The UKFF Retro Gaming Thread

[SuperBacon]

Thought this would be of interest to some of you. Saw it on a football kit thing I follow.

I don't remember Goalstorm, and I think we played Fifa exclusively up until Pro Ev 2, and then that series really took over.

I think Pro Ev 3 is the pinnacle (Collina on the cover!) but by the time we were playing on the PS2, with tournaments every Friday night. Great days.

[johnnyboy]

2 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

I think Pro Ev 3 is the pinnacle (Collina on the cover!) but by the time we were playing on the PS2, with tournaments every Friday night. Great days.

Pro Evo 3 took 3 long years to come out from the PS2's release so for a fair while the PS1 release of Pro Evo 2 was the best football game on the PS2.

[SuperBacon]

14 minutes ago, johnnyboy said:

Pro Evo 3 took 3 long years to come out from the PS2's release so for a fair while the PS1 release of Pro Evo 2 was the best football game on the PS2.

Just looked up the date of the Pro Evo 3 date and unlocked a core memory that we all took the day off college to buy it and play all day.

It won't surprise you to learn I didn't finish college.

[TildeGuy~!]

I still remember the day I picked up Pro Evo 4 on release day with my mate and took it back to my house.

We booted it up and began our first game, I kicked off with Eidur Gudjohnsen ran through his whole team and scored, he got up celebrated the goal with me and then reset the console.

[FLips]

Went touring the local CEXs and game shops with a mate today and came away with some decent stuff.

The first CEX we went into had Super Turrican on the NES for £22 which is an absolute steal as online it's currently between £49-75.
It's a NES exclusive and a PAL exclusive game which I coincidentally only even found out about earlier this week and there it was. It's like fate.
Plays great, looks decent for a NES game and sounds fab too, with the soundtrack being made up of remixes or re-imagined tracks from Turrican 1 and 2. It was really clever though and took "Traps" and "The Wall" from Turrican 2 and just straight ported them across. Love it.

It keeps all the mechanics you want from Turrican. Fast paced run and gun action, exploration is encouraged, and even adds a few bits like the ability to run and difficulty options.

If you want to see how it looks in action here's a playthrough.

I picked up NBA Jam on the SNES while I was there for a fiver too, which is a decent price for that as well. I'm not into basketball but I had good fun on it when we all went to the arcade in Leeds so thought for a fiver it'd be a decent pick up and play multiplayer game in case nobody wants to play Clay Fighter with me. Boomshakalaka.

I also got Donkey Kong '94 for the Game Boy from a Cash Converters for £9.99, which is well below current asking price for a great game. It gets an exclusive arcade cabinet design and full colour on my Super Game Boy so that's really nice to play on the telly.

We went to a shop that was mad brick-a-brack mostly full of vinyl records but also had games and DVDs. It was like the wild west. They had filled the window with retro stuff, mostly Master System, Mega Drive and Gameboy Advance/DS but it must have been there for fucking years because it had been drained of all life by the sun and was all monochrome. An absolute waste.
The games inside didn't fare much better, all mixed together and randomly dumped. Glass cabinets displaying what you would think would be rarer items but it was stuff like copies of Cheggers Party Games that had fell over face down or battered Halo 2 on the original Xbox. I have no idea at all what the deal was with that shop.
In a mad stroke of luck though on the way out as we walked past the window again, I saw a Wii RGB cable I was looking for just dumped in the window at the bottom. No label, no price. I went back in and said "how much for the Wii scart cable in the window?" and he looked and went "It's not a scart cable". Right ok but how much is it?
He looked it over for a few seconds and went "I dunno. Couple of quid?". I give him a fiver and just left.

So now my Wii U is set up on the CRT. It looks surprisingly good after a bit of tinkering with the settings. Obviously doesn't look as good as it would on a HD telly but it's crisp and plays fine. The Wii games will look really good on it though because they weren't made for HD. I have a digital copy of Mario Galaxy 2 I'll give a blast some day.

