| I've not had it in awhile but I always loved it when I did subscribe. Need to buy it again really, always thought retro gamer was a cracking read. |
Retro gaming thread
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richarddavies 8,312 posts
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Registered 13 years ago -
uiruki 5,975 posts
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Registered 18 years agoI read it. It's as good as it's ever been - full of info and good interviews. 30 quid for a year on the iPad is decent value and I think they're doing a special on combination digital/physical subs.
They also have two pages this month on Shadow Gangs!!! -
Sold! -
THFourteen 54,987 posts
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Registered 16 years agoYeah I subscribe. Its excellent especially if you get it on deal its like 2 quid a pop.
Best thing is, even if they pile up its fine, its not like the articles get out of date. -
AboutHalfaStevas 2,765 posts
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Registered 6 years agoTIL
The Pi 4 handles stuff like dreamcast capcom Vs snk like a champ, and you can even upscale the sprites so they don't look gash...
*mind blown* -
As per the Discord. I got a pi 4 kit yesterday and flashed a card with Damaso 128GB nostalgia image. Tis bloody super. -
barchetta 3,335 posts
Seen 4 minutes ago
Registered 20 years agoNot sure if this thread is best, but I just stumbled into the Beeb's Gaming Archive. My god there is some strange stuff in there. Gaming News by way of TV football show spoofery?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/gaming/znqy6v4 -
Ryze 3,766 posts
Seen 12 hours ago
Registered 15 years agoPsiloc wrote:
I ordered a Retrotink 2x Scart in the end. Taken ages to get here from the US (but fair enough) and according to the tracking info is now in the country.
It's a brand new product and I might be one of the first people to be able to test it with the full gamut of PAL consoles and video connections so I'll post results somewhere
EDIT: Its a zero lag line doubler made for retro gaming, I may have forgot to mention
THIS I'm interested in. I may well grab one if they're still available. -
Psiloc 6,366 posts
Seen 15 hours ago
Registered 14 years ago@Ryze I can't remember if I ever followed that up. But the device is fantastic. No lag, perfect 240p upscale, no additional picture interference at all. Can't really say more than that.
Handles all PAL and NTSC variants that I have. I will say though that I had issues with modded PAL60 audio skipping on my TV, but I solved that with a audio pass through straight to my sound bar.
If anything its weird that a gaming spec SCART to HDMI upscalar took so long.
By the way if you only own one retro console you can get the same hardware built right in to a console AV cable. But for multiple devices the scart thing is more economical -
Psiloc 6,366 posts
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Registered 14 years agoMy latest purchase is two of the Otaku SCART switchers from HK. They're also fantastic for multiple consoles -
Ryze 3,766 posts
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Registered 15 years ago@Psiloc
It looks great. I'd watched the Retrotink since it as new, but noticed it only had an S-video input at best, and was the bare circuit board with no case.
With RGB SCART and a decent case, it's ideal. I'd been using a generic SCART to HDMI upscaler for the times I needed HDMI outputs, but I was waiting for the right device to spend on. This is on the list now.
Got plenty of retro systems, and I think ALL of them after the early 80s 8-bit micros now have RGB SCART connections. Perfect. -
Ryze 3,766 posts
Seen 12 hours ago
Registered 15 years agoPsiloc wrote:
Very nice.
My latest purchase is two of the Otaku SCART switchers from HK. They're also fantastic for multiple consoles
I’ll eventually buy a proper SCART switch. My retro kit lives in storage containers for now, until I take it out on occasions, but this looks like a decent option for a reasonable price. -
gamingdave 5,087 posts
Seen 3 days ago
Registered 17 years agoAll my old machines were on shelves in an office we have just closed, so I now have them all back at home and was thinking of setting them up. Would be great to play them properly and the kids would love it. But there is quite a few of them to setup.
SNES, N64, Gamecube, Megadrive, Saturn, DC, PS2 for sure, and maybe Xbox 360 (for Outrun)
The problem is the price to do it properly ....
High quality RGB cables (x7) ~ £175
Hydra scart switch - £135
OSSC - £130
N64 RGB mod installed - £80
So that's over £500 just to set them all up properly.
