The UKFF Retro Gaming Thread

[Arch Stanton]

@FLips I find these posts really interesting and I don't even have a clue what's going on!

[FLips]

6 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

@FLips I find these posts really interesting and I don't even have a clue what's going on!

Same.

[Merzbow]

This looks awesome, they've really nailed the ECW vibe within the WM 2000 engine. I've played a pre-release version and it's great so far.

 

[Arch Stanton]

That looks incredible. I'm such a luddite when it comes to this stuff, but how would one go about playing it? Is it as simple as downloading an N64 emulator on PC, then a ROM?

[Merzbow]

You have to patch a WM 2000 rom via a website or this archive should have it already patched at the top of page along with a bunch of other mods, I really like the WCW Saturday Night one.

https://archive.org/download/n64patchedwrestlingroms

Just throw it in an N64 emulator.

[FLips]

TLDR at the bottom...

After days of faffing around the Amiga Raspberry Pi project is finally at what I would consider an acceptable end.

So firstly let me say, my WinUAE setup with Workbench 3.1 and WHDLoad on the PC is working flawlessly so other than the fact I have to play it a bit stretched on my PC monitor otherwise having to move a TV and using an adapter, no complaints there. The ease of use and the ability to sit at my desk with a proper keyboard and mouse setup and plug and play usb controllers is great.

Onto the Raspberry Pi though. God it's been a headache.

So firstly but maybe slightly out of chronological order (it's been a slog) I ordered a 3.5mm to composite cable from Amazon so my Pi could plug directly into my CRT without having to use a HDMI to Scart adapter. Even outside of the Amiga it's a useful thing to have for other emulators. It arrived and didn't work. I looked further into it and (I might be repeating myself here) it turns out they're hit and miss based on where the rings on the 3.5mm lie on the plug so your best bet is to order from an established Pi seller and you should be fine.
So off to https://thepihut.com I went. I'm deliberately promoting them by the by because this turned out to be the first of two items I got from there and (spoilers) both are brilliant.
I ordered a new cable from them for less than Amazon cost me, it came next day and I edited the Raspberry Pi's config file in notepad as suggested to program the Pi to essentially ignore the HDMI. My Pi now displays in a beautiful native 4:3 resolution with no faffing about. It's beautiful. It's perfect.

Next up was the emulators. The Raspberry Pi has the choice of four emulators, all with their own pros and cons. I won't go too much into each but I started with UAE4Arm which ran a toned down version of WinUAE so I understood it out the box and it ran floppy disks fine. Issues with it however that the GUI wasn't tied to the resolution of the Pi or the games, so it stretched in tiny HD resolution right off my screen. Useable if you knew where to look but not ideal.
Next was Amiberry which has similar results as it runs as a spin-off of UAE4Arm so I had all the same issues.
Neither of them, as far as I could figure out, would run CD32 or WHDLoad and due to the missing/stretched interface it was near impossible to change certain options. In the bin with both of them.

After that I tried a Retroarch (the emulation front end that runs all the emulators) specific one called PUAE which didn't really run anything properly when by all accounts it should have. I looked into it and for my outdated Pi I would need to use the PUAE2021 version.
So four emulators in and I'm on PUAE2021 and finally it's up and running, or so I thought.

First of all the emulator is ideal. Due to running off Retroarch directly you can access the emulator settings with the touch of a button and everything displays fine. What I did run into issues with was everything else.
So it's hard to really describe what went wrong here, because quite frankly I'm not even sure, but I will say the solution seems to be don't fucking touch anything in the settings. Let it all run on Automatic, don't change from a 500 to a 1200, don't change the RAM, don't mess around with anything because let me tell you I went to bed with nightmares two nights ago. 

