spacecadet
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Posts posted by spacecadet
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The group I don't understand is the 'Moar Power' group. The ones that have so heavily modified their systems that they're almost unrecognizable. You know, like the people who put super upgraded graphic chips in their system that weren't around at the time and no software supports or those massive accelerators that make the system run 20x faster than it normally would. I always wonder "Why?". But to each their own, I suppose it's like tricking out a sports car or something.
Generally I feel the same way, although I think with computers it's a little different, because there were always storage expansions, accelerators and other things we wanted at the time and would have bought if they were available (or cheap enough), and sometimes it just took this long to get them. So buying 8MB of RAM, a flash storage product, or a CPU accelerator card for my Apple IIGS... these are just things I always wanted even back in the day because the system has limitations without them, and it's just that I can finally afford them or they're finally available. Computers like the Apple II and IBM PC were always meant to be customized and expanded, even in ways the manufacturer never thought of. If a system actually *supports* an upgrade, that makes it legit in my eyes. It was designed for it, even if it took this long to get it.
If you need to break out the soldering iron and/or Dremel to get a system to accept an upgrade, though, that's usually where I draw the line. One exception is to overcome artificial limitations like region locks on game consoles, which are a restriction specifically *added* by manufacturers for business reasons, not anything endemic to a system's technological design or the era it's from (and plenty of people did mods like that at the time, with any given console). But otherwise, physical alteration is usually turning a system into something it wasn't meant to be. People are of course free to do whatever they want with the stuff they own, but I just wouldn't do something like installing an RGB mod in an Atari 2600. If you want your games to look that modern, just play an emulator or get a Retron77 or something - it's just as faithful and realistic as RGB output from a 2600 (which is to say, neither is). I don't really understand buying a console that's specifically of a certain time and then trying to make its output look modern to begin with, but especially when there are plenty of easier, cheaper and less destructive ways of doing it.
The other group that makes me scratch my head (but in a different way) are the 'Power Users'. The people who still use their Atari's to do all their word processing or their Coleco Adam for filing their recipes or whatnot. It's cool and all I guess, but I just don't get the appeal.
I think this group is probably pretty small but I know it exists too and I don't understand it either. I think this is just an inability to compartmentalize.
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I'm a little from column A and a little from column B from many of these posts. I'm actually probably *more* into retro gaming as a whole than I used to be, but I've also expanded the breadth of my interests to the point where I feel like I look more at high level things now than specific systems or games. I'm more interested in looking at things like how genres developed, different trends in PC vs. console gaming, different trends in American vs. Japanese computers and consoles, the rise and fall of various developers, etc.
I still buy a ton of stuff and I still play a ton of games. But I'm less interested in the nitty gritty of how to "beat" those games and more interested in how and why they came to be, what techniques were used to differentiate them, what effect they had on the industry, etc.
I do feel like that early period of gaming that used to be the focus of most retro gamers is becoming less and less relevant over time, to me as well. But at the same time, I don't feel like the post-crash era is really "retro" at all, and I probably never will. Just for me personally, anything that happened after I became an adult feels like the modern era, and getting from there to here has just been one uninterrupted process. I started out in this hobby as a way to preserve stuff that I felt was otherwise lost. Atari, Mattel, NEC, Magnavox, Coleco, even Sega are no longer making game consoles or, in most cases, even games at all. But Nintendo is, and there's not a lot of conceptual difference, game-wise, between what they were doing in 1983 and what they're doing now. Nothing's been lost. There's nothing to preserve. Ditto for Sony and early MS stuff. With a few exceptions, the good stuff just gets updated and re-released, maybe with a different name, definitely with better graphics and probably with a new mode or two. But basically, they're the same games.
I have developed more of an affinity for Sega since they dropped out of consoles, for the same reason I initially got into retro gaming in general. For me, it's only when a company drops out and the industry moves on without them that I really can start thinking of them as "retro" or "classic". Because every console maker has their own house style, and when that's gone, a void is left and things do change. Then when you look back at those games, you can instantly see something different than exists now, and something that has value and shouldn't be forgotten. But I feel like a lot more people are adding Nintendo to their list of "classic" stuff they're interested in than Sega, so I feel like I'm kind of branching off a bit there too.
