GRcade Retro Gaming Chat

[Lotus]

Dread to think what it'll be like in the future - games no longer working because licenses have expired, games removed from libraries and now unavailable (even if you've bought them at some point), or entire services/infrastructures that no longer exist and so games can't check for/make mandatory updates, check for online connections, or simply your entire account and library of games is lost. Who knows if in 20-30 years you'll even be able to play games from this era.

[Green Gecko]

Although there's nothing holding them too it, Valve have at least said I believe that if they have to shut their service down, they will provide tools to disable DRM and allow everyone to download their games in bulk. I.e. Some kind of defunct Steam wrapper that games can run in (although with lots of games, you don't actually need to launch them via Steam at all).

To be fair, I'm not sure other stores have said anything like that (although GOG is already DRM free so that's a start, and I'd half expect CD Projekt Red to just grant anyone who's losing gooseberry fool on steam free licenses for anything they have on GOG), so it's a small comfort.

In the meantime, If you have the hard disk space, I'd definitely recommend downloading Steam backups of every game you own at some point... Even if you need a 4TB hard drive or something to do it, that's a lot cheaper than losing hundreds of pounds worth of games!

[Corazon de Leon]

Finished ALTTP this morning. I was fully prepared for Ganon, as I remember it being really tough, but it was actually pretty simple. A few annoyances aside (the final dungeon difficulty mainly coming from just sticking things that shoot at you in rooms while you're trying to do stuff) , it's still a brilliant game.

Best description of Ganon's Tower I've ever read to be fair.

Don't forget the random ice rooms and boss rush section as well.

[Green Gecko]

I can't really remember much of ALTP which I completed on GBA, but I felt that way about some of the GB games, albeit I think I was stuck in certain areas or sub bosses rather than the main boss. Of course, you would always load your save at the beginning of the dungeon, so for intermittent play it was rather inconvenient. Working through dungeons to get to a boss repeatedly sucks in any game. Metroid Prime and Dark Souls all come to mind.

[Lotus]

Although there's nothing holding them too it, Valve have at least said I believe that if they have to shut their service down, they will provide tools to disable DRM and allow everyone to download their games in bulk. I.e. Some kind of defunct Steam wrapper that games can run in (although with lots of games, you don't actually need to launch them via Steam at all).

To be fair, I'm not sure other stores have said anything like that (although GOG is already DRM free so that's a start, and I'd half expect CD Projekt Red to just grant anyone who's losing gooseberry fool on steam free licenses for anything they have on GOG), so it's a small comfort.

In the meantime, If you have the hard disk space, I'd definitely recommend downloading Steam backups of every game you own at some point... Even if you need a 4TB hard drive or something to do it, that's a lot cheaper than losing hundreds of pounds worth of games!

Yeah that's probably a reasonable idea for PC, I was thinking more console games, prompted by KK's comment. Once everything's locked down to digital only and only through one or two stores, I don't even know how emulation would work.

[Victor Mildew]

I can't really remember much of ALTP which I completed on GBA, but I felt that way about some of the GB games, albeit I think I was stuck in certain areas or sub bosses rather than the main boss. Of course, you would always load your save at the beginning of the dungeon, so for intermittent play it was rather inconvenient. Working through dungeons to get to a boss repeatedly sucks in any game. Metroid Prime and Dark Souls all come to mind.

This is what the gameboy Zelda did so well, have a warp right outside the boss room.

[Green Gecko]

Yeah I think you could warp to the boss room and do some stuff, but you still had to get to the boss in order to perform multiple actions all over again to get to that point where you were stuck.

For the old infrastructures dying etc, I think this is more going to be a problem where cloud computing is concerned and processing isn't all done locally on the device. We also have the vast majority of devices with no local multiplayer options (or even LAN options) and so you can't play multiplayer modes ever (although sometimes third party servers can be set up or hacked up some way) again.

We have some examples of this already happening with for example the Wii, Nintendo did close the service for downloading and purchasing anything but those games are still sitting there and they still work.

Surprisingly PSN is still up on PS3 and so all of those things can still be downloaded and played whenever.

