The UKFF Retro Gaming Thread

[Jazzy G]

I played so much Lotus III on my Amiga, mostly with my best friend at the time in two player mode. If memory serves there are two modes for the racing: One is the fuel/position based one, and the other is more arcade-style timed checkpoint racing over a diferent set of courses, some laps, some a point to point race. The three cars are the Esprit (balanced), the Elan (slower, but better handling) and the M200 concept car. RECS was a great add-on as well, especially the way you could type random letters and words into the code box and it'd generate tracks for you based on the code. I agree that it would have been better if they'd been able to do sound and music at the same time.

[Tommy!]

Where's a good & safe site to get Civ 2 scenarios these days? I tried Civ Fanatics but I was getting security warnings so didn't chance it.

[BigJag]

15 hours ago, FelatioLips said:

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!

 

 

I fondly remember playing Lotus 1 and 2 on the Amiga. Somehow I seem to have completely missed Lotus 3. Although I do vaguely remember the RECS track creator. I may have read about that in a magazine. Lotus 3 looks to be a greatest hits compilation of the first two games. They've used the presentation from Lotus 1 and the in game seems to be more Lotus 2. Which is pretty much exactly how I would have done it. Lotus 1 had gorgeous character models, loading screens, and menus. Whereas Lotus 2 had the more developed game engine with a more arcade looking graphics style. Fun times.

[FLips]

Had a go of the Medium Cup last night which was 10 races instead of 7. Got to experience the rain and fog levels, plus some other pretty fun ones including a snow level with a catchy little Winter Wonderland remix intro. I wouldn't say the races got considerably harder, but the tracks did. There was a few I finished in something like 3rd or 5th, but by the end I still came 1st overall.
I believe it was Track 8 that nearly killed me off though. I think it was 11 Laps at over 2km each. Took me about 15 minutes. A true test of endurance.

[Jazzy G]

I like that it gave you different control options, so you could have the classic "hold up on the joystick to accelerate down to brake, and press fire to change gears), or you could hold fire to accelerate with up and down as the gear changes. 

 

Has anybody got any idea how I can remap the L2 & R2 buttons on my Fighting Commander to actually e buttons on PC rather than them being recognised as triggers?

Edited April 28, 2023 by jazzygeofferz

[Jazzy G]

Pardon my double posting. I went to the Level Up exhibition at the Museum Of Science & Industry this afternoon. It was really good. Plenty of classic, and more modern games there. I almost just spent the whole afternoons playing Lemmings on the Amiga 500, but I didn't. I played a few other things as well. Gran Turismo, Crazy Taxi, Street Fighter 2, Bombjack. There was a LOT of stuff there. I might try and have another crack at it on a weekday during term time. There was a nice section a out Manchester based de elooers and publishers including, but not limited to TT Games (formerly Traveller's Tales that do the Lego games), and Océan (represented by Jurassic Park on the SNES.

In the absence of a Commodore 64 they had one of the "The C64" mini consoles, and even one of those old Grandstand/Binatone pong consoles like my mum used to have when I was a wee 'un. Cracking afternoon out. Much time was spent just talking and  watching up with my friend while we watched their son playing Splatoon on Wii U. It pissed down as soon as we left, so I was soaking wet the whole way home. Well worth a look if you're in Manchester. £8 in for adults, £6 for children and concessions. Cheaper than Arcade Club. 

[BigJag]

On 4/24/2023 at 10:31 PM, Merzbow said:

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.

www.biminghamgamingmarket.com

That's the web link for the event on the 21st. Looking forward to it. I'll be hoping to speak to some people about MAME and Light gun setups.

[Merzbow]

Limited Run Games' new engine is being used to bring a few classics to modern consoles and PC, among them Tomba, the Gex Trilogy and the original Clock Tower are coming out!

I'm curious about what they do with Clock Tower, if it'll just be a new translation or maybe incorporate some other mods like allowing mouse support.

[RedRooster]

9 hours ago, Merzbow said:

Limited Run Games' new engine is being used to bring a few classics to modern consoles and PC, among them Tomba, the Gex Trilogy and the original Clock Tower are coming out!

I'm curious about what they do with Clock Tower, if it'll just be a new translation or maybe incorporate some other mods like allowing mouse support.

Ah that’s fun, I remember seeing a video demo for the original Gex on the 3DO and being desperate to play it. I have Tombi on the Vita as a PlayStation Classic, but I’d be interested in playing it again and potentially its sequel, if that’s on the horizon.

I’ve never played Clock Tower, but that definitely intrigues me.

[Merzbow]

35 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

I’ve never played Clock Tower, but that definitely intrigues me.

It's a flawed and often aggravating game but it nails the atmosphere with heavy Dario Argento influences. The main character Jennifer even used a complete rip-off of Jennifer Connelly's face.

[Arch Stanton]

I've noticed that games released after this thread was first created could now realistically be considered for discussion in here. That's pretty scary!

Anyway, I've seen that Antstream Arcade is now coming to Xbox. Looks very tempting to sign for. Anyone used it on PC and have any thoughts on it? I often find that my patience runs out extremely quickly with retro gaming once the novelty of nostalgia wears off, but think there's a decent enough library to go at there to keep me interested at least long enough to get my money's worth for a year.

https://www.antstream.com/

[FLips]

On 7/13/2023 at 9:01 AM, Merzbow said:

It's a flawed and often aggravating game but it nails the atmosphere with heavy Dario Argento influences. The main character Jennifer even used a complete rip-off of Jennifer Connelly's face.

Yeah Clock Tower is a little clunky to play, it would be a dream with mouse control but not sure it ever got it?

That being said you’re spot on about the atmosphere. It’s aged very well because the core horror (for the most part) is basic hiding from a bloke with a huge pair of scissors so regardless of when you play it, the musical sting and him wandering into a room while you cower under the bed is still pant shitting.

[Merzbow]

46 minutes ago, FelatioLips said:

mouse control but not sure it ever got it?

Both PS1 and PC ports have it, and it's recently been modded to use the SNES mouse through a patch,

[Merzbow]

The UKFF's real heel hero has fucked himself proper now, tl;dr his own witnesses are outing him as a liar and his lawyers are super dodgy.

 

[SuperBacon]

These nerds have ranked every single Dreamcast game that was ever released.

https://hard-drive.net/hd/list/we-played-and-ranked-every-single-dreamcast-game/

If you can't be arsed to read through all of them and want to know the top 3, they are

Spoiler

3.) Sonic Adventure 2

2.) Soul Calibur

1.) Jet Grind Radio

They also did one for the N64.

https://hard-drive.net/hd/video-games/we-played-and-ranked-every-single-n64-game/

Enjoy.