#like on the nes or old computers that they can emulate and see for the first time

[dawnblade]

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[smorbee]

iBook Pyramid Behind the scenes!

This is a long one. Also keep in mind we made this a year ago so were going completely off of memory at this point BUT we do have the files. Unfortunately we didn't save specific versions of it really early into its creation so all the blender files close to being finished.

We have an intense appreciation for funky old computers. People correctly identified inspiration from the Thinkpad 701C. Less obvious in the final design but something that almost certainly influenced us as well was the 12-inch powerbook g4.

There is something very satisfying about nearly-square shaped laptops.

Others mentioned the JVC 3100R pyramid TV which, you'll be surprised to learn, we had never actually seen until after working on this project. The resemblance is uncanny and yet, entirely coincidental. Honestly if we had seen this thing, it probably would have had an effect on our design because the way that hinge is set up is beautiful. Our thought process was simply just comically emulating the form factor of a modern laptop but with a giant CRT.

We're pretty sure the idea started out as simply wanting to design a full profile keyboard into a macbook-like laptop because funny, and at some point the butterfly keyboard came to mind and we said Screw it and implemented that into it as well. Heres the keyboard separated into the different sections.

Sorry to say that the keyboard does not actually contain any switches. (You'll see that this computer was modeled to be viewed a limited angle)

Heres the keyboard from the top.

Once we got going with it, the whole thing was turned into a big joke of course, clashing many different eras of technology into one. Such as this massive beige tank of a "laptop" having a single USB C port as its main I/O.

And same with the software. This is the texture for the display, Which was taken from our real (unfortunately not crt based) macbook setup at the time. Except not quite, as the original screenshot was 16:10. We simply edited the image to make it 4:3. This is running mac os 12 with a majority of the icons changed to early osx equivalents.

We'll be real and admit the animation is not very intricate, theres no real "rig" for the model, parts are just parented together because we did all this in about 2 days. That said, we had loads of fun animating it still, trying to imitate the motion of someone struggling to lift the heavy top up before it swings open with an inaudible, but easily imaginable "Thud". Making the whole body shake and the trackball jump slightly was the finishing touch to make it complete.

The wire for the trackball was made using a circle with the screw modifier and then applied to a curve. Here's what it looks like with each modifier applied sequentially.

And then making the trackball itself a handle for the curve, we can have the cable be dynamic. (Yes, we notice that the trackball in fact has no mouse buttons. No good explanation for that, I think we just forgot lmao.)

For the screen, we make use of a location transform on the UV mapping for the satisfying detail of the screen distorting from the impact, which we swear we've seen before but no matter how hard we (safely) bumped our CRT monitor we weren't able to recreate it. Nonetheless even if its not entirely realistic we wouldn't remove it for anything.

speaking of which, an utterly useless detail considering the resolution and distortion of the final renders and yet we added anyways just for our own amusement is that the display has a shadowmask, simply done by just multiplying it over the base screen texture.

Combined with a glass material over the inner part of the screen, it utterly destroys low sample count renders of the screen and makes the project at least 3x as prone to crashing so thats cool! (it crashed on us while we were writing this section)

We've learned since in future projects that trying to optimize polygon count and materials is still very important even for offline rendered content. We can never be truly free from the constraints of memory limitations 😔

the final step was getting a more authentic less "polished" look in the compositing. This step can get very complicated based on the specific look were going for, but for this render its really just basic color correction and some blurring and sharpening steps. We used the default fake jitter node in blender at the time, though in more recent stuff we use the non-denoised image with filters applied to it instead, so its less uniform between images and more uniquely degraded looking.

Though we'd do a number of things differently now were still pleased with the final result. especially in animated form.

Heres an overview of the scene:

This is the bezeled apple logo in polygon form. Its simply an alpha texture with a normal map:

Thats all for now! Thank you for reading!

[turtlemagnum]

i think my first exposure to AI art might've been this video where somebody was testing out this new, weird thing where they automatically generate a song using AI, and i couldnt help but feel that it was an indictment of the modern music scene that a goddamn computer could effortlessly and accurately replicate the generic swill that passes for popular music nowadays. didnt have a vocalist synthesized yet but those have been becoming a thing too, or so i hear.

i saw a little article about how the newer generations of gamers are turning more and more to retro games. as somebody technically belonging to the "newer generations" this felt self evident, as frankly most of the gaming i do nowadays is almost invariably in an emulator. i think that to a certain extent, most of the best mainstream games that are going to be made already have been, at least for the forseeable future of major developers with games made scientifically perfect for milking you for the most money possible rather than as an art form. im sure it's all gonna collapse in on itself eventually, from what i hear some of the older folks who lived through more than i have we've been here before. hell, pretty much anybody who cares even a bit about gaming history knows first and foremost about the gaming crash of the early 80s, mostly spurred on by the temporal equivalent of modern cheap asset flip garbage that floods most stores these days. it's hard not to feel like we're about to see a massive crash yet again, with the ones inheriting the earth being the little fellas, and of course nintendo. which, makes sense, their earliest history is of weathering shit just like this, of course they'd know when to spot enshittification and stay clear of it. i'm in no way saying that nintendo is exempt of being a shitty corporation, but i will say that from a business standpoint they're one of the only ones i know of that actually seem to understand the idea of sustainability on a broad scale. hell of a lot better than the likes of activision, thats for damn sure. but back to what i was actually trying to get at before i adhd tangent'd, i think it makes a lot of sense that when the majority of the shit being put on the market is corporatist, design by comittee, prefab trash with aggressive monetization and a consistent attitude of fixing any problems in patches, it makes a hell of a lot of sense that we'd go back to our roots. NES mario is the same as its ever been, has been for over 30 years, and will be in another 30. you dont gotta worry about them patching it to make it actually function as advertised, or patching it from being something you enjoyed into something you hate, or having fomo marketing based microtransaction bullshit. the most that's gonna change is that every now and again, nintendo will make the only version they give not have flashing lights for epileptic folks, or patch out mike tyson because he sucks and replace him with a white guy, and the white guy's less hard but thats ok because it's still pretty hard, and either way it's a good game, fun, and you can still find the original on rom sites and also probably ebay if you dont have a vpn but do have a disposable income, so dont worry about it. getting sidetracked again, ANYWAYS-

what i wanted to get at is that i wonder if we're gonna see a similar resurgence in other old kinds of media just like, in general, for the mainstream. like why watch the 22nd reboot of ghost busters when the originals are right there. king crimson's still good, why dont you listen to them instead of bemoaning how your new favs are problematic, even though i dont think fripp can reclaim the fag slur (im gay, i can it's fine). i've recently been watching fist of the north star and original dragon ball, ilike the m. there are books. lots of those, actually,. you can read em! if you have the attention span. i honestly think we might be seeing more and more of this, now that im looking out for it. like i see just like, random people mention how much they like prog rock or 1930s dracula. relatively normals talk about how they like lemon demon these days. those stupid aestheticized classic anime accounts on twitter get sososo many likes. can you tell im sleep deprived writing this? i can, and im writing thjis. im writing this SO HARD. send poast.

[lunarsilkscreen]

Emulation and Risk to Big Gamer.

The first question I have is about historical preservation of media. There's thousands of old videos games (most of which are terrible, I won't lie). But the access that we have to them, maybe through not wholey-legal means, sometimes even legal means (some games on steam), they're broken, unplayable without the original hardware, and in many cases the original hardware doesn't exist.

Or in other cases, the original operating systems and firmware.

And in quite a few of *those* cases, the original isn't selling them, or even have plans to do so. And In a lot more, they have to be remastered in order to even see the light of day again.

Games like "Operation Raccoon City" and the original "Fallout" can be purchased off steam, but they cannot be played because the libraries they relied on either don't exist or don't work the same way as they used to, and thus cannot be played without heavy modification and/or emulation.

Games like that on Atari, NES, 3D0, and Sega Master System cannot be played unless you get real lucky at a pawn shop. And often, it's pirates that preserve the software and post them online that is the only reason we have access to them at all.

Or any historical records.

Sure, you're allowed to make player devices, but the legality of putting older games on the hardware standard is iffy to say the least.

Enjoy playing Hyper Markio Bros and Sanic the Hodgepodge on your GamerBro handheld device.

With VCRs and Tape Decks, you used to be able to copy media directly, and that was a legal battery of its own, but in order to ensure that they could continue doing business (without somebody else copying their hardware and playing their games on reverse engineered devices) Companies like Nintendo enabled encryption on their devices so that they could control their own market.

That's probably one of several shrewed business decisions that they're still in the hardware game. And I cannot fault them for that. Sega learned how hard it is to stay in hardware, and PlayStation made the Linux decision.

Well. They made a console that was so unique it became a military supercomputer at a loss to the company. Which is a unique issue on it's own.

And the reason hardware manufacturer don't sell at a loss anymore.

But technology, as always, is always improving on a daily basis, it's only recent that it's been bottlenecked by quarterly profits.

But what does this mean for Big Gamer? It means that, eventually, console manufacturing will become a thing of the past. VCRs weren't limited to Sony after all. And Dell isn't the only company to sell computers.

Console manufacturers may be limited to roles like producers similar to the music industry. Especially since cross-platforming code is easier if the code bases are the same, or at least similar (unlike Apple and Swift)

Not yet, but soon, people will be limited to which devices they are able to buy, and if that device doesn't play your games, there goes your market.

[zerohour1974]

What Happened?

Why do I seem to have lost interest in everything computer related? I used to love playing with old machines but to be honest lately my heart has really fallen out of the industry.

I just don’t seem to enjoy playing with this stuff. I used to like messing around with emulators and playing with things like DOS but now I feel like I have played around and done most things I can do in that field.

I had an interest in Linux but to be honest it seems to have faded. Maybe because I have hit the limits of my hardware so I don’t have any areas to explore.

People have always said I have had an esoteric choice of machines I like. Although I admit my first machine was a 48k ZX Spectrum back in 1983 as common as you get. I have always been interested in the more obscure or failing machines.

I have always had an interest in machines such as the MSX machines, PC Engines & Sharp X68000. This is because they were not on every computer shop in town. They didn’t make huge impact at all in the UK where I am based.

Obviously a lot of the software is in Japanese and I have no ability to read Hiragana, which is what it normally is. So even if I get emulation running I have no idea what its about or what I am supposed to be doing if it’s beyond basic menus.

I also like machines like the NeXT, which was also not hugely available so when to get to see them I am really interested.

I then used OpenStep 3.3. via the emulator called Previous and really discovered how little software is actually available for this system. However using it really did show how much NeXTStep is still in Mac OS X even to this day.

Why do I prefer typing in old word processors like this one and Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS or LocoScript PC. Give me a copy of LibreOffice or Modern Word and I sit and stare at a blank page.