For some reason my copy of GODS that ran absolutely fine on my PC and ran fine on this a couple of times suddenly displayed a blood red text-filled screen with a low humming sound that warned me it might be a virus and asked me directly, as if it was sentient "Shall I give control to it?".
I had no idea what this was and as good as ripped my Pi power cable out to stop it. I tried GODS two more times and each time got the same screen and noise, which combined with the emulated floppy sounds clicking and whirring was essentially one of those creepy youtube clickbait videos kids love. "I BOOTED UP MY AMIGA AT 3AM AND THIS HAPPENED". Except it was real and I hated it.
My wife was in the other room watching Four in a Bed so I went and told her about this creepy message I was getting (which by the way nobody at all online has spoken about, I could not find shit) and she excitedly asked if I took a picture because she loves stuff like that. I said no and went to get one and GODS just ran normally first time with no issue. I reset and reset and reset and it ran perfect every time. My wife joked that I was lying and I thought maybe sat fannying on with the Pi for 5 hours had rattled by brain and I called it a day and went to bed.

The next issue was that WHDLoad took ages to get working as I had to find different specific kickstart roms and rename them very specifically too. This took forever but eventually the games started showing up on my Pi but sadly the ones I tried ran badly. First Samurai moves in fast motion but the sound is slow and crackly, it's unplayable. James Pond 3 did the same. I searched and searched for days but nobody surprisingly has answers about WHDLoad files being emulated on a Raspberry Pi. I would have thought this was a popular subject but alas, back I go to awkwardly changing floppy disks.

Another issue (I know, this is going on forever) that arose was I had been running my Pi off a USB phone charger because my old power supply broke. After playing Turrican 3 with my mate and it having major slowdown caused by the low power (a lightning bolt appears on screen to coincide with it lagging) and the Sega CD games I added (this is a whole other thing) running a bit slow too, I went back to the Pi Hut today and got a new power supply for a tenner and can confirm it arrived today and I can play Terminator CD no bother and nothing seems to be lagging due to the power any more (I retried WHDLoad games and sadly it wasn't that).

But back to yesterday. After Turrican 3 give us bother we tried Alien Breed and somewhat to my relief got that awful red screen of death with a slightly different error message and my mate (who also joked I was lying) was also freaked out by it but finally I had evidence and took a picture!

We turned the Amiga off and went on to my Mega Drive to restart/carry on Turrican 3 in the form of Mega Turrican. Hate to say it but the Mega Drive version is better, and in sort of a fall from grace the MD version is the original and the Amiga was the port. Imagine that, the Amiga version of a Turrican game being the port. Wild.

So today after many more hours faffing, getting random error warnings, having software fail left and right, I uninstalled and reinstalled PUAE and things started running smoother. I'm not touching the settings anymore. It's actually as well the perfect emulator for games like Monkey Island, Cannon Fodder and such because you have a perfectly smooth mouse control using the analogue sticks and triggers, it runs them and handles like an actual dream. Select also gives you a working virtual keyboard and some of the more popular keys like Space are mapped to buttons on the controller. Chuffed with it.
Some games still fail but I've put this down to a dodgy rom file and some of them which I've replaced do work again, so that's my full situation. Floppy disks work fine as long as the ROM is good, WHDLoad is a no-go and the CD32 is as far as I'm aware set up to go but I haven't tested it.

TLDR:
Setting up my Raspberry Pi to successfully run Amiga
Tried four emulators before I got one that worked decent
Was getting a scary boot screen message like a creepypasta you'd see online
Uninstalled the whole thing and reinstalled it, replaced the power supply and 3.5mm to Composite cable to display on CRT
Floppies work fine now but need good roms, CD32 unknown, WHDLoad (multiple floppies compressed into one file ran from a harddrive) don't work.

 

Edited March 6, 2025 by FLips

[SuperBacon]

Not that anyone asked but I'm pretty certain that's an early 90s Portsmouth shirt

[DavidB6937]

Not that I'm suggesting anyone does this but I'd genuinely pay for some of the content you guys post in here.

