|
That is totally rad Payndz! If you can remember anything else about your interview or anything feel free to post it. Every old rear end UK gamer will probably explode with both rage and envy at your brush with UK computer game mag fame. (Except the Speccie heads. But they have Stockholm syndrome anyhow and can be safely ignored!) Also there are a TON of computers I didn't bother covering at all. If anyone wants to do write ups in the format I have on page 1 please DO SO. You will be credited for it and I will cut and paste it to the front posts as I get the chance. (Don't really do computer work type stuff on work days as my Sandy Bridge rig isn't turned on unless I have at least 5 hours to putz around on it. Since it needs like 10 minutes to finish loading every damned thing. I am getting an Ipad Air within 60 days or so but dunno exactly when and how much it will let me do creatively. Until I buy a whole bunch of stupid goodies for it like keyboard n iCade and SD Card dongle for photo stuff..) But I am working on a new project for the thread that might be up tonight but most likely sometime tomorrow night around this time. It will be at least 3 parts over the next week or so. Here is a hint:  Ok, second hint before I actually post part 1. (Also proof the pictures improve!) 
Captain Rufus fucked around with this message at 08:42 on Nov 25, 2013 |
#
?
Nov 25, 2013 05:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 05:08 |
|
|
Attention: These photos were probably the best I could pull off. Sadly I cannot retake them as you know.. the computer is now further along than this. Hopefully the ones where the refresh rate was being really choad to my camera are at least visible enough to get the point across. Especially since the 14.1 megapixel versions of the original pictures are really too stupid to want to look at. Unless you are REALLY turned on by Windows 98 installation screens. And many of these were the best shots I could take. Thankfully the next part should have a lot prettier of pictures.                  I have spent quite some time working on this. Getting the machine up and running. Getting the documenting down for another stupidly long effort post. And now making into something semi readable. The "fun" part begins next installment. When I start making it play some bloody games. A game at the moment. Jesus this took a long time to do. It is part of the retro computing hobby. It isn't just nostalgia or consumer whoring. It is accomplishing a goal in the pursuit of fun. Which can be fun in it's own way. When you aren't swearing or digging through boxes looking for parts you need anyhow.
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2013 08:49
|
|
|
Good luck with the Win98 rig, I considered doing something similar but DOSBox and Gog.com pretty much have my retro gaming needs taken care of for right now. I do have some old parts from that era such as a Slot 1 Pentium III and a Voodoo 3 card, so maybe I could do something with those. I love your comic book style of commentary as well, it's unique and nobody seems to do that. Also, Red Alert is my favorite Command and Conquer game, excellent 1st choice.
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2013 14:52
|
|
|
Reading this thread reminds me of the large mass of microcomputers I have at home. I've used computers generally since I was around 4 years old ('97), but never really programmed until I got a Spectrum +2A for my Christmas in '08 or something. Now I'm in my final year of a CS degree, so they still have the same effect as they did back in the 80s. Also, I'm seeing a whole lot of MSX want here; I'm sure I've got one under my bed, but never booted it up to have a look. Is it as good as they say?
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2013 16:05
|
|
|
Ah, the days of going to local Computer Fairs in Manchester, to eyeball all the PC games in their gigantic cardboard boxes, then buy them on the cheap as gigantic '60 games on one disc' CD's labelled Golden Games & Blobby. Nostalgia. This would have been early/mid 90's, having gotten my first PC in '89, a devastatingly powerful 286 20Mhz with a massive 20MB HDD. My VGA card mocked my friends with their mere EGA and CGA options. But my one true love, my heart will always belong to my first proper computer, my BBC Micro 24k.
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2013 16:30
|
|
|
Shockeh posted:But my one true love, my heart will always belong to my first proper computer, my BBC Micro 24k. That's how I feel about the Apple IIGS. When I wasn't playing Nintendo, I was playing games on my Apple IIGS. I remember wasting alot of my free time on Roadwar 2000, Tetris, Mean 18 Golf, and the Bard's Tale Series.
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2013 16:36
|
|
|
Captain Rufus posted:That is totally rad Payndz! If you can remember anything else about your interview or anything feel free to post it. Every old rear end UK gamer will probably explode with both rage and envy at your brush with UK computer game mag fame. (Except the Speccie heads. But they have Stockholm syndrome anyhow and can be safely ignored!) The interview was at Newsfield's offices in Ludlow, which overlooked the high street and involved going up a narrow flight of stairs over a shop to reach. Julian 'Jazza' Rignall was one of the interviewers; I can't remember the other, but the editor at the time was Gary Penn, so it was probably him. The interview entailed a quick quizzing on why I thought I should get the job, my gaming background (ie, what I'd played and what I thought were recent stand-out titles), and then being dumped in front of a C64 and told to review a game for the next few hours. The one I got was an astonishingly lovely Scramble clone that couldn't even manage smooth scrolling, and after playing it for a while I was plonked at an old Amstrad word processor to write up my thoughts. I bashed out 300 words (or whatever) ripping it apart, which were then critiqued by the interviewers. I was told that phrases like "digital abortion" shouldn't generally be used in games reviews, but apart from that, they liked my work. They then went off to talk to the bosses, leaving me in the office with whoever the staff writers were at the time, coming back ten minutes later to tell me I'd got the job. After that, we all went to the pub until I had to get my train back to uni. The main thing I remember about the office was a photocopy blow-up on one wall of Paul Sumner's "thumbs-up" sketch with a speech bubble saying "Come here and say that, chocolate-drop". Rascist comment? No idea. So there you have it, my brush with retrogaming fame! (Five years later, I ended up at Paragon, where I was interviewed by Dominic Handy - aka "Paul Sumner". Other Newsfieldians who turned up there were Nick Roberts, Mark Kendrick, Phil King and Stuart Wynne, all of whom I would have been working with anyway if I'd taken the Zzap! job. Weird how things turn out.)
