youxia

I disagree. The "golden age" was characterised by several key factors which are missing today. There was endless innovation and risk-taking present in AAA gaming. You owned your games and could do with them as you please. The DLC/microtransction model which totally affects game design was unknown. These were real things which we really could use in modern gaming, not some nostalgia-affected memories. The great promise which was there back in the day fizzled out and has mostly been substituded by safe and rather boring status quo. I'd still much rather play Spellcasting 101 than some modern "adventure", since the design template is now by default so full of hand-holding and death-aversion that it eliminates any real challenge or motivation to play, for me at least. When I have to mod GTA V, game mostly about car chases to make crashes actually cause some meaningful damage, you know something's not right. In the assorted Deus Exs or Witchers you now just follow the arrows/markers, get through some rudimentary combat and watch cutscenes. Apparently gamers do want "narrative experiences" which are a poor substitute for real gameplay. Of course, I am generalising and there exceptions from the rule, but proportions compared to the olden times have changed, without a doubt. It's a bit sad to read about that on a major retro-gaming forum, especially from peple who specialize in gaming history. Fair enough, I guess, as long as one remembers that it's not some universal truth but a personal opinion. Sure thing, tastes do sometimes change with age. I'm kinda glad mine did not though (and I'd still much rather watch a Taxi Driver or a Die Hard than their modern equivalent - if there are any) Perspective is key as well: some kids today still can not afford everything and swap warez with pals, unlike middle aged men with substantial incomes.

Rob Wyatt = Keyser Soze?

Malpass Pro - 87,240 I'm addicted to Pro now, it's great. Figured out a tactic: concentrate more on survival than saving the mines: they respawn every round. You get extra lifes later on: I think after 40 and 80k. Later rounds have some crazy stuff like force fields appearing. Great game, it's like a Defender pre-school

108,540 Hint: do not relax after the 3rd boss expecting some cute bonus round (like I did). Nasty surprise there...

What if Flojomojo has already suggested that?

1. Threshold - infuriatingly addictive, genius design 2. Marauder - love it, went over 100k yesterday, things get pretty mad later 3. Malpass the Asteroid Mines - Defender4lyfe 4. Lunar Leeper - bizzare and devious 5. Choplifter - B/W gfx is so cute, fastest Choplifter ever 6. Inter Galleon Battle - quite amusing 7. Hard Hat Mack - fave at first, bit cooler now 8. Kult - would be higher if the ship didn't steer like a concrete piano 9. Galactic Patrol - not sure how to play it yet 10. Jawbreaker 1 - I actually don't like PacMan or its clones, FITE ME! Night Mission Pinball - not played yet

They're still on archive.org.

Are we going to get some royalties from that book/article/listicle/blog you're writing and we're contributing to? Or perhaps a virtual bottle of wine for helping out with the school paper/assignment? Whatever it is, the deadline must be tight.

These Alternate Reality: The Videogames threads could actually be fun, if only the OPs weren't usually so po-faced and uber-combative, as if it these were some life & death matters and their solution the only true one. And the "proofs" are as much valid as those from Ancient Astronauts on "History" Channel. Hey, Spyro The Dragon sold a lot of copies so of course "western games" (lol) would save Saturn! How can you not see that? The other thing is the fixation on hardware specs. Oh, so X could render 7.3 more pixels per second than Y and also its sprites were less "fuzzy" (WTF), ergo X should've taken over the world if only the CEO was OP. But in reality, as any fule kno, hardware's power is only one of the factors behind a platform's success. If it wasn't, ZX Spectrum/PSX/Wii/Switch wouldn't shift a unit and we all would be playing on XNeoGeoStations in 2018.

What Atari machine and system (PAL/NTSC) are you running it on? I might try to replicate that, though atm I'm limited only to NTSC. Also, I can't start a game in Night Mission. The attract mode is running, but pressing Q does nothing. It's weird, since Q works in other games.

If this was early 80's I'd take any of them and was extremely grateful to Santa. And I don't get how this new PC is supposed to be a downer? Back then it'd be quite a rig.

Has anybody seen Atari Pogostick and JaguarVision in the same room together?

