Retro Gaming - The Bear and Badger

optimark_prime

Castle of Illusion was a fantastic game, I recently won a copy on eBay.

Moot_Geeza

I played Flink and Ecco II on my lunch break, half an hour on each.Â Two hours into Flink now, it's not quite a forgotten classic, mainly due to how long it takes your character to build up a head of steam when walking, but I'd definitely place it in the 'overlooked' category.Â The spell mixing/casting system spices it up a bit, elevating it above your standard platforming fare, and the graphics are lovely.Â Ecco: The Tides of Time has control issues, and the into the screen pseudo-3D sections niether look nor play well today, but it's still a brilliant puzzle game.Â I'm really looking forward to the later levels because I remember this being a vastly underrated sequel, and I only played through it once when I rented it.Â I'm a huge fan of the three main Ecco games in fact, despite the first one being ridiculously hard in paces.

mk64

some of those games are going for quite some cash!

davyK

If you can keep the CRT then do so - those older consoles need it.

hylian_elf

Yeah, gonna try and keep it. Might have to make room by getting rid of all the Edge mags!

davyK

hylian_elf wrote:

Yeah, gonna try and keep it. Might have to make room by getting rid of all the Edge mags!

Has it got an RGB SCART socket? Makes a big difference - it's usually labelled AV1 if you have more than one socket. Well worth getting RGB SCART leads for your old consoles.

optimark_prime

I use scart for my SNES, N64, Saturn and Mega Drive, they all look fine on my (32") HD LCD TV.

My Dreamcast uses VGA and looks lovely :-)

davyK

To be fair I find that older consoles don't look as bad as many say they do on modern TVs. People may think the games look bad - but its probably more because of the age of the game rather than any issues with LCD or Plasma. If does seem to vary from TV to TV - I have a Sony 32" LCD which gives pretty good results. I use VGA with my DC too but for the others I still prefer to use a CRT.

Billy

Ditch the CRT, forget composite, scart and s-video. Get an XRGB Mini upscaler with scanlines and plug everything in with RGB21 (not the same as scart even though the plug looks similar).

Not sure what I'm on about? take a look at these pictures comparing Golden Axe on a MD with various video connections straight to LCD and then through a xrgb3 (the model before the mini).

RF straight to LCD

Composite straight to LCD

RGB cable to xrgb 3 (upscanned and converted)

Upscanned and converted through RGB cable to xrgb 3 with scanlines

Super Famicom, MD, Nes, Wii, Saturn.Â They all looks fantastic through these boxes, they were designed for vintage consoles.

Brooks

Toodles - him of the Cthulhu PCB - makes a pretty boss scanline generator now too in kit form. Out of stock at present.

mrsmr2

Since when are scanlines a good thing?

Edit: a device like that will also be adding more latency over and above what current flat panels introduce.

Fine for Golden Axe but I wouldn't want to play one of my DC shoot em ups through one.

hylian_elf

davyK wrote:

hylian_elf wrote:

Yeah, gonna try and keep it. Might have to make room by getting rid of all the Edge mags!

Has it got an RGB SCART socket? Makes a big difference - it's usually labelled AV1 if you have more than one socket. Well worth getting RGB SCART leads for your old consoles.

Yes, and I do/always have.Â

I'll look into that xRGB upscaler thing.

mk64

the latency is minimal, i've got one of those for my 100 inch projector.

There is lag but it only effects games with utmost precision. For instance I can still get new records on super mario kart and some of the jumps are pixel perfect.

Billy

If you want the least possible lag from an upscaler/scanline thingy then at the moment the slightly older XRGB3 would be best, it'll give you less than a frame lag. Â Apparently 0.1 of a frame.

The current verdict on the XRGB mini is that lag is about 1.5 frames, really not bad at all and much better than most upscalers. Â They are stil releasing firmware for it at the moment, 1.07 just came out, might be worth checking on the shmups forum as to what issues there are with the system if you're interested.

If you mostly play Dreamcast games then the xRGB mini is not for you anyway, it has no VGA input, only RGB21, Svideo, 2xhdmi and D-Terminal (component). Â The XRGB3 has VGA inputs so would be better for Dreamcast.

adkm1979

I thnk this might be the best place to ask this; I'm trying to remember the name of a game I used to play on the Spectrum. Â It was a text adventure, based on a massive spaceship. Â You could take the elevator to different floors, some of which were massive bio domes with rivers and streams. Â You were alone, barring the occasional encounter with particularly unfriendly aliens who basically shot at you on sight, which made for interesting attempts to escape when you encountered them before finding a laser pistol.

