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Retro Gaming Thread

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
8-F56-FFE9-274-A-4939-BAC3-E9974846-AABF.png

I miss when game design was this simple and still complete.
 

Bullet Club

Member



In AD 2001, war was beginning. Sega left the hardware business, but the failure of the Dreamcast was about more than just Sega. It was the failure of the design philosophy that had, until this point, defined console gaming. Nintendo suffered under this new paradigm, while Microsoft rose up, and the PlayStation 2 thrived, becoming the hottest console the world has ever seen.

The industry would never be the same, and to find the silver lining in what it became instead would take a long time and a lot of growing up...
 
Booted KoF '95 on Saturn again this past weekend. Man, I always have a blast with this game. I didn't take new pictures this time but I'm instead stealing my own pictures from the main Sega Saturn Community Thread.

A few screenshots:

RXNeuRq.jpg


kIybdTg.jpg




UX42ncr.jpg


One aspect that I love about this game -- its loading screens. Unlike later King of Fighters games on the Saturn, the ones here don't take very long, and they have A LOT of personality. So they use character portraits in the loading screens; the thing is, the character portraits are NOT the ones you already have in this game. They're different. For some characters, the portrait is from KoF 96 (the next entry); see Kyo's below. But for others, the portrait is custom (see King's portrait below). They're amazing, and I love them:

YphfViu.jpg


J3M3rzH.jpg



[EDIT]: The weird lines you see in the victory screen below -- they're TV refresh artifacts, and only there because it's a static picture.

klC68Mo.jpg


A2Ilxcf.jpg
 

That was such a fascinating period in gaming. Almost all the consoles released at that time were terrible (32X, CD-i, 3DO, Jaguar, CD32) but there was so much hype and excitement at the same time. Most gamers knew these systems were all a waste of money but the industry seemed blind to it.

I was a teenager at the time and we all just laughed at anyone we knew who wasted their money on these machines. However, the hype in the magazines was pretty intense. That was until the consoles actually came out at which point everyone realised they were all mouth and no trousers.

Rise of the Robots was the game that epitomised this era. It was hyped up to almost hysterical levels. The graphics were going to be photo realistic, the gameplay was going to piss all over Street Fighter 2 and the A.I. was going to be indistinguishable from a real human opponent. The whole thing cost a fortune to make and market (they even hired Brian May to do the music). And yet, when the game came out it wasn't just bad, it was legitimately one of the worst games ever made. Shamefully, some magazines still gave it high scores which was surely the result of bribery.

 
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Bullet Club

Member
Rise of the Robots was the game that epitomised this era. It was hyped up to almost hysterical levels. The graphics were going to be photo realistic, the gameplay was going to piss all over Street Fighter 2 and the A.I. was going to be indistinguishable from a real human opponent. The whole thing cost a fortune to make and market (they even hired Brian May to do the music). And yet, when the game cam out it wasn't just bad, it was legitimately one of the worst games ever made. Shamefully, some magazines still gave it high scores which was surely the result of bribery.
A total stinker. I never liked the look of it though. It looked bland and personality free. Which it was.

The gameplay couldn't compete with International Karate on the C64 from 1985.
 

Daytonabot

Banned
In terms of vintage stuff, I only collect arcade stuff these days. Almost all of my old console stuff is long gone. I have a pair of Japanese candy cabinets, several fairly high-profile PCBs, and cartridges for Neo Geo MVS, ST-V, Taito F3, and Atomiswave.
 

TLZ

Banned
Anyone here collect retro stuff? I used to be a big collector but I sort of slowed down over the years.


My systems.

Commodore 64
Atari 5200St (found in a skip)
Super Nintendo
Nintendo Gameboy
Sega Master System
Sega Mega Drive
Sega mega Drive 2
Sega Game Gear
Nintendo Game Boy colour (mutli versions including pokemon edition)
Nintendo Gameboy Micro (3 or 4)
Sega Dreamcast
PlayStation 1
PlayStation 2 (multiple versions)
PSP 3000
PlayStation 3(slim and big OG)
PlayStation Vita
PlayStation 4
PlayStation 5
Xbox 360(multiple version slim arcade etc)
Nintendo 64
Nintendo Game Cube
Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS lite.
Nintendo wii
Nintendo switch lite






Off the top of my head at work at the moment.
No love for NES?
 

Sephimoth

Member
Basically stopped collecting these days apart from the odd item here and there. My main goal was to grab all the hits of the systems I loved growing up, and I've pretty much done that.
Playing them though is... very rare.

To get some use out of them I've been thinking of setting myself a goal: To play through all my Sega Saturn games that I own to completion.
I have probably like 30- would be nice to be able to say "I've finished my entire Saturn collection"

It'd mean subjecting myself to poorer versions of games I could play elsewhere like Resident Evil and Quake, but it is what it is
 
Anyone here collect retro stuff? I used to be a big collector but I sort of slowed down over the years.