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2013 16:42
|
|
|
^ Great post Payndz! It seems as if the UK gaming industry is like their film/theatrical one: everyone ends up in everything with everyone else eventually. Its like TWO DEGREES OF DOCTOR WHO over there! But as I might not get my next Win 98 SE report post up before December I have to at least share something till then besides a few badly typed on a Kindle Fire responses. So here is most of my Windows 9x era games: Ahh yes. After DOS. The days of Windows. The somewhat backwards compatible OS most of us endure. While never very good it tends to have a lot more compatibility and popularity than OSX on Macs do. (BITE ME 10.7) I didn't get Windows 95 (Let's face it. Very few people gamed or did anything outside of business stuff with 3.1. Unless Solitaire counts.) till my Pentium Pro 150 bought in late Winter 97. By that point very few PC games at all were DOS only outside of budget rereleases. Even the big hits were dual format by then. So I mostly got on Windows 95 at the right time. While I would have DOS support via dual boot options for the short term, long term DOSBox would arrive in the early 00s and give all my older games a second lease on life. Windows 95 began the online era effectively as well. Microsoft saw the future and coded (sort of) for it. And here is my collection of games covering Windows 95, 98, and a couple XP where they happen to be in my collection pictures, trying to keep out the Vista and 7 era modern games. (I skipped ME, Vista, and 8. Windows is sort of like Star Trek movies. Many are ok but some are downright AWFUL.) Now of course because of the eras of Windows there are some incompatibilities even within modern Windows (and more during the shift to 64 bit versions) so what is sad is I can play more of my DOS collection right now than Windows! Hence you know, that megapost above with the 98 rig. But let's start with the 9x era. Mostly in the age of large cardboard boxes I was a big stupid and threw away.  The Activision Packs were early retro collection disks. My PSP and PS2 Activision packages gave you a lot more games for your money. But these came out years before. The C64 pack never appeared elsewhere though many of the games one would want from Activision on the 64 are not on here. (Licensed titles like Ghostbusters, Aliens, and Transformers. The 2600 ports that were superior on the 8 bit micros. Great job Kotick.) Age of Empires 2 and its expansion are still one of my favorite RTS games. Beast Wars was a VERY flawed action game based on the Transformers show running at the time. The Japanese language tutor I still haven't even tried. Just like Betrayal at Antara, the sequel to Betrayal at Krondor. (Without the Riftwar license.) Chessmaster 9000 is a Chess program. From a venerable franchise.  Civilization 2 Gold is the best and most complete version of that legendary strategy game. And the best version. Command & Conquer Red Alert is still my favorite RTS. Descent 3 is a great 1st person action flight game. Dune 2000 is an ok update to Dune 2. Never even tried Dronez. Diablo was the action RPG that really made that genre take off. Dungeon Keeper 2 is the fun RTS base building game.  The original manuals to Fallout 1 and 2, plus the RPG's Tactical semi sequel.. Tactics. The Space Flight simulator Freespace and its sequel. The funny action game Giants, and of course the legendary FPS Half Life.  Half Life's superior mission pack, Opposing Force (made by the now reviled Gearbox), the interesting 3d Space RTS Homeworld, the flight sim Jane's USAF I haven't messed with, and an Intellivision collection that again has been replaced by more comprehensive collections on consoles & portables. (Until they all realized they could sell one game for 5-10 dollars as opposed to 20 odd games for 20. And not even have to press disks!) Missionforce Cyberstorm was an ok turn based Mech wargame. Myth 2 is an RTS game I haven't had time to mess with. I mostly bought it back when I was trying to get a Mac games collection going when I foolishly thought I was gonna be a turtleneck wearing hipster computer user forever. Luckily it is dual format.  Need for Speed High Stakes is a fun racing game one of my Voodoo cards came packed with. Rollercoaster Tycoon is like Theme Park only with massive Coaster making. Its surprisingly addictive. The two Star Wars things are basically what we get on Special Features for our expensive Blu Rays and DVDs.  Jedi Knight is the legendary FPS sequel to Dark Forces. Rogue Squadron is the action flight game. TIE Fighter and X Wing Alliance are Spaceflight sims. System Shock 2 is an amazing FPS/RPG hybrid. Thief is basically the same concepts as System Shock but instead of Sci Fi, its Fantasy and more like playing a FPS where you are a D&D Thief class. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 is the excellent Extreme Sports action game.  Unreal is the stupidly overhyped FPS that was supposed to be a Quake 2 killer and merely heralded the stupid design decisions Doom 3 would use. Virtual Pool 2 is a 3d Pool simulator with amazing for the time physics modelling. Warlords 3 Darklords Rising is the sequel to one of my favorite games (Warlords 2). Sadly it makes the whole thing a bit too complicated. And it doesn't like Windows XP-7. War Wind was SSI's attempt at countering Warcraft 2. It never got much notice.  Worms Armageddon is the excellent installment of the Worms franchise. An action turn based enhancement of the old Artillery Duel game. X Com Apocalypse was the disappointing sequel to the traditional X Com in DOS. Luckily I did keep a few games from this era in their boxes, or they were other odd format boxes from the later days. Here they are. (And two games I hastily added because they weren't properly put in with their ilk.)  Wizardry 8 was the interesting but flawed final US/Canada made RPG in that classic series. Wing Commander Prophecy too was the last of it's franchise as we know it. The other two games aren't really retro. Well Doom 3 BFG has retro games on it. Hell, D3 itself is quickly approaching retro levels for a lot of us. (Given my HALF SEVEN rules for what is retro for many of you it is. STOP MAKING ME FEEL OLD DAMMIT.)  Morrowind is the FPS RPG I couldn't get into but upgraded my videocard to play. Interstate 76 is kind of like Mechwarrior 2 but with cars in an alternate 1970s and I need to give some time to. Links LS 1998 is a golf sim that gets replaced in a couple years. (But I can transfer some of the courses over so cool.) The Movie Collection I only bought for the Star Wars game (haven't even played the first two) which is the Star Wars universe in the Age of Empires 2 game engine. SWEET. Longbow is sadly a limited version of the full game (SPECIAL EDITION MY rear end) and again not a replacement for Gunship on the Commodore 64. Which is one of my two favorite Flight Sims.  Starcraft Battle Chest is the complete collection of Korea's favorite game. I do not care for it at all. Voyager Elite Force is an excellent FPS taking place during a bad TV show. X Wing vs TIE Fighter and its expansion were more Spaceflight Sims except with a more multiplayer bent. In a day before that had caught on. And Warcraft Battle Chest is the RTS I played through mostly because the story was cool as hell. And I am not a big RTS guy.  These are most of the pack in CDs from the first run of Retro Gamer, a UK magazine about old gaming I will cover in depth another time. (I found another disk or two after the photo was taken.) While a lot of this is freeware stuff, plenty of it is like giving me legal copies of many classic retro UK games. And keeping in that theme, we get to my CD Case Only titles. Mostly 9x compatible games or early XP releases put into jewel cases and sold in the ghetto racks section of Staples, Target, and Wal Mart. (Though these days it's 90% HIDDEN PICTURE crap.)  