker.
Loved that game haven't played it in ages and man what graphics and a soundtrack!
Re: Super Mario Bros. CD Is A New ROM Hack Inspired By A Console That Doesn't Exist
Well that looks completely wonderful. Captures the aesthetic perfectly.
Re: Interview: "An Enormous Headache" - The Amazing Story Behind Indiana Jones & The Fate Of Atlantis
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: Vanquish Was 2010's "Fourth-Best Shooter" And That's Why It's A Cult Classic, Says Producer
How uncanny. I had this on PS3 and loved it but never beat it. So I double dipped and just downloaded it to my PS5 last night!
Re: Fans Rebuild Two Forgotten F-Zero SNES Games Previously Lost To Time
@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
@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: 'Super Mario Collection' Is A New Fanmade Book Documenting Over 9000+ Items
Be amazed if that name sticks considering it's the same as the Japanese Super Mario All Stars game on SFC...!
Re: Iconic Issues: Nintendo Magazine System #1 And Mean Machines Sega #1
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?
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: Atari Owns Almost Half Of Polymega Maker Playmaji
@Axelay71 ^THIS! Fingers crossed...
Re: All Outstanding Polymega Pre-Orders Will Ship This Year, Says Playmaji
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
@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
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?!