General Retro Discussion

[Colif]

 

[BeardyHat]

I took the above quiz and am kind of surprised at my results of a 6/7, only missing question 6. Playing Atari 50 definitely helped with some of that...

I got a bug up my butt this week and decided to add more old handhelds of my youth to my collection and ended up buying both a Nintendo DSi and a DSi XL. Silly, as I already own a New 3DS which can play all the DS games, but they look a bit blurry, so...

That said, for my money the DS wins out over the 3DS, as far as games go. I enjoy my 3DS, but loved the DS (mine was stolen during a break in), because the DS just had so much weird and experimental stuff, not to mention ports of PC games like Broken Sword and Anno 1701, as well as really weird stuff like Fighting Fantasy: Warlock of Firetop Mountain. To top all that off, the DS (at least the Lite and the DSi XL) had excellent battery life, going from 15-19 hours, versus the 3DS at a maximum of about 5 hours, which frustrates me to no end.

 

[Johnway]

I took the above quiz and am kind of surprised at my results of a 6/7, only missing question 6. Playing Atari 50 definitely helped with some of that...

I got a bug up my butt this week and decided to add more old handhelds of my youth to my collection and ended up buying both a Nintendo DSi and a DSi XL. Silly, as I already own a New 3DS which can play all the DS games, but they look a bit blurry, so...

That said, for my money the DS wins out over the 3DS, as far as games go. I enjoy my 3DS, but loved the DS (mine was stolen during a break in), because the DS just had so much weird and experimental stuff, not to mention ports of PC games like Broken Sword and Anno 1701, as well as really weird stuff like Fighting Fantasy: Warlock of Firetop Mountain. To top all that off, the DS (at least the Lite and the DSi XL) had excellent battery life, going from 15-19 hours, versus the 3DS at a maximum of about 5 hours, which frustrates me to no end.

i had played my DS along with my vita and 3ds but i kinda got bored with all the DS games and i beat pretty much most of them that i got.

The DS has plenty of games worth playing and stuff like the R4 card means you can have an entire collection on the go plus some custom games like Lemmings with a stylus etc.

Hell, why splash out 90 bucks for etrian odyssey series when you could get it for peanuts on the DS (or the updated on 3ds for that matter). Then of course there is the professor layton games, ghost tricks, the devil survivor series, shin megami tensei (the latter did have some updates on the 3ds) etc. the fantastic the world ends with you. An under appreciated gem until recently. The original is still great. or perhaps the original castlevania's Like Dawn of sorrow, portrait of ruin or order of ecclesia?

The last game i played/beat was 2 / 3 years ago which was golden sun dark dawn. didn't think much of it tbh.

 

[swagMan]

haha.... Simulate java games using Nintendo Switch.

 

[Brian Boru]

Flash Games Legend John Cooney Talks​

 

[Colif]

most of us were in the 80's as it was only way to get games early on

 

[Johnway]

most of us were in the 80's as it was only way to get games early on

ah good old amiga x-copy. i didn't have it, but man that brings back memories. introduced all sorts of (crazy?) copy protection to try and stop it. hell, some of those pirate groups had some pretty catchy intros etc.

Which brings me to an interesting tid bit, if you try and get roms for the Amiga you might notice that they are front loaded with pirate group intros etc. Its a good example of Pirating games is probably one of the sure ways to preserve games.

 

[Colif]

i had a floppy drive full of copy programs... I just remembered. I know they were copies themselves.

Which brings me to an interesting tid bit, if you try and get roms for the Amiga you might notice that they are front loaded with pirate group intros etc.

Some newer games also have similar things in them. Some games companies rely on some files from these copies to actually keep playing/selling their own games. I know I saw that in a video at some stage.

 

[Johnway]

i had a floppy drive full of copy programs... I just remembered. I know they were copies themselves.


Some newer games also have similar things in them. Some games companies rely on some files from these copies to actually keep playing/selling their own games. I know I saw that in a video at some stage.

yeah i heard the stories as well. Whether they're actually true i can't remember, there was talk that Nintendo took the roms of those who emulated them and then tried taking them down. I think some other devs tried taking emulated/rom versions but i can't put my finger on anyone else.

That said, once they get emulated, all sorts of bootleg stuff comes out and some of it is great. Streets of Rage Remake is a fine example. Combines all of Streets of Rage into one new package adding all the fighting systems, enemies and locales. On top of that it throws in custom characters, levels, various unlocks and even customize names and colors of the enemies. its a thing of beauty.

i suppose Mugen is another one of those community fighting games thats ranges from being a complete mess to something exciting as passion and commitment made the games good.

Night slashers X is another good one. puts the official steam version to shame apparently.

We also have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rescue-Palooza! not quite as good as turtles back in time on the snes, but hey, credit for a decent effort.

​

 

[Brian Boru]

Zade has a great 29m video on a classic RTS…

Dark Reign: The Future of War - 26 Years Later

…which has a ton of info I didn't know—incl how to get and play easily these days, and get some multiplayer action if that's your thing.

Anyone here play it back in the 90s? I think I posted here before that imo it's a fine game which got lost in the big crowd of super RTSs back then, a forgotten gem.

 

[Johnway]

i heard of it but never played it myself. i did have a go at Dark reign 2 demo (thanks pcg!) but i didn't think much of it tbh.

 

[Brian Boru]

Dark reign 2 demo … i didn't think much of it tbh

Yeah agree, DR2 was a miss. It was developed by Pandemic, not by DR1's dev Auran, which probably explains it—I don't think RTS was Pandemic's thing.

Auran got themselves in a biz mess which didn't help, and had Activision as a pub which probably also didn't help, and went under pretty easily. They sort-of got zombied and have mainly developed the Trainz series since.

 

[Johnway]

Yeah agree, DR2 was a miss. It was developed by Pandemic, not by DR1's dev Auran, which probably explains it—I don't think RTS was Pandemic's thing.

Auran got themselves in a biz mess which didn't help, and had Activision as a pub which probably also didn't help, and went under pretty easily. They sort-of got zombied and have mainly developed the Trainz series since.

honestly the entire dark reign series fell under the radar. i do remember looking at the wikia/fandom site and if i remember had all sorts of time travel hijinks but it was past my time. For some reason i still look at KKND2 and KKND Xtreme on youtube and i'm not entirely sure why. its a pretty generic RTS but its got a couple annoying bugs like the instant mission fails when load/saving a game. plus it seems to be missing a siege unit.