Civil War is a massive scope turn based game covering the entire war while Gettysburg is more a proper light turn based hex wargame. Capcom Arcade Hits is another of those things replaced by PS2 era collections. The Computer Gaming World disk is a HEY FREE GAMES thing. Just click for big and look. Gives me Thief 2 legit. Disciples 3 Gold is a turn based wargame/kingdom sim just like Heroes of Might & Magic 3 complete there. And Heroes 5's Orc standalone. Divine Divinity is a Diablo like Action RPG. Dungeon Lords is a real time RPG I haven't even tried yet. Fritz Chess is another Chess game. The two Microsoft Flight Simulators are what they say, but hurt due to the poor tutorials of the original era and these jewel cases not having big manuals I could read. Pinball Arcade is a prototype of the modern Pinball sim. This does a fantastic job for its time, but many of the tables are pre 1970s and are more of historical interest than something to play for pure fun.  Septerra Core/Shogo was a neat dual pack. Septerra is a western made JRPG, and Shogo is an FPS where you have Mech segments. Silent Storm is a Tactics styled RPG possibly hindered by the vile Starforce Copy Protection. Sim City 4 is that City Sim game I haven't played since the SNES Sim City is still my favorite. Super Frog I honestly thought was a different game of the same name that was famous on the Amiga. (And now semi infamous for having a dirty furry making the opening cinema.) Oh well, I can get the game I wanted from Good Old Games, or wait for the remake in progress. The two Star Wars games are FPS titles but Republic Commando hates both Windows XP AND 7. Which is a shame because the demo on the original X Box was rad. Was only 2.50 at Toys R Us though. X3 is an Elite like space fighting/exploration/trading sim game I also need to actually try. Now we come to the XP era or late 98. See consoles were beginning to completely dominate and the PC games manufacturers thought one of the problems were the differently sized game boxes and most of the game boxes being stupidly large. Games that sell to a smaller market in larger boxes taking up more shelf space? NO SIR. So... the industry decided to come up with a roughly standard sized box. It lasted a few years but PC shelf space continued shrinking. And the boxes were still twice as thick (if not more) than console games.  Arcanum is the buggy but interesting Steampunk RPG. Atari Anniversary is another of those retro collections I keep buying and getting replaced by easier to use and more game laden console collections. Civilization 3 Complete is like Civ 2 Gold. Only not as good IMHO. Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 is Red Alert's sequel. Meaning the spinoff series now has its own sequels. Good though. Defender of the Crown is a TERRIBLE remake of the Amiga/C64 classic. Deus Ex is a well regarded FPS RPG. Diablo 2 and its' expansion are the sequel to Diablo that is better in some ways and worse in others. Dungeon Siege is a mediocre Action RPG like Diablo but with a party AI so good you don't have to really DO anything. I bought it as it was to be used for some Ultima fan projects. Which took many many years past the game's release. Ooops!  Freedom Force and the sequel are nifty Real Time RPGs that are also probably the only good comic book styled RPGs period with a heavy Jack Kirby influence. I need to go through all of the sequel eventually. Freelancer was a disappointing Elite styled game. Galactic Civilizations 1-2 were disappointing Master of Orion 4X games. Without the awesome spaceship combat. And the fact the company behind it is run by a foul and terrible man. Konami Collector's series is the NES ports of my favorite two NES franchises. And it was only 10 dollars. Rad. Laser Squad Nemesis was a weird X Com like game by the same original creators only sort of real time and multiplayer focused without the base building. Links 2003 is the last of that legendary series on the PC and probably the best Golf game ever made. Massive Assault is a great Turn Based Wargame. Until it inevitably locks up and crashes. Starfleet Command 3 is a dumbed down sequel to the first 3 now taking place in the Next Generation era without all of the Starfleet Universe races. So.. less ships with less complexity. Eh. Not awful but.. not the way that series should have ended.  Battlefront is the Star Wars equivalent to the Battlefield franchise team FPS series where you can climb into vehicles and stuff. Bridge Commander is sort of a Star Trek Next Generation simulator where you get to put your Picard on. I couldn't get into it. Taito Legends is an awesome collection of Taito arcade games. EXCEPT WHERE IS ARKANOID? Titans of Steel is a TERRIBLE turn based Mech Wargame. Trackmania is a cool as hell Racer/Puzzle Game/Construction Set hampered by having Starforce. Ultimate Battle Pack I bought for the Apache game. Like every other Flight Sim collection the lack of a proper physical manual KILLS IT. No idea what the other two games even are. Then we enter the DVD era of PC gaming which is not retro unless you are like too young to be on this website. And thus my PC game collection pics end. (Well ok I still have a couple theme collections to show in later posts but in general yall can see my fly game heat.) I am leaving out MMOs even if Ultima Online, Everquest, and Asheron's Call are 90's games. And we are but a month from 2014.  And now that I have a somewhat working Win 98 SE rig many of these Win 98 era games should now work. This is what retro computer gaming is for folks. Getting your old game game on! For those of you who aren't poor retail, service, millitary, or entertainment schlubs such as myself you now have a nice 4 day weekend. Instead of ruining the working class' holidays spend some time playing your old favorites. (And then post some about it in this thread!) VVVV Some of the licensed games are still on the Intellivision collections. Just with all new names. I kind of regret not getting their Colecovision collection when they had it. And given that the Colecovision Kickstarter by the Vectrex Regeneration guys bombed hard... Captain Rufus fucked around with this message at 11:38 on Nov 27, 2013 |
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2013 10:41
|
|
|
Hey I have a few of those games! And Taito Legends 2 on PC, which is apparently also burdened with onerous DRM (and yet the first collection was not. Hrm.) I'll have to take boxshots of the collection sometime- I've got a handful of oddities owing to a half decade or so of scouring thrift stores and a few online auctions. And I've played hardly any of them  and 64 bit processors kill the chance at half of them for the moment.Unless I could get the old eMachines up and running with new old parts. It still runs I think- it's just kinda crap is all. I'm still surprised it ran Rogue Squadron 3D flawlessly. And still surprised I got gold medals on every mission using the keyboard. I couldn't even do that on the N64. There's a PC only Intellivision collection called Intellivision Rocks! that focuses on the Activision and Imagic releases, including all of them save for the licensed games. I think it also has a handful of prototypes and the Intellivoice games.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2013 11:31
|
|
|
That's a beautiful collection of games. Man, the 90s was a great time for pc gaming. Hell, half of my Gog.com library is 90s pc games, and I still fire up Unreal Tournament pretty often. I figured I post my small collection of non digital PC games as well   Yes, there's new PC games and PS1 games in there but who cares. I realize this is a pretty sad collection as far as retro PC collections go but that is due to space limitations, the fact that most of my game library is on Steam and Gog.com, and that the local Goodwill here kinda sucks as far as finding old games are concerned, this shelf consists of my rare finds at that store. Except for Anachronox, that I got complete online for $25, a couple days before it got released on Gog.com, oh well.  And before you ask, no I'm not Canadian despite what the water bottle and novelty sign tell you. wafflemoose fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Nov 27, 2013 |