My systems.

Commodore 64
Atari 5200St (found in a skip)
Super Nintendo
Nintendo Gameboy
Sega Master System
Sega Mega Drive
Sega mega Drive 2
Sega Game Gear
Nintendo Game Boy colour (mutli versions including pokemon edition)
Nintendo Gameboy Micro (3 or 4)
Sega Dreamcast
PlayStation 1
PlayStation 2 (multiple versions)
PSP 3000
PlayStation 3(slim and big OG)
PlayStation Vita
PlayStation 4
PlayStation 5
Xbox 360(multiple version slim arcade etc)
Nintendo 64
Nintendo Game Cube
Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS lite.
Nintendo wii
Nintendo switch lite






Off the top of my head at work at the moment.
I guess you can say I used to "collect," but it was with an express purpose of playing whatever systems/games I got.

I've got:
- SNES
- Super Famicom
- Genesis
- 2x Sega Saturn (1 US, 1 JP)
- Dreamcast
- PS2 (JP)
- Wii

And about 20-25 games for each system, except Genesis for which I only have about 10 games or so. Most of the games in my collection are of the moderate/pricey variety, as all games (except for the Super Nintendo ones) are all in pristine, complete-in-box condition, and some (like my PS2 Japanese collection of SNK fighting games, volumes 1 and 2) are pretty rare these days.
 

pachura

Member
Initially, I kinda wanted to buy a A500 Mini, but in the end I installed Batocera on my Raspberry Pi 4 in an Argon ONE V2 case and I must say I'm very happy with it. The interface is nice & polished, stuff works out of the box, automatic scraping rocks, and I can play on the big screen with a DS4 controller, wirelessly. There's a lot of emulated platforms - apart from Amiga, I use ZX Spectrum, Atari 65XE/800XL, SNES, NeoGeo, ports of Diablo-Quake-Doom-Prince of Persia, and of course ScummVM games.

The only minor let-down is that there's a bug streaming audio to DS4's analog jack output, but I hope it'll be fixed one day (works on Recalbox).
 

Bullet Club

Member



From the Turtles to the Simpsons, Konami's Arcade Licenses were some of the best games to come out in the early '90s, and a lot of them never made it to the home. Here's a look back at a quality line-up, including the ports that were released and behind the scenes tidbits. Enjoy!
 
Anybody wanna tell me why the fuck Sonic Adventure II on the Dreamcast is so expensive? I suddenly became a "proud" owner of a VA2 Dreamcast and I don't really wanna spend 100+ on a Sonic game.
Because the retro market is fucked in general.

Out of curiosity I was looking for a Saturn copy of Rayman and... LMFAO. What a shit show.
 

Naked Lunch

Member
Because the retro market is fucked in general.

Out of curiosity I was looking for a Saturn copy of Rayman and... LMFAO. What a shit show.
Yeah - if youre not collecting and just looking to play the stuff on Saturn.
At this point - just get a MODE, Fenrir, or the easiest: Pseudo Saturn.

Most Saturn stuff is on average $200 bucks now - just madness.
I bought Saturn Bomberman for $40 in 2006 or so.
On ebay, three copies just sold for $550.00, $699.00 and $816.00! Like what? Completely dumb.
 
Yeah - if youre not collecting and just looking to play the stuff on Saturn.
At this point - just get a MODE, Fenrir, or the easiest: Pseudo Saturn.

Most Saturn stuff is on average $200 bucks now - just madness.
I bought Saturn Bomberman for $40 in 2006 or so.
On ebay, three copies just sold for $550.00, $699.00 and $816.00! Like what? Completely dumb.
For retro console stuff, I historically had a very strong stance: if I played something on an actual console or via emulation, it was because I owned it physically.

The Saturn (and GameCube) shenanigans are making me seriously reconsider that stance. Shit is nuts... (Although in fairness for most retro consoles I have, I own most of the games I want to play anyway)
 
Naked Lunch Naked Lunch elaborating on my "shit is nuts..." statement. So Rayman is actually on the cheaper side of things.

There is this game on the Saturn that I learned about a couple of years ago, a game named Super Tempo, I think. It's one of the most beautiful 2D games I have ever seen in my life. So reading about it, I learned that it was (as many things were towards the end of the Saturn's life) a Japan-only release.

Went to eBay. Disc-only copies could run you $400 or more. Complete in box copies above $550. LMAO, what the fuck 😂

Something like Street Fighter Zero 3, I don't care if the Saturn version is prohibitively expensive because I have many other ways of playing it. But Super Tempo, it's stuck on the Saturn, with no signs of ever getting out of that console. So, I'll have to look for, hmmm, "alternative" ways of playing it. (Wink wink nod nod)
 

Naked Lunch

Member
For retro console stuff, I historically had a very strong stance: if I played something on an actual console or via emulation, it was because I owned it physically.