My Gamecube, DC and PS2 libraries are both pretty large, but I only have a handful of games for the others after a box went missing in a move. So I was looking at flashcarts for the SNES, N64 and Megadrive .... that's another £400. Might be tempted by one of the solutions for the Saturn too.
I'd probably want some of the 8bitdo wireless controllers and adaptors too.
So suddenly I am up to £1,000!
Been considering it for a few weeks now and keep changing my mind.
I could get an RTX 3070 and a PS5 or Series X for that amount, and run emulators with a lot of filters. Even without the flashcarts, it's still the price of one of the new consoles, and my ageing PC is still good enough for emulation as it is.
Oh decisions decisions. Maybe I should just get Rad2x cable for the Nintendo's and a VGA to HDMI adaptor for the DC and ignore the MD and Saturn. Got a SNES mini too which I could mod.
Sounds mental typing it out and reading back, but it's still tempting. -
Psiloc 6,366 posts
Seen 15 hours ago
Registered 14 years agoLook into the RetroTink products if you want to save a bit of money on the scalar. And the Otaku switch is the current "basic but works" SCART switch for gaming.
But yeah real hardware is never going to be the cheaper option. Be careful, because you could sell your stuff now, or after you spend hundreds on AV equipment -
Ryze 3,766 posts
Seen 12 hours ago
Registered 15 years agoIf you do everything at once, at premium prices, then yes, £1000.
£175 for RGB SCART cables is overkill, and that's just to start with, so just start with the system you most want to get up and running, and don't rush.
One or two systems could be up and running for £50-£100. Emulate the others in the meantime. -
Psiloc 6,366 posts
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Registered 14 years agoYeah my setup has been a very slow stream of upgrades. I was a CRT gamer until recently when my third one died and I decided it was time to future proof everything rather than come home with a fourth CRT and risk a divorce. So until quite recently I was using a tangle of composite, s-video and RGB and just plugging them in to the TV manually.
Suffice to say you can start (very) cheaply and upgrade things over time. -
Loved this video, it starts about differences between versions of Doki Doki Panic/SMB2 but quickly descends into fucking with the game's memory and code in emulation to do funny stuff and fix a few bugs along the way
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Since I've never finished Zelda 1 or Sega's homage Golden Axe Warrior, I decided to do them both (about halfway through in Zelda, near the end in GAW). Warm take: I think they're about on par. Hot take: I'm inclined to give GAW the edge.
Edited by DrStrangelove at 22:47:25 30-09-2020 -
Psiloc 6,366 posts
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Registered 14 years agoI've never played those either beyond a quick look. Which one is the least "grab a pen and make your own notes"? -
richarddavies 8,312 posts
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Registered 13 years agoNot put any decent time into golden axe warrior in at least 20 years, but I remember always really liking it.
I recently finished Suikoden on the ps1 and dove straight into suikoden 2. Only about 5hrs into that one but enjoying it so far. It's been long enough since my last playthrough i don't remember much about it story wise. -
Malek86 12,331 posts
Seen 14 hours ago
Registered 14 years agoNot even sure if it counts as retrogaming yet, but I'm tempted to play a few Gamecube games again. Good thing my Wii is still miraculously connected, and homebrew-ready for Gamecube games of all regions.
Running 480p content on this 4K screen is gonna be fun... -
Psiloc wrote:
Both are, but Zelda probably a little less because its overworld is 16 x 8 = 128 screens while GAW's is 15 x 15 = 225. What's more, most of GAW's screens contain some cave or another point of interest while most Zelda screens don't and are thus just areas to move across. Most of those caves in GAW are unimportant, but have fun trying the cave on every screen trying to find the one you're looking for.
I've never played those either beyond a quick look. Which one is the least "grab a pen and make your own notes"?
On the other hand, Zelda's regions are more samey while GAW has more distinct regions, giving a better intuitive understanding of where you are.