I also seem to type more if you give me a minimalist word processor like Writeroom or Focuswriter. So maybe it’s a psychological thing.

It seems the more obscure the item is the more my interest is.

I also have a vast interest in running things in emulators. I have no ability to write said emulators but have always had a fascination in seeing if I can do it on said machines.

It started when I got my first 486 SX25 . The first emulator I ran was JPP in DOS to emulate a ZX Spectrum. Then I found things like Z80 and Magic Engine I bought keys for both. The Magic Engine key I still have and still works but the Z80 one went AWOL a long time ago.

It was cool to subvert the machine make it doe something it was not designed by trade to do, It was exciting and when you got something working it was cool.

I then found things like Nesticle, (NES) Genecyst (Genesis/Mega Drive) and Callus (CPS1) from Blood software and I entered a rabbit hole of emulation. BSNES and ZSNES (both SNES ) and things like M72 (Irem M72 boards), RAINE (CPS1/2) and MAME.

Obviously I remember MAME when it started and would only run 5 games but it sharp managed to keep adding more and more games, making it very interesting at the time.

MAME of course is still going today and can do lots of things as it now includes many of the older projects being amalgamated into it. It now includes MESS, (Multi Emulation Super System), MFME (Multi Fruit Machine Emulator) and PINMAME (Pinball DMD roms).

All of these at one point had separate instances but now MAME coves them all including the ever growing arcade roms and architectures it supports.

As well as multi machine emulators like MAME. Several arcades had their own dedicated programs. I remember things like The New Zealand Story and the 4 player Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had their own dedicated emulators written for them.

Obviously over the years many emulators have come and gone and the images of the roms have been upgraded or updated. I think I saw recently that if you wan t to emulate some of the newer systems on MAME such as Sega M1 or Naomi upwards you need to use CHD (Compressed Hunks of Data) files and if you want a complete collection of such then you need over 10TB worth of hard drive space.

Which is ludicrous considering that half of them don’t work very well due to requiring a beefy CPU to run said games and lots of GPU memory to create the virtual graphics cards.

So machines without a eight-core processor or higher and anything less than a Nvidia 3000 series graphics card need not apply.

Over the years the emulators have continued covering all major platforms and even to this day as I said MAME continuers its quest. However even more recent platforms are not safe from the emulators.

They have emulation for Xbox 360, Playstation 2 & 3 and even a Switch emulator. In fact was just announced about RPCS4, Orbital, PS4EMX, PS4Emus they have got Playstation 4 emulation now in the functional stages.

Scary stuff. I love emulation even though I could not program one to save my life. I just like seeing a machine running something it was not intended to do.

This is also why I used to like playing with Hackintosh stuff because it was once again subverting what the machine is. The PC was not supposed to run Mac OS X but the fact that someone managed to get such things running was absolutely fascinating.

People have accused me of being quite brutal on machines because I tend to try and get these emulators to work or run software never designed for it. The fact that things such as emulators and the various VMs to run obscure stuff I am not the only one who wants to do this.

Thankfully they do exist because if you were waiting on me to write such it would never happen as I just don’t have that sort of skill or knowledge.

Of course the new Apple Silicon has pretty much made the Hackintosh redundant and also I really didn’t quite understand how to get OpenCore working it was far too complex for my limited brain.

Normal stuff like PC gaming or consoles don’t appeal to me very much until they become a challenge to run them. As I said I like the obscure I like the having to resort to unorthodox methods.

I would be the type if I did play PC games and got good I would have to beat Call of Duty 904 with a Steering wheel just be obnoxious. I’m not going to do that so don’t look to find it.

Obviously as I said new emulators require machines far beyond my reach at the moment but one day who knows I may get back up in the high end PC market again.

Until then I type this nonsense on a iBook G4 using Microsoft Word 2008 then probably upload it using my Dell i7 M6800 laptop to Tumblr.

However to answer the question what happened. I think I have played with most of the obscure things and now I have nothing to do or see.

Going back to the run of the mill is boring and I honestly find most modern games and consoles lifeless. They may be photo realistic and have 4k graphics and more but have about as much excitement to me as a pebble.

However if I get a high end PC I will definitely try and emulate the consoles I don’t care about currently as it something the PC isn’t supposed to be doing. As I said it’s a psychological thing or basically I’m just weird.

[arabellaflynn]

Advent Calendar 19: Pointed Observations

The advent of the mouse was a revolution in computing technology. It did nothing to augment the brains of the computer, but it did a lot bridge the communcation gap between the computer's brain and the user's. Early home systems only spoke their own language, and you had to learn computerese to get anything out of them; early consoles only knew left-right-up-down and fire. Most computing histories only cover the mouse in terms of accessibility of the OS and filesystems, but the mouse was also integral to games.

After text-based interactive fiction and before full-motion video, there was the point-and-click adventure. These games built environments out of still pictures, sometimes with limited animation, and took full advantage of the mouse cursor's mobility to put interaction points anywhere on the screen. If you could see it, you could use the mouse to poke it, and if you poked it right, it might do something. IF's eternal game of "guess the verb" was simplified down to a list of clickable words -- sometimes even icons -- and inventory. Stuck players could, and often did, brute-force their way through puzzles by methodically trying every verb on every interactive point they could find until they found the proper combination to progress the plot. 

Point-and-clicks were largely, though not entirely, a product of mouse-bearing computers. They did come out for consoles, working the interface via D-pad with only four possible directions of movement was awkward at best. You certainly could play Maniac Mansion on an NES, but did you really want to? 

A closely related form, also a branch off of interactive fiction, was the visual novel. Rather than presenting a series of pictures to interact with, VN games let the player navigate through a branching plot using mainly dialogue choices. These too were more popular on computer than on console, as the large amount of text lent itself better to close-up viewing and navigation on a monitor than the typical console setup, with the player some distance from a television. While computer point-and-clicks were fairly popular in the the West, driven by classics like Return to Zork and MYST, console versions, visual novels, and games that combined elements of both were more popular in Japan. A few received North American releases, like Déjà Vu, and some others are now available in fantranslations that can be played in emulators, like Famicom Detective Club.

One of the absolute classics of the genre is The Secret of Monkey Island. The brainchild of Lucasarts' Ron Gilbert (Maniac Mansion, Zak McKraken & The Alien Mind-Benders, Day of the Tentacle) assisted by Tim Schaefer (Grim Fandango, Psychonauts, Full Throttle, Brütal Legend), The Secret of Monkey Island kicked off an entire series about the adventures of Guybrush Threepwood, who wanted to become a pirate. Clever, hilarious, charming, and packaged with some good old-fashioned feelies, the Monkey Island family of games is beloved of anyone who plays these things, and has been remade repeatedly for newer platforms. The Xbox Live Arcade version is unusual in that it allows you to swap from the new hi-res environments to the originals at will, in case your need for nostalgia overwhelms your desire to actually focus on the screen.

Post-FMV, the point-and-click died out for a while. Visual novels continued to be a genre in Japan, but few of them made the leap overseas, even projects like Radical Dreamers which were based on a property -- in that case, ChronoTrigger -- popular in North America. The market was considered so small that the huge localization project wasn't worth it. The customary console interface remained the D-pad for all major makers, and computer games had jumped to full 3D environments with direct controls, leaving little room for still vistas full of interactable pixels.

What point-and-clicks really need is an environment where you can jab the screen directly on the thing you want to investigate. And this came back with a vengeance in 2004, when Nintendo released its portable console, the Nintendo DS. Variously expanded as "Developer System" or "Dual Screen", the DS smashed even the sales records held by the Gameboy, becoming Nintendo's best selling console ever, the best selling handheld overall, and second-best selling console in history, right behind the PS2. Two screens working in tandem gave developers a place to put the gameplay separate from the interface, always a problem when working on a handheld with limited pixel space, and the bottom touchscreen made it easy to interact directly using the stylus. Increased cartridge capacity made large amounts of text no problem, and holding the console close solved any problems with readability.

Though there were a few hybrid VN/point-and-clicks released close to the DS's launch, like Hotel Dusk, the resurgence of the genre properly started with Capcom's unexpected smash hit Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Originally released as a Gameboy Advance title, Capcom opted to include an English localization with the Japanese DS re-release, for... honestly, no real reason I can find, other than English is cool in Japan and Takumi Shu is a little strange. The script is a little rough and has some typos, but because it wasn't expected to be officially released to an English-only audience, the localizers had crazy fun with it, and once they had it, well, why not give it a shot? The first game was a little difficult to find for a while, as the original North American print run was well under 100,000 copies, but Capcom got right on that once they got over the surprise, and sales for the series are well into the millions now.

Since then, the point-and-click genre has been further extended by games whose main mechanism is environmental puzzles, rather than inventory/verb. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, also by Takumi Shu, has some of the most beautiful animation I've ever seen in a DS game, and makes excellent use of the multi-touch capacity of the DS' bottom screen. 

If you want to try your hand at creating your own games, much like Inform 7 for interactive fiction, Ren'Py is a game engine for homebrew point-and-click/visual novel projects. Based on Python, it's relatively simple to start with, but can be leveraged to create just about anything you can think of, up to and including the famously terrifying Doki Doki Literature Club (WARNING: the intro is not kidding, it starts cute and end up in full-blown horror).

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[marylandvewor]

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This tactic becomes a crucial part in combat as some enemies cannot be brought down by fighting head on but by striking from behind and this applies to some bosses too.Īlso another feature in Wind Waker is along with the weapons Link normally uses, a sword, shield, boomerang, grappling hook, and others, Link is now able to pick up items from his defeated foes and use them. While locking-on to a target and not defending, the game sends a cue that the enemy is about to attack by vibrating the controller and sounding a chime.īy attacking during this time, link is able to evade or parry the enemy attack and counter attack. The bird comes back to take Tetra but takes Links sister by mistake.Ī new feature in Wind Waker is the ability to parry an attack. The story begins as Link rescues a girl named Tetra, leader of a group of pirates, from a giant bird. Link ventures to gain hold of a relic know as the Triforce and defeat his enemy, Ganondorf. The game was released on 16 June 2011 in Japan, 17 June 2011 in Europe, 19 June 2011 in North America and 30 June 2011 in Australia however, it was. Link starts out this time on an island with a vast sea to explore, and below the sea lies the ruins of the once great Kingdom of Hyrule. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D is an action-adventure video game co-developed by Grezzo and Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS handheld console. Download the Legend of Zelda, The - Ocarina of Time (Europe) ROM now and enjoy playing this game on your computer or phone. This is the Japanese version of the game and can be played using any of the N64 emulators available on our website. This title takes on a new look with cel-shaded graphics, and designs that made Link, and the rest of the environment cartoon-ish. Have fun playing the amazing Legend of Zelda, The - Ocarina of Time (Europe) game for Nintendo 64. R4i SDHC flash cartridge is compatible with all Nintendo DS versions and can hold a microSD card with up to 32GB of game roms on it.īut what is most surprising about this new title is its graphics.