I think that might be the main underlying difference between what classic gaming used to be and what it is now. I don't think it's a stretch to say that most other people who got into this were like me; wanting to preserve stuff that was lost (and/or relive childhood memories, but those things are anything but mutually exclusive). But now, it seems like that's flipped, and a lot of new people in the hobby just want to go back and see what their favorite current companies were doing a few years ago.
There's no right or wrong way to be into this hobby, but it's definitely a different perspective that I don't intuitively grasp. And I have found myself sometimes getting into arguments with people about it, which never used to happen. The only argument I ever remember having here in the old days was about whether or not the Alamagordo Atari dump existed
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This is a good point. I personally will never consider these "half games" games that are truly physical. I mean, yeah, there is a physical cart there...but if I have to download stuff just to make it WORK then it is a digital release in my mind.
I'd love it if someone would publish a list of which cartridge games are really self-contained physical games and which are digital games with a download code on a card. Then I'd know which ones I'd feel safe picking up a few years down the road. Hopefully someone does that someday.
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And some people want a physical cartridge that they can plug in. They can also get a universal game case, print the inlay card off from thecoverproject.net and print the manual off from a pdf. That way, they get a beautiful, new, physical copy of the game that will also look good on their shelf and still cost a fraction of some of the original games. If people didn't want that then it wouldn't exist.
I'm not sure if you're deliberately ignoring the point or just missing it. As was pointed out, actual copies of these games are not cheap. If someone is talking about the price of actual games, that's what they want. Everybody here knows that there are plenty of cheap or even free ways to play games. If that's what someone wanted, they wouldn't be talking about cost in the first place.
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Repros around $10 are available for both those games.
And ROMs are available for free. I assume if someone's talking about the price of buying a commercial game, it's because they want the real thing.
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I think it's widely understood that the pinnacle of 2D sprite graphics have aged better than the early days of 3D polygon graphics. For art design, SNES and Genesis are generally prettier than N64 and PlayStation/Saturn.
Definitely not disagreeing with any of your points here, but the Saturn actually *was* the pinnacle of 2D sprite graphics. The Saturn was designed as a 2D system and had 3D bolted on once Sega got wind of what the competition was doing. But its 2D hardware was still some of the best around, and games that used it, such as Capcom's fighting games, Treasure's Guardian Heroes and Radiant Silvergun, or Sega's own Astal, look fantastic even today, both technically and artistically.
So if I'm disagreeing with anyone, it's the OP and the premise for this thread. The Saturn had some bad looking 3D games, both at the time and in hindsight. (Though it had some good looking ones too, such as Nights into Dreams.) But it's definitely aged the best of the three consoles of that generation (IMO), especially if you mainly look at it as a 2D system.
Of course I love the Genesis too. But graphically, even in 2D, the Saturn had it all over the Genesis, and it's got a bunch of classic 2D games that use those capabilities. They just weren't all that heralded at the time (especially in the US) because the market wanted 3D. But that means a lot of them have remained lesser known even today.
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In the bigger picture they get a lot of games they don't touch other than publishing and they go cheap or start cheap either way even on physical media.
https://www.gamestop.com/nintendo-switch/games/bayonetta-2-bayonetta-1/149737
This is, literally, a re-release of a 4 year old third-party game developed by a third party packaged with a download code for a 9 year old game that Nintendo had nothing whatsoever to do with. And Nintendo had the gumption to price it at $60 on release - and it's still $60 now!
So I don't really buy your argument. (I did buy the game, though. But I grumbled about it all the way to the cash register, and haven't bought another Switch game since.)
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I can't really recommend a specific recorder - in most cases pretty much anything will work. But I don't really know what's the most reliable under $100. At this point, I think finding something that can maintain proper speed and is in good working condition (including heads in proper alignment) is probably more important than anything else.
But as far as tapes go, you're not going to find much of anything other than Type I's out there except as new old stock. That's really about all that's still made. (A couple of smaller companies make tapes too, but they're all Type I. They may all even be the same tape.) Type I should be ok for computer use, and certainly would be all any cheap recorder/player would be made for, since the cheap players you're probably talking about (the kind with the built-in speaker, like most people used with computers) had no bias adjustment or switch. I'm also sure that basically any classic computer would have been made with Type I tapes in mind, so they should be somewhat tolerant.
I think you *could* use a better recorder/player with selectable bias for different tape types and even some kind of noise reduction if you wanted to just archive for yourself. (Then you'd need to buy some NOS tapes, which can be expensive.) But if you plan to share these tapes around, it's best to stick with Type I.
