Currently playing...

[dataDave]

On 14/08/2020 at 16:40, Marlowe said:

It's rather good isn't it? Finished Leon's campaign, on to Claire's.

 

After that you've also got to do Claire's campaign, and then on to Leon's.

 

At that point you should be whizzing through anyway.

[phillv85]

I’ve just got the 8th gym badge on Pokemon Crystal. Time to do some serious level grinding.

[Ninja Doctor]

I’ve got my GameCube set up with Swiss, an sd2sp2 and a kaico gcvideo dongle. Hot damn if SoulCalibur2 doesn’t still look the business in crisp digital 480p

[pastry]

I've been playing Burnout 2 emulated on GC, with a DualShock 3...

Yes, all a bit wrong in terms of setup, but what a game! It's so tightly focused, the linear progression works without feeling at all restrictive, and of course the actual game is just hugely fun. It's very accessible, perhaps it doesn't have the nuance of a Sega Rally but what it does have is a finely tuned handling model that means you know that any mistakes are your own, very well designed courses which are stacked with variety, and absolutely massive "one more go" appeal. It's still an utterly a brilliant game, and so refreshing in its simplicity. 

 

The only area it falls down is the music, which is a bit ordinary. 

[Camel]

The Eidolon - C64. One of many, many games I had a copy of back in the day where a combination of lack of instructions, hundreds of other shiny games and short attention span meant I never really got anywhere with it. Now, armed with instructions and a super friendly disk crack, I've been giving it a proper go.

 

It's surprisingly atmospheric for a fairly trundling 8-bit first-person affair. The fractal tech from Koronis Rift is once again super impressive as are the big old sprites. I've managed to complete level 1 but I'm still not 100% clear on how the game works (the various fireballs are a bit confusing). The gameplay seems to boil down to: figure out where the three minor enemies are in the caves (essentially a maze); defeat each of them (throwing red fireballs has served me well so far); collect a gem from each; fight the big dragon; when energy is low, pick up yellow orbs; do it all quickly as there is a timer. So other than figuring out the mazes, I'm finding the gameplay a bit lacking really. With fairly archaic controls, the fights don't seem massively fair but spamming fireballs seems to work so far.

 

I'd love to hear others' thoughts.

[MattyP]

Absolutely addicted to Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz on the Wii. Never played it before those party ganes are amazing fun. Four player Frisbee Golf is the firm favorite. At the moment. Not even touched the main game yet.

 

The Wii is probably the best old school console made IMHO and the most inclusive. And fun.

[Wonderm]

Just now, MattyP said:

Absolutely addicted to Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz on the Wii. Never played it before those party ganes are amazing fun. Four player Frisbee Golf is the firm favorite. At the moment. Not even touched the main game yet.

 

The Wii is probably the best old school console made IMHO and the most inclusive. And fun.

 

Have you played the original monkey ball on gamecube? Monkey target probably the best mini game of all time

[SeanR]

Just flicking through the 3188 games on my Pandora saga XII

 

A lot of dross.

[MattyP]

3 hours ago, Wonderm said:

 

Have you played the original monkey ball on gamecube? Monkey target probably the best mini game of all time

Oh yes! One of the first games I got on the GC all those years ago. Monkey Bowling is one of my favorite games ever.

[Fuddle]

I finally got round to trying that pc version mario 64, mainly just to get a bit of footage for a video, but still amazed that it ‘just works’, and then a bit of diddy kong racing, again for YouTube. I haven’t played this since a housemate had it at university... I only want to unlock the chicken, which I think may take ages.

 

and then I thought it would be cool to try and get a not quite serious speed run on super Mario world. I should be able to do this pretty easy. That whole game is burned in my memory.

[Vimster]

Have been trying out a load of PS2 games I'd accumulated down the years and for whatever reason not got around to playing. 

 

Heroes Of Might And Magic - boring, requires you to read the thick manual as there are no on-screen tutorials. 