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This website is NOT sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo.Ībout Us Contact Privacy Policy Terms Conditions ROMs Play Emulator Online Games Arcade Games Emulators. Similar Games you will like playing GBA ROMs SNES ROMs N64 ROMs NES ROMs PS1 ROMs GBC ROMs Genesis ROMs GB ROMs MAME ROMs NEO-GEO ROMs 2020 Emulator.Games. Legend Of Zelda, The - Ocarina Of Time (V1.2) works on all your devices in high quality.

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We all hope the project finishes soon so everyone can try it and relieve the good old days of gaming. It is great to see a dedicated team trying to bring a great port to players. This allows players to plan accordingly before engaging. The ones you have to sneak by in the Castle now have vision cones.

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Another thing in the Ocarina of Time PC port update is an update to the guards’ behavior. It also adds some difficulty options for those tenacious players who want more challenges. It unlocks the framerate to up to 250 frames per second. Said update brings a lot of features to this Zelda PC Port. But, while we wait, this amazing team is here to bring the Ocarina of Time PC port we all want. It is only time that Nintendo started a remake of their own. It changed the whole picture of how action-adventure games are played. This game was the base for adventure games back in the day. Ocarina of Time is a classic amongst gamers. This is great because Nintendo has yet to make a remake of the game that revolutionized the genre, as everyone knows. You can play the Ocarina of Time PC port at 250fpsĮarlier this year, the team behind this Port released the Ocarina of Time PC version for people to try out. This Zelda PC Port is something people are quite happy to play with new features and, of course, on the PC. The Ocarina of Time PC port has been developed for quite some time. One game that has been remade in a fan-made port for PC is Ocarina of Time. On the other hand, we have people who are just happy to play remakes from their favorite classic games. While some people are eagerly waiting for big titles like the new God of War or whenever the new Grand Theft Auto launches. It is a strange time in the gaming world.

[blazehedgehog]

So this is actually super interesting, and it never even dawned on me that they could have done this.

So, Google’s streaming service, Stadia, has latency. There’s no way around it. You push a button, that button press travels through the internet to a data center miles and miles away, after which it travels all the way back to your system and you see the result. That takes time, and it’s the biggest sticking point AGAINST Stadia. Your games will always feel more sluggish on Stadia.

So how do you fix that? You can’t, right? The only way to fix it is to physically reduce the distance.

But Google is claiming there is a way. Sounds impossible, right?

RetroArch, if you’ve never heard of it, is a gigantic collection of different emulators. It’s not necessarily what’s considered a “front end,” because those are usually launchers that interface with a separate executable. RetroArch is more of an operating system into itself, and one that’s mainly for emulating retro games (though I believe they also have media playback for video files and etc.)

So you can play NES, SNES, Genesis, Playstation etc. games through it, if you have the files and know how to set everything up.

There’s a problem inherent with emulation and it’s that it is always slower than real hardware. Think of it as the difference between speaking a native language and having to translate words before you can understand them. Translation always takes more time, and emulating old games is very similar to a translation process. This means when you are emulating a game, there will always be more delay between you pushing the button and the game reacting.

But RetroArch came up with a unique solution for this problem, and it’s very similar to what Google Stadia is going to do, except that it’s up and running right now and verifiably works.

Essentially, there is a feature in RetroArch now that starts dozens of rolling save states, all running in tandem, and it uses that to kind of predict what button you’re going to push next. Think of it like that bit in Avengers: Infinity War, where Doctor Strange uses the time stone to look at all possible future outcomes.

So let’s say you’re playing Super Mario Brothers. Under the hood, RetroArch is running dozens of different versions of the game in secret, like different future timelines. In one, you’re pushing the A button. In another, you’re pushing the B button. And it continues on like that, until you have a different instance of Mario for every single possible button -- and button combination (so A+B simultaneously is its own instance, for example).

When RetroArch detects you’ve pushed the A button, it switches over to the instance where you’ve actually been pressing the A button for several frames already, essentially invoking a form of time travel. You say, “I push the A button,” and the emulator says “That means you pushed the A button three frames ago” and puts you on the timeline where that’s true. All of this happens imperceptibly fast, but the end result effectively eliminates emulator latency entirely. Instead of waiting to translate your input, it simply simulates all input, all the time, constantly, in order to predict every possible outcome before it happens.

One would assume that when they talk about implementing “negative latency” for Google Stadia, this is the system they’re talking about.

There’s just one problem: this requires insane system requirements. Again, it’s not just running one version of the game, it’s running dozens. Every single possible button state is another instance of the game. Imagine not just opening SNES9x once, but 20, 30, 40+ times. Modern computers are powerful enough to kind of manage that, but in the context of Google Stadia, running games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, things get to be significantly more tricky.

For starters, analog triggers. RetroArch works by simulating potential futures for every single button state on a controller, but the analog triggers on an Xbox controller contain 64,000 different states of pressure. When you multiply that by the other button states, we’re talking millions of possible outcomes, and that’s before factoring in analog control stick data.

In theory, this is why Google is saying it wants to use AI machine learning. Instead of simulating millions of outcomes Google probably only wants to simulate the most common ones. So the artificial intelligence will identify that you might push the A button next, so it’ll spool up instances where it thinks that might happen, only simulating the minimum. Which is to say this will be a predictive system for a predictive system. Doctor Strange sees all the possible outcomes, but somebody else sees outcomes where Doctor Strange sees that.

What this means in theory is that there will probably be scenarios where input latency varies greatly based on how chaotic your play is. If the system can’t predict what you’re going to do next, your response time will suffer. As long as you play in a way the system expects, you won’t notice any latency when talking to the server. And even with this predictive technology in place, these games will still be using significantly more resources than playing a hard copy at home on a real PC or console.

It’s a weird, complicated, bloated solution to a problem Google is inventing for themselves. They are essentially increasing the resources required to run a single game by a thousand-fold, in the hopes that their ridiculous Google Data Center Network will be able to handle the astronomical number crunching loads this will require. They’re fixing something they didn’t need to break, and I’m not sure how they actually come out ahead in this, all things considered.

[zero-page-game]

An Unlikely Source

The idea for zero_page came off the back of a big time sink. If you made the pitch for it in front of any reasonable group of people, you would have had lots of concerned faces and politely raised hands ready to share some insights about time management. Lucky for me I didn't need to pitch it to anyone.

I had worked in games for 20 years and had just retired. I was sick of programming, tired of management and just wanted to change tacks. So for two years I did anything but program or think about games. In that time I dabbled with music and sound engineering, as well as getting interested in a little handheld gaming device that could emulate all the classic games I grew up with. One night, just before going to sleep, I wondered how those emulators really worked. The next day I woke up and started to research. Then I started to write some code. Then it was down the rabbit hole.

I grew up an Nintendo kid. Sega can go to hell and die, Nintendo always had their number. So of course I decided to write an emulator for the classic 80s NES. Now, this is a feat undertaken and accomplished by quite a few people. It's well documented and well written about, but my interest wasn't in breaking new ground but rather just to follow my curiosity.

I started by writing an emulation of the 6502 processor (a really great exercise to undertake for anyone who loves programming.) Then I slowly brought the graphics side of the NES to life; piece by piece, weird nuance after weird hardware nuance, I constructed a working NES emulator.

It really wasn't like anything I had written before. You start with no "hardware" at all but instead a full library of classic "software" that's already been shipped and is ready to be played. After writing a little code you might be able to decipher some background images. Maybe you get sprites working a bit and you can see them move around the screen. Then you fix a bug and suddenly it's actually kind of playable for a while (until it inevitably goes wrong). Bit by bit you're unearthing this ancient machine and how it worked, seeing further and further into its library and how they made those games work.

It was a lot of fun, until it became really not fun. Emulation inevitably devolves down into taking your elegant code and crow-barring caveats into it to try and reproduce the odd idiosyncrasies of the system you're trying to reproduce. They've all got quirks and pitfalls embedded in their silicon, and to be accurate you need to reproduce it, warts and all. This very quickly turns into a really tedious endeavor that I don't recommend anyone embark on.

The culmination of my project therefore was to play the Legend of Zelda all the way through, all in my emulator. It all just worked. As the last credits rolled by it felt like a bit of an anti-climax. I put the code away for a while (maybe poking at it here and there making useless optimizations), but for the most part I wasn't sure what to do next.

While my first real video game console was the NES, my first real computer was an Apple ][e. One I learned to love games on, the other I learned how to make them with. What I didn't know way back then is that both machines ran on the same core logic chip, the 6502 by MOS Technology. And it just so happened that I had already written the emulation for that chip for the NES, which meant I had a very large piece of the puzzle for emulating the Apple ][ already finished and tested. Now there was a new machine to uncover!

After buying a few books from the 80's and scouring multiple (very small) online communities, I was able to piece together an Apple ][ emulator pretty quickly. I could write little BASIC programs, run and alter disk images, even play some of the old games I had played when I was eight years old. But once again, I was left with a piece of software that did 99% of what I wanted but would be incredibly expensive in terms of development if I wanted to eek out that last percentage point. Again, there were those that had spent the time to do it already, so what was to be gained?

So I put that down as well. 

Until I wondered if I could make that emulator work in a modern game engine. I was already outputting the video of the emulator to a texture, so as long as I could route that out to an in-game texture it should "just work".

I fired up Unity and after not too much work I had the emulator playing inside a modern 3D engine! I could write little programs and with a little work I could even get them interacting with the game world. This got the ball rolling and zero_page was born. I wanted to take games that I had loved like Myst and Riven and couple them with my love of the old 8-bit computers I had grown up with.

Normally if you had made a pitch that started with, "So I'll need to write a complete emulation of an 80s computer" you'd probably back up and (rightly) point out that it would be a big time commitment to make before you could even test that it was fun. But luckily I had already accidentally made that time commitment, so now it was more of less "free" to use.

That's how it started.

[jonathanraychapman]

Why I Play The Older 8-Bit Consoles

I was born in 1980 so really the Atari 2600 age of consoles is a little before my time.  By the time I was gaming in 1985-86, we were well into the NES golden era.  But I have went back and collected the older consoles and I enjoy playing them.  I’d like to discuss my thoughts on why I dwell on this older generation - and some of the struggles and positives of my hobby here.  When I say older here, I really mean systems that pre-date the NES or are older technology.  So even though the SMS is pictured there, it’s not really what I’m talking about.