If you stick with new Type I's, I wouldn't really worry much about brand. They're all going to be pretty similar and pretty cheap. Even back in the old days, most Type I tapes were flimsy and had similarly bad sound, although I remember thinking the TDK AR series tapes were at least better built than most.
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Recent reviews online have spiked prices of these game, especially Sunset Riders. I'd give the market a few months to chill before trying to find a coffee for a reasonable price.
Gunstar Heroes was always an expensive game. It's not all that common (though not really rare either) and it's one of Treasure's first big games. It defined their early aesthetic, but you can see a lot of the same influences in their later games too. Pretty much *all* their games (the best ones, anyway) are about non-stop action.
For pretty much as long as I've been on Ebay, it's been selling for somewhere between $50 and $100. It goes up or down a little sometimes but it seems about in the middle right now, price-wise. I can't remember what I paid for mine; probably somewhere in the $50 neighborhood, but that was at one of the low ebbs about 10 years ago.
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This is one reason why I've just never been all that into any Nintendo console. I'm usually some years behind on new releases, because I just have too much stuff to play; I rarely buy anything right when it comes out. So I'm used to paying $20 or less for most of my games, even new (but I'm usually ok with buying used to save even a few more bucks).
But that just doesn't work with Nintendo. So I end up buying almost nothing, because by the time I get around to actually wanting to buy most of their games, it's been a couple years and I just can't see paying $60 for a 2 year old game. I'd rather buy four games of the same age for the PS4 (or whatever) instead.
I only have four total games for my Switch right now and I've practically forgotten about the system at this point. I just don't really think about buying stuff for it. That's what always happens to me with Nintendo, and this is definitely one reason.
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Best Electronics still sold the black version of those new last I checked (and I bought one), if anyone wants one. I replaced my ingot with one.
The white one is definitely rarer, but that one barely even qualifies...
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Haha no I am not offended in general,but making the assumption that most people who post here are over 40 years old is kinda ignorant.
Actually what makes forums a dying breed imo, is that whole status quo "cliquey" mentality people develop on forums. Then when someone doesn't agree with
their mentality or calls them out, then that person gets ganged up upon by a bunch of "know-it-alls".
Ok, but you were replying to me. If you have a beef with people on the forum here in general, or on the internet as a whole, that's fine - talk about that somewhere. I would suggest this thread is probably not the right place for it, but hey, up to you. But replying to me specifically with these beefs implies that you have a beef with me, and that's not called for. I was not talking specifically to you, I was not talking about you, and I couldn't really care less what sex, gender or age someone is. My reply that you had a problem with was in reference to the fact that the OP a) is afraid of being labeled "old" at age 25, and b) considers that label a negative thing. So he basically insulted a big part of the forum. You should be questioning his motivation, as I did; not mine.
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I just don't get nausea. I don't think people should think nausea's an automatic when thinking about buying into VR. I think some people get it and others don't. I just don't and never have.
There are certain games that overload my senses, but that's not quite the same. I had to stop playing RE7 in VR because it was *too scary* and I was going to have a heart attack. I did also get a headache whenever I played it. But it wasn't nausea or motion sickness. It was just being stuck in this dark, nightmare world. It was too real and while it was impressive in that sense, it was not actually *fun* and I didn't feel good after playing it.
But I think that's different than the nausea thing some people describe, which seems like it's related to motion. And I think it's easier to avoid if you're sensitive in that way because it seems specifically to be about the in-game environment. So just don't buy games that look scary, or whatever. Realize you're going to be *in* that world. Does it really look like somewhere you'd otherwise choose to go?
I have Wipeout VR and I feel like the crazier the race, the better. I love the combat races; I look forward to them. And I turned off the blinders that are supposed to prevent nausea right away; they were annoying. I don't mind the motion at all and I love the environment.
Same with Battlezone, which I don't own but I played the demo and I remember thinking "wow! Why isn't this more popular?!" (But then of course I haven't bought it myself... but that's because it just seemed too simple for a full-priced game.)
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Stuff can still turn yellow even while stored in dark areas. Ask me how I know.
Okay, I'll tell you.