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2013 18:46
|
|
|
Jedit posted:Those are just the Newsfield mags. Amtix was pretty shortlived, lasting only 18 issues, and is generally considered inferior to Future Publishing's Amstrad Action, which ran for 117 issues and was the second-last 8-bit magazine in publication AA lasted way longer but Amtix was a much better read, and far more interesting in terms of layouts et al. Future's success over Newsfield and Dennis will never stop being a source of eternal mystery to me, their magazines were easily the dullest and most mundane of the time. Oh and ignore that guy who was bigging up the Roland games, OP - they were loving shite. Well, okay, Roland Ahoy! was alright I guess. While the CPCs did generally get dumped with ports from the other two, they did on occasion benefit from getting the best version of some releases. The isometric games like Knight Lore, Spindizzy, Batman, Head Over Heels, some of Ocean's arcade conversions like Gryzor/Contra, Operation Wolf, Elite's conversion of Ikari Warriors, Gauntlet and Gauntlet II...they spring to mind but I'm sure there were others. Plus there was all kinds of mad impressive French and Spanish poo poo (the French in particularly really seemed to know how to make the machine and its various resolution modes sing). Oh and the Freescape stuff, that was pretty mad for its time. The CPC's main weaknesses were its godawful sound and the real problems it had with scrolling compared to the C64, which regularly made it look like a chump as far as fast scrolling shoot 'em ups went. Still, the CPC did have a much nicer and vibrant colour pallete, mind, it didn't suffer from the horrifically dull and muted colours the C64 did (its main/only weakness along with the ugly chunkiness of its graphics in the main). Looking back on all this, it just makes me realise what a spoilt bunch of shits today's gamers are, always moaning about frame rates if they dip below 60, whining about always online, pop up and loading times...you haven't suffered until you've endured a loving multi-load cassette game that needs to be rewound and reloaded everytime you Game Over after the first level. Oh and that came with a small plastic lens you had to squint at as you hold it up against the creen to decipher the copy protection code that won't let you play the game otherwise. Ah, halcyon days indeed.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2013 22:14
|
|
|
Sentinel Red posted:AA lasted way longer but Amtix was a much better read, and far more interesting in terms of layouts et al. Future's success over Newsfield and Dennis will never stop being a source of eternal mystery to me, their magazines were easily the dullest and most mundane of the time. I have news for you: Chris Anderson was editor of Zzap!64 when he quit Newsfield to found Future and edit Amstrad Action. quote:Oh and ignore that guy who was bigging up the Roland games, OP - they were loving shite. Well, okay, Roland Ahoy! was alright I guess. Roland on the Ropes was also really good.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2013 00:23
|
|
|
He may have been editor when he left to start Future but it doesn't change the fact Amstrad Action was piss compared to pretty much all the other 8 bit mags. See also Steve Jarrett being ex-Zapp yet going on to set the style for the perennially dull Edge magazine. Roland On The Ropes had some of the worst flicking sprites I've ever seen. If you were to show it to people today, it'd probably cause a couple of them to have a fit. Unsung hero of that largely terrible CPC launch pack: Stockmarket. Seriously, that game was hilarious. A world where the taxman would regularly show up and take 90% of rich bastards bank balances. Ha, if only.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2013 18:13
|
|
|
Sentinel Red posted:Roland On The Ropes had some of the worst flicking sprites I've ever seen. If you were to show it to people today, it'd probably cause a couple of them to have a fit. I'm not going to deny the flickering, but the gameplay was good. And let's face it, you show people today literally any Spectrum game where sprites overlapped and they'll wonder what the gently caress you're smoking to feel nostalgic.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2013 19:55
|
|
|
Jedit posted:I'm not going to deny the flickering, but the gameplay was good. And let's face it, you show people today literally any Spectrum game where sprites overlapped and they'll wonder what the gently caress you're smoking to feel nostalgic. Honestly flickering is why I cant play Crownland on the Atari 130xe. They just had to put in Mario like collect a 100 thingies and it ruins the game. The Ataris had hellaciously good hardware sprites for their time but they could still only handle so much. You can generally see which Speccie games are worth playing now by which ones were made for the machine. Arcade ports are uniformly awful as are multiplatform. But games made with the machine's limitations in mind could be pretty good. Single color stuff and the like. It has a pretty great resolution for its time and it can look real crisp on an emulator. http://ultimacodex.com/2013/09/u3-5-pax-britannia-old-style-ad/ I mean go look at some of the in game graphics. It demolishes the 8 bit Ultimas in sharp good looking classic era Ultima Ness. (Ok maybe not some of the Nes U3-4 looks but pretty much everything else.) To be sure the opening story graphics look as awful as the Speccie usually does but in game the machine's strengths do shine. Its a shame the UK Micros were so tape game oriented and populated with arcade ports and action games. They would have been excellent for RPG and strategy titles.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2013 11:56
|
|
|
Captain Rufus posted:Its a shame the UK Micros were so tape game oriented and populated with arcade ports and action games. They would have been excellent for RPG and strategy titles.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2013 12:56
|
|
|
I'm going to jump in with the only real memory I have of the Spectrum, Skool Daze, which is a pretty great example of what could be done when designing around the system's flaws. It's also a very English game, which I would associate strongly with those systems.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2013 13:42
|
|
|
See, while yes, arcade ports were very common, my abiding memories of the time lean more towards things like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Ex_Machina_(video_game) The game was the first to be accompanied by a fully synchronised soundtrack which featured narration, celebrity artists and music. The cast included Ian Dury, Jon Pertwee, Donna Bailey, Frankie Howerd, E.P. Thompson, and Mel Croucher (who also composed the music). The game charts the life of a "defect" which has formed in "the machine", from conception, through growth, evolution and eventually death. The progression is loosely based on "The Seven Ages of Man" from the Shakespeare play, As You Like It and includes many quotations and parodies of this. Seriously WTF to this day. Jon Pertwee talking to you on tape while WEIRD poo poo occurred on screen. The 80s were a strange and scary place. There was also a Frankie Goes To Hollywood game, though I never played that one. Just recall a review being rather puzzled and muttering on about the Pleasure Dome. Lords of Midnight, Tir Na Nog, the Magic Knight games now those were some proper legendary old school adventure stuff. Wasn't there a Spectrum game that claimed to have over a billion locations or something? It was grand the bullshit that people came out with back then.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2013 15:06