Simple Fun Games Continue Being Fun

The first thing to realize is that these older systems (by that I mean Atari 8-bit machines, Intellivision, and Colecovision) are very limited in the scope of what they have to offer.  They are very sparse in processing power, ram, and - subsequently - pixels (let alone sprites) on the screen.  This makes newcomers initially scoff at the thought of playing the games.  In truth, the good games that came out of this generation overcame those limitations by really having solid concepts and those concepts became the basis for future games that could expand the visual appeal.  The notion of fun transcends technical specs and experiencing these early games is one part history and one part simple fun.  I’m not nostalgic for these systems (as they are before my time).  I came to them the same way any newcomer would and I still fell in love with the simple charm they have to offer.  

Overcoming Controller Difficulties

A lot of complaints about the early consoles involve the controllers.  While the designs might seem novel interesting at first, someone that actually wants to play these games is quickly going to get over that and not want to continue.  I’m not particularly a fan of the Atari Joystick (despite its iconic look).  The Intellivision and the Colecovision have very non-ergonomic controllers that incorporate a digital number pad.  The good news here is that there are options to bypass these controllers and use NES-pad style or Sega Genesis style controllers.  The Genesis controllers generally work just fine with Atari 2600 (with C being the only button).  That’s easy.  To use a NES pad with the Atari 2600 or 7800 (which has two buttons), you’ll need to do a little modding or buy a pre-made controller.  For the Colecovision, I bought a box that converts the controller and also has a digital pad built-in to the box.  For Intellivision, I built a custom arcade stick with the numbers built in (I believe the PCBs and even pre-built controllers are available for sale).

Overcoming Graphic Output

If you have an older CRT TV that you can use RF with (you will need a basic s-plug adapter to coaxial), you can experience these older systems the way the originally were (setting your box to channel 3 or 4).  But I refuse to use RF because it’s very clunky, they have a lot of static noise (especially after all these years), and I want to use switch boxes to easily go between consoles during a play session.  Luckily there are plenty of composite-out solutions if you’re handy with a soldering iron.  And the audio is basically going to be mono for these systems - so you can just duplicate or hook up the output to both sides of the TV speakers.  There are hacks to add a little separation, but I don’t really think it’s worth it.

I really do recommend sticking to older style CRT TVs for the really old 8-bit consoles by the way.  For one, they look fantastic with the scanlines and the natural blurring effect of the TV.  For another, this is authentic to the intended experience (if that matters to you).   It’s just part of the experience and I love playing this way.  It’s just not the same when you play on a LCD TV - not for the older games.

Should You Play These Systems?

If you are someone young that maybe started out with PlayStation or even Nintendo Wii as your first console, this esoteric older stuff might or might not be for you - depending on your personal taste.  If you’re into the history of gaming, you might want to experience these systems at least once, but it’s a lot of time and money for what you might just want to check out with a Raspberry Pi or a computer emulator.  If you were born - like I was - in that middle time where the 8-bit consoles were transitioning into the 16-bit era, then this might be hit or miss.  I personally love playing games like Joust on original Atari hardware.  However, I realize it’s not for everyone.  However, if you’re at the point where you want to get into something new or expand your collecting to these games (which admittedly are harder to find out in the wild these days), maybe check them out.  If you own a Mister setup, then you can at least get your feet wet to see if it might be something you’re going to like.

[attract-mode-collective]

Not An April Fools Gag; That’s A Game Boy Advance With A GameCube Stick Affixed For Reals

What you're seeing is a modded GBA that I spotted on eBay. It's a real thing! Though it doesn't magically grant analogue control to all the digital input only games on the system, which is all of them for the record (sorry). Then again, it could be argued that the controls in WarioWare Twisted is technically analogue...

That aside aside, welcome to yet another recap of stuff posted over at the Attract Mode Twitter! Though this time it's gonna be a bit on the short side, relatively speaking; even I know covering two entire whole weeks has led to hard to handle Tumblr posts, so I'm going to try concentrating on just one week at a time/attempt weekly updates.

Let's see how well that goes...

Hey, it's SF2 IRL thanks to ARKit (via prostheticknowledge)...

At the time, when I first tweeted about it, there were only three left of Amanda Visell’s Player One Mario; no idea how many there are now...

When you can make a decision regarding lunch (via @Mechazawa)....

If you appreciate both the ease of slip-on sneakers and the taste of ghosts, then Games Glorious has something for you (via miki800.com)...

As a connoisseur of video games on the printed page, it is my goal to one day own a copy of Namco's newsletter that was distributed in game centers during the 80s & 90s, NG (via miki800)...

Remember that time Namco got someone from Yellow Magic Orchestra to hawk their wares (via namcomuseum)...

Both in print and on TV…

The YMO member in question, Haruomi Hosono, also did a Xevious remix album, which longtime readers of the blog will hopefully recall.

Sticking with Namco CMs, there’s a pair of longtime faves that I could have sworn I’ve already posted as well, yet cannot find. Though as noted, many times already, the search functionality here is broken.

So here’s a boy playing with his Famicom in the middle of the woods...

And here’s a girl playing with his Famicom in the middle of the woods...

Back to the subject of print, can’t seem to find any info on the Futabasha Fantasy Novel Series, which (I think) was a line of video game novelizations; this one appears to be written by the creator of Xevious himself (via shmups)...

The focus here is supposed to be the Lawson’s reward card with Kirby on it, but I am all about that Space Invaders whatever the heck it is (via miki800)...

Spent MANY hours at Japanese bookstores during my college years, flipping through Sega Saturn Magazine; seeing these VF Kids ads again makes me feel all warm & fuzzy (via thesegasource)...

This (what I believe to be a) farewell image of the face of the Saturn from the very first issue of Dreamcast Magazine, also gives me the feels (via oldgamemags)...

BTW, everyone knows the identity of Saturn's pitchman (Segata Sanshiro), but what about the Mega Drive's? (via yokosuka87)...

Back to the Saturn; I love how Sega want from Segata Sanshiro to Hidekazu Yukawa for the Dreamcast. This launch edition of the console, btw, was spotted at VideoGamesNewYork...

It's also where they Kira Kira Star Night DX for twice the asking price, as @gamespite)...

Speaking of music, to fully enjoy this animated gif of Eggman running…

… you need to have this song playing (via lunaticobscurity).

And to fully enjoy this image of Eggman on the sax…

... you need to have this song playing (via very-territorial-oak).

@ondoruragitan sez: "whoever designed that clown lady in ace attorney is probably the most horny artist to ever exist" (it's funny cuz it's true)...

So the big news these past few weeks, especially among video game folk my age, has been the end of the Toys R Us. Many have been sharing artifacts from the glory days, with my fave example being these old flyers, with the obvious highlight seeing all the original MSRP prices (via retrogamerblog)...

Oh, and don’t forget the gifs (via nintendroid)...

The following are more appropriate for my way, way overdue batch of game culture snapshots, but since we're on the subject of retail anyway; I recently stumbled across Nintendo's collab with Bloomingdale's that I had no idea even existed...

Took a bunch of pics, but unfortunately, due to the harsh lighting at the SoHo store, it was impossible to capture the women’s section, hence the abundance of men’s wear...

These women's sweatshirts are the best example of the line's overall design sensibilities, or lack thereof; it’s just a bunch of random Nintendo sprites on attire that is available at Bloomingdale's, period. That's all it aspires to be, nothing more...

... And that's a real shame, cuz aside from the quality of the clothing itself being high, some of the ho-hum looking designs could be really engaging with a few minor tweaks, like this b&w women's jacket with a very random assortment of b&w Super Mario World sprites...

In addition to clothing, you had accessories, like iPhone cases...

Plus sunglasses, which revealed Super Mario World playing on what appears to the naked eye to be a blank, white screen....

Speaking of Super Mario World, here's a hamster enjoying the game (via @kousuke_teppei)...

The lil guy also owns an original Famicom, and here we is playing Solomon's Key (thanks to @Topherocious for helping me to identify the game)...

Being that friend who is REALLY into video games means I'm asked a wide variety of questions from folks who are not, like why @beesmygod  is "freaking out" over a Sonic & Garfield two pack for the PC...

... I'll be honest, I don't really understand why either.

Here we have a mockup for an ad blocker that replaces banners with GBA screenshots, which I really want to see happen (via @tinycartridge)...

I also really want to see this happen too (via @truongasm)...

Back to Tiny Cart; that's where I found out that you no longer have to play emulated Tiger handheld games sans backgrounds...

Nothing beats a pic of a dimly lit arcade, especially when it's shot on ACTUAL film (via mendelpalace)...

As for this particular arcade show, @kappuru theorizes "it looks like cinestill film, or a filter designed to mimic it." (via parkerwoods)...

"WHO IS THIS NUN?! WHY DOES SHE LOOK SO SINISTER?" is a great KOF related question (via vice-s-assistant)...

And "BOWL BEFORE ME" is a great KOF related gag (via brondeef)...

"this is the best cosplay i’ve ever seen" is a a great costume play related observation made by lunaticobscurity...

"how to get away with playing super mario odyssey in class" is the caption given by retrogamerblog...

"Stardew Valley gave me 500 characters to use as my farm name, so I put down an entire 1-star amazon review for an Independence Day DVD" is the explanation given by @NoahHafford...

Hey, you never know, maybe one day a homebrew dev might make “Shinjuku-Nichome Gay District Serial Murders” a reality? (via mendelpalace)

When you’ve got one copy of Melee with two boxes, and one copy of Air Ride with zero boxes… just gotta improvise (via stellatuna)...

When you’ve got a killer Game Genie code but no paper to write it down on... and then you discover the code does something totally different (via theassortment)...

And when I asked what this 4koma featuring a Dreamcast VMU was all about, @JonahD was kind enough to explain: "VMUs are playing hide and seek, Black is seeking. One VMU thinks hiding in the controller would be good but it makes a bunch of noise and they’re found immediately" (via posthumanwanderings)...

Whereas I have yet to find out what all these Sonics are doing at a German airport (via sonicthehedgeblog)...

I normally don’t let the weather get to me, yet the constant cold weather in NYC over the past few weeks began taking its toll, to the point that I’m starting to resemble an upside down Super Famicom/European SNES (via sixteen-bit)...

I also really wish I could have checked out Sakura-Con, and not just cuz the weather is so much nicer in Seattle, but to pick up @alexisparade's Monster Factory zine...

I stared at gif illustrating the wacky perspective-related behavior of Super Mario 64’s trees for an entire day, no joke (via suppermariobroth)...

Here we have the rarely seen alternate angle of the internet famous "LAN party gamer duct-taped to the ceiling" photo (via reddit.com)...

Turning the clock back even further, here's yet another kind of party, one that doesn’t involve first person shooters but shoot ‘em ups; it’s the 1986 Hudson Caravan (via videogamesdensetsu)...

Recently, a modded NES Max controller showed up on Kotaku, in which the cycloid nub has been replaced with an analogue stick...

