Retro Thread for old gamers

[bork]

$12?!? 

How is the quality for that price?

[porkbun]

It's actually pretty good.  My only complaints is that the sound is too quiet with headphones on, you can't switch between 3 and 6 button mode so Forgotten Worlds doesn't work, and that it's kind of a hassle to find games because for whatever reason they randomized and repeat the games in a list of 77000 (??) games for some reason.  Haven't tried the SD card slot yet, but I would assume you can also run SMS and GG games on it.

[Svejk]

Uh,.. I'll buy one at that price!

[demi]

does it have dogshit emulation like most of these chinese things?

[Sho Nuff]

Gimme link to $12 device

[porkbun]

https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/R6y9NNA

[Svejk]

No longer available.    Dat jank ass PSP shell. 

[bork]

Decided to buy a better Raspberry Pi case and found this:



Seems to be the "new hotness" for Pi cases- has working power and reset buttons and comes with a little exhaust fan, too.  Getting an 8BitDo M30 pad today that should work nicely with it.



There's also a new N30 Pro with the Mega Drive/Genesis color scheme, but I wouldn't recommend this model.  It's not as comfortable as the SN30 Pro models and the triggers can break.

[Sho Nuff]

Woo-ee that case is good af

[chronovore]

Why the fuck do you use photobucket in 2019

This thread is ALL ABOUT retro cred, so I don't understand your question.

[bork]

Woo-ee that case is good af

It's awesome!  Went ahead and changed it out.  You just need to install a script and then the power and reset buttons will function like the real thing.  The eject switch makes the top circular area pop-up and there's a tiny bit of space to store stuff like SD cards.







Left the fan out for now- my heat sink is too big for it!    The case came with a smaller little heat sink to switch it out, but I don't have any thermal paste at the moment and it didn't have any sticky shit on the other side.  Maybe later I'll throw it in there.

The extra two USB inputs/ethernet are also still available for use- the back right side of the case can come off for access.

[Rufus]

What's the M30 like?

[bork]

What's the M30 like?

Works great!  It's about the same size as the original Genesis six button controller, so it might feel small (and very light- no rumble), but the d-pad is fantastic and the buttons are very responsive.  Tested it on the Switch with Street Fighter Anniversary Collection and had no problems doing moves in SF3: Third Strike and Super Turbo.  Felt just "right" with Sonic Mania.

[Great Rumbler]

If I’m in Japan, what retro systems/games should I look out for?

PC-98

[Sho Nuff]

If I’m in Japan, what retro systems/games should I look out for?

See if you can find THIS fucker, I bet it's still there

[tiesto]

If I’m in Japan, what retro systems/games should I look out for?

X68000, FM-Towns Marty, PC-98, an MSX2, Epoch Super Cassette Vision

[Positive Touch]

If I’m in Japan, what retro systems/games should I look out for?

sega pico

[Yeti]

Wonder Swan

[bork]

Thanks for the suggestions, I’m going to be there in a few months, but if anything I’ll get a system that has some practical use.

Pc-98 is cool, but there’s not much I’d be able to do with it, same with the 8001, but it’d be cool to check out.

But there’s also lots of old indie gems out there that are relatively unknown iirc.

I’ll dig through the recommended systems at some point though, thanks!

Something else cool n' retro is stuff that looks different over there than here- Famicom, Super Famicom, PC-Engine, etc.  I bought a pristine Super Famicom for someone at work last time I was over there for under 5000 yen.

Dunno how stock is on some of this stuff, but there were also various models of PS2 and Vitas released in different colors as well. 

[porkbun]

Have a TOTALLY STUDLY~! Friday

[bork]

A fan-made three-player Final Fight "30th Anniversary" mod is in development!

[Himu]

I’m impressed by enough recent games to take out “modern games are trash.”

[HardcoreRetro]

Yeah, Rape Day is a landmark title.

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, Rape Day is a landmark title.

Unfortunately, it got deplatformed by the SJWs at Valve.

[bork]

Makes so much sense- they don't have to put anyone over!

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Warrior jobbing to Hogan at the end

[close]

[bork]

https://twitter.com/nvmusa/status/1105535073305137152

[porkbun]

A fan-made three-player Final Fight "30th Anniversary" mod is in development!