I think most of these online services will just shutdown and you have to bet on your local storage never failing or getting deleted by accident etc, and expect certain devices with the games still installed to skyrocket in value or simply go for about the same value (i.e. The entire console the same price) as what you would expect to pay for, for example, Paper Mario on GC or N64 which costs more than a console does already.

[Cumberdanes]

I know the PSP store was taken down but you can still buy, download and transfer games to a PSP via PS3... unless like me you have a PSP E1000 which only supports physical games as it has no online functionality so you can't add a PSN account to it

[Choclet-Milk]

I know the PSP store was taken down but you can still buy, download and transfer games to a PSP via PS3... unless like me you have a PSP E1000 which only supports physical games as it has no online functionality so you can't add a PSN account to it

You can buy SD adapters that fit in the memory card slot, just so you know...

[Cumberdanes]

I know the PSP store was taken down but you can still buy, download and transfer games to a PSP via PS3... unless like me you have a PSP E1000 which only supports physical games as it has no online functionality so you can't add a PSN account to it

You can buy SD adapters that fit in the memory card slot, just so you know...

I was thinking of jail breaking it anyway just worried I might brick it when I spent a fair amount to get it. I want to play Jeanne D'arc again (which I own digitally from the US PlayStation store) and physical copies are getting a bit pricey.

[Choclet-Milk]

I was thinking of jail breaking it anyway just worried I might brick it when I spent a fair amount to get it. I want to play Jeanne D'arc again (which I own digitally from the US PlayStation store) and physical copies are getting a bit pricey.

I'd definitely recommend it, the PSP scene is leaps and bounds from where it was when I did mine.

So long as you're on the latest firmware, you can install Infinity cfw with relative ease. None of the old Pandora battery firmware downgrade nonsense of yore.

[kerr9000]

Grabbed a few complete PS2 games for 50pence each today, The Weakest Link, Medal of Honor Frontline, Britney's dance beat, Dancing stage MegaMix and Conflict Desert storm, posted pics of some in the special reserve thread as 4 of them have special reserve Price labels on them

[KK]

Britney's Dance Beat wasn’t a bad game actually, it’s the fact it had I think a paltry 6 songs that put it in firm rental territory at the time.

I went back and played the Stuntman demo today. I couldn’t ever complete it back in the day, and yet I managed it now on the 3rd attempt. Might go back and attempt the whole game at some point.

[kerr9000]

Britney's Dance Beat wasn’t a bad game actually, it’s the fact it had I think a paltry 6 songs that put it in firm rental territory at the time.

I went back and played the Stuntman demo today. I couldn’t ever complete it back in the day, and yet I managed it now on the 3rd attempt. Might go back and attempt the whole game at some point.

I highly recomend giving Stuntman another go I really enjoyed it.

[Hypes]

Started Banjo Kazooie the other day. It's such a good game, I miss the days of Rare and Nintendo.
Also started REmake, my first ever play of a Resident Evil. Is this the best version? It's pretty clunky and annoying

[Green Gecko]

The HD version has a slightly revised control system but it's still mostly tank controls. It's just part of the game, it would be too easy to avoid the zombies every time if you didn't have shite controls. Which is worth mentioning actually, at least half the time you can just run past the zombies unless you definitely have the ammo to take them down.

If you do kill them they will come back as running zombies unless you burn them with kerose or headshot them so sometimes you're literally better off not bothering with them at all.

[kerr9000]

Grabbed a loose cart of Return of the Jedi for the Gameboy today for £5

[Corazon de Leon]

When it clicks, it really clicks, Hypes. The tank controls are frustrating at first, but you get used to them.

[Drumstick]

Started Banjo Kazooie the other day. It's such a good game, I miss the days of Rare and Nintendo.

Is this also a first playthrough?

[Drumstick]

Started Banjo Kazooie the other day. It's such a good game, I miss the days of Rare and Nintendo.

Is this also a first playthrough?

Just further to this, I was thinking about which games would make up my top ten N64 games (unordered).


Perfect Dark
Ocarina of Time
Donkey Kong 64
Banjo-Kazooie
Diddy Kong Racing
Pokemon Stadium
F-Zero X
Goldeneye
Mario Party 2
Mario Tennis

Half of those were developed by Rare. A proper golden period for a developer if there ever was one.