Keep Calm And Discuss Retro Generally!

CiDeRmAn

Crash blew my mind for a few minutes, first it's amazing, then you realise that, unlike Mario 64, you are limited to running along corridors, purdy corridors I'll grant you, but corridors never the less.
At least the related Spyro games had proper 3d movement, although there it was mostly limited to one plane, but at least it looked pretty impressive.
The later Crash games looked great, especially Crash 3, some nice reflection/metallic stuff in there.

o1s1n

It was faux, railroaded 3D gaming, but I dunno, because of the limitations as to where you could go, they had more control over your viewing angle and could fit more in.

That was the one thing I really didn't like about that first wave of true free roaming games like Mario 64 & OOT, too many open spaces full of nothing.

Retr0gamer

o1s1n wrote: »

That was the one thing I really didn't like about that first wave of true free roaming games like Mario 64 & OOT, too many open spaces full of nothing.

As opposed to a Bethesda game where you have a small country full of mostly nothing :P

Atavan-Halen

Got an email from play Asia with the prices of pokemon x and y. $60 each for the Japanese versions. I'd like tiger a jap copy but alas region locking maybe ill look at getting a Japanese 3ds this year.

DinoRex

Looks like play.com are ceasing trading themselves and are just going to be an online marketplace.

Can't say I've used them in a long, long time... but back in my Gamecube days they were great.

Retr0gamer

I used them a lot but once they forced people not buying in UK sterling to use their price gouging euro conversion I haven't used them at all. Last time I looked on their site they were selling Dragon Quest V for £22, converted to euro it was 40. Jog on.

CiDeRmAn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

As opposed to a Bethesda game where you have a small country full of mostly nothing :P

Yes, I too have been to Leitrim.....

And having gotten 35 odd hours into Oblivion back in the day the place felt like you couldn't throw a fairy in a bottle over your shoulder without hitting the entrance to another dread dungeon!

Skyrim, I just have to get that game sometime, at this rate I might as well just wait for the Game of the Year edition and get all the DLC, so's I have more well crafted storyline never to see!

deathrider

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I played the Crash Bandicoot games on the PS1 there recently. With the graphics not looking so good anymore (although for a PS1 game they are superb) I don't think they were ever that good.

I know this might sound like blasphemy, but I never liked Crash. He always bugged the hell out of me. I could never even put my finger on what exactly it was that I disliked about the games, but they did absolutely nothing for me.... And later on he wound up with that stupid accent.

Jack burton

My Vectrex that was working perfect when I bought it last month has crapped out on me. The vectors are all over the shop and dont line up at all. Adjusting the pots doesnt fix it, looks like I have to go at the innards of it to sort this out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O1hM-k3aUY

o1s1n

That's exactly what happened to mine

Enternow changed the caps, resoldered joints, played with the pots, got a lot of dust and gunk out of it but it didn't solve the problem.

Jack burton

Yeah I was googling and that trade thread came up in my search haha

Not sure what to do, could just cut losses with it. Bad luck though really, barley even played the thing, left it for about 2 weeks over christmas and then plugged her in new years eve and it was like that, its gotten worse over the time

CiDeRmAn

I better keep treating mine well, she still works..... I hope.....

o1s1n

Now that I think about it -

First I had your problem. The vectors wouldn't line up. I put it away in storage to be fixed at a later date.

Took it out months later and it was fine again. So thought I'd just dodged a bullet.

It was at that point after about two weeks the whole image collapsed.

So maybe a cap replacement or reflowing the joints from the power supply would fix the misaligned vectors. The image on my one was so collapsed that it was impossible to tell.

Jack burton

Hmmm...interesting, unfortunately our resident solder wizard isn't up for this as caps take up a lot of time, I wouldnt attempt it myself either. So I can find someone else to do it but chances of finding someone local enough to me are almost nil so this could end up being very expensive on me. I might just stick it up somewhere as faulty and keep the games, second controller and overlays I have and try get a nice deal on one on ebay

CiDeRmAn

Well, if anyone has a VecMulti that's suddenly superfluous gimme a call!
And you can colour me opportunistic!

Jack burton

Well I have one but....

eh...BAN HAMMER!

o1s1n

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I better keep treating mine well, she still works..... I hope.....

