www.destructoid.com Retro-Bit is showing off a Saturn arcade stick and wireless Dreamcast controller
For all your quarter-circling.
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Recommended Campaign difficulty megawads?
Title, basically.
I'm looking for megawads that are on-par with the first three episodes of Doom 1 or Doom 2 in terms of difficulty.
Just finished PSX Doom Reloaded and Doom64 Reloaded that are mostly campaign maps remixed.
Unpopular opinion, but I just get a solid side panel and do minimal to no cable management. I don't care about rgb or if the insides look pretty.
Steer clear of the fans and it's all good.
Tangentially, the title is one letter away from this being a very different kind of Tetris game.
That : after Master is doing some work, too
Retro-bit prototype Saturn stick and wireless DC controllers.
Hopefully it won't take five or six years between showing a prototype and production as it was with the Saturn Pro controller.
I don't know if it ever stopped. Seems like every other month there's a port or a homebrew that eventually goes retail.
The Atomiswave arcade ports are great.
Dreamcast Junkyard is the typical forum for all things that are "still thinking"
Short answer, absolutely not.
The Virtex Ultrascale+ FPGA boards are $10,000 AND UP.
If you look up why Mister will not move up to more powerful FPGA chips, this is why.
Would it be cool? Yes. Definitely.
Now imagine that, but on a keyboard. No mouse. That's pc controls for ZT
Extreme G 2 on pc loses the analog steering from N64, which turns out is a big deal. Throwback Entertainment made a port-of-a-port and introduced a speed hack in the launcher menu where you can slow down the game a bit, which helps, but doesn't fix the issue.
In some other cases like Hexen, there were alterations on console that I find generally more appealing, like an ost remaster or lighting effects.
The Genesis game Zero Tolerance and Dreamcast version of Expendable are games I prefer on console simply because of the control schemes on pc.
Yeah, the Doom 64 projects are a bit different in scope, so I figured they deserve separate listings. Anywho:
D64-RE is a decomp that you recompile yourself. There are some minor features like additional cheats, but it's a pretty raw "here is all the code" project that you can mess with yourself.
Doom64 EX + is a fork of the original work by SVKaiser, called Doom 64 EX.
Doom 64 EX is a mish-mash of reverse engineering and source port conversion. Famously, Kaiser now works at NightDive Studios and brought his proprietary KEX engine with him.
EX+ basically rips out Kaiser's KEX engine, while keeping the improvements of the modern commercial release like loads of bug fixes, performance increases, and aims to be faithful to the original game.
In addition, EX+ is able to be played on other platforms besides Windows, and can accept DeHacked64 patches. This allows for tweaks to values throughout the game (monster health, damage, weapons, etc), while bringing in support for a number of existing map packs.
Strangely, EX+ does not have controller support - at all. It is mandatory mouse/keyboard.
The Sonic 1,2 and CD projects are cool since they are decomps of the remastered Android versions with proper widescreen plus modding support on 1 & 2 built in.
The Sonic Mania decomp allows you to choose your renderer (DX11 / DX12, and Vulkan), among bug fixes and mod support. Did you know the official release doesn't let you use more than one controller in Competition Mode? The decomp lets you fix that. Plus mod support, of course. Most of the mods for Mania are cosmetic, but occasionally you get some cool stuff like more abilities or extending movesets to other characters.
Gamebanana.com is a good resource on all counts of classic Sonic modding
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Not to pile on, but print ads from the 90's are wild to look at. Sonic 3 launched at $70. You know, games that require a couple of hours to complete casually. Stuff got replayed a LOT.
Definitely going to try this.
I have DNS adblocking / tracker blocking set up on an Android TV (spoiler: Amazon is very noisy, even if you don't watch anything on Prime Video), but it doesn't help against native launcher ads.
When the launcher first started showing ads, you could disable certain services, but it would break playback on other apps.
To me that looks like RetroArch running Genesis Plus GX.
Retro-bit, Retro Fighters, and Krikzz are a few more manufacturers I can think of making controllers with original ports.
In particular, Retro-bit's Saturn Pro pad is...interesting, let's say. I have also used Retro Fighters Striker Dreamcast pads - they're quite nice.
In yonder days, a few companies like ASCII and Hori come up a lot for reliable stuff.
In this instance, the CPU fans are pulling rather than pushing, and yeah it's because of memory clearance.
Surprisingly, temps of the parts aren't that bad. Under load the CPU tops out at about 70c, and the gpu only goes up to 65c while ray tracing and the whole bit.
Still, if money were no object, I'd like to have the Silverstone Sugo 17 shoebox style case when it becomes available.
Just because case specs say "360mm of gpu clearance", that does not mean "comfortably" or "you won't have to disassemble everything around it".
For just a few hours, the XFX Merc310 AMD 7900 XTX was $800 US, sold by Amazon (not a seller on Amazon, but Amazon themselves).
Hopefully, more price drops will be more common in the coming weeks.
(Primal Rage) Achievement
After six months of study, practice, and refinement, I finished Primal Rage at the maximum difficulty without any damage to health.