[FLips]

5 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

Not that I'm suggesting anyone does this but I'd genuinely pay for some of the content you guys post in here.

£10 a month to see my 3.5” floppy disk on OnlyFlips.

Edited March 6, 2025 by FLips

[DavidB6937]

Probably missed this being mentioned or just forgot - anyone backed this EGM project? Looks pretty decent.

http://kck.st/3NpX2Tt

 

[BigJag]

This type of Compendium seems quite popular at the moment. Skybound have recently announced a similar project. It'll be a collection of the UK and US Transformers comics.

 

[Merzbow]

I'd be curious to read the EGM book but it's a US mag so likely won't be buying it, who do I need to talk to to get a hardback compendium of the best Amiga Power articles?

[SuperBacon]

14 hours ago, Merzbow said:

I'd be curious to read the EGM book but it's a US mag so likely won't be buying it, who do I need to talk to to get a hardback compendium of the best Amiga Power articles?

I'd love a CVG one.

I bought a couple of issues of EGM back in the day but it was very humourless.

[FLips]

Finally stopped faffing on with the hardware and got back to playing the games!

The Running Man (Amiga)
I posted the amazing intro to this game in the Film and DVD thread and it's by far the best thing about it. The game is absolutely bollocks. It's a side scrolling beat em up but the only enemies are dogs and the stalkers. If you're playing for a hi-score the dogs don't die so you can just stand kicking the same dog over and over for points. The hit detection is awful, you move like you're in sludge, and the platforming is near impossible due to the awful collision. I've seen a longplay and it was 14 minutes long but I wouldn't waste my time getting good enough to even do that run. A shame because that initial opening and to be fair to it the in-game design of the Running Man set is really good but sadly it doesn't really hit the spot.

GODS (Amiga and SNES)
So I'm actually trying to learn to beat this one. Absolutely not without its flaws; the confusing puzzles, the random enemy spawns, the convoluted way to pick items up. One thing it has in spades though is charm. Say what you want about The Bitmap Brothers but they knew how to give an average game enough bells and whistles to stand out from a crowd.
One thing I am enjoying with this one is through my multiple attempts I'm finding out more and more secrets and shortcuts, so each death and restart feels like like a punishment and more a chance to learn.
So far my record is Level 2-2 and to my knowledge it goes 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 2-1, etc right up to 4-3 so I should be about halfway through the game. The key is to learn not just enemy patterns but what the best weapons and weapon arcs are at any given time, what to buy from the shopkeeper for the next area, and where the secret pickups are.
Level 2 is filled with snakes and they're an absolute nightmare because you kill the big snake and 4 or 5 little ones too small to hit start slithering around. You can't crouch and fire so you need the right weapon arc.

I tried the SNES version on my mates emulator and it runs in fast motion. I checked youtube and it seems that's the case for the PAL and US console ports on both SNES and Mega Drive. I had the benefit of knowing the level layout so managed to reach 2-2 but if you didn't know it you'd be wrecked in the first stage. Inexplicably fast.
They've changed the entire soundtrack too so the Amiga is the clear winner in this 3 way with a slower pace, better soundtrack and no noticeable difference in the graphics.

Cliffhanger (SNES and NES)
We tried the SNES version first and it plays like a Final Fight style beat em up but with no enemy variance, wonky controls and kinda crap gameplay. My mate had never seen the film so I was explaining the plot to him as we went as it kind of tries to stick to it. They mix in sections where you climb up rock faces and run from avalanches which is faithful to the film at least. Overall pretty rubbish though so we moved to the NES version to see how different it is. Here is a comparison.

The NES version for a start looks like the above, has an awful soundtrack and handles like dirt but bizarrely we got charmed by it. It has a weird equipment system where you can find running boots and weapons to improve your moveset, and a really funny bonfire system where you use the money you've found to burn on them for health. My mate absolutely bust a gut laughing when we beat a boss and Sly surfed him down the mountain. It was short and we got enough laughs out of it we ended up completing it. Not something I'm massively proud of but, still.