There's a Double Dragon mod with Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior from Superstars instead of Billy and Jimmy

One of the many Streets of Rage 2 ROM hacks puts WWF guys in it.  It's pretty fun.

[Sho Nuff]

Yiiikes Rise of the Dragon conversion is rough. Must be because they took those airbrushed backgrounds then converted to 256 color MCGA, then had to knock THOSE down to 64 colors of the Sega CD. Don't envy that job.

[Himu]

What are some must play pc games that are available on gog and steam? Doesn't matter the genre. I've never played Icewind Dale 1 and 2. How are they and how do they compare to BG?

[Great Rumbler]

Icewind Dale games are more combat-focused than quest-focused like BG. As for PC games you need to play:

-Ultima 7 & 8
-Wizardry 7 & 8
-Deus Ex
-Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition
-Neverwinter Night 2: Complete
-Anachronox
-Planescape: Torment
-Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura
-System Shock 2
-Underrail
-Legend of Grimrock 1 & 2
-Septerra Core
-King's Bounty: The Legend
-Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
-Star Wars: Tie Fighter
-Giants: Citizen Kabuto
-Cannon Fodder
-Curse of Monkey Island
-realMyst: Masterpiece Edition
-Quest for Glory 1-5
-The Longest Journey
-The Dig
-Sam & Max: Hit the Road
-King's Quest Collection
-Space Quest Collection
-Starship Titanic
-Normality
-Little Big Adventure
-Another World
-Flashback
-Bad Mojo
-Realms of the Haunting

[Himu]

Games on that list I’ve played:

- Ultima VII
- planescape
- system shock 2
- vamp bloodlines tm
- curse of monkey island (still waiting for hd port)
- the longest journey
- Sam and max hit the road
- another world
- flashback

[Rufus]

Icewind Dale games are more combat-focused than quest-focused like BG. As for PC games you need to play:

(snip)

Some objections:

Skip Neverwinter Nights' main campaign. It's boring and takes forever. Just read a synopsis, then jump into expansions.

Neverwinter Nights 2's main campaign is slow to start and quite forgettable, so I suggest you read a synopsis here as well and jump straight into Mask of the Betrayer.

Septerra Core has boooring combat and way too much of it.

Little Big Adventure controls horribly.

Watch Supergreatfriend's LP of Realms of the Haunting instead of playing it yourself.

Don't maul me, Rumbro.

Adding:
Thief series (2>1, 3 optional, reboot maybe?)
Gothic (2>1, 3 is a mess and optional, 4 is a sham)
Knights of the Old Republic 2 (only with fan patch)
Doom/s (including 3, which is a fine game)
FTL
Fallout (F2 optional, because bloated and meandering)
Quake (main quest, then Arcane Dimensions fan map pack)
Grim Fandango (remaster)
Sid Meier's Pirates! (the most recent version)
Full Throttle (remaster; very short, start with this maybe?)
Crysis (until it goes linear)
STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl (and/or Call of Pripyat)
MDK

[Himu]

Already played Thief games
Grim Fandango is one of my faves
Kotor 2
Fallout
Full throttle
mdk

Also no offense but you historically have no patience for slow burn games but I love a slow burn so

[Rufus]

I don't mind the slow burn when it actually culminates into something. Neither Neverwinter's main campaigns do.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

[Great Rumbler]

Don't maul me, Rumbro. (Image removed from quote.)

[Shuri]

I finally got to play Knuckles Chaotix on the 32x. What an underwhelming experience.. The 32x-enhanced effects are really cool but the gameplay is super convulted and bizzare.  It feels like a kludge of different concepts all mashed together. I'm really not feeling it at all. Everything seems to be able the chaining concept and.. uh thats it? You get to choose who your partner is and they seem to have all sorts of different skills,

Maybe it gets better later in the game but it's quite a letdown. Damn. It looked so interesting back in the days.

edit: I was expecting a sonic style platformer, but I got a strange The Lost Viking style puzzle with Knuckles and his furry bait friends

[bork]

Knuckles Chaotix was crap, yeah.  Why it couldn't have been just a straight Sonic platformer with the extra 32X effects and stuff is beyond me.

