johnny_boy

Personally, my dream NES console would be a Famicom AV. Not sure if any work needs to be done for North-American cartridges, but top-loading + composite output sounds pretty sweet. I believe they are constantly over-priced on ebay, though.

Random, you should definitely check out Game Boy games too. Donkey Kong (94) is one of my all-time favs, and Zelda: Link's Awakening was one of the last time I found a Zelda game to be decent. Game Boy Emulators

SNES9X and ZSNES are the two heavyweights who go way back (in the context of PC emulators). In ZSNES's case, even though the GUI is full custom, it affords several conveniences, such as enabling native gamepad menu navigation throughout its interface. Try both, and see which suits you better.

Here are the titles I believe to be the most interesting and playable on those two platforms. I have somewhat of a bias for arcade and action-adventure games. 1. Fav NES Balloon Fight, Blaster Master, Captain Tsubasa II (Famicom), Guerilla War, Jackal, Metal Storm, Metroid (Famicom), Quarth, Punch-Out! - Mike Tyson's, Solar Jetman, Kunio Sports Games (Basketball, Soccer 1-2, Hockey, Dodge Ball) (Famicom), Kunio - Downtown Tournament (Famicom) 2. Disliked NES Grinding-heavy japanese RPGs (ex. Square and Enix titles). Mean-spirited, cheap difficulty (ex. SMB Lost Levels). 3. Good NES Emulator (Win32) Nestopia 4. Fav SNES Mr. Do!, Ms. Pac-Man, Dropzone - Archer MacLean's, Contra III: The Alien Wars, Zelda: ALttP - Ancient Stone Tablets - BS Zelda (Third Quest, Fourth Quest), Super Metroid, Assault Suit Valken (Cybernator) - Metal Warriors - Front Mission: Gun Hazard, The Firemen - The Ignition Factor, Pocky & Rocky I-II, Shiren the Wanderer - Mysterious Dungeon II (SFC), Super Castlevania IV, True Lies, Terranigma, Umihara Kawase (Little Fishing Girl) (SFC), Wild Guns 5. Disliked SNES Again, grinding-heavy japanese RPGs, except for roguelikes (ex. Square and Enix titles). Most SNES platformers borrow heavily from each other, and are especially boring to me. They also seem to concentrate innovation on the wrong aspects (graphics, marketing, superficial gameplay additions). 6. Good SNES Emulator (Win32) Zsnes

Can't say I've dipped in both platforms, beyond software emulation, but I just wanted to express how the C64 game library nicely completes whatever the Atari 8-bit couldn't have since its mid-80's commercial support meltdown. Some games unavailable for Atari, for example, are Crossroads I-II, Toy Bizarre, and Space Taxi. Has anyone played Crossroads II? A tragically little known gem, really. Easily beats its original template, Wizards of Wor. The difference in hardware sometimes makes for interesting strengths or regrettable weaknesses. Though later it was pretty much made up for with programming ingenuity. I still think Colecovision/Adam/MSX had more interesting possibilities, though. With a superficial analysis, you could say it basically had the Spectrum's "high resolution" with the C64's color and sprite capabilities. What about sound? I personally don't give it much importance. The TI soundchip was good enough to replicate the necessary arcadey noises and bleeps. If I want to hear complex music, I'll use iTunes. Sorry for drifting slightly off-topic, but I thought I'd chip it in anyways since we're talking multi-platform here. Johnny-Boy EDIT: Yes, I know about Coleco/MSX's lack of hardware scrolling. The system's best games didn't really need it anyway.

Atari800MacX v.3.8.1 under Mac OS X 10.5 Intel. Tried loading cartridges with either one chip or two chip 5200 cartridges. Either crashes or stands idle. My other bios images work normally. I don't know what kind of voodoo enchantment you use on your side, but for my part I've pretty much given up on it. Atari 8-bit Computer emulation works nicely, though.

You're right, haven't thought about that. But I personally find platform games that use up for jump fundamentally unplayable. I'd rather see power-ups ditched sooner than a compromised jumping system.

5200 emulation still doesn't work in Mac OS X Atari800. Instant crash. Maybe the Windows version has more chance.

The new Underball/Ben_Larson ghosts look neat. They don't seem to look sad anymore, to me. Also, like Nukey said, they show more character than the 5200 ones. Funny how shifting a few details here and there makes a world of difference. In such low-res, every pixel counts.

Clay's ghosts look like they have a serious case of melancholia. "Emo ghosts" I would call 'em. Big sad eyes, like in those funny animes, where some crazy big-eyed freak is this close to breaking apart in tears. Don't misunderstand me, I do appreciate the craftsmanship in the artwork, but I personally believe them to be unsuitable for Pac-Man. It's simply not possible to create a faithful Pac-Man ghost on he 2600. Some sort of compromise must be reached, or an artistic re-imagining of the original. These two solutions are popular ones, and so are Nukey's Ms. Hack flickering ghosts. So what will it be: black eyes, square eyes, sorta round eyes, 5200 thin eyes or fanciful but flickery eyes? The 5200 eyes are sharp, flicker-free, show clear definition of their specific feature and evoque a nostalgic association from 5200 Pac-Man. This is why they get my vote. I too prefer the rounder Pac-Man, while we're at it.

