The UKFF Retro Gaming Thread

[RedTwoster]

Yeah, you can play it via Collection of Mana on most modern consoles. You can pick it up relatively cheaply on eBay, but unless you feel particularly strongly about owning a physical version, I'd suggest holding out for a sale on the digital store for whatever console you have/Steam. I picked it up for £13.99 on Switch, which I was pretty happy with. 

[Chris B]

3 hours ago, hallicks said:

Sorry for the double post, but I recently finished playing Portal for the first time (on the switch), which I think counts as retro as it was released in 2007. Such a ridiculously fun game. I only looked up a walkthrough on one level and instantly regretted it as it wasn’t even that hard, just my inbuilt millennial need for instant gratification became too strong in that moment. 

One of my absolute favourites. It's amazing that they got the story and character so well, considering it was a late addition - without GLaDOS, their early feedback was "this is great, but when do the training stages finish?"

[Jazzy G]

51 minutes ago, FLips said:

Yeah that’s the one with hack and slash Zelda style gameplay if I remember rightly. Back in the day I had the proper cart but sadly sold it. I’ll be looking into picking it up again soon but you can get the remakes on modern consoles I think.

I've seen there's that Collection Of Mana on Switch. May pop it on my wishlist and wait for a sale. 

[FLips]

2 minutes ago, Jazzy G said:

I've seen there's that Collection Of Mana on Switch. May pop it on my wishlist and wait for a sale. 

If it’s like the original you can play it 2 player as well which was pretty fun.

[Big Bully Busick]

So this week I returned to Camden CEX 

I've been thinking this for some time but finally embracing the fact that this generation of gaming has outgrown me

Despite the branch being pretty scarce when it came to stuff I was looking for, the newer systems titles esp PS5 do nothing for me. 

 

I'm definitely purchasing less on game hunts now and that's no bad thing really 

Me being more choosy with what I buy delays the inevitable space problem physical media takes up eventually 

Now after saying all that I did leave with a PS5 game which I saw on the counter when trading something in

It's a horror game and that's a genre I'll always love so makes no real difference to how I'm feeling towards the current generation of gaming 

 

 

 

 

[Ironic Indie Lad]

19 hours ago, FLips said:

If it’s like the original you can play it 2 player as well which was pretty fun.

Incredibly, I believe you can actually play with 3 players if you have a multitap. 

[RedTwoster]

11 hours ago, Big Bully Busick said:

I've been thinking this for some time but finally embracing the fact that this generation of gaming has outgrown me

Despite the branch being pretty scarce when it came to stuff I was looking for, the newer systems titles esp PS5 do nothing for me. 

It's a strange generation - maybe even a transitional one between a hybrid landscape, and a fully digital future. But even with that, it's so strange that at this stage in the generation you can step into a CEX and find more PS4 games than you do PS5 games, and it's not hugely different at stores like Smyth's too. The focus on live service games and the lack of compelling first party exclusives has me feeling a little disconnected too, at least from what Sony is offering. The Switch still gives me countless hours of joy, and I do like the look of some upcoming releases from Microsoft; but time will tell as to whether or not they meet my hopes. 

 

[FLips]

I was saying this to my mate yesterday when we were on about Concord. I’m finding myself less and less enthralled with newer generations of consoles outside of Nintendo. Sony has a few games I wouldn’t mind (Astrobot, FFVII) but wouldn’t lay down money for the console for them. My Xbox is purely for Gamepass, if it didn’t have that there’s next to zero exclusives I care about. My Switch gets dug out now and again but the console is in it’s final days and it’s hard to even get excited about a new Zelda on it when you know the next console is around the corner.

It’s because, especially in the case of PS5 and Xbox, common genres have never been so boring for me. Live service, open world crafting, battle passes, season passes, yearly releases. Even indie games are becoming more and more alike. I just can’t be arsed with any of it and I hate that it’s seeping it’s way into things like Animal Crossing and Zelda because it’s what’s popular now.

I’m finding myself playing older consoles and buying games for older consoles more and more often. When I do play modern stuff it’s either ports or remakes of older games.

[Merzbow]

I've been playing the old PC version of San Andreas recently, not that awful definitive edition..

Threw on a few mods that add in some of the PS2 elements that were weirdly missing from the more powerful PC port including that orange glow which looks genuinely lovely at high resolutions. Zero missions can get fucked with using a mouse though.. I just can't control that RC plane at all.

[DavidB6937]

Obviously I'm in a completely different stage of my life now to what I was when I was a kid, so my time is limited and I have to make more choices. But gaming is almost like TV and movies for me in that there's potentially too much of it now? I don't know if that argument even makes sense but I feel like when we were younger and there wasn't as much to choose from you had a far greater sense of people consuming the same things and that shared experience.

Quite often now things will release, have a bit of hype about them and then people have moved on so quickly. That's definitely how it feels with TV shows where there's something new every few days on Netflix and competitors.

Gaming is different of course but I do miss that sense of people playing the same stuff at the same time and that lasting for a while. I guess there are communities out there if you look but yeah it's just different isn't it.