Edited March 2 by FLips

[FLips]

Sorted (almost) a PS1.

Found a cheap modded one for sale nearby so drove 20 minutes out for it. Only £20 so worth a go.
It's a SCPH1001 Revision model, so basically the first revision after the launch models. We're talking 1995-1997. The lasers are basically paper mache and the seller did warn me of that as well when we tested it at his house.
I got it home and my plan to swap my 7502 laser into the 1001 hit a few roadblocks. The optical drives are very very slightly different so long story short to get it to fit I had to snap the plastic legs off it with a pair of pliers and then go to my Mam's to borrow a screwdriver from her glasses repair kit to swap the plastic covers between the two lasers.
I finally get the laser swapped over and it works (though with the age of it, it's chugging along a bit even with the newer laser) and the mod chip turns out to be as old as the console because it's one of the older ones that runs NTSC in black and white.
So I've ordered a cheap RGB Scart cable off Amazon to come tomorrow and reassuringly the reviews outright mention that they got it to run a modded PS1 in colour for NTSC games so hopefully that should be the end of it.

The original guide I used to get my 7502 model that named that the best one to have names a 1001 Revision with a refurbished laser and RGB Scart as the 2nd best way to play PS1 so that's filled me with hope that tomorrow when the cable arrives I should be roughly back to where I started.

---

In other news I completed Super Turrican on the NES. I could get as far as 3-2 without cheats but the NES version is brutal even on easier difficulty as it has no checkpoints so each death sends you right back to the start of the level. Needless to say I found an invincibility cheat very quickly and used that to finish it. No earthly idea how anyone is meant to complete it legit.

I've been playing a bit of Super Mario Galaxy 2 on the Wii U and it looks nice on the CRT as expected. That weird Wii blurriness is completely gone, the colours are really sharp. My plan was to mod my Wii U but it turns out modding a Wii is a lot easier with no chance of bricking it, so that's my plan now. Find a cheap Wii and mod it to play Wii and Gamecube natively and leave my Wii U as is, as honestly there's not much I'd want to play on the Wii U anyway that I either don't already have or that isn't re-released on Switch.

[BigJag]

The Guardian posted this article today.

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2024/mar/18/trocadero-london-arcade-segaworld-funland-portal-troc

[DavidB6937]

25 minutes ago, BigJag said:

The Guardian posted this article today.

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2024/mar/18/trocadero-london-arcade-segaworld-funland-portal-troc

If there was ever an article written for me. Thanks for sharing

[FLips]

I got a cheap Wii as planned and fell down a huge retro rabbithole.

My initial plan as previously mentioned was to get a Wii for cheap (£35 in the end) and mod it to play Wii and Gamecube natively on. It took less than an hour to get the mod working, very easy to do with just an SD card and very little faff. I had issues with the games including the classic of getting NTSC roms without thinking and ending up with a black and white image, and old fan favourite getting games in the wrong format. Eventually though it was all up and running and let me be the first to tell you how good it all looks on the old CRT I'm sure you're all sick of hearing about. I had a mate round and Mario Kart Double Dash looked so good he asked if I upscaled it.

After spending the morning/afternoon playing various Wii  games including:

Disaster: Day of Crisis (a game former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime hated so much he cancelled the North American release of it)
It's not actually that bad. It's a light gun shooter with 3D roaming between shoot-outs where you look for survivors of disasters and rescue/heal them. It's very arcadey and it has dozens of different game mechanics for rescues, driving, shooting, and action sequences almost like mini-games. One might ask you to spray water on a survivor's wounds to clean them and then turn the control stick to bandage them, another has you waggling the Wiimotes to run away from lava. It's nonsense and good fun. Not sure why Reggie hates it.

Castlevania Judgement which is a 3D arena fighter like Power Stone. It got panned at release and I can see why, we never got much fun out of it. Camera is awful, roster is small and the gameplay is very basic with little in the way of moves. We had a few fights and moved on.

