The UKFF Retro Gaming Thread

[Merzbow]

Two hundred and fifty dollars just to play No Mercy in HD. Analogue are good quality though, and FPGA means everything should run as they should unlike emulators which can still be fucky.

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A reimagining of the N64. In 4K resolution. 10x the resolution of the original N64. The first and perhaps greatest multiplayer system of all time. Analogue3D is 100% compatible with every original N64 game ever made. Region Free. Bluetooth LE. Dualband Wifi. Four original-style controller ports. Entirely new, next generation Analogue hardware featuring 3DOS. Engineered entirely in FPGA. No Emulation.

 

[DavidB6937]

Daft question probably but is there any point in games that old in that resolution?

[Jazzy G]

The developers of MSR went in to make the Project Gotham games for XBox & 360, which are also worth a look.

Something I found interesting is that the game is very much designed for use with a wheel. The most effective way to steer is to hold the analogue stick up, and then steer by moving the stick around the edge of the gate? I might be confusing it with Sega GT which is ostensibly Dreamcast Gran Turismo. 

[Merzbow]

11 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

Daft question probably but is there any point in games that old in that resolution?

Personally I don't think there is, I keep the old 3D games at native resolution and add a nice CRT filter these days. I'll capture some images next time I boot up Duck station.

[hallicks]

Is this box actually able to render out the higher resolution frames? Presumably there’d be quite a bit of recoding and hardware alterations needed. Or is it just upscaling?

[FLips]

I'm not sure who the target audience for the Analogue 3D actually is, mostly due to the software limitations.

Casual retro gamers aren't going to even debate spending that amount of money on what is essentially a fake N64 they can easily emulate on their PC or play most of the best games through their Switch.  There probably will be ways to run pirated roms on it but as it currently stands there's no way to know that and the website explicitly states it won't, so you're stuck with legit cartridges which is a money sink all in itself after that initial £250 payment.

Middle of the road retro gamers will do what Merzbow is doing and emulate it with filters, or buy one of the readily available HDMI converters for a fraction of the cost. The people between casual and middle that might still have their N64 probably won't notice or care that it looks like shit on modern TVs because they've just dug it out the loft for a quick go.

The more hardcore retro gamers will have the actual console already, probably with a collection of games. If they're not using converters they'll be running it on a CRT TV or Monitor. Even streamers who likely fall into this or the middle ground categories will have issues streaming it by the looks of the website too as it has capture card limitations.

It's a console for nobody. It's shooting itself in the foot not having games built in like other knockoff consoles and that price point is rank, not even accounting for the extra controllers. Added to that most of the games you might consider playing online like Goldeneye have been re-released on modern consoles with those functions, or games that might have been excellent at the time like Mario Kart 64 and Smash Bros have been surpassed by their sequels and are likely mostly played now by people who want the legit thing and not to pay £250 to run it off a knockoff.

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Anyway, I've had a go of a few shoot em ups on the Dreamcast and I think I can finally conclude it's a rubbish genre I have no patience or time for. I tried some of supposed best and they're not for me.

Border Down was the best of the ones I tried. It has a gimmick where each time you die you "border down" from Green to Yellow to Red, changing the stage you're on. So it adds variety to a run if you die, which I do, and stops it becoming a war of attrition. Aside from that it's just your standard bullet hell.

Gunbird 2 was more cartoony and vertical instead of horizontal. Still the same gameplay though, holding shoot and just dodging the impossible amount of projectiles on screen.

Sturmwind isn't an official release, it's from 2013 and looks like a game from Xbox Arcade for better or worse. This one has a few weapon based gimmicks, allowing you to change between 3 fire modes that get disabled if you take damage while in them. It's pretty decent, but like the others has absolutely no difficulty balance on its standard settings. Who are these games even for?

Rez is one I've heard good things about over the years and I get why it might have been a unique idea at the time but it hasn't aged the best. While you shoot enemies to create music, the gameplay itself doesn't have much rhythm, you just lock on and shoot enemies as they appear on screen and it makes a nice sound. 10 Levels in and you get to a boss which has way too much health and you can barely see what's happening. Disappointed with this one.

So yeah, shmups. Not my cup of tea. I got really good at 1945 back on the arcade machine in my old job but that never felt like these "modern" bullet hell styles. It was tough but you could see everything on screen and never felt unfair. Similarly with the Metal Slug games, they're difficult but are easy to get good at. These style games are random and just throw a million things at you. I can't even really understand why anyone would find them fun.

I tried the TNMT Cowabunga Collection fan port which is actually bonkers how good it works, though I have no idea why anyone took time to add content and port it across to Dreamcast. I played a Streets of Rage 2 mod that had the Turtles in it which was pretty fun as the gameplay was faster and the enemies had more health. Can't say much about the rest of it as I never got round to playing it. Still, more of a curiosity than anything.

 

[Merzbow]

To be fair to Analogue they seem to sell well with all their consoles even though I rarely if ever see the real point to owning one, I think the main draw is simply the build quality as they're a proper premium bit of equipment.  The Pocket made the most sense to be but I'd still rather just get a cheap Chinese handheld so I can play all the arcade stuff and weird consoles not included.

I'd imagine a lot of the buyers already have the OG consoles with retro tinks etc but they have the money to burn.