The run starts at 33:12
PB High Score on Primal Rage (Arcade 2.3w)
I'm on a quest to finish the game at difficulty 16 (Maximum) without taking a hit. During my first marathon of the journey, I got a new high score.
The run is visible on Twitch / YouTube if one is keen to that sort of thing.
This is a 32X romhack, correct. If you run it from a flash cart (like the Everdrive) and also have a Sega CD attached, then that enables the other features.
32X Doom tried to be like the original PC game, but it was rushed through development as a launch title with a small team. The result is.....tragic. Specifically: half the maps were missing, both the game window and resolution are reduced to get playable framerates, the original soundtrack famously sounds a bit like a farts at times, several visual effects like parallax texture scrolling, transparency, and lighting effects are gone. (there's a room in E1M5 near the end that the lights alternate between on/off, but the monsters on 32x are always visible.) This also means no invisibility power-up, or Spectre monsters.
My favorite jank is after the credits when you finish the game, it dumps you into a fake DOS prompt. It just shows C:\DOOM> and you are unable to interact with it in any way.
DOOM 32X Resurrection Gets Another Update
www.retrorgb.com 32x Doom 'Resurrection' 3.0 lands with MIP mapping and Sega CD PCM speed boost support
Victor Luchitz has just published 32x Doom ‘Resurrection’ v3.0. I imagine some may have thought the game couldn't improve anymore at this point and they'd be very much in the wrong!: https://twitter.com/vluchitz/status/1693004325595775146 I won't cover every single new change in this post, but I
After silence for a good while, I thought they were done with this project, but apparently not. Additional effects, a lot of optimizations, and the bosses were added back in.
There is so much grunt behind it now, that in the right configuration it uses the combined might of the Genesis, 32X, and Sega CD processing power all together.
Catching anyone up who orignally didn't know about this: Doom 32X Resurrection is an attempt to bring the Sega 32X version of Doom to its full potential. The game now supports a laundry list of features it didn't before: local coop / deathmatch, link cable multiplayer, all the maps, sprites from all angles (they all used to face forward, even rockets), positional sound effects, CD music support, new FM ost by SpoonyBard, improved resolution, improved framerate, additional 6-button configs, and more.
The romhack itself can be found at romhacking.net
I for one am thrilled to relive the jank. Hitscanners that can shoot through walls, auto aim that kinda-sorta works, tools that get used maybe three or four times the entire campaign...
Word around the highly suspect, not very reliable, rumor mill was that the source code was for this game was "lost" and that's why a port hasn't been worked on before now. I wonder if that information was wholly incorrect, or if another method was used to reverse engineer the game into KEX. In either case, Night Dive has been cranking out amazing releases, and I expect nothing less from this one.
Anyone tried 32X Doom Resurrection?
As someone whose earliest exposure to Doom was on console, and possibly one of the bottom two or three versions of the game at that, this romhack blows me away. Modders went out of their way to actually make this version playable. Not only playable, but damn good. It adds Deathmatch / Coop, all the maps, new ost, new sprites, the works. It's basically a new game.
If you have never played Doom on the Sega 32X, let me fill you in. This was meant to be a launch title, and there was precious little time to get it up and running. New system + rushed development + small dev team = 32X Doom. All the sprites face forward, even rockets - so you're essentially shooting rockets backwards. The music sounds a bit like the day after Taco Bell. The game is missing most of the maps. And my favorite - the end credits sequence dumps you into a fake DOS prompt. (It displays C:\DOOM that you cannot interact with in any way). That is why Doom 32X Resurrection is such a crazy romhack. The amount of improve
I noticed a few things while playing the N64 campaign.
It's not 1:1 parity with the console version, and it's not meant to be (and that's a good thing, actually).
How it works is they use N64 textures, OST, and maps. Everything else is from the new engine - including the new enemy AI changes and balance adjustments, etc.
A good portion of the game is spent in anti-gravity. You may not have the rocket launcher, or much ammo for it yet, relying on grenades to take down bigger baddies like enforcers or tanks. The trajectory of a grenade on authentic hardware is net positive, so it's about impossible to aim. On Q2 Enhanced, it just means the grenade fires straight out of the barrel. Little things like that stand out.
The Nintendo 64 campaign on Hard, with deaths, took me about 3 hours. This is how I have always wanted to play this version of the game. It's indescribably better than trying to play it on an actual Nintendo 64 or even emulated.
Nightdive's Quake 2: Enhanced, out now
www.gog.com Quake II
Developed by id Software in 1997, Quake II is a critically acclaimed first-person shoote
Just like Quake 1, if you already own Quake 2, the enhanced version is available as a free update. Although unlike Quake 1, Quake 2: Enhanced is also available on GOG day 1.
In addition to visual updates, there's a new episode "Call of the Machine", Quake 2 N64, a pass to the enemy AI which changes a few behaviors and attacks, removes machine gun recoil, a new infinite use item that shows the player where to go next, and a number of other qol and accessibility options.
Anecdotally, I find the addition of Q2 N64 very appealing. It's a mish-mash of pared-down maps from vanilla Q2 and the expansions in a strictly linear fashion - no backtracking. Of course, there's also changes to the lighting and a new OST by Aubrey Hodges. Being able to control the game from keyboard / mouse is a godsend. I played the game in emulator with a modern gamepad and it was barely, barely doable, even when I could manually set deadzones and sensitivities and the like. It was awful.
