Emulation is better than modern gaming
- Thread starter FlyingLemons
- Start date
Still pretty cool.
I was wondering how they were managing to do that. Still cool regardless, but I'd imagine it would have a limited audience.
That's pretty cool. Now does anyone make decent tape players?
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That's only half the question. The other half is: Does anyone make decent tape cassettes? In this day and age of more EM and RF radiation flying around everywhere than back in the 80's and 90's, these things better be Faraday Cage'd up the ass. Never been a big fan of magnetic media in general. It just doesn't seem to be a reliable kind of storage technology. I was glad to see it go away in favor of CD's. Now vinyl, on the other hand, will never die! 
There are websites where you can Finn that out.
Yeah, I'd imagine trying to track down tapes would be a challenge as I don't think many if any are made anymore. The best bet would be to find new old stock.
^^^ And even then, if they're still in the original factory wrappers ambient EM radiation that's bombarded it for the past 3-4 decades will have likely degraded its magnetic cohesion. If you're recording music, it will likely sound low-fidelity and somewhat tinny. If you're adventurous enough to use it as a data storage medium, it will likely not even write properly, nor will it correctly match CRC checksums when you try to read from it.
IMO, this is a tech that's best left as a footnote in history and on a shelf at the Smithsonian.
IMO, this is a tech that's best left as a footnote in history and on a shelf at the Smithsonian.
It's all those people with nostalgia boners.....
Vinyl records on the other hand, well that can stay please. Just need decent record players and not generic crap made to the lowest standards.
Vinyl records on the other hand, well that can stay please. Just need decent record players and not generic crap made to the lowest standards.
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I still remember when they released a new episode for Doom out of nowhere and I kept putting it on to have one more try until I'd finally beaten it.
Which is good because it was two weeks ago.
The 90's were something special for gaming. I don't know what it was exactly, but it seemed like there was more passion in the work being put out and games were generally more unique.
The big one for me was Sierra. They were essentially my gaming childhood. I grew up playing their point-and-click adventure games, and they were such a high point for me. Imagine years later, I'm travelling to Yosemite. I'm not native to the area, having travelled roughly 3000 miles, so I'm not really familiar with anything. But one sight was arresting and pumped me so full of nostalgia in a way that most people wouldn't understand by looking at what I'd seen, but what I'd seen was the old Sierra HQ, the one featured in SQ3. It was immediately recognizable.
The big one for me was Sierra. They were essentially my gaming childhood. I grew up playing their point-and-click adventure games, and they were such a high point for me. Imagine years later, I'm travelling to Yosemite. I'm not native to the area, having travelled roughly 3000 miles, so I'm not really familiar with anything. But one sight was arresting and pumped me so full of nostalgia in a way that most people wouldn't understand by looking at what I'd seen, but what I'd seen was the old Sierra HQ, the one featured in SQ3. It was immediately recognizable.
I think it's because there was a huge leap in graphical features that happened in the mid 90s. A lot of stuff was "first", and I remember seeing things like Daytona USA and Tekken and being stunned by what they had managed to pull off compared to the sprite graphics I was used to.
Now we just get improvements in graphics that, while beautiful, are not really a far cry from what we've been used to in the recent past. Gameplay's also become hollowed out and focused into making you buy more microtransactions. Games are better looking than ever, but things that are new and unexpected are rare now.
Genres and trends ebb and flow, but I think mid-budget small team big idea games returned with the growth of the indie market. We're getting more reasonably well-produced games that fit that PSX/PS2 vibe, with a level of polish that was limited to developers like Valve before the introduction of internet updates and player feedback. Meanwhile Itch.io is home to zero-budget weirdness and experimental jam projects being made by kids in their bedrooms, with gems like Baba is You hidden within.
It's true that AAA publishers are trying to squeeze every penny they can out of people with microtransactions, lootboxes, live services, and all of that. Blizzard and EA are major offenders in that area. Meanwhile all of Ubisoft's games are steadily coming together into one big amorphous open world blob full of map icons. But even in the upper echelons of AAA there are titles like Baldur's Gate III that show that there are still some top developers that are in the business of making great games.
My advice is to check out some demos. They've come back into fashion in a big way recently and I often find myself swamped with interesting titles to check out.
It's true that AAA publishers are trying to squeeze every penny they can out of people with microtransactions, lootboxes, live services, and all of that. Blizzard and EA are major offenders in that area. Meanwhile all of Ubisoft's games are steadily coming together into one big amorphous open world blob full of map icons. But even in the upper echelons of AAA there are titles like Baldur's Gate III that show that there are still some top developers that are in the business of making great games.
My advice is to check out some demos. They've come back into fashion in a big way recently and I often find myself swamped with interesting titles to check out.
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That's true. Ironically, it's now often the smaller games produced by smaller teams are often taking more risks by experimenting more while the bigger developers are busy playing catch-up to the latest trends. Smaller developers are also able to cater to niches that bigger devs simply aren't able to chase.
We could use some shorter AAA games with worse graphics.
Yes, it'd happily trade graphical fidelity away for better gameplay.
The Retro Fighters Hunter controller has been a dud, so far. I plug the controller into the USB dongle on PC, and it works flawlessly. I plug it into the Xbox, it shows as being paired, even to the correct port, yet I get no response from any buttons, triggers or thumb sticks on the controller. I don't think it is the Xbox, because all my other controllers still work flawlessly.
Currently playing tag with the Retro Fighters support team.
Currently playing tag with the Retro Fighters support team.
I have a near 20 year old Xbox 360 controller that has been with me through three moves of country, a marriage, and the birth of two children. It's been there through all the changes in my life, and I have come to consider it a dear, dear friend. It's still there with me now, playing games on my PC.
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