|
|
|
Sentinel Red posted:See, while yes, arcade ports were very common, my abiding memories of the time lean more towards things like this: I remember playing the Frankie Goes To Hollywood game on the C64. It was a weird  experience, but the looping SID bassline from 'Welcome To The Pleasuredome' is a brainworm that's stuck with me to this day.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2013 15:23
|
|
|
Sentinel Red posted:See, while yes, arcade ports were very common, my abiding memories of the time lean more towards things like this: So are the 2010s. Croucher just kickstarted Deus Ex Machina 2, a remake of the original game with a revised soundtrack including Sir Christopher Lee as the Programmer. You can find it on Steam Greenlight.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2013 20:44
|
|
|
Skool Daze you say? There is a remake of it. http://retrospec.sgn.net/game/ko99 I have never played it or the original though I could swear it was mentioned as having a US release in some family computer magazine my friend had. I also remember it talking about Aliens(the Activision one made up of minigames) and some of the Polarware games. There is also a remake of Lords of Midnight on Gog.com. Was even in that insomnia sale. I just have enough of a backlog to mostly be able to skip digital only even if at tasty prices. (And they never put Superfrog up. Jerks.) I did enjoy the Another World/Out of this World remake on Steam though. Even made a little easier it was kind of tough. Too short but worth the 5 or less US I paid for it. Probably would have been pissed had I bought it at original early 90s Msrp. Even the extended Sega CD version. Though now I have 2 other ideas for effort posts. Remakes of old computers classics both paid and free. Console ports of computer classics. (Sometimes the console edition is better. Or at least needs less effort to run.) As if I don't have enough ideas for the thread. And if I ever get some funny money I am willing to spend on silliness I could do for the TI and CoCo 3 what I have done for the Atari 8 bit. (So some of you do some of this poo poo so I don't have to. Or at least mooch my style and cover stuff I want to get into but don't have the time money or space. Or attention span.)
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2013 12:40
|
|
|
Captain Rufus posted:(And they never put Superfrog up. Jerks.) This might interest you, if you like Superfrog.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2013 15:13
|
|
|
h_double posted:Atari ST had a small but dedicated following in the states; I used one as my main computer (first an ST-FM, than an STe) from about 1987 until getting a 486 in 1996. They were especially popular with electronic musicians because of the built in MIDI ports (the stability and tight timing of the MIDI hardware is incredibly good). I hope to one day find a nice ST so I can play around with some of the crazier MIDI sequencers that dudes cooked up back in the day for it, especially some of the algorithmic stuff found here; http://tamw.atari-users.net/timidi.htm
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2013 15:44
|
|
|
Payndz posted:There was a game I can't remember the name of - Archipelago? Something like that - which claimed an insane number of locations, trying to outdo Lords Of Midnight. It was basically Triangulation: The Game, as you wandered through flick-screen procedurally generated jungle using compass bearings to locate parts of your crashed plane, or whatever it was you were looking for. I think this might be Explorer. It was dreadful. Wasn't a game. Survival was more of a game. quote:I remember playing the Frankie Goes To Hollywood game on the C64. It was a weird I had no idea what was happening but thoroughly enjoyed it. It was on a compilation called The Magnificent Seven. Featured eight games, of course. I'm really, really tempted to photo all my retro stuff as well, now. I have a good amount of Spectrum and Nintendo stuff in crates in the loft, and it's not doing anything else. Maybe when I'm getting Christmas stuff out of the attic.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2013 05:48
|
|
|
It is time for yet another effort post from me. Retro Computing: Why Bother? Special: Origin Hates My Atari. As we saw in an earlier post http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3577352&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=3#post422020886 Ultima 2 did not like my Atari 130 XE computer. Well I got a loose set of Ultima 3 disks for the Atari (yet again with Commodore 64 on the other side) for a mere five dollars. Since I already still have the manuals for Ultima 3 it is practically giving me a complete game for nothing. I dutifully use Atari DOS 2.5 to format a blank disk and make a copy of the write protected character disk (whose 30 years old label started ripping off as I did the repeated swapping).  Much like Ultima 2 I need to hold down the OPTION key to load as it was a game designed around the original 400/800 series. It loads to title screen.  We even get the little animated demo with some nice music. The graphics look the same as Ultima 2. Same weird Composite palette. Apparently the newer type of graphics chip in the XL and XE series did not do things the way the x00s did. Some games even have an option to account for this.  I make the Wu Tang Clan . 4 Male Humans. 2 Fighters. A Cleric and a Wizard. (ODB as the Fighter. Masta Killa as the other Fighter. RZA as the Cleric. If I didn't want both ZAs in, I may have made Inspecta Deck the Cleric. Cuz he be judging you.) I form the party and JOURNEY ONWARD. The screen starts showing the big frame bars Ultima 3 has and then.. BLACK SCREEN. No sound no nothing. So now I am 1 for 4 in Origin Systems Atari 8 bit games actually being PLAYABLE. Autoduel had a character disk issue which may have been my fault. (Due to saving it and then a power bit happened because I was putzing around with the power strip.) But Ultima 2 and 3 have WRITE PROTECTED PLAYER DISKS. I made copies of them. Is it the games not liking the XE hardware? Is it the disks are just old? Is it because the drive is old? Did it not like the DOS 2.5 disk copying? Is it because the 810 disk drives of the time U2-3 were out held like 80K a side compared to the 1050's 120ish? It is currently a mystery. Should I investigate further? I mean I can use this patch and play the NES port of Ultima 3 with a superior level of play balance: http://www.jeffludwig.com/ultima3/download.php I have completed the C64 port back in the day (I have no Commodore 64 so no idea if those sides work fine.) and I have completed the OSX 10.4 remake port:  (I have an Ultima text font I self added to the game. I also got the developer to put in the NES tileset! This isn't that set of tiles. This is the game's default.) I decide to download the newest version of THE Atari 8 bit computer emulator: http://virtualdub.org/altirra.html , getting the newest test edition from Atari Age's forums thread on said emulator. Since I own legit disks I also go grab the disk images from http://www.atarimania.com/index.html if available and also check their manual scans for any hints and tips since I don't have the Atari command cards. While they don't have scans of the Ultima 3 cards they DO have the ones for Ultima 2. And.. I may have created the player disk incorrectly. So I follow the instructions on the card and I am hoping for the best, swapping disks back and forth since I only have one drive. I do.. AND IT WORKS!! You see the reference card I do not have told you the illogical and stupid way to make your play disk for Ultima 2. You put the original play disk in your drive and turn it on. It will boot into a program with dialogues to make your player disk, swapping in and out off of one drive. (I do not have a second drive so no idea if it would access it. Doubtful.)  