... Which actually appeared the day after I spotted that modded GBA at the very top of this page. I am also willing to admit the disappointment over my tweet not catching on as expected/hoped it would, hence why I'm sharing another pic...

At any rate, I was also reminded of my buddy Nick Santaniello's modded Jaguar controller, which allows for arcade perfect Tempest 2000 controls...

... Which in turned led to me republishing the post from which it hails from originally, my recap of Nick's Shmup Appreciation Night, for Medium (and also sharing additional pics on Twitter)...

BTW, for those wondering, based upon the last round of tweets; the kitchen isn’t just for playing old Mega Drive & PC Engine shmups… you can also play old Naomi fighting games (via internetflexin)...

Guess that's it for now? Sorry, but it finally feels like spring in NYC, and I feel the need to step away from the computer & enjoy weather! Just like Mega Man (via arcadequartermaster)...

[jordanfox554]

Mame Complete Rom Set Download

Mame Arcade Full Rom Pack

Mame Complete Rom Set Download For Laptop

Mame Romset

Mame Complete Rom Set Download App

Download the romset and extract it in MAME roms directory. BIOS: Some Games will require a BIOS file to run like Neogeo will need neogeo.zip (this is a bios file for Neogeo). BIOS Pack Included in Romset. Golden Tee Fore! 2006 Complete (v6.00.01) MAME detail page - ROM gtfore06. ROM Set Format: Full Non-Merged Using a Non-Merged set means that every.zip in this collection is a complete ROM that can be used stand-alone. All romsets can be used standalone because each zip contains all the files needed to run that game, including any ROMs from 'parent' ROM sets and BIOS sets.

(5 votes, average: 4.60 out of 5)

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This is Mame Fullromset that contains ALL Roms from A to Z that we split the file alphabetically so you don’t have to download a Huge File in one set. This romset is also available in Archive.org that contains Full Set that have size 56 GB. that’s very big for anyone who have slow internet connection . so we decide to split this romset alphabetically so you can download the packs a lot smaller in size and also faster in download speed.

Download MAME collections, MAME Variations, nonag, MESS, dinput, mameui, hiscore, 32bit and 64bit MAME DOWNLOADS exclusive to Arcade Punk. Full MAME 0.134 set is now available. Every single rom has been uploaded separately so you can get the one you need or download the whole set. Below you'll find a plain text file with all the links. You can import it into your download manager or just pick single links. It's about 23253 MB of data so you may need a premium account for that. Three people who will email me now will get a 30 Days Premium Account.

Introduction to Mame : MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator which allow you to play retro classic arcade game (coin based) in your Personal Computer to mimic the internal hardware of a large number of stand-alone arcade machines from 1975 to date. it supports thousand of coin based arcade gaming. How to Setup Mame 0.161 to Run a game on Your PC ? Ok. there is a basic to play these wonderful game. You need some files and a little bit setup:

Mame 0.161 Emulator : Because this romset is 0.161 version, you have to use the emulator with the same version aswell. We recommended to use GUI version of the emulator. It has an attractive, elegant, graphical interface which allows you to forego having to type command line parameters, although it can still be passed these arguments. and also it’s easier to click the icon of the game.

ROMs : this is a game file. without roms, you can’t play the game. the roms will be in ZIP format. all you need to do is to put this ZIP format in Mame Roms directory. usually in ( Your Mame Directory–roms ). simply put this Zipped file in Roms folder (Caution ! Dont rename this Zipped Archive). For the fullromset. Download the romset and extract it in MAME roms directory.

BIOS : Some Games will require a BIOS file to run like Neogeo will need neogeo.zip (this is a bios file for Neogeo). BIOS Pack Included in Romset.

CHD’s : Specific game will need CHD’s file to run. especially that arcade game with 3D graphics. the size of complete CHD’s file is around 350 GB !! Because the overall size in CHDs is very Big, we can’t provide it for now (maybe in the future) but you can search and download individual CHD’s file here

Screenshots :

Emulator Download (DL) ROMS PACK Download (Direct1 ) Mirror Download (Direct2 )

Hint : Click Continue to view the link Still have problem downloading ? Jump here If the Link is broken, Report it Here

Ok. hope this help and in the future we will be uploading CHD’s file in split archive like this. but we need some time. Please Comment and tell us the suggestion , and also share like and subcribe to our site !

Related Games

I recently installed Retro Pie on an old Zotac Nano I have:

What is Retro Pie ? It’s software that allows you to play tons of emulators of old game consoles, from home systems like the Atari 2600, Super NES, Super Nintendo, etc. to the old 70’s and 80’s arcade machines that you would find in the mall. It even has the ability to play emulators for old home computers like Commodore 64 and the Sinclair Z80.

More technically, the Retro Pie is a collection of emulators and scripts which use Emulation Station as a front end.

Here’s a secret: while the Retro Pie is mainly geared to be installed on a Raspberry Pi, you don’t need a Raspberry Pi to install Retro Pie. You can install it on any PC that has a Debian based Linux operating system. Since I had installed Kubuntu on the Zotac Nano, I downloaded and installed the Debian/Ubuntu PC version of Retro Pie.

Mame Arcade Full Rom Pack

After installing Retro Pie according to the instructions, adding some themes (I settled on Cabsnazzy) and a set of Xbox 360 controllers, I downloaded some individual sample Roms to test the Mame emulator, an emulator that plays old arcade type games. What I discovered was that there are several different Mame emulators packaged with Retro Pie. For example, there is “mame4all”, “Mame 2000”, “Mame 2003 Libretto”, “Advance Mame”, etc.

Not any Mame rom will play in any Mame emulator. You need to install the correct “Romset version” of the Rom for each emulator. What does that mean ? Well, apparently various people have collected hundreds or even thousands of roms for a particular Mame version, customized them for that particular version of Mame, and packaged them into a “Rom Set”. The Rom Sets for each Mame Emulator are listed here at the Mame Retro Pie Wiki. To find a particular game and what RomSet it is in see here or here to download the entire lists of games for a particular Romset.

The first test I did was to download the Rom Set for Mame 2003. This Rom Set is 0.78. The download links are found at archive.org. The non-merged set is the one that will work with Emulation Station.

For the Mame 2003 set (Romset 0.78, about 2 GB) the easiest way to download is in linux using the linux command line program “transmission-cli” which will download torrent files. Copy the TORRENT link shown on the archive.org page and use that with torrent-cli.

For example, to download the 0.78 Rom set on your Linux command line type:

Once downloaded, unzip the downloaded file and move your selected roms to the correct subfolder in your Retro Pie install directory i.e., the “RetroPie/roms/mame-libreto/mame2003/” folder. Do NOT unzip any of the Roms. Copy the contents of the “samples” folder, to “RetroPie/roms/mame-libreto/mame2003/samples”.

Note that any vector type games (e.g., Battle Zone, Lunar Lander, Red Barron) should use Advance Mame 3 which is optimized for vector graphics, not Mame 2003 or other Mame emulators where they will look fairly horrible, with the vector lines being blurry and black and white. Battle Zone will show black and white instead of the green that it should like the following screen shot:

For Advance Mame, you will need to download the Mame 0.106 Rom Set as shown on the Retro Pie Wiki.

Warning: The 0.106 Romset is HUGE – about 65.6 GB zipped.

Because of its size, the .106 Romset should be downloaded on Windows rather than Linux as the standard Linux zip programs do not handle multi-part zips well and a program that does, 7Zip only works on Windows. Mac os x dual boot.

Once the .106 Romset is downloaded, download and install 7zip. Open the 7zip File Manager and navigate to the Romset download folder. For version 0.106 you will see that the zip has downloaded in 70 different parts! No worries, 7zip handles these as one zip file without having to actually combine them.

Double click on the “Mame0.106Non-Merged.zip” file:

Mame Complete Rom Set Download For Laptop

Double clicking will reveal the contents of the “combined” zip file:

Double click on that again and you’ll view the roms folder. Double click on the “roms” folder and you will see a list of the roms, most of them are zipped, but some are simply in subfolders:

Mame Romset

While you can extract all of the rom subfolder and zips for all of the games, you can also extract only those individual games that are needed. Just drag the individual subfolders or zip file for a particular game out of the 7Zip File Manage. Macos big sur virtualbox. Do NOT unzip any games roms that are themselves individual zips as they may not work in the emulator if they are unzipped and the Mame emalutor can read the zipped roms fine. For easy transferring to a linux machine, open up a WinSCP session and drop the rom subfolder or zip file into the appropriate folder on your Retro Pie machine (RetroPie/roms/mame-advmame/). As before, the files in “Mame 0.106 Non-MergedSamples” would be copied over to the related samples folder (RetroPie/roms/mame-advmame/samples).

That’s it – those are the basics of installing the correct romset for a particular Mame version.

most important and influential games in the early history of video games.”

Mame Complete Rom Set Download App

NOTE: This post is for educational purposes only. The use of roms with the MAME or other video arcade emulators requires compliance with all copyright laws and licenses. Use of most Roms require an appropriate license. Read this FAQ for details.

[loginload815]

Mario Emulators For Mac

Super Mario Emulators For Mac

Gba Emulator For Mac

Looking for Best NES Emulators for Mac OS X Many f you guys know about Nintendo gaming systems that are the next level gaming system after 90’s games like Super Mario Bro’s, Konami Contra, and Track. After Nintendo Entertainment System games sony takes over almost all the games and became very popular in the gaming world so no these days in many countries people are used to playing XBOX or PS4 games. But guys if you still Nintendo Entertainment System or NES Games we have the best way to play NES Games on your Mac OS X (MacBook Air, Pro, iMac, etc. best emulators for mac

In simple words, we are going to providing you the best NES Game educators for MAC OS X so you can play Nintendo games on your mac computer or iMac. There are many NES Emulators available on the internet but here are some of best emulators that can helpful for you and you can easily run on your Mac computer. best emulators for mac

Contents

For the first time, the 'It just works' philosophy now extends to open source video game emulation on the Mac. With OpenEmu, it is extremely easy to add, browse, organize and with a compatible gamepad, play those favorite games (ROMs) you already own.

1 List of Best NES Emulators for Mac OS X:

1.1 #1. OpenEmu – (NES Emulators for Mac)

1.2 #2. Nestopia

1.3 #3. RockNes

1.3.1 Features of RockNes:

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Below we are going to provide you the genuine list of best NES Emulators for Mac OS X and you can play your Nintendo games on your mac computer easily. we sort out the list of best emulators and now compile the list here. You can see we can use three most popular NES Emulators named OpenEmu, Nestopia, and RockNes.