The Saturn (and GameCube) shenanigans are making me seriously reconsider that stance. Shit is nuts... (Although in fairness for most retro consoles I have, I own most of the games I want to play anyway)
I hear you and totally respect that.
In my case Ive amassed hundreds of games over the years - shelves of still complete in-box stuff. But when trying to revisit and re-collect some stuff I missed - I realized it was going to be impossible. Im not a millionaire. Its clear that people who got rich or just dont GAF have taken over the retro gamespace.

Metal Warriors SNES is the game that triggered me most. $900 for that shit! Nine hundred dollaz. $1200 in box. No nah nope. It used to be $15 in funcoland used.
 
I've been wanting to pick up an old computer for a long time (it pains me that I don't still have my family 386DX/33 and P200MMX PCs...), and managed to find a Pentium 133 system in good condition locally for a pretty good price. I just need a CRT PC monitor now and I should be set.

Gotta say, I forgot how configuring autoexec.bat and config.sys were a game in itself. I'm pretty sure I wrecked them though:

Code:
Memory Type        Total  =   Used  +   Free
----------------  -------   -------   -------
Conventional         640K       19K      621K
Upper                123K      108K       15K
Reserved             384K      384K        0K
Extended (XMS)*   15,237K    9,141K    6,096K
----------------  -------   -------   -------
Total memory      16,384K    9,652K    6,732K

Total under 1 MB     763K      127K      636K

Total Expanded (EMS)                15,680 (16,056,320 bytes
Free Expanded (EMS)*                6,336K (6,488,064 bytes)

* EMM386 is using XMS memory to simulate EMS memory as needed.
  Free EMS memory may change as free XMS memory changes.

Largest executable program size       621K (636,128 bytes) 
Largest free upper memory block        10K  (10,272 bytes) 
MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.
Code:
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ mcb  ³ para ³  size   ³   name    ³     type      ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ 0265 ³ 0045 ³   1,104 ³ HIMEM     ³ Device driver ³
³ 02ab ³ 014d ³   5,328 ³ EMM386    ³ Device driver ³
³ 03ff ³ 00f5 ³   3,920 ³ COMMAND   ³ Program       ³
³      ³      ³         ³           ³               ³
³ b15c ³ 000e ³     224 ³ DOSMAX    ³ Program       ³
³ b16b ³ 00cc ³   3,264 ³ FILES     ³ Program       ³
³ b238 ³ 0005 ³      80 ³ FCBS      ³ Program       ³
³ b23e ³ 0020 ³     512 ³ WKBUFFER  ³ Program       ³
³ b25f ³ 002c ³     704 ³ LASTDRIV  ³ Program       ³
³ b28c ³ 00bc ³   3,008 ³ STACKS    ³ Program       ³
³ b349 ³ 0009 ³     144 ³ INSTALL   ³ Program       ³
³ b35f ³ 009d ³   2,512 ³ RECALL    ³ Program       ³
³ b3fb ³ 0180 ³   6,144 ³ SHSUCDX   ³ Program       ³
³      ³      ³         ³           ³               ³
³ d802 ³ 068f ³  26,864 ³ CTSB16    ³ Device driver ³
³ de92 ³ 0287 ³  10,352 ³ CTMMSYS   ³ Device driver ³
³ e11a ³ 0121 ³   4,624 ³ POWER     ³ Device driver ³
³ e23c ³ 00f1 ³   3,856 ³ IFSHLP    ³ Device driver ³
³ e32e ³ 0139 ³   5,008 ³ VIDE_CDD  ³ Device driver ³
³ e468 ³ 0955 ³  38,224 ³ SMARTDRV  ³ Program       ³
³ edbe ³ 00d3 ³   3,376 ³ CTMOUSE   ³ Program       ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³      ³ 1d1d ³ 119,248 ³ 19        ³ Total         ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³  Bytes free: 636,304  ³    Upper free: 14,928     ³
³     Largest: 636,304  ³       Largest: 10,256     ³
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ

I load my network drivers separately with a batch file but I'm pretty sure I am still over 600k when I do - I should probably just add them to my normal boot since I doubt I'll ever hit a program that needs more conventional than that.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Decided to replay Driver games recently.

One thing it reminded me of was how different a console and a pc version of the same game could be in the past, aside from better graphics. With a glance, you wouldn't recognize them as being the same game.

maxresdefault.jpg
1264869749.or.046725.png


Not just car models, even the music was different.
Driver psx had dynamic soundtrack, with different tracks for day and night, and the music would change for a more fast-paced version during chases.
Driver PC soundtrack was static, regardless of the time of day or being chased by the cops or not, it was always the same music. Not to mention it was a completely different track from those of the psx version.

