The UKFF Retro Gaming Thread

[Jazzy G]

You can see the Space Harrier influences there. Presumably he's on the outs with Sega, otherwise I reckon this'd be called Space Harrier as well. So many of the enemies are just straight from that game. I wonder whether it'll get ported elsewhere in time, because I'd love to give it a crack. Space Harrier is one of my favourites, So many memories of walking around in Blackpool as a kid and just hearing "Welcome to the Fantasy Zone! Get Ready!" and that classic death sound in almost every arcade. Might have to set up my Saturn and have a blast through tonight. I've got it on my Switch, but I need a big screen for it. The 3DS version by M2 was brilliant.

[Merzbow]

If I want to boot up Space Harrier I'll just play one of the Yakuza/Judgment games that has it in the arcade, it is a great game though.

Judgment even has the super rare Motor Raid, a cyberpunk racing game that's never been ported before.

[Jazzy G]

It's in Yakuza 0 isn't it? Along with Outrun, another absolute banger. 

[Merzbow]

Aye pretty sure it's in 6 and 7, too. I just bought Lost Judgment and think I'll be spending time playing the kinda shit Sonic Fighters.

[The King Of Swing]

The House of The Dead clone (forget the name of it) in the Judgment games is also a blast. 

[Jazzy G]

1 hour ago, Merzbow said:

Aye pretty sure it's in 6 and 7, too. I just bought Lost Judgment and think I'll be spending time playing the kinda shit Sonic Fighters.

Sonic The Fighters is fascinating. 

[Daaaaaad!]

Got a notification today from GamesConnection that they have HDMI adapters for GameCube available again. I've looked before and, while they're pricey, I'm still nonetheless very interested.

From what I can tell, the main candidates are the £80 CARBY adapter, which needs a battery, or the £120 GCHD MK-II HD Out Adapter, which is the only one with a review on the website.

Does anyone have any experience or advice about either? The GCHD I'd heard of before so that originally caught my eye, but I then read elsewhere that the CARBY's remote control was beneficial for some reason.

[Merzbow]

There's a retro game market in Birmingham at the Custard Factory next month on the 21st, I've been before when they held it in the college near by and outside of the million modded Gameboys and merch tat there's some really cool finds, especially weirder import stuff. I mostly just look for bootleg multicarts because they're always thrown in the bargain bins and I think they're weirdly cool.

[BigJag]

Thanks for the heads up on that. Which area of the Custard Factory will it be at?

[Merzbow]

No idea to be honest, I'd imagine it shouldn't be too difficult to find though. A decent place to have it though with an arcade and boardgame cafe right there, too.

[Version1.0]

Is Persona 4 old enough to be nostalgic? Playing it for the first time since 2012. It's glorious.

[Fog Dude]

8 hours ago, Version1.0 said:

Is Persona 4 old enough to be nostalgic? 

The original version of it was released on a console which came out 23 years ago, so I'd say yes at this point. 

[SuperBacon]

Never heard of this game.

BBC Archive is so good.

[westlondonmist]

14 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Never heard of this game.

BBC Archive is so good.

Really? It was famous at the time. I have it on Switch and it's fun but very hard, and it should be easier. 

Someone took it, edited it into a movie and put on youtube

 

That's worth a watch, was a similar game Double Switch which stars Corey Haim and Debbie Harry, that's up as a film too. 

[FLips]

Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge

This one has always been on my radar due to having heard the soundtrack a million times when I had it running on the display Amiga back at my old work, but I never got round to playing it. What a mistake that was!

Everything about this game is fantastic. It looks beautiful, with some truly impressive stages that see you ducking in and out of tunnels in a starry nighttime cityscape, or carefully drifting around the rocky terrain of a cloudy cliffside. Each stage, even on Easy mode, have unique and game-altering hazards and effects. Stage 1 sees leafy shrubs blown across the road as the wind pushes your car sideways, whereas the final stage has road construction signs that divert you left and right into narrow paths to avoid smashing into them. It also has Outrun-style terrains that depending on their texture have your car control differently.
All this was just on the first 7 stages in the Easy Cup. The showcase demo for later stages show some gorgeous fog and rain weather effects too.

The soundtrack is up there as one of the best on the machine with some proper pumping, high octane radio tracks to play as you blast through the stages at top speeds. You may also recognise one of them from Zool, also by Gremlin. I guess the song was so good they had to have it in both!
While I would argue all (I think) 7 available tracks are top tier, it would have been nice to also have them alongside sound effects, which is an option you can pick instead of music but not as well as. If it could do both it would be the complete package.

Gameplay is near perfect for this type of arcade style racer. You get three cars to choose from, a red one, a yellow one and a green one. I don't know if there's a cheat or secret car or maybe the in-game graphics just don't match the menu colours, but I ended up racing as a white car?
Regardless, each car has it's own stats (as shown in the GIF above) so it adds decent variety if you want to change it up a bit.
The racing handles a lot like similar games, notably Outrun and Super Hang-On, with manual and automatic transmissions available. One thing this game has over both of them, and I say this as a huge fan of both, is because this wasn't made for Arcades it loses the cheap coin-op tricks the former two use. The time limit is replaced with a fuel meter that instead of being topped up at Checkpoints or running out if you don't play perfectly, can be refuelled by parking after each checkpoint and then racing back off once you're happy with the amount filled up.
The crashing too is brought to a console standard so instead of hitting rocks or walls blasting you into a wrecked heap as your time chugs down, the hazards lower your speed but only knock you around a bit meaning you might fall behind a bit but you can get right back into it.
Little quality of life improvements like this mean you can do a full cup run and never once feel like the game is there to have you topping up credits or replaying the same races over and over until you learn the track inside out. On my blind first play of Easy Cup, I finished 1st in 6/7 races and 3rd in the finale.

The only gripe I have about the gameplay is the AI seems unaffected by stage hazards, which is fine for the most part, but in Stage 7 with all the construction areas, the AI racers just drove and clipped right through them so it was only me having to weave in and out of diversions. They also seemed to be unaffected by crashes as if I hit them I'd slow down but they wouldn't, but they also never once bumped into the back of me.

I haven't personally had a go of them but there is also a track creator called RECS (Racing Environment Construction Set) and 2 Player Split Screen. I imagine if I had this as a kid, me and my Brother would have played both modes to death. I got V-Rally 2 on PS1 purely based on the fact there was a track creator they showed off on an episode of Big Breakfast, so this would have been right up my street.

The combination of tight controls, stunning and varied stages and one of the Amiga's very best soundtracks has this ranked right up there now as one of my favourites on the system. I'll definitely be going back to try the harder cups and as far as arcade racing simulators from this time, you won't get much better. I hear Lotus 1 and 2 are decent too so will give them a go at some point!