But you'll get badly lost in either if you don't make notes, at least on first playthrough. I went with a walkthrough for Zelda but decided to do it the proper way in GAW by drawing a 15x15 grid on paper with borders and notes on locations. This is actually fun, and it'll save you a LOT of time if you're not using a walkthrough/online maps.
edit: you're more likely to need a walkthrough for Zelda though, as finding obscure secrets is often required for progress. GAW is easier to figure out on your own.
Edited by DrStrangelove at 15:52:03 01-10-2020 -
Finished Zelda and Golden Axe Warrior, and I stick with GAW being more fun to play actually (if not by much).
Zelda is clearly the more ingenious game, but I guess that goes without saying. It basically invented its own genre and came up with a lot of great ideas which the series uses to this day, while GAW is a shameless ripoff that doesn't do anything original at all as far as I can tell. Especially the boomerang is a brilliant multi-tool brilliantly executed, GAW doesn't have anything like that.
Generally GAW is much more melee-focussed. Your sword doesn't shoot swords and your only ranged weapons consume precious magic so you'll mostly save them for bosses. Instead of shooting enemies with the wand or stunning them with the boomerang, you'll go face to face with unstunned enemies all the time. Melee combat feels tighter than Zelda, you need a lot of precision and it really helps to learn some tricks like slashing sideways without moving in that direction. What's really great is that there are two main types of weapon (sword and axe) and they play very differently. Also the sound effects are satisfying, which helps this game feel surprisingly good. Boss battles are shit, but tbh Zelda's aren't great either. Definitely better than GAW's though.
Now talking about graphics, on the one hand that's really not a fair comparison. GAW ran on superior hardware and it came out a whopping 5 years after Zelda 1. Actually it was only 1 year before Zelda 3, for crying out loud. But on the other hand, what we've got today is two Zelda games to go back to and one is simply prettier than the other.
And tbh, Zelda 1 is not a pretty game, it looks primitive even by NES standards. Every ground tile in the overworld is a single-colour beige-brown square, except for a few locations where it's a ghastly deep grey. In caves you'll find some shopkeeper or tip giver without any animation standing between two flames in a pitch black room. Compare that to GAW which has actual villages with animated people saying more than 5 words, with shops and save points. It also has much more diverse regions, not only desert, but also grassland, a swamp area with deep green vegetation (that slows movement), it has a snow region and a volcano region. It's much more diverse and generally looks much nicer.
Then there's some QOL improvements concerning movement. You don't get stuck against half a wall because your character will automatically move around that, and doors in dungeons are twice the width so there's no moving left and right to exactly "hit" the door. There's just some nice extra thought and polish that went into this. Also, there are hidden save points all over the map, typically close to the dungeons, so you don't always start on the first screen after save-exiting in the overworld like in Zelda.
Now one thing that gets me in Zelda (not only the first one) is some terrible design decisions. There's all this really annoying BS like those flying propeller thing enemies that can only be hit in the one second they land. There's those hands that reset you to the entry of the dungeon. There's those jelly things that steal your shield so you have to buy a new one. The only purpose of all those is to troll the player and it's infuriating. GAW doesn't have that and that makes it a better game.
Or take the gear selection menu. It's 2 rows of 4 items each, but you can't move the cursor up or down, instead you have to press left or right 4 times instead. I mean... why?? What were they thinking? GAW does it like any sane game would, you can move the cursor in all 4 directions.
Next is how slow the Zelda menu is. There are many dark rooms in dungeons, so you have to bring up the menu which slowly moves onto the screen. Select blue/red flame, then close the menu which makes it move away again slowly. After using the flame, you want to use your boomerang or whatever again, so again let the menu move in slowly, and after selecting your stuff again make it move away slowly. This wouldn't be a problem if every other room wasn't dark.
GAW had the same disadvantage as many other Master System games, its terrible 2-button controller. Since there aren't enough buttons, you only have one action/attack button and the other one brings up the menu. But the menu is almost instant, you select the torch to light up the room and the game instantly defaults back to your sword so you don't have to bring up the menu again unless you want to use your axe. This may sound overly pedantic, but seriously, if your game makes you spend far more time in the menu even though you have 2 action buttons, you fucked up. It's not even that GAW did anything smart, it's that they solved it like any sane person would while Zelda artificially increases the time spent in menus for no reason whatsoever. Most people will scoff at this, but it really gets me when a dev goes the extra mile only to make it worse.