There's no FACTUAL mascots for Sony and MS. Read about it for a bit and it's clear that it's just a mish-mash: eg Blinx was the FACTUAL mascot for MS but since everybody pissed on this, Master Chief is an UNFACTUAL mascot (yes! I was wrong! Master Chief apparently is a "mascot". And I'm glad that I never hanged out with folk who'd use such terminology, so pardon my ignorance). Seeing as the above is a FACT, it does not matter if Sony actually avertised Jak as the mascot since if you look it up, nobody can agree on who the Sony mascot is, and nobody seems to care much. In one poll I saw, Sly Cooper got more votes than Jak. Make out of it what you wish. That's all irrelevant anyway since the problem with this (and other) threads is not as much related to facts but the attitude you apply to the discusssion about them. I'm also a new guy, fairly argumentative one to boot and had my share of spats with the locals, but these are related mostly to opinions, not facts, since thye're a pretty knowledgeable bunch. And I would definitely not call them "idiots", "morons" or "5 year olds". That's what someone coming from NeoGAF would do though.

He's about as anti-"mascot" as it gets. Even Cortana. I see the OP is trying hard to find one per system but it just made me cringe a bit, should have gone with "Which system selling game...". Sony & MS simply did not have any mascots. Sunshine was a classic, Jak quite awesome, but Halo was undeniably the most innovative (and fun for a FPS fan like me) game in a long time. If you've played it on Legendary that is, since that mode cranked the AI up to 11 and transformed the whole game into an incredible SP survival sandbox. It was ahead of its time, a truly next-gen title - well worthy the coveted 10/10 from teh Edge. In fact I don't think it has been matched to this day in the SP FPS realm (STALKER coming the closest) since the devs found out it's so much easier and profitable to substitute designing complex AI-centered gameplay with multiplayer..

In Night Mission, do you start the game by pressing Q? In Malpass, do you also get jerky movement (mostly enemies)? I'm trying to figure if this is how the game is, emulator settings or maybe NTSC/PAL malarkey.

This is a good example of why this subject is best approached on personal basis without trying for vast generalizations. If the logical way of organising feels like straitjacket to you, than it's fine, interesting even - but as somebody who've spent decades hanging out with rom-hoarders, I can assure you most people do stick with the un-organic, A-Z/by system, boring way. So it's not really a proof of any perceived digital advantage and even if it was it would be quite a laboured one. It's besides the point anyway, I already said both sides have pros and cons, and that my way is the mixed one. Obviously it's more convenient to sort and handle digital collections. But for some people who have time, space and derive pleasure from it, such operations are not a problem and do not come with any mental baggage - to the contrary, even when it comes to a basement-sized collections.

I wouldn't agree. These are real things with real value, with added bonus of ownership, artwork, perhaps nostalgia - for those who like this kind of thing. Something that a bunch of zeroes & ones that constitutes a "rom" lacks. I see this "total purging" attitude - quite popular nowadays, it is the same with other media - as the other end of the spectrum, a bit akin to hoarding. Seems maybe some collectors had this cathartic moment and "liberated" themselves, while others got their heads turned by the digital-only drive. I prefer to stay somewhere in the middle: do have terabytes on HDDs but also some shelves filled up. It's nice to have things It always amuses me a bit to read the tales of people who got rid of all those records/games/films/books, and are awed by the newfound space. But what will do they do with it? Probably put more things in there, or maybe it goes along with the modern "minimalistic & clean" fad. Sure, if it works for you, no problem - it's just there's probably no need to take that extra step and denigrate the other way. They both have their pros and cons.

Modern heresy This is one of the main reasons people still keep CRTs around. Super-sharpness applied to retro games looks totally unnatural to me and old TV's intrinsic AA was always a blessing. Of course, I'm not saying that fuzz & other scaling artifacts are a good thing.

4:3 games on a 32:9 monitor could look interesting

Jeez, my dude...another one? You're fighting on too many fronts. Time to read some Sun Tzu or play a Total War game.

Nice I'd like one with those guys from Threshold's level 2. Quite possibly most infuriating and devious videogame enemy ever.

When I read such crazy talk I begin to understand how the current pcmasterrace have become so snobbish and insufferable. There are reasons, it seems.