Star Ocean: Til The End Of Time - this did everything it could to put me off: awful voice-acting instead of skippable text; tedious intro where your girlfriend is moaning because you would rather play games than go to the beach with her - yes, very funny; endless battle tutorial with pages and pages of text that absolutely killed any desire to go forward. Then I read the game proper doesn't really start until about four hours in so binned it. Life's too short. 

Beyond Good And Evil - it's charming enough but feels really dated. Didn't like the way your companion character would shout out solutions to puzzles, that really gets on my tits. "Why not go up behind it and shoot its tail, Jade!"

Metal Saga - Interesting little post-apocalyptic RPG that involves collecting vehicles for combat. I played the first two hours and really enjoyed it. Will definitely keep that and go back to it. Loved the start where you're asked if you want to be a Ranger or a boring mechanic, if you choose the latter it basically says "you trained to be a mechanic, led a boring life not doing all this cool shit and died" then the credits roll. I had a good chuckle about that. 

Ridge Racer V - I've tried to get into this one many times but either I'm really shit or this is hard, very hard. Even on Easy and driving like a maniac I'd only come in 6th, no matter how hard I tried. 

 

Currently playing Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call and enjoying it. I'm only a couple of hours in, it's a bit linear so far, but I love the presentation and setting. There's a sparseness to it. It's strange that your character doesn't have any gear at all, it's all down to skills. Had a check on eBay at the prices it goes for and was really shocked to see they've gone right up, £30-40. A few years back you could easily pick it up for a tenner. 

[Qazimod]

7 hours ago, Vimster said:

Currently playing Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call and enjoying it. I'm only a couple of hours in, it's a bit linear so far, but I love the presentation and setting. There's a sparseness to it. It's strange that your character doesn't have any gear at all, it's all down to skills. Had a check on eBay at the prices it goes for and was really shocked to see they've gone right up, £30-40. A few years back you could easily pick it up for a tenner.

Back when we still had the one indie store in Cheltenham I picked this up for £15  I’ve never been any good at it though...  

[RastanSaga]

Kyukyoku Tiger/twin cobra - famicom.

Got the first few stages down now..

Really enjoyable. I think I had this on core grafx years ago, but didn't play it so much.

It's great!

[RastanSaga]

Terra Cresta famicom (the 2nd one on pc engine is superb)

 

[Ninja Doctor]

Thanks to my daughter reading Retro Gamer magazine, Space Harrier 2. 
 

managed to complete it spamming save states. God knows how people managed it back in the day. 
 

trying to understand instructions barked at my from a six year old reading how to defeat the bosses from a magazine really adds to it. 

[SeanR]

Super Sprint (Arcade)

 

God I used to own at that game on the ST. 3 player, I'd take keyboard, to be polite to my two guests on joystick.

 

then kick their arses.

 

Kids today, well my son, can't get to grips with the left/right/accelerate controls. Practice.

 

 

[RastanSaga]

14 hours ago, SeanR said:

Super Sprint (Arcade)

 

God I used to own at that game on the ST. 3 player, I'd take keyboard, to be polite to my two guests on joystick.

 

then kick their arses.

 

Kids today, well my son, can't get to grips with the left/right/accelerate controls. Practice.

 

 

 

The original cabinet when I was a teen playing in the local arcade, the music used to boom.

I'd love a sprint 2 cabinet, been looking at that cabinet for a few years now 

The game is on one of the Atari collections on modern console's.

Few videos on YouTube   its keeping these old Atari boards going though.....

[Camel]

The cabinet is the only way to play it really with its endlessly spinny wheels.

[RastanSaga]

1 hour ago, Camel said:

The cabinet is the only way to play it really with its endlessly spinny wheels.

 

I bought the midway collections bitd specifically for super sprint.

Iirc the ps2 and Xbox versions had different control set ups.

 

I love watching a sprint 2 video.....the steering wheel spin  <3

 

 

[Vimster]

Played on an original Super Sprint on holiday in 1987, three players. The BOOM when your car exploded was immense.  They put proper bass in those cabs. 