I was able to move about the continents and timegates with ease. And I finally made it to Dickie B himself. Did a lot of unarmed and unarmored fighting so the extra gold was nice to up my HPs.  The town works too! And I got some food from Mc Donalls. Didn't go to the Drive Thru window on the side though.  I wander around the nearby towns and villages looking for a weapon or armor shop so I don't have to be as like Inquisitor Brady and purge a heretic with my bare hands. Also I note LB's doofy humor at work. And note how Wizardry never came to the Ataris. Jerks. Hell, they didn't even reach the C64 till like 88!  FINALLY A TOWN WITH KILLY STUFF I CAN BUY. Since it is Axecrash the Dwarf Thief he gets an axe!  Sadly Squats cannot join the Adeptus Astartes so I cannot get Power Armor. Also I only had 223 GP so I could only afford Chain Mail.  And as I keep running low on food it is good I have this gear and HPs. We gonna chop some heads off for fun and profit. So I can afford more food. And sometimes afford to improve my stats. Sadly Ultima 3 does not work the same way. I mean I COULD try this version as well http://sven.50webs.org/ultima3.html but.. its NOT ON THE ATARI. While I couldn't find an Atari scan of its' reference card I did find a C64 scan. And it said to make a play disk you needed to hit C at the title or something like that. Ok. Fine. No menu option or anything like that. I will still give it a shot. Text title comes on. Not doing anything. That screen with the dragon and the adventurers? I keep pressing C and:  With more swapping than a thing that editors of Penthouse Letters write about I now have a disk. Will it work? Can I have Ultima 3 on my Atari 8 bit in all its' composite glory?  If not, I know who to blame. The same man behind the Ultima 2 port. Chuckles.  Is it not enough that your in game alter ego annoys us? Do you have to do stupid user unfriendly things that require reading a manual and reference card? Or is it Dick British's fault? I mean he IS a goofy ubernerd and a computer geek with bad enough taste to love Apple 2s. Maybe he thought it made sense to his programmer's mind?  FRAWRESS VICTOLY!!! The Wu Tang Clan will never reveal the secrets of the Thirty Six Chambers but maybe they will learn the secrets of Ambrosia and the Four Cards of Exodus. But hell, maybe we should see what these two games look like on a (emulated) 800? Well I did a check using Altirra. Colors still seemed like the ones above. But here are a few emulator shots of Ultima 3 with some of the options in the emulator on:  This is basically what a sharp NTSC palette looks like without things like scanlines and such. Pretty uggo.  You will see a lot of game screenshots online looking like this. Its emulators running in PAL mode with a couple things set here and there. If you don't mind it looking like a low res 68000 Macintosh game without the benefits of point and click it IS very sharp.  With some tweaking of the artifacting colors and such I get a much more pleasant color scheme. Kind of like messing around with a Super Game Boy on a SNES. I am using a different one of the Antic or GIA visualization options as well here but you get the gist of it compared to the above. Note how in general though for games using artifacting for graphics the emulators are actually kind of.. BAD. Our modern displays just cannot do them properly and usually look worse for it. This is the real life reason why many older PC CGA games look so bad. They were really designed for composite screens and not the RGB-SVGA monitors of the sharpness. I have seen some (bad) screenshots of the above games looking closer to the last picture online. Perhaps they were the x00 series Ataris? Or a poorly setup composite monitor? PAL or SECAM palettes photographed? Different color settings on their monitors? Different branded monitors or cabling used? For now this remains a bit of a mystery. But I can rock out to Ultima 2 and 3 on the Atari 8 bit. I would like to at least get the disks for all four Ultimas released on this platform but Ultima fans tend to be less frugal with money. (Whereas I spend a lot of money but on a bunch of things as opposed to a few expensive bits.) I would note that this is not a proper part of the Ultima retrospective series I plan on doing but it should give folks the idea of what kind of silly interface nonsense older software had and some basic visuals of composite trickery in emulators. (To be fair lots of Apple II systems even into the early 90s had monochrome monitors. They really weren't missing out too much on that platform..)
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 04:08
|
|
|
And more knowledge from my brain (and blog) to the thread. With bonus extras! I will make you all the best retro computer gamers possible. (And learn more in the process probably. Also my virus checker is taking up HD and CPU cycles while doing its weekly thing so what better time than to take care of this? Skyrim can be a super pretty quasi RPG to amuse me for a couple hours since the DVD edition was on sale for 15 bucks at Best Buy later. And then I can do more Win 98 or Atari 8 bit gaming on my work days this weekend.) This time showing Thexder's less abusive little brother, Firehawk: Thexder the Second Conflict Its a more modern game than Thexder 1 so has things like save games and continues. Even support for more audio and graphics! Let's see if EGA/VGA mode got any nicer:  Its certainly a PRETTIER game than Thexder but it still has those annoying dithering lines and low color malarkey of its parent. I do not like you NEC PC 88/98 style graphics. Much like our slacker pal Chuckles (and others) when they converted Apple II games over to the vastly superior Atari 8 bits they did the least amount of work possible. Of course in this case it is Sierra being their typical lame selves.  Back to Tandy then. No dithering garbage and whatnot, but.. it still doesn't look that hot, in fact its a wash which version looks nicer. Lower resolution but no dithering liney-winey gobbledy goo.  And MCGA, IBM's PS/2 PC line of 256 color proto-VGA like graphics. With.. virtually NO difference. But its nice that non Tandy 1000 owners can still enjoy some Thexder 2. But thanks to the miracles of emulation and fan translations, there is another way. See.. the MSX computers ALSO had Thexder 1 and 2. As I have mentioned, the original MSX model was effectively a Colecovision (Adam)and most MSX emulators cover that machine too. Hell, with a remade module that never came out for the Colecovision to bring it up to Adam specs you can even play a number of MSX titles that got repro cart ports made in the last few years! In fact, let's take a look at MSX Thexder. Given how it has save states maybe I can use it to complete this classic and abusive game:  Well.. its.. something. The graphics & sound are sort of better AND worse than the Tandy 1K version with a couple tweaks to levels that remove bits. But the Energy gained and lost seems a bit more lenient to make up for it. Except it finds other ways to be harder. Arse. There is also the Apple IIGS with its amazing sound. And that version's manual gives it a pair of Continue commands, nothing the other versions seem to have too! (H for highest level completed, L for last level)  Well.. the music and sound are really good but... back to dither-o-rama. And the Apple IIGS is a capable machine. Sadly the emulator is a pain in the backside and the keyboard controls are mapped to the numeric keypad. ARGH. JoytoKey will get a workout to do this one justice! Though the level command thing works like a charm. Ok.. Let me dirty myself by trying the Famicom. Maybe Jeremy Parish will like me if I play a game on his beloved Nintendo, a company he writes about in a manner as if he would go A2M for them if they asked him to. (Don't look it up. You do NOT want to know.)  