I have an Atari 600XL and several Apple systems looked like new when I got them; years of storage inside boxes in my basement later, and they look like they've been painted with Dusseldorf mustard. Likewise for one of my Super Nintendos.That's why I said a cold, dark place. There are two things that cause yellowing - light and heat. It doesn't need to be a lot of heat, either. Turn off the a/c when you go out of the house in summer and over a period of years, it'll cause yellowing.
My Apple IIc yellowed like a banana in the dark in my attic over a period of about 10 years. It was totally off-white before I put it up there, even though it was already about 20 years old. But 10 years up there without any a/c and it looks like a Hughes Airwest DC-9. (Google it.)
Some things are worse than others; some will yellow even at room temperature. So you have to keep them cold. It's not always practical to do that; I live in the northeast US and I can't keep an a/c on in summer just to keep my computers and game consoles from yellowing. But I have moved them all to my basement, which is underground and is naturally cooler than the outside air or the house otherwise. I haven't noticed any yellowing of anything in the few years since I've done that.
But further to that, if you live in a humid area and especially if you store things in a basement, you should also dehumidify. Moisture is another enemy of old computers. I run a dehumidifier 24/7 in summer in my basement.
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I would have gone with what they went with. The 1982 press kit version looks like a mishmash of incoherent random elements. It's like somebody kitbashed several different consoles together.
I've seen a bunch of different CV designs, though I don't remember where (there's a web site that has about 6 or 7 of them, at least). Some were better than others; some were better than the 1982 design. I remember thinking that one or two probably weren't made just because they would have cost too much. But others, and I count the 1982 photo above among these, just looked like they thought better of it and decided to make a more cohesive color scheme.
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I disagree. Not everyone here is old. I'm not even 40 yet for crying out loud!!!!
Ageist(and even Sexist) remarks and assumptions are why forums are a dying breed IMO.
I sincerely hope you're not saying my comment was either of those things. If you knew anything about me, you'd know I was about as far from either of those things as anyone gets. I was making a joke about being 20 years older than the OP, when he's already worried about being "old" at age 25. And I don't think it's a stretch to say that most others in this forum are about my same age.
I feel like what's making forums a dying breed is people taking offense to things they shouldn't.
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Keep them away from heat as well as light - of any kind. Basically, keep them in a cold, dark place. Treat them as you would a potato.
If any of them have hard drives you care about keeping, run them every once in a while (I'd go so far as to say once a month). Probably the worst thing for a hard drive is to sit unused for a really long time. They have a tendency to get stuck or dry out.
As for bugs, just buy some covers. But in my experience, bugs don't really like electronics that aren't in regular use. There's no food in there and it's not warm or anything. People who get bug infestations in their electronics, it's usually stuff they're actually using and they just have a buggy place. The bugs already there like the electronics because they're warm.
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i am a 25 year old male who is deathly afraid of being labeled "old" or "casual"
You realize you're hanging out here with a bunch of old geezers, right?
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Great they have got to 0.200. Still strange to see 0.200, since MAME is incredibly mature.
I still feel like it's pretty beta-ish. Ask someone with *no* experience to install and run it and they are going to be completely lost. I doubt they'll be able to figure out how to get most of it even working. I mean, I *still* can't figure out how to get the MESS stuff working, and I have been both using MAME since the very beginning (when it was 100% command line) and also was using MESS before it was integrated. But I cannot get any console games to work in MAME, and I have tried following the instructions I've seen here and elsewhere.
Its GUI is also just slow, clunky and ugly, unless this has changed now in .200. The fact that I still have to use a third party GUI for it to make it usable in 2018 is just kind of dumb.
Don't get me wrong - I've always thought the underlying technology in MAME is amazing, and it's a free program so I don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I just would have thought that in 20 years, there'd have been a little more progress on the UX side of things.
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I used EmuParadise every now and then. I mean, I think you can have a little bit more of a nuanced view of copyright than most people seem to. Copyright was never intended to be absolute to begin with; it's become that way because corporations saw more profit potential and they've somehow convinced a large segment of the public to go along with that. But originally, copyright was only even supposed to last 15 years, and that's because the original writers of the law understood that there's a period of time when a company should be able to exclusively make money from an idea, and then it should belong to everyone. (We still have that mentality for patents, which are ultimately the exact same thing. But they still last just 20 years and nobody outside the pharmaceutical industry seems bent on changing that.)
And of course there are a ton of exceptions in copyright law even if a copyright is in full effect. Corporations again have been trying to chip away at those protected uses for a long time in the name of profit, but most of them still exist.