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Play Super Mario Bros emulator game online in the highest quality available. Super Mario Bros is a Nintendo game that you can enjoy on Play Emulator. This NES game is the US English version that works in all modern web browsers without downloading. Super Mario Bros is part of the Mario Games, Arcade Games, and Platform Games you can play here. PlayEmulator has many online retro games available including related games like Super Mario.

#1. OpenEmu – (NES Emulators for Mac)

OpenEmu is one of the most amazing emulators I saw in my life you can easily play emulated games on your computer without worries. This is based on Multiple Video Gaming System. OpenEmu is not only working for NES Emulators but also used for NES, GBA, Sega and lot of old gaming consoles. Basically, you can say it is a classic emulation system that can emulate all types of 90’s video games on your computer.

Features of OpenEmu:

Free & Easy to install.

Comes inbuilt with many console emulation codes.

Gamepad Controller / Joystick support! – This is perhaps the best part as you can simply plug in your Joystick/gamepad and start playing your ROM on the game controller (totally console style!) best emulators for mac

Later map the joystick buttons and start playing!

#2. Nestopia

Nestopia is known as the best Nintendo/Famicom emulator on the internet and one of the most important thing about this emulator is that it is very lightweight and easily open in low configuration computers easily. You can download .dmg File of Nestopia for Mac OSX here. You can once use this NES Emulator you can fall in love with this emulator because it is really easy to use and everybody can use this emulator.

Features of Nestopia:

Ability to save game progress and start from the last save.

You can tweak the game ROMs to perform some non-game functions ????

Nestopia also has Zapper light gun support just like the Nintendo Classic.

FDS Emulation (Famicom Disk Space)

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#3. RockNes

that is a PowerPC software based NES Emulator for running NES games on older Mac OS variations including Snow Leopard and in advance. it is able to additionally be run on Mac OS X Lion the use of Rosetta, however, can’t be run on the today’s Mac OS X versions at all. You can download .dmg Files of RockNes from here. You can easily use this best NES Emulator and there are many ways to emulate Game of Nintendo video gaming system.

Features of RockNes:

Emulation timing slightly modified.

Wallpapers are now supported in Windows BMP format!

Moved “save state” and “restore state” from CPU menu to the Game menu.

Added proper bitmap clipping to avoid crashing.

The mini GUI bar is now active when the screen size (windowed or fullscreen) is less than 480p.

Added an option to manually activate the mini-GUI bar.

Removed zlib1.dll dependency.

NSF visualizer has centered circles again.

The disassembler now saves.ASM files to the dumps folder, if set.

The config file now brings the current date and time of saving.

Changed minimum custom fullscreen setting to 240p. best emulators for mac

Fixed config settings, now it matches the restored settings & startup.

Fixed program window title on NSF->NES switch.

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File name:New Super Mario Bros WiiFile size:388.8MBRegion:Console:Nintendo WiiGenre:Action, PlatformDownloads:32,845User rating:

Download New Super Mario Bros Wii ROM for Nintendo Wii

Remember that the ROM is only one part. In order to use this New Super Mario Bros Wii ROM you will need to download a Nintendo Wii emulator. There are emulators for different platforms like Windows, Android, iOS and Mac OS X.

The ROM contains the video game files of New Super Mario Bros Wii and the emulator acts as the game console. To be able to play you must introduce the downloaded ROM in the folder of your emulator.

If you still don't have an emulator visit our Nintendo Wii emulators section where you will find emulators for PC, Android, iOS and Mac that will allow you to enjoy all your favorite games.

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[zillafox143]

Dune The Battle For Arrakis Mac

Connecting a remote emulator. Please wait ..

Control:

GP:

KB:▲↑▼↓◄←►→ABCZXCxyzASDStartEnterModeShift

Emulator:

The following emulators are a­vai­lab­le for this game: Ne­p­tun­JS (Ja­va­Script), Nesbox (Flash), Ret­ro­Games (JavaScript), PotatoGEN (Ja­va).

If you have ever thought about getting into programming on your Mac, Perl is a great place to start! Preparing for Perl. All you will need for this primer is a text editor, the terminal, and Perl (of course!). Luckily for us, Perl comes with OS X 10.7 and previous versions of. Mac OS X already has Perl installed. Open a Terminal application (in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder) and run perl -v to find out which version. ActiveState Perl has binary distributions of Perl for Mac OS X. This is the simplest way to install the latest version of Perl. Download ActivePerl. Download Perl from ActiveState: ActivePerl. Download the trusted Perl distribution for Windows, Linux and Mac, pre-bundled with top Perl modules – free for development use. To build and install Perl and many of the thousands of useful Perl modules you need to have a compiler. For macOS the easiest way to get a compiler is to install 'Command Line Tools for Xcode' (about 100 Megs), either directly or through Xcode (several Gigs), both available from Apple Developer downloads. MacPerl is an adaptation of Perl 5.0 for the Macintosh. Perl is an interpreted language optimized for scanning arbitrary text files, extracting information from those text files, and printing. Perl for mac.

Dune The Battle For Arrakis Mac Os

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Other platforms:

Unfortunately, this game is cur­rent­ly available only in this ver­si­on. Be patient :-)

Dune The Battle For Arrakis Mac Os

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Emperor: Battle for Dune is a Dune video game, released by Westwood Studios on June 12, 2001. It is based in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe.It is the third real-time strategy game set in the Dune universe, following its predecessors, Dune II and Dune 2000.While Dune II was a totally distinct story to that of Dune, and Dune 2000 was a remake of Dune II, Emperor is a direct sequel. Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (titled Dune II: Battle for Arrakis in Europe and Dune: The Battle for Arrakis for the North American Mega Drive/Genesis port respectively) is a real-time strategy Dune video game developed by Westwood Studios and released by Virgin Games in December 1992. It is based upon David Lynch's 1984 movie Dune, an adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel.

This is the ending you get when you destroyed the other houses. This totally blows away the other two endings. Download the best games on Windows & Mac. A vast selection of titles, DRM-free, with free goodies, and lots of pure customer love. Those wishes are duplicates of this one: Add another. The Building of a Dynasty' was titled 'Dune II: Battle for Arrakis' in Europe and 'Dune: The Battle for Arrakis'.) Mar. If you liked the video please remember to leave a Like & Comment, I appreciate it a lot! Follow me on Dailymotion - Fo.

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Game info:

box coverGame title:Dune: The Battle for ArrakisConsole: Sega Genesis / Sega Mega DriveAuthor (released):Westwood Studios (1994)Genre:StrategyMode:Single-playerDesign:Joseph Bostic, Aaron E. Powell, Brett Sperry, Mike LeggMusic:Paul Mudra, Frank Klepacki, Dwight OkaharaGame manual: not available Download:Dune2.zip

Game size:

588 kBRecommended emulator:KEGA FusionFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (retitled Dune II: Battle for Arrakis in Europe and Dune: The Battle for Arrakis for the Mega Drive/Genesis port respectively) is a Dune video game developed by Westwood Studios and released by Virgin Interactive in Jan 1, 1992. It is based upon David Lynch's 1984 movie Dune, an adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel of the same name. Emperor Frederick IV of House Corrino is desperate for the harvesting of the valuable drug melange (also known as 'the spice'), found on only the planet Arrakis, to pay off all of his debt incurred on internecine wars with family members. To achieve this, he now offers the sole governorship of Arrakis to the House (Atreides, Harkonnen, and Ordos) which delivers the most spice for him. War begins as deputations from all three Houses arrive on Arrakis. The player is a military commander from a House of his choice. In the first few missions the objectives are to establish successfully a base on an unoccupied territory of Arrakis, to harvest spice, and to defeat intruders. Later, when the three Houses divide Arrakis among them, the player has to assault and capture enemy territories. When the player dominates Arrakis on the world map, the two other enemy factions ally against their common enemy. The ultimate final showdown is the battle between the player's House against three enemy sides, among them Frederick's forces the Sardaukar (an unplayable elite force whose heavy infantry are particularly powerful). The final cutscene is different for each House, in consonance with their very disparate world views. The player takes the role of the commander of one of the three interplanetary houses, the Atreides, the Harkonnen or the Ordos, with the objective of wresting control of Arrakis from the other two houses. House Ordos is not featured in the Dune novels and is mentioned only in the non-canon Dune Encyclopedia. The basic strategy in the game is to harvest spice from the treacherous sand dunes using a harvester vehicle, convert the spice into credits via a refinery and to build military units with these acquired credits in order to fend off and destroy the enemy. The game map initially starts with a fog of war covering all area which is not covered by the player's units range of view. As the units explore the map, the darkness is removed. Unlike later games such as Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, the fog of war is lifted forever with initial exploration, it does not become dark once more when units leave the area. In addition to enemy incursions, there are other dangers; like the marauding gigantic sandworm, capable of swallowing vehicles and infantry whole but blocked by rocky terrain. The player can only build on rocky terrain, but must build concrete foundations before to avoid deterioration of the structures due to the harsh weather conditions although in general, structures will gradually decay over time regardless of the presence of those concrete slabs due to the aforementioned weather conditions. Spice fields are indicated by orange coloration on the sand, darker orange indicating high concentration. Some spice may be concealed as bumps on the terrain (a 'spice bloom') that become spice fields when they are shot at, or when a unit runs over them (the unit is destroyed in the ensuing 'spice blow'). The player is presented a map of the planet Arrakis before most missions, where he can choose the next territory to play in among two or three. This affects primarily the enemy house fought in the next mission, as all missions except the first two require the complete destruction of the enemy. Nine territories must be fought, irrespective of house, to reach the endgame.

More details about this game can be found on Wikipedia.org.

For fans and collectors: Find this game on video server YouTube.com or Vimeo.com. Buy original game or Genesis console at Amazon.com, eBay.com or GOG.com.

The newest version of this game can be purchased on Xzone.cz, GameExpres.cz orGameLeader.cz.

Videogame Console:

This ver­sion of Dune: The Battle for Arrakis was de­sig­ned for Se­ga Ge­ne­sis (known as Se­ga Me­ga Dri­ve in Eu­ro­pe), which was the first ever 16-bit vi­deo ga­me con­so­le ma­nu­fac­tu­red by Se­ga in the years 1988 - 1997. It was a di­rect com­pe­ti­tor to the SNES con­so­le and the suc­ces­sor of the well known 8-bit con­so­le Se­ga Mas­ter Sys­tem. The unit pri­ce of Ge­ne­sis was ap­pro­xi­ma­te­ly $ 190 and world­wi­de about 40 mil­li­on units of this con­so­le we­re sold. Mo­re in­for­ma­ti­on about Se­ga Genesis can be found here.

