The UKFF Retro Gaming Thread

[hallicks]

So I have an N64 that I brought back from USA. Does anyone have info on modding these badboys so they're multi region? I've had a little look online and it's not very promising. Something about the carts being different shapes for different regions? 

[Merzbow]

1 minute ago, hallicks said:

So I have an N64 that I brought back from USA. Does anyone have info on modding these badboys so they're multi region? I've had a little look online and it's not very promising. Something about the carts being different shapes for different regions? 

No modding needed, there are converters you can buy that plug into the cart socket. The only issue is finding one in stock somewhere.

[hallicks]

That sounds straightforward enough... Was it branded, or just sold from Wee Jimmy Krankie's N64 ebay shop? 

[Merzbow]

You could say it was "branded" some company called EMS, the product's called a Passport Plus or similar. I'm sure there are now alternatives made by enthusiasts, maybe look into buying an Everdrive so you can skip using carts altogether.

[hallicks]

29 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

You could say it was "branded" some company called EMS, the product's called a Passport Plus or similar. I'm sure there are now alternatives made by enthusiasts, maybe look into buying an Everdrive so you can skip using carts altogether.

Thanks for your help! I'll get digging. 

[Onyx2]

On 10/1/2018 at 9:33 PM, Onyx2 said:

Just booked tickets for this:

https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/videogames

Anyone been / going? 

So this was a mixed bag. Great pieces, some really thought-provoking ideas, but lacking a throughline and pretty poor value for money. I ambled through it in just over an hour, and at £20 I'm a bit underwhelmed.

It's in four sections. The opening piece is tearing down the design process of a selection of high profile games: Journey, The Last of Us, Bloodborne, No Man's Sky (possibly one or two others). There's notebooks, animatics, post-it notes, design docs... A couple of my highlights were:

• Journey: the devs weren't sure how two players could work together without a comms mechanism, so they built a crappy Flash game to figure it out
• The Last of Us had a huge, sprawling mass of post-it notes describing the plot line
• The visual inspiration for No Man's Sky

The second area was around challenging perceptions in gaming. A disturbing look at gun violence via a game where you fire a single shot in a deserted street. Depictions of black african-americans in gaming (spoiler: not good). How difficult it is to code in a non-Latin language. The disgusting portrayal of femininity generally. A really interesting look at sexuality in gaming, and how odd it is when male homosexuality is used (picture below).

The third area was a video wall, where they discussed esports, Minecraft and EVE Online.

Fourth was absolute shit, where they'd dropped in some guff built by Shoreditch types.

So quite good but a little underwhelming. I'd love more design stuff, or more around perceptions. But generally lacked content.

I didn't take many photos as it's dark in there and you don't get much that snaps well. But here's a few. One is SERIOUSLY NSFW so be warned.

 

The emotional 'map' of Journey

Some No Man's Sky bits.

A Minecraft video.

Sexy bum-washing time. You have to scrub other men's bodies in the shower.

Edited October 15, 2018 by Onyx2

[TildeGuy~!]

I was waiting for a train on Saturday in Tottenham Court Road and saw it advertised and was thinking about heading there at some point this week, you’ve just saved me £20, cheers.

[Merzbow]

Revival are doing a mini event in Walsall this weekend, just a few arcade machines and old consoles with people from Zzap!64 doing a presentation and selling the new annual. Five quid a ticket ain't too bad.

[BigJag]

On ‎9‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 10:36 PM, Kaz Hayashi said:

If you’re planning on being in the North East on November 4th, you should pop along to my SNES Mario Kart tournament.

Other retro games will be free to play.

We have custom trophy’s for the winner and craft beer prizes. Hopefully see some of you there.

How did this event go?

[Jazzy G]

Anybody seen that SNK 40th anniversary compilation? It's got some interesting looking titles on there.

[CAREBEAR LUVVA]

Yeah, I've been playing it on the Switch. The "museum" extras are the best thing about it though, with all the concept art and background info. Most of the games don't really hold up too well these days.

[Jazzy G]

I remember being obsessed with Street Smart when I was younger. The "pikey" funfair always had that and Pit-Fighter in the summer. I lost interest when they got Street Fighter 2.

[Kaz Hayashi]

1 hour ago, BigJag said:

How did this event go?

It went pretty well cheers. Quieter than hoped, but the quality of the competitors was really high. A bloke called Sami Cetin won it, turns out he is a veteran Mario Kart competition player and travelled up from London.

We’ll be running more of these and will be recording and submitting results to the world championships, so taking it seriously, but still have machines set up for those who fancy a random game and a pint.

The guy who came 2nd at our last event ended up breaking the regions fastest recorded lap. I never truly knew how big the SNES Mario Kart championships were. Really big in fact, with finals held in the south of France.

[BigJag]

Well done on a successful event. Please keep us posted of any future events like this. How many competitors were there in total? It's great seeing games such as Mario Kart getting this type of treatment. Makes a change from the likes of fighting games. Are there any other similarly themed retro tournaments? 

[David]

Not sure if this has been asked before, but has anyone tried modding their mini-SNES to add more games to it? I've got a mate who's done it and says it's quite easy, but he's always doing shit like this, so easy for him may not be easy to the regular working man.