The UKFF Retro Gaming Thread

[DavidB6937]

Pretty cool additions. 

 

 

[FLips]

I had no idea about the Japan exclusive game. Is that a track editor? Oh man these might eat a lot of my time.

[DavidB6937]

I remember reading about it a while ago but had completely forgotten about them to be honest. Always glad of new (old) F Zero to enjoy!

[RedTwoster]

Looking back at the early days of this topic, when it seems to have been a gaming book club, led to me learning that a translated version of the SNES game Clock Tower (which the UKFFers at the time played, presumably via a fan translation) is out later this month. I can’t wait to try that.

They also played Sonic Triple Trouble, and mentioning that gives me the flimsy excuse to recommend Sonic Trouble 16-bit, an excellent fan remake of that game which is one of my favourite Sonic titles ever, official or unofficial. It’s unbelievably polished, and plays brilliantly on the Steam Deck.

[FLips]

Puggsy

Horrible little character, possibly the ugliest I've seen in a platformer and not in an endearing way. Plodding physics-based gameplay with an item dragging mechanic which doesn't feel like it's made for anything other than because they wanted to show they can.
For every Psygnosis hit there were 20 duds and this one is in the latter bunch. In hindsight it's actually a wonder how the company lasted so long.

[Merzbow]

52 minutes ago, FLips said:

In hindsight it's actually a wonder how the company lasted so long.

Great Amiga game covers, the must have sold millions because of how cool the boxes looked alone.

They were pretty banging in the PS1 era though, even many of the lesser titles were fun. If you have 2 hours to kill or just want a good Irish lad on in the background then this is a pretty great video.

 

[FLips]

The Dreamcast arrived today all in working order, though sadly smells a bit smokey. Scruffers.

I burned a handful of games but immediately ran into issues with it. As a part of their anti-piracy they made their discs a propietary GD-ROM format which when dumbed down basically means they used CD-Rs that held over 1gb of Data and couldn't be copied onto a standard 700-800mb disc.
The way that got worked around was pirates would just alter and compress the files by lowering FMV quality, changing sound files, etc. So yeah it is as easy as burning roms onto a CD-R but this "CDI" format is usually an inferior version of the proper game. It's not noticeable really in smaller size games but if you take Sonic Adventure 2 for example, it lowers the sound quality from Stereo to Mono and loops shorter music samples instead of having whole songs. It's noticeable.

I have currently Marvel vs Capcom 2, Project Justice: Rival Schools 2, Sonic Adventure 2, Jet Set Radio, Street Fighter III 3rd Strike and Crazy Taxi. Only Sonic has noticeable differences so far.

Marvel vs Capcom and 3rd Strike play and look like a dream. Crazy Taxi is as fun as ever too.
The Dreamcast controller is still an oddity though with uncomfortably low triggers, a wire in the wrong end of the pad and that bizarre VMU Memory which makes a screechingly loud BEEP every time you turn the console on. You'd never have been able to sneak it on at night as a kid.

I think only maybe the Sega Saturn beats the Dreamcast in the "I guess you had to be there" reputation. Don't get me wrong it has upsides including some impressive graphics, great arcade conversions (a Sega strength overall) and a unique library but it's very easy to see why it wasn't as popular as either of the generations it was sandwiched between.

I've ordered a GDEmu which is a chip you replace the optical drive with (really easily, plug and play with only minor unscrewing and no soldering) that plays games off an SD card. This means I can get the proper full-size roms that will run 1:1 like the original discs. Should be here in a week or so.

As always with my retro console journey nothing has been as simple as you would hope.

[Jazzy G]

Dynamite Cop is worth a look, and don't forget the Powerstone games. Also Chuchu Rocket.