From this point the day devolved into playing shit action movie tie-ins. I don't have much to say about some of the others; Cliffhanger on Gameboy and Master System is a port of the NES, Cliffhanger on Megadrive is a port of the SNES. Rocky on Master System gave me a punching bag training level that needed 60 hits but I only got 10 and then it threw me into a fight with Apollo Creed where button bashing was enough to win. Rambo on the Master System was a top down shooter like Ikari Warriors or Commando but Rambo on the NES is a side scrolling action RPG very similar to Castlevania II or Zelda II on the same console which took us by surprise. Not much to say about this bunch so just rounded them up.

Timecop (SNES)
Based on the JCVD film this was a grim affair. Digitized graphics, which was the style at the time, and all the associated poor gameplay that comes with that. Slow and unresponsive controls, movements limited on what the digitized actors could do but trying to be in an unrealistic videogame style so all the punches, kicks, jumps look mental and nobody would ever move like that.
We slogged through the first 4 levels which all take place in Washington DC I think in what must be the Timecop Precinct (I've never seen the film) and eventually JCVD gets in a little space car and we somehow end up underwater for the 2nd world fighting PNG images of octopi. Absolutely brutal game. My mate got rinsed by the boss octopus and we called it a day.

Steven Seagal is The Final Option (SNES)
Unreleased but entirely real, this is a prototype of what was to be a Steven Seagal original videogame vehicle. You can learn much more about it with interviews and everything here: https://www.nintendoplayer.com/unreleased/steven-seagal-is-the-final-option/

Again made with digitized graphics you play as I think just Steven Seagal the person as he infiltrates some sort of nuclear sub base. It has "over 10,000 frames of Seagal's aikido action" and true enough from my recent binge of some of his films, it's all here. His weak sideways chops, his not-quite-all-the-way-up kicks, and his lazy little twisty hand throws. He also has throwing knives as you would expect and a gun. Say what you want about the overall quality of the game at hand but they nailed Seagal here. He moves at a snail's pace, has weak looking but confusingly effective offense and can throw knives, also he can teleport. He's the total package.

Not a whole lot to say about the game with it being an incompletable prototype though. It's more like a tech demo and you need to use cheats to move between levels, the in-game prompts are unfinished and you can clip through objects. Interesting to check out for a laugh though.

Universal Soldier (Mega Drive)
So this one is really interesting because despite being a movie tie-in it's actually just a port of Turrican II but with some major changes. They remove entirely the side scrolling shoot em up levels and any reference to aliens, they change the level order around inexplicably and add in a few original levels, the bosses change from robots and space ships to tanks and oddly giant men, but the gameplay stays entirely the same. It's almost like playing a Turrican II mod.
One thing I will give this version over the original is they make the damage fairer. You still eat up hits stood inside enemy hitboxes but they reduce the damage taken so you have much longer to realise and get out. We managed to complete the game in one sitting with extra lives to spare. It felt like a much fairer game.

All your favourite tracks are intact, even the ones from the missing stages, but they don't sound anywhere near as impressive on the Mega Drive soundchip compared to the Amiga.

Credit where credit is due though, not everyone has/had an Amiga and those like me who wanted to emulate it can spend a lot of time doing it. If you want to play Turrican 2 almost in it's entirety and you want a fair chance at finishing it then there's absolutely nothing wrong with Universal Soldier. It doesn't have the sound or style of the original version, but it's accessible, almost unchanged gameplay wise and has a dedicated jump button. Worth your time for a quick Turrican fix for sure.

 

Edited March 12, 2025 by FLips

[Scratch]

The internet has given us so many wonderful things, but it’s stuff like this that makes me realise how so many things just wouldn’t have ever been possible without it. I’m fairly decent at soldering but I know my limits, and this would be well beyond my ability. I’d love one though.