[Himu]

Is the combat good in IWD?

[Himu]

How’s the crawling and resource management? Those are separate from combat but only slightly.

[bork]

Hey, this is kinda neat.  Might try this with an older laptop.  Easy way to make a good emu/streaming box!

[Rufus]

Recent re-releases work out of the box.

https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Knights_of_the_Old_Republic
https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Knights_of_the_Old_Republic_II_-_The_Sith_Lords

[Chooky]

I finally got to play Knuckles Chaotix on the 32x. What an underwhelming experience.. The 32x-enhanced effects are really cool but the gameplay is super convulted and bizzare.  It feels like a kludge of different concepts all mashed together. I'm really not feeling it at all. Everything seems to be able the chaining concept and.. uh thats it? You get to choose who your partner is and they seem to have all sorts of different skills,

Maybe it gets better later in the game but it's quite a letdown. Damn. It looked so interesting back in the days.

edit: I was expecting a sonic style platformer, but I got a strange The Lost Viking style puzzle with Knuckles and his furry bait friends

the game feels to me like someone opened a Sonic level editor and slapped shit around at random. half-pipes, loop the loops, and floating platforms all over the place with no sense of progression. add to that the way you play levels in a random order (why?) and that you can get stuck with troll partners for entire levels (WHY??) and you end up with an extremely unenjoyable and forgettable game.

[Rufus]

What about ones on freer websites

Whatever is still available right now will probably be on the most recent version already. Gotta compare version numbers, I guess. Steamdb and Gogdb will help with that.

[bork]

Sold two of the rare older Saturn titles I've had sitting around and decided to use the money to buy an Alpha-Cade bartop unit.



These guys are local, so I can save on shipping and will go drive down to pick it up when it's ready.  Saves $70 on shipping, which is good because I may need to buy another TV to use with it, and the recommended model is $60 at Best Buy.

Will probably put my RetroPie inside for now, but I do have an older, mostly unused ASUS Windows 8 tablet lying around that also might be perfect for this, assuming it will fit inside.  What's nice about these units is that the back allows for easy access, so I should also be able to hook my laptop up to it if I want to try some modern arcade gaming for stuff like SFV, SC6, DOA6, MK11, etc. 

[Tasty]

xpost

Anyways, if anyone is interested in retro game creation / demaking, here's a project that piqued my interest:

https://www.gbstudio.dev

It's a visual editor like Contstruct / RPG Maker, but for GameBoy ROMs -- ones you can write to a cart and play on real hardware. 🤩

[Occam]

Sold two of the rare older Saturn titles I've had sitting around

Which ones?

[bork]

Went down to the RecRoom Masters shop to pick up the cab after work.  Was kind of surreal- the entrance was lined up with old (restored?) cabs from the 80s and then some of their own units.  Nothing was on though (not even the lights, lol).  The dude there was super-hyped and excitedly pointed out that they were in the process of putting together a replica Konami X-Men cab for someone.  There was a giant side decal being printed out.  Pretty cool!  And then they proceeded to give me the wrong size cab, which would have been a loss for them since it was a bigger unit, lol.  The boss came out and got me the right one, then proceeded to tell me how he had to fire someone earlier for constantly shipping out the wrong cabs to people.  Glad I drove out there now.

Sold two of the rare older Saturn titles I've had sitting around

Which ones?

Sega Ages and Elevator Action Returns.

[Occam]

Unless you want them for collecting purposes, I suppose it makes sense to sell arcade ports that can be emulated perfectly. Elevator Action Returns was one of the last Saturn games I bought, after I had pretty much everything else I wanted (never got Sega Ages).

Crazy how expensive Saturn (and most other retro) games are now.

[Occam]

Oh come on, you seriously have never heard of Elevator Action (Taito arcade game, 1983)?

I think we need a school of video games that teaches the history of the genre.

[chronovore]

Please elevate your empathy for people born after the early 1970s 

You are in the retro game thread.

Git gud.

[Tasty]

Even I knew about Elevator Action... but I did watch G4 back in the day. Icons used to be good for this shit.