[Devon Malcolm]

1 hour ago, DavidB6937 said:

Obviously I'm in a completely different stage of my life now to what I was when I was a kid, so my time is limited and I have to make more choices. But gaming is almost like TV and movies for me in that there's potentially too much of it now?

I've had access to Steam for about 5 months now and I'm still going through the catalogue and wishlisting stuff from all those years I wasn't gaming. Fuck knows how long it would take me if I had access to a Nintendo Switch too. There's too much of everything now but I don't see it as a negative, really, it's a lot more room to find something you like.

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, DavidB6937 said:

Obviously I'm in a completely different stage of my life now to what I was when I was a kid, so my time is limited and I have to make more choices. But gaming is almost like TV and movies for me in that there's potentially too much of it now? I don't know if that argument even makes sense but I feel like when we were younger and there wasn't as much to choose from you had a far greater sense of people consuming the same things and that shared experience.

Possibly true, and it's impossible to find the time to play everything that catches your eye. There are also a lot of quality titles that don't get the attention they deserve, because there's so much choice. But on the flip side, the thriving indie market has meant we've seen games that simply would not have existed in the mid-2000s as no one would have taken a chance on them. I love that. We also see dormant genres making a comeback, and developers trying their hands at refining high profile concepts. Take, for example, the monster catching genre. Competing with Pokemon is a risky proposition for most big budget developers, but the indie scene has allowed excellent games like Nexomon, Cassette Beasts and Coromon to exist and thrive. I love that. If you feel nostalgic for a PS1 or N64-era style platformer, it's dead easy to find a good, new one on the indie scene - same goes for a SNES-era style JRPG - there's lots of choice, and a lot of high quality options. 

I suppose it does affect shared experiences to an extent - but then, you have the From Software thread on here in which lots of us share our struggles through Elden Ring; and the other gaming threads in which we're trying (and discussing) our experiences of the same games in a lot of cases. Heck, I started playing Chrono Trigger because @FLips made me want to, and I'm going to play KOTOR based on @Ironic Indie Lad's enthusiasm; and also Mass Effect thanks to @LaGoosh talking it up. So, I suppose, shared experiences still exist - they just might not play out simultaneously, and we probably experience less of them with friends in person. 

[DavidB6937]

Yeah, it definitely has pros and cons. I think what you've said there @RedTwoster about things not getting the attention they deserve - I find that a lot with TV shows and movies now, mostly because so much is coming out that (a) isn't seen at the same time as people or (b) they've moved on the next week because they've binged it and there's something else. I guess gaming is quite different but the quantity and so many different ways of playing does have negatives too.

But yeah, topics on here are great. But as we know, message boards like this are quite the rarity.

Or maybe I just don't have any mates.

[RedTwoster]

@DavidB6937 - it's definitely something I experience with TV shows. Even if you're watching the same thing as someone else, if they're an episode or two ahead of me because they've had the chance to binge that little bit more, I don't really want to talk about it in case they accidentally spoil it for me. And I'm super cautious if it's the other way around, so you lose that element of 'oh my god, did you just see...' - at least, until you finish the whole show, and at that point it's not quite the same. 

11 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

But yeah, topics on here are great. But as we know, message boards like this are quite the rarity.

Yeah, I joined here in 2019, mainly because no one I'm friends with in 'real life' watches wrestling. I also find social media massively toxic, so I don't really use it - I actually ditched my personal accounts during the Scottish referendum because it became such an unpleasant place. I don't miss it. Whether you agree or disagree with people on this board, it's a great place full of genuinely lovely people. 

[Ironic Indie Lad]

When I was a kid I would get a new game maybe 3 times a year at best. Anything else I played was stuff I borrowed from friends or relatives or rented. The limited games I had exposure to combined with the free time you have as a kid meant I would just spend ages playing the same games over and over and over again. I must have played the real quality games I had dozens of times each (Wario Land, Castle of Illusion and Gunstar Heroes for example). 

I have to say though, I would just play whatever games I had access to because what was good / what was bad wasn't really something I thought about or noticed. I just loved games. I played games like Bayou Billy, Digger T Rock, Wolverine Adamantium Rage, James Pond, Taz Mania constantly just because I happened to have them.

Gaming definitely felt more special to me then because I knew most of the games I was interested in were out of reach for me. I used to get CVG and Official Nintendo Magazine at the time and I spent hours just poring over the games I wanted. Its different when you really covet something but you know you would need to wait until birthday or Christmas. You also need to make agonising choices when you know you can only get one game and that's it for months. I can remember having a policy where I wouldnt buy an N64 game unless it got at least 9/10 in ONM.

In the late 2010s, I went through a phase where I was very much into what was new. I was buying games constantly and would be getting all the big games on release day. I built up a pretty crazy PS4 and Switch collection as a result. I had a lot of free time for a few years there and nothing better to spend my money on.

In more recent years I have met my wife, bought our house and had our daughter. Clearly I have way less time for gaming now and this has coincided with a complete disillusionment with modern AAA games. I think the last time I bought a game as soon as it released and actually played it was Robocop Rogue City. I've gradually stopped caring about what is new, I honestly could not give a fuck about 4k 60fps and ray tracing etc. I just find myself using the small bits of free time I have playing whatever games I am in the mood for and this has really been leaning towards retro for some time now.