Scott Host Gives Beta Access to Demon Star to Supporters
Patreon supporters of Raptor: Call of the Shadows Remixed now have access to a beta SDL2 port of Demon Star in the Discord server
KI 2013 Getting 10th Anniversary Update
www.windowscentral.com Killer Instinct getting 10th anniversary update with Xbox Series X|S support
Still breathing, still fighting.
Announced at EVO, Killer Instinct is getting a new balance pass, improvements to online, and more.
(Here's hoping those changes are coming to the PC version as well)
Rise of the Triad, the Nightdive release is here
www.gog.com Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition
Key Features of Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition: Five Playable Characters Guns, Roc
Sure, you could have ran RotT in a number of sourceports, DOSBox, or even a virtual machine if you were determined, but the experience of getting it up and running on a modern system hasn't been great.
Nightdive released Ludicrous Edition and it's finally accessible enough to just launch and play. Includes midi and 2013 soundtracks, all the original episodes, plus one new one, and a couple of qol adjustments in the menus.
Heads Up - Paradise Arcade Shop - no new orders until 8/14/2023
paradisearcadeshop.com News & Announcement
Dear customers, We are temporarily closed to New Orders! We need to catch up on current orders and prepare for EVO 2023! If you have a CURRENT order it WILL go out BEFORE we go to EVO. This is why the store is closed to new orders currently. We will re-open for ordering August 14th, 2023. ...
Title, basically. They're prepping for EVO, so the shop is closed for a bit.
I re-purchased a Sega 32X. I don't know why...
I used to have a 32x back in the day, but you know, Sega did what they did, and it didn't really pan out. I thought the mushroom system was cool tech, but lamented how little value it added to the Genesis. I essentially gave it away.
The library was small, and even the top tier A-list games barely even graze competency, let alone "good". Most of them play well enough in emulation (there are exceptions, of course), and even Mister has a core for it now.
Still, I unironically enjoy Cosmic Carnage; Doom on 32x was sadly rushed but the result is hilarious for so many reasons (my favorite is the end of the game dumps you into a fake DOS prompt); and I still remember being legit excited to play Mortal Kombat II on the system, and it got a lot of mileage. So it wasn't all bad.
It may not make a lot of sense to buy it again now for the nostalgia, especially with all the benefits of hindsight I have. Did it anyway.
Fire sword man Vs. Pecky girl (Mace: the Dark Age)
Caption: "Your Evil is Nothing Compared to Mine"
Video: MVG - Doom 3 on the original Xbox
I remember playing Doom 3 on my pc at the time, and it was like 20 fps, maybe. I also remember the marketing on PC parts at the time having stickers like "Runs Doom 3" on them.
When it came out on Xbox, one of my friends marveled at it and how good it looked on console, but was annoyed at all the pc comparisons a second friend and I were making.
Discovery Found! Primal Rage Arcade can be updated to 2.3(J)
If you own a genuine Primal Rage PCB, you can flash the program and MO roms to update it to the final version of the game that only released in Japan.
Changes in this version include some alterations to a few AIs (mostly Sauron and Chaos), and separating out the Start button from the other four attacks; but the biggest changes go to special and finishing move inputs.
Specials that previously needed three buttons have come down to just one; inputs that required the Up direction have also been changed, and the 'Eat a Human' move that was unique is now a universal input. What all this means is the game can be played conventionally as opposed to the negative edge specials that it's known for.
You can try it out in MAME under primrage.zip, and if you want to do it for real, you'll need an EPROM programmer, an eraser (in case something screws up), some spare chips by Texas Instruments, and a pc.
Primal Rage personal best
I've been working on a retro challenge since about April this year of trying to beat Primal Rage (Arcade pcb) at max difficulty without taking damage.
I'm nearly there, but for now my best is 13 out of 14 perfect rounds and a few hits during the Final Battle re-fights.
On its face, the challenge sounds crazy - but the thing to remember is the game doesn't have some complex AI that learns about you as you play. No. It has a bank of patterns it uses, and straight up just reads your inputs to determine a response. If you know how the AI will respond, you know how to counter. Play for about twelve minutes without dropping a combo, mistiming a jump, or miss a special even once /ever/, and you have yourself a perfect game. Easy, right :p
I'm stalled right now until I can upgrade / replace my supergun over the next month-ish, but I hope to complete the challenge by the end of the year.
Retro Game OST's on Bandcamp
bravewave.bandcamp.com Brave Wave Productions
Brave Wave is a place for good music. We're a record label dedicated to exploring the interplay between videogames, music and nostalgia.
Some of these prices are a little rich for my blood, but this label I recently found specializes in gaming OST's from genres that are kind of all over the place. NES Ninja Gaiden, Arcade King of Fighters '98, Panzer Dragoon....
Similarly, I've had some luck on service 7digital. Dan Forden's Mortal Kombat remastered soundtracks, and Alien Crush / Demon Crush OST is over there, too.