[Colonel Panic]

I put on Star Fox Assault last night, the first stage was alright.. Then there were on foot stages! WTF!! They don't control well AT ALL.

 

In principle, I like the idea of flipping between vehicles during stages but the execution it poor.

 

I did enjoy one level though where you're on foot in  a space station destroying shields, all the while a meter is filling indicating ships outside attacking. You can hop in your Arwing and destroy ships to drop the meter down and after there's a fun Star Wolf battle.

 

Other than that, ugh, it's just not that great, I gave up after a while and put on Soul Calibur 2.

[MattyP]

Modded my Wii. All sorts of retro fun! Mainly Manic Miner and Uridium. Loving it!

 

Think I'm going to end up with just the Wii and PC we my gaming platforms at some point in the very near future Although still want to start The Last Guardian on the PS4 which is kind of retro too!

[crocked]

1 hour ago, MattyP said:

Modded my Wii. All sorts of retro fun! Mainly Manic Miner and Uridium. Loving it!

 

Think I'm going to end up with just the Wii and PC we my gaming platforms at some point in the very near future Although still want to start The Last Guardian on the PS4 which is kind of retro too!

I must break out my modded wii as well. Which emulators are good on the wii? I assume you are emulating spectrum and c64.

[Camel]

If you're doing Spectrum and like Manic Miner, check out Perils of Willy - it's a conversion of the Vic-20 game. Done by a friend of mine.

[DarhkFox]

Currently playing... Star Fox Adventures. 

 

Never finished it when i got it the first time on the GC so i'm streaming it on twitch/youtube and it's going pretty well.

 

It's kinda like a lite Zelda game. Combat is extremely basic but a fun game none the less.

[Yasawas]

Final Fantasy V (GBA). Played an hour or so, seems decent. 
 

Also obsessed with Sonic Mania on Switch at the moment which doesn’t count but does have me wondering where to go from here terms of more 2D Sonic. I had a Mega Drive as a wee guy so the original trilogy is a known quantity but is any of the Master System or handheld stuff worth a look these days?

[MattyP]

On 29/08/2020 at 12:14, crocked said:

I must break out my modded wii as well. Which emulators are good on the wii? I assume you are emulating spectrum and c64.

Just using the ones @dumpster recommended in the first post. So far so good!

[Alexlotl]

14 hours ago, Yasawas said:

Final Fantasy V (GBA). Played an hour or so, seems decent. 
 

Also obsessed with Sonic Mania on Switch at the moment which doesn’t count but does have me wondering where to go from here terms of more 2D Sonic. I had a Mega Drive as a wee guy so the original trilogy is a known quantity but is any of the Master System or handheld stuff worth a look these days?

Well worth playing Sonic 3 Complete, a romhack that combines Sonic 3 & Sonic and Knuckles into a more unified experience closer to what Sega originally planned. Hack doesn’t do it justice, the level of fit and finish is superior to the original.

 

Sonic 1 & 2 on the SMS are worth a look. The GG versions are just crops. Totally different games with a different pace, still very good. There’s a hack of Sonic 1 to use Master System FM too, which sounds great (although the PSG is no slouch - ported by Yuzo Koshiro!). 

[Dudley]

Yeah there's 3 Master System ones and then another on GG that's been hacked back to SMS.

 

The key point is the GG ones are just more awkward SMS ones so get those.

 

I adore the 3rd SMS one Sonic Chaos but it's also a much bigger departure from the MD games and Mania than 1,2 are so certainly start there.  You should be aware Sonic 1 SMS doesn't let you collect discarded rings.

[Qazimod]

20 hours ago, Yasawas said:

Also obsessed with Sonic Mania on Switch at the moment which doesn’t count but does have me wondering where to go from here terms of more 2D Sonic. I had a Mega Drive as a wee guy so the original trilogy is a known quantity but is any of the Master System or handheld stuff worth a look these days?

Maybe not the GG game  but the Sonic Advance series is okay.

 

(And Sonic Rush, of course. Is 2005 “retro”?)