Oh sweet Mary Mother of God.. WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU, Darlin? WHAT HAVE THEY DONE? Level layouts are changed, enemies changed, damage is a tiny number in the corner, shields just form a little bar on the opposite, no score listed... they just destroyed this game. No wonder Square of the mid 80s was about to go under if not for Final Fantasy. THAT IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DESTROY SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL. Just like the Bronies Square, just like the Bronies. Like so many amazing 8 bit era computer games, when translated to the NES they become nearly unrecognizable, mangled piles of suck. Computer to Nintendo Entertainment System(Famicom in Japan) conversions are like using Meth. It destroys and leaves an ugly, ruined, soulless husk that is willing to do anything just to ease the pain. Weep for so many beloved 80s classics that Nintendo's world conquering (provided you weren't in Europe or Brazil anyhow..) pile of silicon damaged. I know I am not gonna like it, but let's see what the MSX version of the sequel looks like, just for laughs:  Wow. Sounds good, looks good. With the help of a translation patch and FRS' Enhanced HDD Version which comes with a number of game fixes and will autopatch the game for you Thexder 2 really looks great for its' age and has the cinemas Sierra chopped out of their port. Sometimes you gotta buy a version of a game, then play a different one to get the best and most fun edition. Its a bleeding shame we have to go through hoops though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 06:06
|
|
|
So I decided to (re)try some Pathways into Darkness today, which has a lovely port to modern operating systems. To get it, you just open your AppStore.app on your macintosh running OS X, search for pathways, and click that free button! (windows-havers, try buying a mac. that might help). I'm a bit younger than old man Rufus (too young to have played PiD when it came out) and I don't remember my last attempt trying this game, so its all pretty new to me. I'm actually really fond of this UI. I haven't played many games with the separate windows for each part, so it feels novel to me.  Hey I recognize this area from that godawful Marathon1 port to Aleph One! Though I seem to be moving rather slow, lets just hold shift to run. ..huh its not working; oh well, I'm sure the movement tutorial will cover that. Not pictured: me looting a nazi corpse for his literature, gun, and ammo.  These guys keep sneezing on me, but I can stab them well, so lets just save the ammo.  Oh oops, that was quick. Lets check out my high score at least.  Well poo poo, I'll just wait until Bungie remakes it in HD with some Master Chiefs replacing this slow-rear end special ops protagonist. vkeios fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Dec 9, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2013 04:33
|
|
|
I tried a bit of Pathways Into Darkness on my G5 Imac in OS 9 mode. The control options were not to my liking. Why Mac coding superstar Hippieman (of Kill Monty fame IIRC) didn't allow for that OSX port to swap controls is beyond me. So many older games allowed it when others did not. And I just can't figure out the logic of not allowing for remapping of keys. Let the PLAYER choose what works best for him or her. I mean, a good number of Sinclair Spectrum games allowed for key remapping for chrissakes! (Our discussion of this in #retrochat has now lead to Vkeios to make a tumblr covering hands on controls: http://kontrolhold.tumblr.com/ I would like to add my 5 dollar on clearance wired PS3 controller lights up and the flash is eliminating this effect. Its a nice damned controller for the PC. Concave analog instead of the PS series convex slippery fuckery!) Back in the days of One button Atari DB9 systems lots had unmappable keys and sometimes the dumbest ones. (B for Bait in Ghostbusters is an infamous one. Don't even get me started on Druid.) I mean lots of C64 games required you to put the system on the floor so you could hit the Spacebar with your FEET in order to jump or alt fire! (Or use suction cup controllers with the trigger button.) Pathways would be a LOT more fun to play if you could remap controls. Same with Ultima Underworld. Or some of my Atari 8 bit games. Most of the Ultimas (until at least on the C64 with the U1 remake anyhow) were keyboard only control and it was usually not the greatest. (Sadly making the NES port of 3, and the SMS port of 4 the overall nicest to PLAY versions of those games without any sort of system fuckery.) Eye of the Beholder can be a tad annoying too. Arrows or numpad to move while still needing to use the mouse? Feels WRONG.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2013 05:41
|
|
|
Pathways is one of those really cool weird transitional games that come out when a genre's conventions haven't quite solidified yet; it's about 75% FPS and 25% adventure game. I've got a lot of fond memories of it, even though I got hopelessly stuck quite a few times and had to revert to a backup savefile from several floors ago because my crystals broke, or I ran out of ammo, or I was trapped in a puzzle room without the item I needed to get out alive.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2013 07:20
|
|
|
Captain Rufus posted:(Or use suction cup controllers with the trigger button.) quote:Arrows or numpad to move while still needing to use the mouse? Feels WRONG.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2013 12:07
|
|
|
Going back to the days of Sir Clive for a minute, the one thing I always did like about Sinclair was its clean aesthetic. Sure, half the time it wasn't exactly practical but hey, style > substance, right? One of their designers, Rick Dickinson, put up a load of photos on his Flickr of the various design stages of their machines, including a few which never made it into production but which look absolutely gorgeous. ZX80, ZX81, Pocket TV Spectrum Development Pandora, a proposed portable Spectrum compatible QL and Beyond I mean, just look at these things:    This is a watch they designed in 1975. It's a piece of poo poo in terms of actually working and keeping time but drat if it doesn't look sweet as gently caress anyway: 
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2013 13:18
|
|
|
Skool Daze definitely saw a north American release. A friend of mine had it on C64, and while the graphics and gameplay were identical, I think the names and titles were changed to better reflect the Canadian and American public systems: principal for headmaster, that sort of thing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2013 19:20
|
|
|
Sentinel Red posted:Going back to the days of Sir Clive for a minute, the one thing I always did like about Sinclair was its clean aesthetic. Sure, half the time it wasn't exactly practical but hey, style > substance, right? Wow that watch is really gorgeous. The EEVblog recently did a tear down on a Sinclair pocket TV--really amazing what they did to fit a CRT television in a flat package: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCJPF6Ei3Vw
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2013 20:38
|
|
|
vkeios posted:So I decided to (re)try some Pathways into Darkness today, which has a lovely port to modern operating systems. Anyway, Tom Hall dug this up, recently:  Apparently it contains the source files for Commander Keen 4-6. It's been safely backed up to something more modern than a SyQuest cartridge, but public release relies on Id/Bethesda giving the all-clear. Here's hoping!