Notwithstanding the controller's shape, I don't see a problem. The button could be used for jumping, and running could be applied by pressing in a direction twice, quickly, or like Yoshi's Island, automatically after moving in a constant direction for a sec of two.

Looks like a mix of Alex Kidd and Commander Keen, gameplay-wise. Not impressed with the graphic design choices. Retro doesn't have to mean bland and blocky - just look at Mega Man 9 or, even better, Cave Story. Maybe humour could rescue it at this point, to me, but even then, it'd simply be a one trick pony. I've seen better Rom hacks than this.

Here's a few: Castle Quest Mix of Archon and JRPGs. Catrap Arcade puzzler like Solomon's Key Is Mole Mania considered unsung? Guess not so much, since Miyamoto had a hand in it.

Aaah yesss... many enjoyable evenings have I had, with my friends, fooling around with Driver 1. We could zone out for hours, running on the loose in Miami, San Fran, or LA. We loved pretending we were driving the cops mad with our shenanigans, or pushing them to run into or over whatever suited our fancy. The invincibility code was a must, for novices. We were especially amused when we succeeded to lead a cop to jump so high he went airborne, in one of the downtown hills of SF. That's what video replays are for <grin>.

Nice analogy. I'm likely to use it in the future.

FFVII is when the whole genre went baroque. Sure, you could see hints of it in the previous installment, but the new hardware really pushed them over. At the time of release, we all thought it was neat, but it's lasting appeal went south because of it. Nowadays, with the rose-tinted glasses off, we finally see it as the mess it is. Sometimes, too much turns up to be not enough.

I don't believe there's an easy answer. Perhaps you might consider using the Microsoft XNA tools. They seem to have a lot of momentum these days, a healthy community, and increasing art/code assets.

I admire the cross-pollinisation between the MSX and Colecovision communities. They seem to use and build upon the best of each other.

Need to try Toyshop Trouble, now that the ROM is available. Your mini-review, Midnight, is fairly convincing.

I agree with my fellow canadian, CFL is at least watchable. Never could stand NFL Football. This year has been fairly good, I'd say. There were a bunch of play in the last part of the season that turned everyone's attention. West division is too damn tough, though.

You're right. I must've misremembered that fact. Thanks for the correction.

Wow, this thread has turned into a juicy, substantial discussion while I had my back turned. Yellow border notwithstanding, Galaxian 2600 turned out pretty good. I personally enjoy the graphic hack one member did of it, removing that big bright frame. Pac-Man 2600 has such a horrible palette because of Atari management directives to visually distinguish regular games from space-based ones by using any color but black for the background. What it did, instead of adding value, was sabotage. I think the reason some studios like Imagic were so partial to multi-coloring is because they were determined to distinguish their products from competitors and more specifically from first generation VCS games, with their characteristic blockiness and simple palette. An arcade-quality game on the VCS meant "cheating" by hiding the common characteristics of the original platform. This usually means taking advantage of the rich color possibilities, by using as many as is reasonable by the product's visual identity. (See Random Terrain's Rob Fulop quote on this). I say if you can paint a gradient or a pattern on a sprite, go for it. With a black background, it usually turns out pretty good. Look at some recent homebrews with wild coloring: Lead, Juno First, Circus Galacticus, Bee Ball. When I first played those, I could hardly believe it was running on a 1977 console. Edit: I have a feeling many folks defending multi-color here have a background, or interest, in visual design.

Dunno if Demon Attack is best on 2600, but it's a damn good try. Nice color and optimal use of hardware architecture. Shame about the lack of giant boss though. Imagic's artists and programmers sure knew how to handle them hardware constraints. Also, I just remembered a thing about this small outlet called Activsion, who first developed on VCS and then ported to other platforms with the explicit aim of keeping the look close to the original. Thus, most of their releases are best enjoyed on the on the old Stella woodgrainer, for authentic flavour.

Didn't know about Firehawk. Looks like a fancier Raid on Bungeling Bay, in a good way. Can't go wrong with that! Camerica's NES games always were instantly recognisable by the unique music they used. Y'know, their high end melodies? Like C64 chiptunes, someone on Youtube said.

I guess I was looking at Takeshi from the point of view of the player, who is suffering through a painful gaming experience, but if you're onto the joke and in the spirit of the game, I guess it can be seen as quirky and eccentric. Same for Bokosuka Wars, except I'm wondering if the creator's intentions here were serious or not. Now, another hard as hell game: Kid Icarus. Made with the Metroid engine, by the Metroid team, but with a different state of mind. I'm not a fan of it, but I do like the gentler Game Boy sequel.