I respect and support anyone's right to be the sole moneymaker from a copyrighted work for a reasonable period of time. But I don't have any problem with anyone using *anything* for any task that falls under fair use (especially, but not exclusively, if they're not profiting from it), or that could even reasonably be argued to fall under fair use. That's just life, and copyright holders have to just learn to deal with it at some point - it's actually *in* the law.
What does bother me is when companies clearly abandon a game and then sue everybody who wants to play it. That's not what copyright is for. If you're not using your copyright, you really shouldn't get to keep it. (And that was another reason why it was only 15 years to begin with; most copyrights are abandoned after that point, because the owners think they're worthless.)
What bothers me even more is when one company can so scare everybody that they force the takedown of *everything*. EmuParadise had tons of stuff on the site; not just Nintendo, but old computer ROMs, old arcade ROMs from companies that are totally defunct, I mean tons of stuff that nobody's ever going to get to play if the ROM resources really dry up. And that's just a shame, and again, definitely *not* what the intent of copyright was/is.
The bottom line is there's no inherent right in being able to profit from something in perpetuity, and that's what companies like Nintendo want (even for IP they didn't even create, but just bought!). This is a decision we, as a society, need to make. What's more important, profit or the "public good"? There's very little, if anything, in the world where I think money should be the sole determining factor. I personally think copyright has gone pretty nuts in this country as it is, and we should really be working to pull it back to what it originally was. And that would mean a large portion of classic games would be in the public domain.
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I agree it's probably the cable. I had a similar problem with mine; it was doing stuff, so I thought the cable was carrying data, but nothing was actually working. In my case, it turned out that I needed to remove the null modem adapter I'd bought (IIRC the instructions say to use a null modem cable, so I bought a printer cable and null modem adapter, but the adapter messed things up).
So yeah, even though it seems like the cable's working and the problem lies elsewhere, it probably doesn't.
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Listing is already removed. Just guessing somebody here or on any other site he might have asked this question probably PM'd and made a deal.
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I dunno, I need to see an "H" in there to get "Trash." Phonetically, I just see "Triss." Which is actually how Radio Shack suggested it be pronounced in their DOS manuals, IIRC ("TrissDoss").
Well, I think it's because "DOS" itself is an acronym. So my mind is trying to see "TRS" as an acronym too, and "Trash" is already in my head. I guess technically that would make "TRS" an abbreviation (not sure that's right either). Which it already is, obviously, but just for something else.
"Triss" sounds like Tandy trying desperately to *stop* people from saying "Trash". "Trash" has been around for a really long time. I'm pretty sure I first heard it in the 1970's. I know I heard it before I actually knew what "TRS" really stood for.
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Consoles that make owning other consoles redunant
in Classic Console Discussion
Posted · Edited by spacecadet
I don't agree with this one. Just from my own collection of about 50 Dreamcast games plus what I can think of off the top of my head, the following games have never been released on any other console, were significantly altered on other consoles, or are just clearly the best on Dreamcast (usually because they were released on PS1 or N64 and Dreamcast, not later consoles):
Re-Volt
Tech Romancer
Crazy Taxi 2
Confidential Mission
Bangai-O - was released on N64 but it's basically a whole different game (also looks a lot better on DC)
Giga Wing 1 & 2
Mars Matrix
Project Justice
Test Drive Le Mans
Power Stone 1 & 2
Densha de Go! 2 Kōsoku-hen 3000-bandai
Puyo Puyo Da!
Puyo Puyo-n - was released on prior platforms but DC is by far the best version
Sega GT Homologation Special - was released on Xbox but without the car creation mode, which was most of the original game
Samba de Amigo - was released on Wii but without the maracas
Cannon Spike
various Dance Dance Revolution games
Grand Theft Auto 2 - was on PS1; the DC version is clearly better
Outtrigger
I'm sure there are more; those are just the "good" ones that I can remember. Those are all games that, especially taken as a whole, are worth owning a Dreamcast for. Some of them (though probably less than half) are available on PC, just not any other console, but the PC could be argued to make basically any console "redundant" so I wouldn't include it in the argument.
Many of the Dreamcast's best games were *not* the most popular; that was kind of the thing about that system. It was zigging while the rest of the market was zagging. It wasn't what people wanted, but it had a ton of great games, and a lot of them just never got ported to anything else because they didn't sell that well.