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2013 18:23
|
|
|
Hey guys, for those of you who want some sweet Amiga action, but don't want to drop the  for it, you can now run a great emulator straight in chrome!
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 20:03
|
|
|
Peenmaster posted:Hey guys, for those of you who want some sweet Amiga action, but don't want to drop the That is quite awesome. There is a certain Polish website who has redone a poo poo ton of Amiga games in a UAE emulator shell out there. They are a company. If not THE Company. Wink Wink. (Dunno about  so I am making it a little bit of a challenge to find it.)But another little post I have for yall (can't always do effort posts. Sometimes I want to enjoy my massive pile of games. Or keep hemming and hawwing over getting an Ipad Air. I have the iCade. I just need the iPad so I can.. play ancient rear end Commodore 64, Spectrum, and Vectrex games on it. I am a very stupid person.) that might provide a bit of fun and knowledge: http://www.retronauts.com/?p=468 Retronauts actually has a short podcast on a COMPUTER GAME TOPIC HOLY poo poo WOAH. It is on MECC, those lovely people who brought us Oregon Trail among other semi educational games we played on an Apple II at school. (My C64C came with three MECC games and GEOS 1.0. Being a 13 year old and needing blank disks for awesome stuff I kind of cut off the write protect tab/made a WP slot and put games my friend had on it. I would be kind of upset but I DID get GEOS 2.0 later which was quite useful and the Oregon Trail version on the disk didn't have the infamous terrible hunting action sequence IIRC.) It also explains why Jeremy Parish probably hates computer gaming. He never played Oregon Trail as a kid/teen. And his school system had TI 99 computers. (Texas: even doing 8 bit computers different than everyone else! I guess TIs were better than bleedin Tandy CoCo 1-2s at least. Course I actually want a TI 99 4a. IF BILL COSBY WAS A SPOKESMAN HOW COULD I NOT?) Also last week I made in thing in the lesser retro gaming thread that is 70% console oriented but has some computer info too. You want solid output for your ghetto rear end computers and consoles? You have a Commodore Composite monitor? (Hopefully the S model I nerded out over in Paranormal Activity 3 but my non S type, non Amiga design is still a boss.) Well you can get some good looks out of yo poo poo. Hell, any early DOS guys or gals want to show up how to get some composite color effects from CGA cards? http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3515794&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=664#post422948542
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2013 07:37
|
|
|
I don't know if anyone mentioned it, but there is a good Atari ST emulator out there called Steem Engine. I found out about it because of Jeff Minter's old Google talk where he showed off his early work. He made all his 8-bit and 16-bit games public domain on the Llamasoft website so if you want to play Gridrunner or Attack of the Mutant Camels you should be all set there. Edit: Oh, someone did. It is a little annoying sometimes because certain games might not run on a newer version of the OS for the ST so you'll have to switch to an older one. Zeether fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Dec 13, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2013 14:32
|
|
|
There's an updated version of Steem nowadays called Steem: STEVEN SEGAL EDITION which aside from having a hilarious name adds improvements to make more complex demoscene stuff work, support for IPF images, and fixes various emulation bugs. I'm not gonna link it here because the developer has a strange insistence on having disc image links on his screenshots page, but it might be worth a poke if that's your thing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2013 07:32
|
|
|
I will have some kind of retro computing effort post sometime this week I hope. It may involve these screenshots however:   Retrocomputing: am I doing it wrong, or very, very RIGHT? For a whopping 5 whole dollars I now have Archon, Alternate Reality City and Dungeon, Barbarian (Deathsword), Black Magic, Bruce Lee, Emlyn Huges International Soccer, Infiltrator, Monty on the Run, Summer Games, Ultima 1-4. And I can play them all on the go or at home on my glorious tiny arcade cabinet. (That I should see about getting cooler sideart made for.) Plus I already had an earlier C64 collection with a few DLC games except it was nearly unplayable on a Mk1 iPod Touch so it was nice getting to not only freely get it on this device too but also getting more games free with it. LIKE SOULLESS.  Anyone who wants me to try out various retro computer game packs on my new idiotic dork toy with a 17" tall by 10" wide mini arcade cabinet with clicky buttons and a cheapie Aldi bought case/keyboard that is sort of akin to the Spectrum's chicklet keys only larger and having better tacticle feeback feel free to ask. I am trying to keep to a budget (mostly ruined by the thing being shoved into said cabinet or case) so I might not get to various packs and apps instantly but.. feel free to link or tell me which ones I should check out though. As far as I can tell I own both C64 apps. I may get a Speccie one next week. I am limiting myself to 15 bucks a week tops on apps. Most of which will be retro games, neo retro, or... translations of board games. (Eclipse? The Master of Orion but NOT boardgame that doesn't take your entire life to play a game like Twilight Imperium does for a mere 7 dollars? See I am SAVING MONEY. Really! Early impressions are good though. Even if I do want to find a giant Commodore sticker to shove on the back of my case next to the Red Cross Blood Donor sticker. And then paint a tiny rainbow in the corner of the keyboard in honor of Sir Clive Sinclair. We have come a long rear end way since the SX 64, the best portable computer of the 80s. If you were to tell me I could play Bard's Tale Apple IIGS 1-2, and the first four C64 Ultimas on the shitter back in the 80s I would have laughed at you. Now not only can I do that, but also have a Vectrex, and multiple arcade machines emulated perfectly. (I am so hoping Ultima 5 gets on it. Ultima 5 is the best Ultima. Also C64 Defender of the Crown. We have an Amiga port of some kind but C64 plays so much better. Also EA and Activision need to hop on the retro train. Legit 8 bit micro versions of River Raid? Pitfall 2? H.E.R.O.? Adventure Construction Set? Deathlord? Windwalker? Project Firestart?) A shame Giana Sisters ios doesn't use the iCade. It not only has the excellent new game, but uses the amazing 2d graphics of it to have an excellent remake of the C64 original! And that game wants pixel perfect control. There is more than one way to retro computer game. And this one doesn't take up the ungodly amount of space my Atari 8 bit does. (And no yelling at the goddamned tape drive.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2013 09:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 05:08 |
|
|
People pulled off some remarkable feats of coding on the Speccy, not least the semi-miraculous arcade conversion of R-Type. The guy who did that conversion wrote a book about it which is a free download and which anyone interested in British coding of that era owes it to themselves to read. http://bizzley.com/
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2013 15:40
|
|