Oh, and I hate how there's like a one second delay in Zelda between powerups appearing and you being able to pick them up. Many games, even today, seem to have trouble with this, like Binding of Isaac or Forager. For some reason Sega has found a way that shit can be picked up as soon as it appears, which other devs seem to struggle with to this day.
The soundtrack. I'm not sure if I should go there because I'm afraid of the torches and pitchforks. Zelda's overworld music is epic, no sane person will contest that. GAW's overworld music is fine but fairly generic and less memorable. That said, both these soundtracks are played always in the overworld. After listening for them for hours, the more melody-driven Zelda theme gets a little old tbh. GAW's more rhythm-driven theme fares better when listening to it for a long time imo.
I may seem biased towards GAW in all of this (and to some extent I am), but given how it's often slammed as a shameless inferior clone, I felt compelled to make a point for it. But there's another thing I have to mention in favour of Zelda, and that's its last dungeon. It's fiendish and has its own intimidating soundtrack. GAW's last dungeon is just more of the same, slightly bigger, so there's that.
Edited by DrStrangelove at 20:06:41 04-10-2020 -
Your-Mother 8,172 posts
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Registered 5 years agoI’m not reading all of that -
Your loss clearly. -
Psiloc 6,366 posts
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Registered 14 years agoGreat write up!
Heres a question then. GAW is like a £40 game or something I think. Based on that, would you recommend it?
For background, I'm a collector so spending £40 on an old game isn't insane for me. But at that price I'd have to be pretty sure it was decent -
@Psiloc
I really don't want to give you a definitive answer because taste varies and I'd hate to tell you to buy this and then you don't like it.
Most seem to feel it's inferior to Zelda, the main criticism being it's just such a shameless ripoff, the other being from Golden Axe fans who complained this has nothing to do with Golden Axe.
All I can tell is that this is my favourite MS game and despite some flaws I find it more fun to play than Zelda 1. Also, there aren't enough Zelda games around so it's great to have one that's made really well even if it's a shameless clone.
I can't tell you if it's worth your 40 quid, but on the other hand, if you don't like it, I guess you can sell it again for the same price or even more.
edit: I didn't even know it was that rare. I had it, my friend had it, so I didn't think anything about it. But they're listed for 100-200 euros on eBay, holy shit.
Edited by DrStrangelove at 20:38:53 04-10-2020 -
Psiloc 6,366 posts
Seen 15 hours ago
Registered 14 years agoYeah fucking hell, need to pop into my local retro game shop and see if he still only wants £40 for it. I hadn't realised I'd found a bargain -
Psiloc 6,366 posts
Seen 15 hours ago
Registered 14 years agoSpeaking of SMS rip offs, have you played Master of Darkness? It's a really good Castlevania clone and most people don't seem to know about it.
Up against the NES Castlevania games it's pretty much an all round improvement too IMO.
I've been modding my systems lately and I can recommend the SMSFM mod for the SMS. It's made by the same genius who makes the NESRGB kit and is basically a kit to recreate the optional FM sound module that they got in Japan. It sounds fantastic, it's just like Megadrive quality sound coming from a Master System game. -
Going back to the scalars, Retrotink have simplified their composite/S-Video scalar, into a new product called the 2X mini and it's only $70.
I have the original for the PAL NES and PAL N64 (composite and S-Video respectively) and it's great. Really boring products to review to be honest because you just plug them in and they work. No lag. In fact lag is a physical impossibility because there is no frame buffer.
Suffice to say anyone in the market for a gaming spec line doubler should go straight to the Retrotink line IMO. The OSSC is slightly more advanced, or so I hear, but that seems to be to its detriment because you have to fuck around with profiles which are different for different consoles. I have no idea how that works if you have more than a few systems, but regardless give me the plug-and-play Retrotink any day.
I intend to recommend these products to anyone looking to get into retro gaming on a modern display
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