On defense of the PC version though, i'd argue the 'exclusive' tracks definitely felt more high quality than those of the psx version (though it could just be nostalgia speaking), not to mention the game had exclusive tracks for the parking lot, desert and Newcastle levels, while the psx just reused other tracks from other levels for those.

San francisco music (SF day on the psx version)



New Castle music (Also Miami night track for the psx version, exclusive track for credits and newcastle on pc)

 
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SegaShack

Member
Anyone else tempted to thin out the excess in their collection with prices being so crazy?

I do believe at some point people will stop spending so much for these games that can be easily emulated or played on an everdrive/ODE.

I'll still keep my favorites but absolutely considering getting rid of the odds and ends that I've picked up and don't have any attachment to.
 

Bullet Club

Member



In an era defined by sub-HD resolutions and 'challenging' performance, the concept of PlayStation 3 delivering on its promised 1080p dream seems almost ridiculous. And it's true that only a tiny proportion of the library rendered at full HD. And yet, in this DF Retro Special, 85 games are tested - and a majority of them target 60fps! John Linneman is on top form here, presenting the lengthiest DF Retro yet in an epic journey covering four episodes. This is part one!
 
I'm not entirely sure where the best place to share this is, but something that I found interesting is that there's a build of MAME that supports surround sound upmixing with xaudio2 with dedicated output for LFE and even support for Dolby Atmos setups. It sounds amazing if you have a home theater setup.

 

Bullet Club

Member


The Hit Squad started out as Ocean's way of bringing their old classics back for another go round, but it became a huge Budget Label, helping to start a Budget Gaming boom that helped the likes of the Spectrum and C64 continue on for a couple of years -- here's their story and games! Enjoy.



Explaining ALL Official Nintendo games which featured Mario BEFORE he became an international super star in Super Mario Bros on the classic Nintendo Entertainment System! Covering some of the best classic arcades, to the Famicom and NES, Game & Watch, to the very most obscure PC Mario Games released only in Japan!



PlayStation 3 launched November 17th, 2006 here in North America, and that was a long time ago. For a console I adore and appreciate so much, I've never actually sat down and played every single launch game. So I finally got my best friend Terell back on the channel to have some fun! We're playing all 16 NA PS3 launch games, giving them a quick review, but also asking: would we have bought this day 1? So sit back, strap yourselves in, and get ready to 599.99 US DOLLARS.
 

Fredrik

Member
Dude, there are Youtubers making videos telling their viewers to dump their investments in the stock market and buy retro games as an investment vehicle. It's not gamers that are driving these price increases. It's absolutely mental.

I had a dream the other day where I was in a flea market and came across a huge stack of Saturn games in their jewel cases, it was fun while it lasted.
Yeah it’s insane. I wonder how much money I could get if I went all in and auctioned away all my Commodore stuff individually that I still have from the 80s. Not that I would ever do it, it’s my childhood. 20 years ago people could throw it in the trash.
 

dave_d

Member
Yeah it’s insane. I wonder how much money I could get if I went all in and auctioned away all my Commodore stuff individually that I still have from the 80s. Not that I would ever do it, it’s my childhood. 20 years ago people could throw it in the trash.
I always say go check on Price charting if you want to look up some prices. Personally at some of these prices I wouldn't sell because I'd worry that if a game is worth that much who knows if the other guy is legit or not. (The incentive to steal is too high.)
 

Bullet Club

Member


Over the weekend I was invited to test out a closed test of Insignia - the Xbox Live 1.0 replacement for the Original Xbox consoles. In this episode we take a closer look at the service, how well it performs and what to expect when the service launches in the near future!



In today's video we look at the history of the Commodore 64, the most popular home computer of all time and the home to a ridiculous amount of video games. Let's look back at it's story!



Limit pushing on the PlayStation, let's have a look at some games that take Sony's first console to the edge and also explain how they do it.



Welcome to Season 7 of Ancient DOS Games! Today, Gemini's kicking things off by looking at 3D Lemmings, also known as Lemmings 3D since the title shows up in many different ways, though the manual itself confirms that the 3D comes first. It's an action/puzzle game developed by Clockwork Games and published through Psygnosis in 1995.

This game came out at a time when EVERYTHING was making the jump into 3D, with some properties faring better than others in the process. This one really comes down to personal preference and the system you bought it for, as the console versions rated considerably worse than the DOS version, likely due to a lack of mouse controls which are kinda essential, and the camera can take some getting used to, but it otherwise has quite a bit of its own personality and it's even remotely a bad game. :B
 
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