Recommended Game Controllers:

You can control this game easily by using the keyboard of your PC (see the table next to the game). However, for maximum gaming enjoyment, we strongly recommend using a USB gamepad that you simply plug into the USB port of your computer. Yahoo mail for mac free download. If you do not have a gamepad, you can buy one of these controllers:

Available online emulators:

4 different online emulators are available for Dune: The Battle for Arrakis. These emulators differ not only in the technology they use to emulate old games, but also in support of various game controllers, multiplayer mode, mobile phone touchscreen, emulation speed, absence or presence of embedded ads and in many other parameters. For maximum gaming enjoyment, it's important to choose the right emulator, because on each PC and in different Internet browsers, the individual emulators behave differently. The basic features of each emulator available for this game Dune: The Battle for Arrakis are summarized in the following table:

EmulatorTechnologyMultiplayerUSB gamepadTouchscreenWithout adsNeptunJSJavaScriptYESYESNONONesBoxFlashNOYESNOYESRetroGames.ccJavaScriptYESYESYESNOPotatoGENJava appletNONONOYES

Similar games:

Dune IIDuneThe SettlersGremlins 2WarCraft

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Comments:

[gascon-en-exil]

A Not Actually Definitive Ranking of Fire Emblem Games

So after a lot of deliberation I’ve decided not to revisit last year’s Zelda ranking project on a full scale for FE, but that doesn’t mean it’s not something I really wanted to do. 2018 is the year we’re going to get alternatively hyped for and disappointed by FE16, after all. With that in mind have an abbreviated list that will end up being one very long post. I’ve got games to gush over and an anon or two (and very likely actual followers…eep) to piss off, so here we go.

The “personal favorites of the series, love revisiting them” Tier - FE10, FE2/15, FE4

I’m never going to argue that Radiant Dawn is a perfect game or even just a perfect FE game, but damned if it doesn’t manage to do so much right all at once. An extremely ambitious story that builds off its mostly conventional predecessor in a variety of interesting ways, deconstructing a bunch of series narrative standards (life in a defeated country kind of sucks and there are people that don’t warm that quickly to young and inexperienced rulers, go figure) and taking an eleventh hour hard right at Nietzchean atheism as read by a Pride parade. Kind of falls on its ass by the end, but every experimental FE story does the same thing so I can’t fault this one. I love the army switching as motivation to try different units almost as much as I love the oh-so-exploitable growth and BEXP mechanics. Its Easy mode also hits a sweet spot for me of being challenging enough to not be a complete snore while also allowing the freedom for all manner of weird self-imposed challenges that don’t even require grinding. By all accounts Hard mode is one lazy design choice after another, but I don’t play at that level so no complaints here.

Never played Gaiden, but to its credit around half of the unique gameplay mechanics I like in Shadows of Valentia were also in the original: the modest army size, the novel approaches to inventory management and magic, the pretty basic class system with just a hint of nuance. The remake threw in some hit-or-miss questing, dungeon exploration, and achievements, but all the rest was either a solid addition or a continuation of NES-era annoyances that I could live with. And the story…SoV makes me dislike the DS games even more just because this game does so much with so little. Even leaving aside the mostly great voice acting there’s a bunch of new content that characterizes almost everybody and makes half of them (the men, anyway, because this is a remake of a Kaga-era game and therefore misogynistic as can be) gay because why the hell not, and then some development that constitutes the only solid attempt at worldbuilding Archanea-Valentia-Ylisse has ever really gotten and also retcons some stuff from Awakening into making sense. It’s even got some solid DLC with lots of character stuff for the Deliverance, the least sucky grinding of the 3DS games, and probably the only context in which I’ll ever be able to comment on anything from Cipher.

No remake needed for Genealogy of the Holy War to make it competitive with the rest of the top tier - just an excellent translation patch and the standard features of an emulator. I’ve never watched Game of Thrones and probably don’t plan on it, but I gather that this game provides the same essential experience with less blood and female nudity and marginally more egalitarianism for all. I can forgive it for being the original Het Baby Fest since you’d be hard-pressed to find a single entirely healthy and well-adjusted individual anywhere on Jugdral and I relate to that just as much. Screwed up family dynamics for everyone! It’s also arguably got a more fun breeding meta than either of the 3DS games, lacking Awakening’s optimization around a single postgame map with very specific parameters or Fates’s high level of balance that ironically stymies analysis. This is another game for interesting inventory management and unit leveling that isn’t too obnoxious, which mostly makes up for the maps taking an eon to play through even with an emulator speeding through those enemy phases. This would be a strange game to remake, but if it got a localized one of the same caliber as SoV I fully acknowledge that this could climb to the #2 spot. SoV would probably have the queer edge though unless they do some strange things to the plot or just make Gen 2 really gay…but then again Gen 2 is the part that’s more in need of fleshing out as it is. (Also, this game has So. Much. Incest. That’s not even really a kink of mine especially as it’s all straight incest, but I just find that hilarious in light of how Tumblr’s purity culture speaks of such things.)

The “good games, but don’t come back to them as much” Tier - FE7, FE9, FE8

Blazing Sword is not here for nostalgia purposes, especially since when I first played the game at 14 years old most of what I like about it didn’t really register. It was just that game with RPG elements that I liked and permadeath that I didn’t, and it took a few games after that for me to become an established fan of the franchise. Massive props for putting such an unconventional spin on a prequel to a textbook FE; this is a game in a series about war in which no war is fought, how crazy is that? We actually get to see the backstory of FE6′s tragic antagonist, even as it’s completely tangential to the plot of this game and so just feels like random Jugdral-esque family drama without context, and on top of that we get the first hints of interdimensional travel and kinky human/shapeshifter sex several years before either of those became controversial talking points about how they were ruining the series. I am so there. Lyn doesn’t matter to the saga, but her character arc is distinct and self-contained and also she picked up a disproportionately large fanbase while being bisexual and biracial so go her. Eliwood is sympathetic and homosocially-inclined even if his growths frequently make me want to cry (at least he gets a horse unlike his similarly-challenged son), and I can live with Hector even if I could have done without his lordly legacy. Throw in some average-for-the-time gameplay with just enough variety across the two routes and even more good character work *waves at Sonia and Renault and Priscilla -> Raven/Lucius and Serra and…* and it’s all in all a solid experience. The ranking system can go die in a fire though, which funnily enough it did after this game. Yay!

Like most early 3D games - except on Gamecube so it’s even more embarrassing - Path of Radiance has aged terribly by every aesthetic measure aside from the soundtrack. It’s also painfully slow, and my computer can’t run Dolphin apparently so an emulator’s not going to fix that for me. Those obvious flaws aside, it’s still an entertaining game, and more importantly it’s the prologue that had the crucial task of setting up all the pins RD knocked over in stellar fashion, whether we’re talking about the basic storyline that actually isn’t or the many het relationship fake-outs (more so in localization…I guess we’ll never know if NoA was actively planning that when they pushed Ike/Elincia like they did). PoR is also a love letter to Jugdral in both gameplay and themes, albeit an occasionally critical one. The jury’s still out on whether Jugdral or Tellius succeeds the most (fails the least?) of the FE settings at developing a complete world with a nuanced and resonant saga narrative, but that Tellius manages to be competitive while being kind of clumsy overall with racism and shifting the series’s overarching motif of dragon-blooded superhumans to one of kinky interracial sex is pretty impressive. The less I say about Ike the better since it’s only his endings in RD that save him for me; suffice it to point out that his worldview and general personality were clearly designed to appeal to a demographic that does not include me.

And finally comes The Sacred Stones, truly my average benchmark FE as I like it but struggle to have any particularly strong feelings on it one way or the other. The story is standard but has a few intriguing quirks, like the light vs. dark magic meta, surprise necrophilia, and how the main antagonist’s sexuality sort of depends on which route you take (except he’s still never getting laid so does it really matter?). It also seems to have been the first game to have made a legitimate effort toward the kind of replayability that’s normal for RPGs, what with the branched promotions, the route split, and the actual postgame. That’s all much more engaging than just filling up a support log. The gameplay is also more polished and (I think?) more balanced than the other GBA games, if one is willing to overlook the minor issue of Seth. Let’s see…something something twincest that’s now an IS running gag, something something guys talking intimately about their lances, something something SoV did the whole dungeon crawling with monsters bit better but I can forgive SS for not taking it that far. Moving on….

The “they have Problems” Tier - FE14, FE13

Probably qualifies as a fandom heresy, but yes I’m putting Fates first of these two. Fates is in every conceivable way for me the “You Tried” game, because I had such high hopes for it from the moment we got the earliest promotional content. I was expecting a World of Warcraft-style conflict between two morally grey factions with myriad convoluted grievances against each other messily resolving themselves one way or the other according to player choice (though note that this is already somewhat damning with faint praise as no one’s going to call WoW a storytelling masterpiece), with Conquest in particular a true villain campaign that I imagined might play out as European Imperialism: The Game. What we actually got was…not that, not at all, but amid all the complaints about plot holes and idiot balls and moral myopia most fans seem to have forgotten just how much there is to this game. It’s three full stories that together average out to be just about passable, with possibly the biggest gameplay variety in the series that fixed most of Awakening’s more broken elements (pair-up, children being unquestionably superior to the first generation) while also adding in new features that undoubtedly appealed to someone or other like Phoenix mode and the castle-building aspect. I can even mostly forgive the obvious growing pains Fates exhibits in terms of queer content, as they were pretty much inevitable once the developers realized that (almost) everyone was picking up on the subtext and that that approach just wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Again, they tried, and if the results included face-touching fanservice and plot contrivances left and right and two-way cultural posturing that inevitably crosses over into real world racism at some point I can still step back for a moment and acknowledge that Fates began as a distinctive, high-concept setting on par with Tellius and Jugdral that was willing to do something different with the narrative norm (for two of its routes at least, and even so I’m not begrudging Birthright its conventionality because that grounding is important overall). And who knows? Maybe a later game will come along and retroactively make this setting coherent.

Fates might have more sexual fanservice, but if there’s any FE that I feel ends up a slave to fanservice in a broader sense it would be Awakening. Yeah, I get that when it was in development everyone thought this would be the final game, so it makes sense that the finished product turned out to be a nostalgia-laden greatest hits piece. It’s still hard to forgive Awakening for feeling so insubstantial, doubly so since it ended up revitalizing the franchise and now it and Fates are everywhere. It’s got a plot that only makes some sense in light of SoV and possibly on a meta level (following my theory that the plot structure is meant to mirror FE1-3 in sequence), the first iteration of an Avatar dating game heavily coloring the characterization and support system, and a queasily feel-good atmosphere that allows almost no character to actually remain dead and centers everything around the self-insert and the power of friendship. So much for the series’s traditionally dim view of human nature and recurring theme of the inevitability of conflict. What’s more, in spite of its theoretically broad scope (including a criminally under-explored time travel plot with a bad future) and numerous call-backs to older games Awakening does surprisingly little for developing the series’s most frequently-visited setting. I think it was in large part how generic this game has always felt to me even before release that I never got very hyped for it and as a consequence was never very disappointed by it. It’s just….there, with its nostalgia and its chronic “no homo” and its host of hilariously broken mechanics. I wonder if we’d have ended up viewing Awakening more favorably if it really had been the last game? Eh, probably not.