SPRay a NTSC exclusive (one of the sites I use for roms somehow converts roms into PAL so they run correctly) platformer where you have an angel and devil on your shoulder and one sprays water and one vomits, and you use the two to solve different puzzles like putting fires out or covering symbols to match puzzles and open doors. It feels a little bit Zelda dungeon-lite in the puzzle execution but overall there's not much going on with it. It's so unknown that it doesn't even have an IMDB page.

and Gamecube games:

Mario Kart Double Dash which if you saw my entry in RedRooster's greatest games of all time thread is in my top 10. Still great fun, especially with two of us. Birdo kept fucking us over, in one case knocking my mate off 1st Place by a single point in the last race of the cup.

Legends of Wrestling 1 and 2 which were shite back then and even worse now. I'll package them both together as other than some presentation upgrades in 2 (including an opening FMV to Saliva's "Superstar" and playing "Headstrong" by Trapt over our opening bout which popped us both a bit) they're the same game. Nobody looks like anybody, they're all blobular chunks with no discernable features and you can only really tell some wrestlers apart by their attire. The entrances are awful in 1 but in 2 a little better with some licensed music in there as well. The main issue with them is that for as much as 2 improves in terms of features and content, the gameplay remains the same. Clunky, weirdly timed with no variation. Bad all over.

Kirby Air Ride which is a Kirby racer that used to be bargain bin shite you couldn't give away back in the Gamestation days but now is worth over £300 if you want the disc. It's very bare bones and basic. You auto-accelerate and then press A to touch the ground to drift or hit boost pads. It's like something you'd play on a mobile now. Don't rate it.

Super Mario Sunshine Looks gorgeous and bright, still an overlooked classic. Something I'll definitely be up for playing fully through in time.

All in all though the Wii/Gamecube side of things was a huge success. The games look great and have completely lost that weird blur that I remember from previous emulation or ports. Maybe it's the CRT or maybe it's because they're on proper hardware, I'm not sure. Either way I'm really happy with it and can't wait to deep dive the library I have.

It was after dinner my mate started asking about my plans for the Mega Drive because as I'd mentioned on here my plan was to get the console and an Everdrive cartridge to put roms on. It turns out the Wii-specific emulator runs Mega Drive better than anything other than having original hardware with a perfect setup and is barely noticeable. He drove round to his house to get his harddrive full of roms and 5 minutes later my Wii was packed with Mega Drive games. It runs MD and CD but not 32X which is a bit of a bummer but also not really.
Online folks were right about the emulation too, it all looks and plays great, even compared to when I've been playing on PC for the Mega Drive thread (which I'll get back to, I've just been busy/lazy).

So after installing that we played a few Mega Drive bits too:

Alien Storm fun 2 player beat-em-up with a mechanic in the 1st person sections where you could shoot and steal each others powerups which had us cracking up. We got maybe 6 or 7 stages in and got Game Over after I died with a load of spare energy I'd stole and left him to fight the boss with none. If you want 2 player arcade action you can always trust Sega. Great stuff.

The Terminator We accidentally started in normal mode where you don't start with a gun which was intense, but after I did the first stage with 0 seconds left on the clock we took turns each level by level and finished it. Still a great game,

The Terminator CD If the MD Terminator isn't the best Terminator game then this is. Fast-paced run and gun action with grainy FMV cutscenes and CD quality but mostly ill-fitting music. Looks great, plays great and has a decent balance of difficulty. We got to the very last stage and got a game over. Hasta La Vista, baby.

Mega Bomberman one of my mate's favourites of all time. He put it on while I was cooking us all a spag bol and watching the Orioles game so he was blasting away at that. I swooped in to do Stage 2 and nearly lost all our lives. I promptly backed down and went back to the cooking and he then went on to have what he called " the best run of my life" as he made it through the entire thing without dying once (my deaths not included). I do like the game, I'm just shit at it.

Glad to have the Sega on there. Should be a blast to experience them all (close to) properly again and may use it for the rest of my Mega Drive thread stuff.

