deepthaw

This discussion makes me wish I'd paid more attention to the business & politics part when I read "I Am Error" (an excellent book on the history and technical details of the NES in the same series as "Racing the Beam.")

I was looking for the same thing and found nada. If you go for the more traditional (to computers) 5:4 aspect ratio, the letterboxing will be minimal at least. (1280x1024 is very close to an integer ratio of 320x240)

If one was to jump unprepared into the Gold Box games, I'd recommend... Pool of Radiance? It's the least technologically advanced, but it starts you at first level. I'd say the lack of modern contrivances is easier to get around than being expected to handle high level AD&D characters with zero knowledge of the system. (Why won't these trolls die? What's an AC? Why did my guy just die in one hit? Why would I be a fighter if I can be a fighter/cleric/mage? Why isn't my dwarf gaining XP? How does my thief backstab? Why can't my fighter-thief in plate mail backstab? Where did my spells go? Why do I have so much platinum? What's a ranseur? WHY WON'T THESE TROLLS DIE?) Do one of the other series (Krynn, etc.) start at a similarly "easy" level to break people into AD&D?

I will tell you from experience the Commodore 64 was a very impersonal computer.

After three tries to get past the Koopa Troopa and Goomba, I did a glorious spinning vault over the two of them and got my head stuck in the very first question block. I now dangle helplessly over 1-1. This feels like a metaphor for something.

I never really thought about it either until I noticed it the other night. Spent my entire life playing with my left hand on the controls, yet for some inexplicable reason, I control with my right hand when I don't need buttons. Maybe those years of conditioning haven't overcome my natural right-handedness as much as I thought?

The turn-based battles are one of the cornerstones of the games, so if that's the sticking point there's no real way to get around it. I personally find it tedious only in the ridiculously large battles against hundreds of weak monsters, but I can definitely see where other people might want the combat to not be such a huge ordeal. Drop the tactical combat and it's a less interesting Wizardry/Might & Magic. There's a helper program called "Gold Box Companion" that acts as a wrapper and adds some extra gameplay features (built in access to journal entries, adding the "Fix" command to titles that didn't have it, mapping, etc.) There's also an option to have your party members auto-fight, but I don't trust it or use it.

You should replay Duke Nukem 3D. Holds up rather well, and has some similar source ports for higher res, etc.

I replayed Pool of Radiance recently and it held up surprisingly well. Combat can become a chore when you fight one million kobolds, but I still made it through.

Mine's tucked away in the basement where it can't cause the wife any distress Our living room has the wall-mounted 4K LCD and nice organization.

The NES versions of Ultima were acceptable enough in that they got me curious for the computer versions, so they're a win in that respect!

All the gameplay videos I've seen look ... slow? I seem to recall T2K being faster and more hectic.

NES was not limited to platformers in the slightest. There were titles like Solar Jetman, R.C. Pro-Am, Snake Rattle 'n Roll, Punch-Out, none of which fall into the platformer stereotype. We couldn't afford a computer when I was a kid, but I still managed to discover adventure and strategy games via my NES (Maniac Mansion, Romance of the Three Kingdoms.) PCs were better for those type of games, but the NES ports weren't awful. Meanwhile, I'm struggling to think of contemporary action games, even on computers, that had the depth of content that a game like Castlevania III or Ninja Gaiden had. RPGs were an interesting sticking point: Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior) was an intentional nod to the likes of Ultima & Wizardry, but also defined the console RPG vs the computer RPG. Some PC to NES RPG ports were excellent (Wizardry), others were fair-to-middling (Ultima III & IV). The console style of RPG seemed better received in my area, with friends viewing Ultima as "Dragon Warrior but confusing and with food." I stuck with Ultima and got heavily into it on PCs, but I still enjoyed the likes of Final Fantasy.

Forgot to mention: I think the gog.com forums are pretty lively for gold box games - particularly since GOG bought the distribution rights a couple years ago.

FRUA forums are the best I can think of off-hand... http://ua.reonis.com/ I'd also recommend visiting crpgaddict's blog and checking out his reviews. They're always good fun. http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2011/05/game-57-pool-of-radiance-1988.html

I grew up on the Atari 2600, but jumped ship to the NES as soon as it was released and quickly wasted most of my childhood in front of one. A huge chunk of my life has been spent playing Street Fighter and its descendants. All of these are left-hand controller, right hand buttons. I still play games today, and everything modern is the same way. But when I go to the local arcade and visit my old regular, Ms. Pac-Man, I still instinctively play with my right hand. I don't even think about it. I guess it's the lack of buttons. How about you folks: Despite decades of learning to play "left-handed" do you find yourselves switching it up in the arcade when it's possible?

