Comments 283

Re: Review: Zuiki X68000 Z - An Expensive But Appealing Substitute For The Real Thing

gingerbeardman

Thanks for going to the trouble of buying and reviewing this. @Jellyscare

Does the mouse open up to turn into a Trackball?

As much as I'd like one of these, practically it makes no sense for me personally unless there's something exclusive that only the Z can provide. So at least for now I'll stick with an emulator on my Mac.

@AceGrace what does the dev kit add? And is there a community of otaku Devs like us?

Re: How Online Store Retroplace Aims To Become 'Discogs For Retro Games'

gingerbeardman

No app!? They could launch an app that is their mobile website in a wrapper and go from there. I mean, this is Lesson 1 of app making.

And they really need a way to do mass import from CSV or similar, so they can attract users or collections from competing services such as RFGeneration, GameEye, Price Charting, etc.

Basically, they're making it too difficult for new users.

Re: A Kickstarter For A Hogs Of War Remaster Has Just Gone Live

gingerbeardman

It's not about people... it's about damage to the company that's marketing the game. Nintendo didn't delay Advance Wars because it was worried about you and me, perhaps not even because it was being compassionate, most likely because it didn't want any negative press.

But, yeah, happy to leave it there.

Re: A Kickstarter For A Hogs Of War Remaster Has Just Gone Live

gingerbeardman

@wiiware I've never suggested banning the game, that was you. I had simply said that it's not a great time to market such a game all things considered.

There are many examples of such consideration, with the most recent example being the Switch Advance Wars remaster, and perhaps the most famous being Dreamcast game Propeller Arena.

Re: The Making Of: The Black Onyx, The Game That Hooked Japan On RPGs

gingerbeardman

Just to give a bit of context to the claims that RPGs were largely unknown in Japan at the time of The Black Onyx. The year before its release in the November 1983 issue of Japanese LOGiN magazine, starting on page 98, there's an article "What is an RPG?" by N. Ohnishi which (translating using Google or iOS) describes the concept of an RPG, includes some free games that readers could type in and play, and encourages readers to create their own RPG. https://archive.org/details/login-november-1983/LOGiN%20-%20November%201983/page/n99/mode/2up
I think Henk likes to paint a rose coloured picture of the past. He was featured in the same magazine im the 1984 April issue: https://archive.org/details/login-april-1984/LOGiN%20-%20April%201984/page/n117/mode/2up the feel no need to explain RPGs, but D&D does get some coverage, and they note the don't understand some of the made up terms used in The Black Onyx.

Re: Review: Hyper Mega Tech Super Pocket - A Wonderful Game Boy-Style Retro Gift

gingerbeardman

@Damo Fair point regarding the RGB30 comparison.

With the Super Pocket it's not just about resolution but also how pixel aspect ratio is honoured.

Bubble Bobble seems to be centred, which makes sense given it runs at 256Γ—224. Though maybe it should be stretched slightly to maintain the correct aspect?

Street Fighter 2 runs at 384Γ—224 (even though it's 4:3 aspect) so would need to be compressed horizontally to fit.

On high resolution displays these odd pixel aspect ratios can be honoured without much loss of visual clarity, but on a 320x240p this could only result in either blurring or missing pixels. At least they let you choose which.

So I'd still like to see some macro shots of the display!

Re: The Making Of: Street Fighter Alpha 3: Upper, The GBA's Best Fighter

gingerbeardman

Great to read this again. At the time my friends and I considered any GBC/GBA game with the Crawfish Interactive "crustacean" title screen to be solid gold, even before playing, and they were heralded everywhere by the press which is even mentioned in this interview. So I'm not sure they were "underrated," but I do agree they were gone too soon and have largely been forgotten since.

Re: Best Sharp X68000 Games: 20 Titles We Want On The X68000 Z Mini

gingerbeardman

Great list! The only additions I'd suggest would be: the weird, isometric, terraformed Robotron-like game called Square Resort, a T&E SOFT golf game (though they're better on PC98), and recent homebrew game Ball und Panzer Golf (which I'm making a version of for Playdate).

PipitanTV is my favourite YouTube channel for X6800 content. And the refuge.tokyo website has good game listings with screenshots.

Re: Best Virtual Boy Games Of All Time

gingerbeardman

I'd add T&E SOFT's Golf to this list. The performance of that game compared to contemporary T&E SOFT golf games on other platforms goes to show just how powerful the Virtual Boy was: PlayStation-level, certainly.

Re: Best Nintendo 3DS Games Of All Time

gingerbeardman

Pilotwings Resort remains my favourite. Being able to perfectly complete it took all my skill and a ton of hours. I tried it again recently and I must have had a lot more time back then as it seems like far too difficult a task today. Also, on New 3DS it plays with a smoother frame rate!

Re: The Making Of: Gun Trails, A Killer Playdate Exclusive & The Most Surprising Shmup Of 2023

gingerbeardman

Couple of things that have been lost in translation for this article: 50fps is the maximum full screen refresh rate on Playdate, for games that draw the whole screen every frame update.

But, the display can go much higher if you're only updating part of the screen - for example 200fps if you're updating one third the screen, or 60fps if you're updating two thirds of the screen. It's a little more complicated than that, because it's measured in the number of rows that you're updating rather than individual pixels. A bit of extra work and some tricks are needed to do this, but it's possible and has been done.

Re: Ultimate Guide: Nuon, The DVD Player That Tried To Be A Games Console

gingerbeardman

@-wc- NO, I'm not saying that at all.

I'm saying that, in my humble opinion, T3K isn't hugely better than T2K. It is the better game, but not by much. Often you will read that T3K is some sort of giant leap better and by far the greatest version of Tempest, but I feel this is overblown hyperbole because it's so rare not many people can check the validity of such claims. T3K is the best looking of Minter's versions, due to there being no visible pixels on NUON (some might call it too blurry) but in terms of gameplay each version is better than the last but not by any great leaps.

Re: Ultimate Guide: Nuon, The DVD Player That Tried To Be A Games Console

gingerbeardman

Still have my NUON, controllers (multiple) along with half of all the games (T3K, Merlin, Freefall, Ballistic) and most of the remaining games as CD-R.

I had great times with the VLM and saw some pretty trippy things appear on the screen (like seeing shapes/things in clouds, I guess). Ballistic is good and on par with the PS1 version.

NUON T3K is for only slightly better than Jaguar T2K, low frame rate being the major issue. I am hoping they somehow get T3K playable on the forthcoming Digital Eclipse Llamasoft anthology (shhh, I heard it's supposed to be a secret).