General Arcade and Retro Chat - Insert Coin -

Andrew76

o1s1n wrote: »

Arcade Club, and a line of people on PCs. Righty O!

Can't say I ever saw anyone dressed like that in the arcades I went to in my youff! Woodies, cigarette burns, crap stools and the deafening music from Tetris are what I remember. Still, whatever draws the punters in I guess.

Did The Rage open their one yet does anyone know?

Jack burton

Andrew76 wrote: »

Can't say I ever saw anyone dressed like that in the arcades I went to in my youff! Woodies, cigarette burns, crap stools and the deafening music from Tetris are what I remember. Still, whatever draws the punters in I guess.

Did The Rage open their one yet does anyone know?

I've heard nothing so far, I must find out. I'd love to head up when it opens and get some games in on their pins.

Anyone else get Ronnie's newsletter this morning?

An antro city that's kind of rough, pics arnt great but pretty sure I spotted rust on the cp. €795 + €195 shipping, is the whole thing gone a bit mad now? I've just seen a copy of terminator for the mega drive sell for £23 on eBay aswell, whos got a pin and wants to burst this bubble?

Los Lobos

Andrew76 wrote: »

Can't say I ever saw anyone dressed like that in the arcades I went to in my youff! Woodies, cigarette burns, crap stools and the deafening music from Tetris are what I remember. Still, whatever draws the punters in I guess.

Did The Rage open their one yet does anyone know?

All I could ever hear in arcades were the elephants from Dhalsim's level on SF2

Andrew76

Los Lobos wrote: »

All I could ever hear in arcades were the elephants from Dhalsim's level on SF2

Aye that was seriously loud!

I also remember the odd "You're coming with me creep!" from Robocop I think it was.

Amusement City had Tetris right beside my Aliens cab down near the pool tables so I got to know it quite well. Actually played the original Tetris on the Pi3 recently, still as addictive as ever that game.

Tom Mann Centuria

This is very niche, so apologies. People of a certain age will probably remember the old type in programs that computer magazines had in, in the 8 bit era. Lines and lines of basic, which resulted in hours and hours of finding which line you'd typed wrong, or had been printed incorrectly, ending in a game normally of pretty shoddy standard.

Well if you have an old 8 bit, like a Spectrum, ZX81 or BBC etc. (or emulator), there are a load of books, by Usborne, from back in the day now available as downloadable pdf books, and they're free. Link is below, just scroll down past the new releases. There's something quite satisfying about it, even if end result is meh.

https://usborne.com/browse-books/features/computer-and-coding-books/


And sorry if this has been posted before.

eddhorse

Great thanks, nostalgia overload

Burzum

Where is the best place to pre-order a Switch? or who is taking pre-orders i should say.
This popped up on donedeal and reminded me I need to pre-order mine.
https://www.donedeal.ie/games-for-sale/nintendo-switch-console-grey-edition/14604156

Digital Solitude

€700 for the Grey Switch, not even a Master Quest version of Zelda.

Amazon.fr is the cheapest ATM if you don't mind waiting

Burzum

Nice one,nah don't mind the wait.

Mr.Saturn

Was surprised that CeX had decent Gamecube stock for once. Not surprised there wasn't a sniff of a bargain.

CiDeRmAn

Their DS selection is much reduced in Santry, very few titles left.

Atavan-Halen

Mr.Saturn wrote: »

Was surprised that CeX had decent Gamecube stock for once. Not surprised there wasn't a sniff of a bargain.

Pokemon XD, yours for only 90 euro!

Tom Mann Centuria

Came across this on a zx81 faceache site. A computer generated music video (of sorts) by Chris Sievey, who'd go on to be the legendary Frank Sidebottom, made by him on his zx81.

He put it on the b side of a single of his in 1983 apparently. YouTube vid explains all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u9ZyV-BHFA

TechnoFreek

Courtesy of Viz. Maybe we'll see this emulated in mame 183!