It's crazy isnt it! First one on the forum and it's outlasting all the others. I wonder why? You had yours treated with kid gloves when being transported didn't you? I bought mine from someone in Ireland, however it was transported by post. Maybe it took a knock somewhere which just got worse with age.

Jack burton wrote: »

Hmmm...interesting, unfortunately our resident solder wizard isn't up for this as caps take up a lot of time, I wouldnt attempt it myself either. So I can find someone else to do it but chances of finding someone local enough to me are almost nil so this could end up being very expensive on me. I might just stick it up somewhere as faulty and keep the games, second controller and overlays I have and try get a nice deal on one on ebay

I just had to give up on it altogether. It really pointed out to me how downright hard it is to get vector monitors fixed. we're pushing it with standard raster CRTs as is!

CiDeRmAn

Mine came over on a small prop plane from the Isle of Mann, dropped to an airfield in Newtownards and my dad and I drove it back down here.
That's over 10 years ago now!
Fingers crossed she'll be around and functioning for years to come.
Or until EnterNow is up for repairing her!

o1s1n

I don't think he'll look at another one after the torment of mine, didn't it even drive him to sell his own one?

The great Vectrex club downfall of 2012/13, a sad time for us all

CiDeRmAn

Just checked mine and lost 10mins to Rockaroids (Asteroids clone), so all is well with mine!

Le Vectrex est Mort,
Vive le Vectrex!

Myrddin

Yeah I'll do o1s1ns candy cab monitor chassis cap kit alright, but after that I'll not be doing any more of them, unless its a GG they're handy enough Otherwise though they're an absolute time sink & its very hard to justify the cost of spending all the time you spend doing them.

Jack burton

How much to sell on my vectrex for then? take out the controller and flog it on the bay?

CiDeRmAn

You'll have to get a Prince style "Slave" written across your face.... of course, with our country host to so many different peoples now, and welcome to them all, there are those who may not appreciate the underlying sentiment....

CiDeRmAn

Oh, and it looks like my 9 year old is now shifting through DQIX at a fair old pace, and looks like he is not too far off finishing the game!

So, I have to face some truths, or rather one very big, glaring truth.... my 9 and a half year old son is better at games than I am, an about to be 41 year old man/boy

Bugger

o1s1n

Visited the folks this evening, my sister was sitting at the table in a pikachu one-sie, tail/pika face and all. Made me LOL after my comments about her earlier

bless her though, she found my original copy of the Hobbit.

Opened it up fo find the following -

'from dad, to Oisin 1989'

He was 3 years younger than I am now. :eek:

Nostalgia or wha

Retr0gamer

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Oh, and it looks like my 9 year old is now shifting through DQIX at a fair old pace, and looks like he is not too far off finishing the game!

So, I have to face some truths, or rather one very big, glaring truth.... my 9 and a half year old son is better at games than I am, an about to be 41 year old man/boy

Bugger

Don't feel too bad, Dragon Quest IX is a bit of a doddle to beat, it's probably the games biggest flaw.

Make him beat Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call and he will instantly sprout a hairy chest.

Myrddin

Atari had some bottle calling the Jag a 64bit system

The Last Bandit

Ah but sure some of the internal registers were 64 bits wide and that's good enough for marketing people to run with. Remember blast processing ??

Crippling memory management bugs in the main CPU's and the fact lots of developers just used the 'glue' 680XX processor instead of Tom & Jerry didn't help.

Ya its crap

Myrddin

The Last Bandit wrote: »

Ah but sure some of the internal registers were 64 bits wide and that's good enough for marketing people to run with. Remember blast processing ??

Crippling memory management bugs in the main CPU's and the fact lots of developers just used the 'glue' 680XX processor instead of Tom & Jerry didn't help.

Ya its crap

Yeah but 'Blast Processing' was a marketing ploy for a console that at least lived up to its potential...the claims of a 64bit machine that was often surpassed by 16bit machines was just farcical.

Wasn't aware of the devs not programming code to use the machine to its potential though, what were some of the games that used T & G properly?

The Last Bandit

I think Tempest and Rayman were supposed to have pushed it the hardest, but a lot of the multi console ports typically ran on the 680xx as the its was a bitch to dev on.

But interestingly enough they are still developing for it, couple of games released last year on it.

Since Hasbro has released all the specs would be nice if the T&J bugs were fixed on a FBGA.