After we finished that off and had tea he finished his run through PS1 classic Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero which last time he played round here bricked my console. Now I have an up and running PS1 again he tried his luck and thankfully finished the bloody thing. Absolute fever dream of a game.

Then the cherry on the top came when I discovered there's a made-for-Wii Amiga emulator which was a doddle to install thanks to this guide -

So after installing that I've been playing Amiga on the CRT with a speaker setup and I'm in love with it. I don't know why I like the Amiga so much as I've never owned one or played one round anyone's house or anything. Looks and sounds as brilliant as you'd expect and they manage to pack every control option you'd need into a sideways held Wiimote including a virtual keyboard and motion control mouse pointer. Excellent bit of kit.

Played a few bits this morning and spent some time adding some missing games I fancied playing.

Chuck Rock Still a banger of a theme. Don't know if it's an option I accidentally picked but it played the theme all the way through the levels as well. Didn't make much difference as I was made extinct on the second level.

Turrican 2 Looks and sounds brilliant. Still not a huge fan of the "up to jump" controls but don't want to rock the boat too much with the emulation and controls. Still a rock hard game but a blast to play and you can't fault the music at all.

Magic Pockets Still up there as one of the coolest most 90s videogame intros. Gameplay is enjoyable but difficult enemy placement makes deaths a little too easy.

Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge Can't think of another classic racing game as good as this other than maybe OutRun. Smooth controls, excellent stage variation and an all-time soundtrack to drive to.

----

So yeah I'm knees deep in Wii/Gamecube/Sega/Amiga stuff at the minute. Had a really fun day with my wife and best mate hammering through a load of it and testing stuff out. I've been ill for the last week and really busy with work and other personal matters so it was nice to finally have a day where I felt good and sat morning to night with good weather, good company and good games.

[Merzbow]

Whichever loader you're using should have a force pal/ntsc option, too, iirc. If you ever find yourself with a Yank game that's still black and white.

[FLips]

24 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

Whichever loader you're using should have a force pal/ntsc option, too, iirc. If you ever find yourself with a Yank game that's still black and white.

Oh does that sort it? I thought it was to do with the colours running through the composite into the hardware? I'll have a try thanks.
The Wii/GC had a "Force Progressive" which people were recommending before I downloaded the same roms in PAL but that just made my screen black.

[Merzbow]

31 minutes ago, FLips said:

Oh does that sort it? I thought it was to do with the colours running through the composite into the hardware? I'll have a try thanks.
The Wii/GC had a "Force Progressive" which people were recommending before I downloaded the same roms in PAL but that just made my screen black.

It should do, although I remember that not all games play well with the setting. It's a good backup way of doing things though.

[Jazzy G]

Lotus 3 is a banger I played it loads on Amiga. Kim Justice has a video out about Hugo The Troll which looks interesting. 

@FLipsis the save battery in the NBA Jam cartridge alright? I was gutted when I dug out my Megadrive copy of TE and it'd gone. Great game. I also love DK 94 on my 3DS, in spite of it only being the Game boy ROM. Nintendo missed a trick there by not having a Super Game Boy option with their original Gameboy games. 

[FLips]

1 hour ago, Jazzy G said:

Lotus 3 is a banger I played it loads on Amiga. Kim Justice has a video out about Hugo The Troll which looks interesting. 

@FLipsis the save battery in the NBA Jam cartridge alright? I was gutted when I dug out my Megadrive copy of TE and it'd gone. Great game. I also love DK 94 on my 3DS, in spite of it only being the Game boy ROM. Nintendo missed a trick there by not having a Super Game Boy option with their original Gameboy games. 

I’m not sure about NBA Jam as I haven’t played it enough yet to notice!

I know the battery ran out on my copy of Sim City though which let me tell you isn’t a game you want a battery dying for.

[hallicks]

Are they like the Gameboy carts that just have a C battery in them that you can replace after prising it open?