Inviere

Looking at the prices of XRGB-N's there, ouch! :eek:

Retr0gamer

Inviere wrote: »

Looking at the prices of XRGB-N's there, ouch! :eek:

Is there an issue that they can't make them anymore due to a part becoming unavailable? My friend on the corrective consciousness podcast was talking about it.

Steve X2

Inviere wrote: »

Looking at the prices of XRGB-N's there, ouch! :eek:

Prices look the same as usual on Solaris. You mean the XRGB Mini, yes?

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Is there an issue that they can't make them anymore due to a part becoming unavailable? My friend on the corrective consciousness podcast was talking about it.

There is one component that wont be made anymore so they mentioned they had one last large order in for delivery in January or last December and that the last production will be this month (February).
I'm sure something will come along to replace it, but if anyone wants one it might be an idea to throw some cash down now rather than wait for stupid ebay prices once they're low in stock.

The OSSC looks interesting as a possible replacement, but I've not seen anything do 240p like the XRGB.

The Last Bandit

Steve X2 wrote: »

but I've not seen anything do 240p like the XRGB.

Apart for any decent CRT ?

Steve X2

The Last Bandit wrote: »

Apart for any decent CRT ?

Yes, of course. But we were talking about upscalers.

Mr.Saturn

Atavan-Halen wrote: »

Pokemon XD, yours for only 90 euro!

Hell, I bought Colosseum for £8 in CeX a couple years back and now it's going for 30 beans here.

Inviere

Steve X2 wrote: »

Prices look the same as usual on Solaris. You mean the XRGB Mini, yes?

Yup, the Mini. Tbh, I'm not likely to drop half a grand on something like that...and at this point in time, I think I would prefer to upgrade my HTPC and have it run a nice emulation frontend while using emulated scanlines. I'm really enjoying the Pi3 with Retropie at the mo, and while I'm not totally turning to the darkside, I'm re-considering how I'll be collecting in future. Some of the pc emulation frontends are very nice, and with the added power of an x86 setup, it opens up much better possibilities than a Pi can offer.

Original hardware on a crt will always take top trump, so I think I might leave my collection in mothball until I can have a dedicated room for it, with a nice Sony CRT...and until then, get my fix from emulation, as opposed to getting too deep in with scalers etc. That said, the XRGB Mini is a seriously fine piece of equipment, and definitely next in line to a crt.

CiDeRmAn

I'll be fascinated to see how the Pi is further upgraded this coming year, or it's Zero sibling.
Those little devices really have revolutionised hacking and emulation.
Why can't we see evolution in the Mame area on the Pi though?

Inviere

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I'll be fascinated to see how the Pi is further upgraded this coming year, or it's Zero sibling.
Those little devices really have revolutionised hacking and emulation.
Why can't we see evolution in the Mame area on the Pi though?

The Pi is a cracking little machine, and has really given me faith back in enjoying emulation again. However, when looking at emulating up to 6th gen consoles (namely the Gamecube), and indeed the 7th gen Wii, it's going to be a long time before a Pi can come even close (if ever). I'm definitely liking the idea of a dedicated HTPC/Emulation machine more and more, and I'd like it to be as complete as possible in terms of what it can emulate. Again though, only as a stopgap until I once again have a dedicated games room....then it's crt city!

CiDeRmAn

Here's a thing
There's a fantastic version of Pac Man for the 2600 called Pac Man 8k.
It's stunning, a real testament to the capability of programmers to squeeze every last drop out of hardware, and it far outstrips the performance of the original Pac Man cart for the system
Here's the two for comparison
OG Pac Man on 2600

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCPpgt0s70U

Pac Man 8k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA3mIWzwrZk

Unfortunately, the 8k homebrew version isn't available on cart, though a slightly more limited but still excellent 4k version is.

So, is there a way to flash the 8k version to an existing cart? Using eproms and other such magical things I've no idea about?
Or am I limited to buying a flash cart or using an emulator?