Oh, I'm alo trying to remember the name of a game, also on the Spectrum, where you had to repair your spaceship. Â You walked about screen by screen, I think you maybe had a jet-pack, and an inventory where he empty slots were signified by 'not a sausage' and similar 'comedy' phrases.

Not the best descriptions, I know, but I was really very young when I played them.

Raiziel

Not confident of this at all but is the second one Starquake?

Moot_Geeza

Sega has apparently teased a spruced up NiGHTS image, which Eurogamer is assuming means an HD remake.Â The thought of them ruining it with Kinect is making me shudder, but a lovingly crafted HD remake of the original is probably near the top of the list for me as far as remakes go.

optimark_prime

It's probably just a track from the upcoming Sonic and Sega Superstars Racing Transformed. :-(

optimark_prime

I'd love a HD remake of the original ,though.

davyK

I think Nights should be left alone - they wouldn't be able to resist messing about with it and fucking it up. If I thought they would do a straight remake with the rough edges smoothed out and the Xmas disc content added it would be great - but they won't do that - it would have been a downloadable game by now if they were up for it.

optimark_prime

Isn't that what they did for the PS2 version?

It was the Wii game they added a load of dull shite.

Moot_Geeza

The Saturn is the only console I wish I'd never sold.Â So many of my all-time favourite games.Â I was going to list some of my favourites (Exhumed in particular was an exceptional game), but after Googling 'best Saturn games' to jog my memory I found this pretty good list, which I'm going to spend the next twenty minutes reading in wistful nostalgia mode.

optimark_prime

Really disappointed to only own 29 games on that list (plus 3 that I used to own), although I have most of the top 20.

Athlete Kings should be MUCH higher than number 77, although the top 5 are all excellent choices.

davyK

optimark_prime wrote:

Isn't that what they did for the PS2 version?

It was the Wii game they added a load of dull shite.

Never got hold of that - was it part of a Sega Ages release? Only have a PAL machine and I appreciate there's a shitload of stuff released in Japan we never got to see...

davyK

optimark_prime wrote:

Really disappointed to only own 29 games on that list (plus 3 that I used to own), although I have most of the top 20.

Athlete Kings should be MUCH higher than number 77, although the top 5 are all excellent choices.

I've only 26 but the list is invalid because it mentions Magic Carpet which was a pile of shit with a draw distance of about 6 feet...Agree re Athlete Kings - excellent game - better than the Dreamcast remake (Virtua Athlete 2K)

optimark_prime

davyK wrote:

optimark_prime wrote:

Isn't that what they did for the PS2 version?

It was the Wii game they added a load of dull shite.

Never got hold of that - was it part of a Sega Ages release? Only have a PAL machine and I appreciate there's a shitload of stuff released in Japan we never got to see...

Yes, I was a Sega Ages release, I'm fairly sure Xmas NiGHTS was included, but I've never played the PS2 version because I've only got a PAL machine.

Moot_Geeza

I'd probably have Clockwork Knight 2 on the list too, it may have been short but it was quite under appreciated imo.Â And Keio Flying Squadron 2.

optimark_prime

davyK wrote:

optimark_prime wrote:

Really disappointed to only own 29 games on that list (plus 3 that I used to own), although I have most of the top 20.

Athlete Kings should be MUCH higher than number 77, although the top 5 are all excellent choices.

I've only 26 but the list is invalid because it mentions Magic Carpet which was a pile of shit with a draw distance of about 6 feet...Agree re Athlete Kings - excellent game - better than the Dreamcast remake (Virtua Athlete 2K)

There were some fairly odd selections, tbh. No Winter Heat! :-(

I'm hoping to add Shining Force 3 to my collection fairly soon.

davyK

optimark_prime wrote:

davyK wrote:

optimark_prime wrote:

Isn't that what they did for the PS2 version?

It was the Wii game they added a load of dull shite.

Never got hold of that - was it part of a Sega Ages release? Only have a PAL machine and I appreciate there's a shitload of stuff released in Japan we never got to see...

Yes, I was a Sega Ages release, I'm fairly sure Xmas NiGHTS was included, but I've never played the PS2 version because I've only got a PAL machine.

Sounds nice - there were a pile of Sega Ages discs for PS2 unlike Saturn which only got a handful (and only one in PAL land). Have a nice copy of Sega Ages Fantasy Zone for my JPN Saturn - lovely game.

optimark_prime

I was pleased to see the awesome Death Tank Zwei on there (shame the XBLA update was overpriced, I was hoping everyone would buy it)

And Baku Baku too, really cool game.

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