[benjipwns]

ya Icons pretty good show

I remember when they cancelled it and then brought it back, only like instead of games it was about the Suicide Girls and Kevin Smith and Mark Ecko lol

[Tasty]

Yeah, and then they brought back the original format as "Game Makers" before cancelling *that* after like four episodes.

[bork]

Unless you want them for collecting purposes, I suppose it makes sense to sell arcade ports that can be emulated perfectly. Elevator Action Returns was one of the last Saturn games I bought, after I had pretty much everything else I wanted (never got Sega Ages).

Crazy how expensive Saturn (and most other retro) games are now.

Both of those games were bought on release back in the 90s!  Elevator Action Returns can also be found on one of the Taito PS2 collections, which I have, so I still have a copy in my game collection anyway.  I didn't think it would sell for so much, but I guess everything is "rare" these days.  Still can't get over Street Fighter Zero 3 selling for hundreds of dollars now.  Like...WUT. 

I genuinely hope this is a game about elevators and elevator operators.

 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Square-Enix used to have this awesome little browser game called "Elebest" that WAS about shuffling crowds of people on elevators.   It's long gone now and I can't really find anything on it. 

[close]

[

Even I knew about Elevator Action... but I did watch G4 back in the day. Icons used to be good for this shit.

The original got ported to just about everything back in the day.  At least up through the NES and Gameboy.

Returns was a more 'modern' take on it for the time.  Kinda like Elevator Action crossed with Rolling Thunder.



Returns only got ported to the Saturn (and only in Japan) back then, so I think a lot of people missed it.

[bork]

Got the Alpha-Cade built last night!



Was overall pretty easy to put together- if you can build IKEA furniture, you can do this.  Found that the TV I wanted to use wouldn't work, so went out to Best Buy to get their recommended Insignia TV for $60.  It's got much louder speakers than my old 19" TV, so probably worked out for the best. 

The only issue was getting the left side panel on after everything else was slotted in- I think the plexiglass might not have been initially slotted in right or something, but got it all fit together and then noticed that the TV was tilted inside.    Had to take it all apart again and found that it had moved slightly after I mounted it to the board inside the cab.  Fortunately it was easier to put it back together the second time and then it was ready to go!  You end up with an HDMI cable and a USB cable sticking out of the back, so it's easy to hook whatever you want up.  Using my Retropie Mega Drive right now and plan to either buy another Pie just for this unit or a cheap PC.  I'm more about just using this for arcade retro gaming, though, at least for now.

Now I need to work on fixing/replacing some of the romsets and see about getting a slicker UI- I want to use the ones that fill in the sides with simulated cabinet panels or artwork.

[tiesto]

Elevator Action Returns is an awesome game, luckily it's available in the PS2 Taito Legends 2 compilation if you don't want to spend a shitload on the Saturn version.

Ninja Five 0 is another expensive af action game that gives me serious Elevator Action Returns x Shinobi x Bionic Commando vibes.

[bork]

Ninja Five 0 is another expensive af action game that gives me serious Elevator Action Returns x Shinobi x Bionic Commando vibes.

Had that one and sold it off a couple of years ago, too!  Helped fund my new PC purchase at the time. 

[bork]

The Retropie started overheating, so I went to install a fan in the case- forgot that with this particular case, you need to make sure to remove the micro SD card before taking the top off and it snapped in two.    Fortunately that's all that broke, so will get another one tomorrow, re-flash it, and get back to it.  Decided to go ahead and order another Pie and case that I'm going to use specifically for the cab so I can go back to using the other one for console emulation on my TV.

[Oblivion]

Oh man, Icons and Game Makers brings me back. G4 was a garbage channel, but it was only garbage cause the good stuff they made had terrible ratings.

Also, too. Bork, where is your avatar from?

[Himu]

Elevator Action and its sequel, Returns, are some of my favorites.

Ninja Five-O is good too. SE did a sort of Elevator Action "reboot/remake" for ps3 and I remember it sucking.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/elevator-action-deluxe



Unfortunately SE owns Taito now and the only Taito property they want anything to do with is Space Invaders so we are shit out of luck. I keep waiting for someone to make a Spelunky take on Elevator Action and no dice.