Tom Mann Centuria

Stunning version of Pac-Man, I have a soft spot for the sh*te genuine 2600 release though as that was the first version I ever saw, long before I saw the arcade version. My brother stayed up all night, into Stephen's Day morning playing it. Just to write the score down on a bit of paper.

The Last Bandit

Ah the original gets a lot of abuse but its a good effort for the 5 or 6 weeks the developer had to design it.

Plenty of games used 8K carts but not sure if the used mappers or just larger roms though.

Dr Bob

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I was a gamer in those heady mid 80's, with major jealousy of the C64 EU releases from the US, being a Speccy owner.
But some of the ports were superb.
US Gold, Ocean and Imagine, great games, possibly greater poster art work though!

Shush you..you guys got a decent Chase Hq port...the c64 one though....shudder

CiDeRmAn

I was out of Speccy gaming when the Chase HQ port arrived.
You should republish your RType piece, it was great, just trying to remember your review of the Spectrum version.
Great, aside from all the loading!

Dr Bob

DinoRex wrote: »

Yep. And it's an area of gaming history that is usually completely overlooked due to it not really happening in America or Japan.

That's one of the things that pisses me off about the modern retro scene.
History plus big rant coming:

The 70s-90s period in Ireland and UK had a VERY different gaming scene to the U.S. Relatively lower incomes meant that games had to be cheaper , and the market allowed a larger amount of home computer brands to flourish.So you could have Commodore,Spectrum,Amstrad,Atari,Oric,Dragon,Acorn plus a few more all able to coexist, at least for a while.To keep games prices down most 8 bit games were released on tape, disk versions existed but tended to be pricier.While games could cost 10 or 12 pounds there was an entire industry built on games at a 2 or 3 pound sales price. Which meant you didnt need a huge team and a lot of money to produce a game. Its a bit like a cross between todays indie market and mobile games..a lot of terrible shovelware but enough leeway to get some really different,crazy or good stuff.Plus there were publisers who would buy older titles and resell them as budget games a year or two later.similar to the whole "platinum games" thing sony did from the ps1 era on.
Plus instead of one or maybe two different home conversions of arcade games , you sometimes had 10 or 12 all quite often totally different.
When the games crash happened in the mid eighties the market here wasnt really effected as it was so diverse.Nintendo never made much headway here as the market was so fractured, there was a half hearted push of the NES but it wasnt handled well, few releases, badly optimized and totally misspriced.(In the UK "Boots the chemists" was the main distributor)Sega did better by distributing the SMS via Virgin , and optimized games , and priced things to suit the market in fact it outperformed the NES sales wise. The NES did get a proper push here , but not until 93-94 and then as a budget console for younger kids.
By the 16 bit days things were a lot closer to the US market but the home computers still took up a decent market share had dropped to the two 16 bit machines (Atari and Amiga), and the fledgling IBM compatibles market.

What pisses me off these days is that because a lot of retrogame youtube channels and sites that cover stuff prior to maybe 1995 are based in the U.S.
80's gaming history is regarded as " Atari VCS/Crash/Then Everyone had a Nintendo ".But the worst thing of all now is that UK/Ireland retrogamers who weren't around then think that's how it was here.
Which it wasn't.
Anway here's two games that probably couldnt have been made in the US :

Bonus a great video of terrible games by a man who once said I looked like "David Brent, that twat from the office"(good times).Contains rude words (probably)

____
*The US had Commodore/Apple and Atari and those were a much smaller more niche market than consoles like the VCS and intellivison.

CiDeRmAn

Yeah, matches with my experience of the era.
I remember zero NES/Sega ownership until the Gameboy and it's massive marketing splash throughout the media of the time.
I remember ST and Amiga owners, Spectrum and C64 holdouts into the very late 80s but from 90 on it's Gameboy and Megadrive, followed by the SNES.
I understand that experiences change depending on income and the like, but that was mine.
Also, I didn't see too many NES or Master System titles about during the early years of the MD or GB, if they had of been as popular as all that there would have been more of a legacy of such carts about.