Finally got a TV stand for my Trinitron, everything's working great. Unfortunately - the Trinitron has a minor scratch. You can't notice it 98% of the time, but my mind is utterly fixated on it. I've heard that the best you can do for CRT scratches is the filler stuff from eyeglass repair kits. Anybody have any experience with that?

I've looked at it, and waffled on picking one up. I've heard excellent things about it, but that's also money that I could instead use to pick up real hardware.

Son got a Switch for Christmas. When he's not playing a Mario or Lego game, I'm using it for indie games (mostly.) Most of them are retro-styled. Blaster Master Zero Remake of the NES classic. Part of the "enhanced" retro style of modern games that look 8-bit, but upon further investigation, clearly do things that a real 8-bit system couldn't handle. Quality title - my main gripe was that the difficulty was too low. The original Blaster Master was brutal - this one was far too easy. Mighty Gunvolt Burst After Capcom decided to stop making Mega Man games, his creator went on to make Mighty No. 9 (which was poorly received) while the people who worked on the Mega Man Zero games went on to make Gunvolt. This is a crossover between those series done in 8-bit style. Basically a Mega Man clone except for a highly customizable weapon system. So customizable in fact, that the customizations become mostly meaningless once you realize how to make the most ridiculously powerful weapons you can. Difficult is somewhat inconsistent, but it's an otherwise enjoyable (and cheap!) couple evenings of play. Retro City Rampage This was originally a proof of concept for a Grand Theft Auto (in the style of 1 & 2, not 3 and later) game for NES. Filled to the brim with retrogaming and pop-culture references. I had a lot of fun stealing the van from TMNT for the NES and plowing through civilians. There are a handful of segments that steal mechanics from other classic games, and it feels like a missed opportunity that there weren't more of these. By the end, it felt more like work than fun to finish the game, but was overall enjoyable. Includes the NES proof-of-concept as a bonus feature. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Technically neither classic nor retro, this game nonetheless instilled in me the sense of wonder and exploration that I felt as a child when I first played the original Zelda. There's a reason practically every place that gives gaming awards gave it game of the year. Even the jaded grognards among us (which I frequently am) need to give it a try. It's the only game I've logged 70+ hours on in over a decade, and it never felt like it was dragging. And apparently the Wii U version is just as good as the Switch version, so you might not even need to buy a Switch.

Some weirdness to be aware of which I discovered on my Vizio 4K LCD. Different HDMI ports may have different input lag. Weird, I know. I picked up my TV specifically because it had excellent input lag but I found out that it's only one HDMI input that has that minimal lag. So it might be worth researching your particular TV to see if that's true, or even just switching around ports.

Then Humble Bundle started offering Steam keys and well... According to this I've played less than half the games I own. https://steamdb.info/calculator/76561197960282507

After trying off-and-on to get my Retropie working on a CRT, I found that somebody made some custom shaders that make it work *much* better. https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/11628/240p-and-mame-scaling Basically - the Retropie can do 240p over composite if you have the right cable (like a Zune AV cable). But since it can't do all the custom timings and so on, stuff like SNES games end up with either the wrong aspect ratio (because they run at 256x224) or bad scrolling artifacts (from trying to scale that 256 pixels to 320x240.) The directions on here include the shaders that cleaned up all of those scrolling artifacts and make it look ... well, about as good as you'd expect a classic game system running on composite to look. Haven't gotten to try it on my 27" Trinitron yet to see if it stays acceptable, but I think it'll work well enough to tide me over until I can get the actual systems.

How well do these work on CRTs? Picked up a circa 2003 Trinitron with component inputs, and I'm looking at whether it's worth the extra cost vs. going for s-video.

So, we're not counting Steam sales here are we? Because more than once I've tried to impulse buy something on sale only to realize I already bought it and have yet to play it...

I have two CRTs, a little 13 inch or so Trinitron as well as a 27 inch Trinitron I picked up yesterday. Moved into a house last year, and I believe I've already identified a corner of the basement that will become my retrogaming nook. I've been playing with getting composite output on my Retropie and it actually looks pretty nice on the smaller one. Once I bring the big CRT inside I'll move the Pi over. Long term plan is to hook up actual game systems to it and phase out the Pi. Already have a 5200 on which I'm awaiting the parts to do a power mod, and I've been keeping an eye out for a cheap Genesis/Megadrive. Ironically - I grew up playing the hell out of my NES and SNES and have next to no interest in picking either back up for my retro collection. It's partially the price, and partially that I'm eager to play the games I missed out on.