The “needs a remake or needs a better remake” Tier - FE5, FE6, FE3/12, FE1/11

I don’t have a specific order for these, except that FE1/11 is almost certainly the bottom since 5 and 6 have remake potential and, lack of localization aside, New Mystery was a better remake than Shadow Dragon.

I still haven’t fully played Thracia 776, but I’ve watched and read through Let’s Plays and have read more than enough analysis and meta on the game to where I can definitively say that I wouldn’t enjoy playing it too much and don’t feel all that emotionally connected to the story except insofar as it relates to the overall Jugdral saga. The concept of a standard FE plot that ends with the playable cast losing is an intriguing one, though they really could have done better than the weird non-ending that is this game’s final boss. I’m also not as invested in Leif the fallen aristocrat as I usually am those types of characters, possibly because it’s a foregone conclusion that he eventually gets his kingship anyway. I would like a remake, hopefully one that smooths over some of the original’s mechanical roughness and also makes a bunch of characters gay because the material’s certainly there in places, but I also admit that I’d rather have a remake of Genealogy first. Or, for that matter….

Binding Blade doesn’t have the potential for an amazing story-driven remake that Thracia does; after all, it’s basically a soft reboot of FE1 with an equally bland lord saved by his Super Smash Bros. fanbase and possibly his weirdly large harem. That said, there’s a fair amount of character potential and worldbuilding opportunities what with the series’s first true support system and the content of its unorthodox prequel. Even by itself I feel like BB does more to sell Elibe as its own distinctive world than any of Marth’s games ever did for Archanea, and that’s even with the reality that like the Archanea games this playable cast is inflated with some really forgettable characters (that seem to have followed a semi-rigid numerical quota by class in this instance. It’s weird.). This game never really stuck in my mind as a good playable experience either, not helped by the fact that it feels simple and antiquated compared not only to the GBA games that followed it but to the Jugdral games that preceded it. Good on them for throwing out some of Thracia’s more unwieldy mechanics, but did they have to throw out skills, hybrid classes, and varied chapter objectives too? The space limitations of the GBA couldn’t have been that severe.

While I’ve been spending much of this post ragging on Archanea, I will say that (New) Mystery of the Emblem has some interesting character beats, like the resolution of the Camus/Nyna/Hardin tragedy, Rickard and the situationally bisexual(?) Julian, and some of the antics of Marth’s retainers. I did like bits of the remake’s new assassin plot even if most of it is cribbed from the Black Fang; Eremiya’s no Sonia, but Clarisse and Katarina have their moments. Also, Kris isn’t that offensive to me since I was never all that engaged in Marth’s inconsistent personality and from what I’ve seen his/her supports don’t all devolve into a dating sim. New Mystery has a broader array of characters than either the original or the previous remake, without requiring the player to kill off characters just to get some of the new ones. That said, the reclassing in the DS games is still broken and allows the player to strip even more character out of their personality-deprived units. I’m getting to the point where I’m having trouble separating the two actually, so I’ll just go ahead and remark that I think everyone can agree that Shadow Dragon is the worst of the three remakes so far, with no supports, the aforementioned killing of units, a prologue that adds to the story but only exists on Normal mode and also requires you to kill someone off (seriously, what is it with this game? Is it commentary on the necessary sacrifices of war that they tried forcing on the player for one game until they realized it was a terrible idea?), the needless removal of features from earlier games like rescuing even as others like weapon ranks and forging were left in, that first clumsy iteration of reclassing, and little to nothing that I can see as elevating the story above the standard fantasy adventure fare of Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light that might have been good in 1990 but didn’t look so hot in 2008. Archanea just feels so lifeless overall compared to every other setting in the franchise, to the point where I don’t even feel that guilty about putting the first game in the series way down at the bottom when over in the Zelda ranking I raised the NES games above ones I found more fun to play solely because of their historical significance. Isn’t FE1 arguably the first tactical RPG? I feel like I should appreciate it more, but I just can’t. *shrugs*

[jaguarwong]

A rambling diatribe on retro-gaming elitism

There’s a lot to be annoyed about in the world today - obviously - especially with the various types of mess we’re all living with in every country in the world.

But a particular, and specific annoyance in the retrogaming hobby/lifestyle/environment/zeitgeist, is the hive-mind attitude from an increasing number of the most vocal (and seemingly most affluent) participants that this is, or should be, an extremely expensive hobby/lifestyle/etc/etc.

It’s impossible not to notice an underlying, deeply unpleasant, atmosphere of elitism in many of the communities I visit. An attitude of ‘you’re not doing it right’ directed at anyone who doesn’t have their Neo Geo AES hooked up to a 20” PVM via OSSC. (I have no idea if that example makes sense, nor do I care.)

This is the kind of arms-race attitude that fought to keep PC gaming an exclusive club for decades, and it has gradually seeped into retro gaming's language and ecosystem almost undetected.

The simple joy of rekindling one's nostalgia for Super Mario World, or re-experiencing the simple fun of games lost with the arcades, is being obfuscated by a collective need to quantify, update, and monetise every aspect of vintage computer entertainment.

It’s the kind of environment where you might expect the gateway drug of emulation to be met with the utmost scorn, but instead the self appointed guardians of retro (You can have that for your quiz team/band name, BTW) have positioned emulation behind a paywall of Retron 5s, Mega SGs, and (only the latest and most expensive) Everdrives. Any excited newcomer asking about the best controller to play retro games on their laptop is quickly overwhelmed with talks of latency, resolutions, and refresh rates.

If it wasn’t bad enough that forced exclusivity exists, it actually appears to be having it’s desired effect.

You can see it both in the way questions are asked and in the tone of the responses. You can see it in the photos of someones latest, expensive, haul and the other even more expensive stuff in the background - almost, but not quite, out of focus.

People don’t ask where they can find a cheap CRT, they ask if their $100 Trinitron is ‘good enough’. A joyous celebration of a bargain buy, or a long lost attic discovery, will be met with derision and disbelief, the underlying accusation that unless you can afford the inflated eBay prices for a barely average Sega Saturn game, then you aren’t worthy to own it.

Which brings me neatly to the event that triggered this rambling blog entry.

There was someone on a Discord server I’ve been frequenting who stated, blankly, without malice, that “all the good Saturn games are 100+ dollars”.

Why would they think this? Simply because it’s what the gatekeepers want them, you, and everyone else to think.

These are the people who, when a collective question is asked, wouldn’t dream of recommending any of the dozens of fantastic, better even, Saturn games you could buy for the price of Burning Rangers.

It’s this sub-group who don’t want you enjoying Sonic the Hedgehog for free when they’ve invested $200 in a Mega SG. The only way their post-purchase rationalisation can cope is by attacking the perceived difference in quality, by claiming they seek a ‘purer’ experience, and by attempting to undermine the simple pleasure of just playing old games by insinuating that someone with a secondhand NES Mini isn’t doing it right.

Now I just want to be clear that I’m not claiming to be some kind of saint who never judges anyone else's choices, nor am I saying that there aren’t benefits to some modern retro products, but the weaponised affluence I’m seeing increasingly around retro gaming communities is something else entirely.

Admission 1: I strongly believe that by downloading a thousand roms and picking one to play for five minutes before switching to another, then another, then another... your assessment of them will lack a psychological bond of choice, expectation, and - yes - sometimes investment that adds to the whole experience of a game.

But this is no less true of a pack of illegal roms than it is of someone with thousands in disposable income spending a tenth of that on a game they’ll probably never play.

Cost, value, and investment are relative terms. The kind of ‘bond’ I’m trying to describe between a player and a game can be gained through the investment of time, the effort of research, and the expectation of finding out for oneself if that game from your childhood holds up 20 years later.

Admission 2: I think games from the previous century should be played on a CRT television whenever possible. Pixels look better with real scanlines - it’s an incontrovertible fact - and the colour depth offered by that massive, humming monstrosity wedged into the corner is really something lost to the ages.

But it’s not a prerequisite of fun. And it’s especially not necessary to find the most expensive, most instagrammable, most egregiously hyped PVM to enjoy a game of Super Mariokart with your kids.

When I say: "I think these games should be played on a CRT", I mean ANY CRT. I’m typing this in a room with 6 of the things, two of them were free, and the whole collection has been compiled for the total cash investment of £26.

As someone born over 4 decades ago I’ll let you into a secret: The geometry has always been rubbish, the hum has always been loud, the picture has always flickered and no one ever cared about resolution or refresh rate or input lag when playing Tornado Low Level on their ZX Spectrum in 1984.

It’s entirely possible to argue a convincing case that you’ll get a more enjoyable retro experience from a wonky Bush portable TV than from any professional quality display equipment. And beyond that, if you can’t find a tube telly or don’t have room for one, use an LCD - it’s better than nothing, and the filters some emulators have these days are great.

It comes down this:

If you’re lucky enough, or have worked hard enough, to have the disposable income necessary to buy $400 RGB Scart cables and a professional monitor the size of a family car - and that’s genuinely what you want for your retro gaming experience - That’s cool. You don’t need anyone's approval or respect, you’re doing what you want to do the way you want to do it - and that’s a life lesson for everyone right there. But it’s your way, and nothing more than that.

This nonsense of idolising only the most expensive elements of this hobby has to change and we, the members of these communities, are the only people in a place to do that.

So the next time you see an excited new Dreamcast owner looking for game suggestions, mention the best ones first, not the most expensive.

When you come across a reddit picture of someone's game collection don’t immediately look for the over-priced ‘rare’ game they haven’t got, look for the ones you have in common and can have a conversation about.

And if you ever, ever, see someone being criticised for playing roms, or using composite cables, or playing on a flat screen TV, or any of that postering gibberish - step into that conversation and ask what games they love? What happy memories do they have? What is it about retro games brings them joy?

Because this is the real value of games.

They bring us experiences and memories to savour forever, they engage with us in a different way to that of films and music - and that difference should be cherished.

Games exist to bring us pleasure. Sometimes that pleasure is tinged with fear, and sometimes it’s truly dark and doesn’t feel like pleasure at all. Sometimes the pleasure comes from intellectual stimulation, sometimes from mindless entertainment.

But whatever form it takes, this pleasure, this… fun… cannot be tempered by technology, and it must never be attributed to any scale of monetary investment.

The simplicity of Retro Games is joyous, they are heartbreaking, they are brilliant and they must never be withheld from those who measure value in the size of their smile, by those who measure it in the size of their wallet.

You better get the aspect ratio right though, or I will hunt you down!