Comments 763

Re: Random: Nintendo Has Uploaded Its Switch Online Trailer (Again), And It's Still Getting Disliked

Atariboy

When they started with NES, people complained and demanded SNES games. When they added SNES games though, people still complained and immediately moved on to demanding N64 games.

Nintendo 64 games won't accomplish much here. It will just shift the complaints to the GameCube or Nintendo's Game Boy family. And that of course is fine. I expect/hope to see their coverage expand as well.

But let's be honest at the same time we're complaining. Adding N64 games isn't going to suddenly make people happy for long. They'll just shift to demanding the next big thing, rather than enjoying what N64 games get released.

Re: Feature: Zelda: Phantom Hourglass Is Secretly One Of The Best Zeldas

Atariboy

Excluding the CD-i Zelda's and two spin-offs I've never played (Tri Force Heroes and Hyrule Warriors), I rank this one dead last.

The two DS Zelda's were C games in a franchise I expect much more from. Thank Heaven that these experiments ended up a dead end and Nintendo regained their sanity with the Zelda franchise on the 3DS.

Re: Super Coder Speeds Up Yet Another SNES Classic

Atariboy

@Dethmunk That's the problem with his Race Drivin' hack. The game speed as-is was fine (And accurate to the arcade). All that was lacking was the awful frame rate.

But instead of just fixing the frame rate, he speeded up the entire game significantly due I assume to wanting to make it feel faster. He even had to hack stuff like the physics to try to make it playable due to that decision.

Neat effort from a technical viewpoint, but I don't like my games to run at 2X speed. What I do like is a silky smooth frame rate, but it can't come at the cost of a game running in fast forward.

Re: Memory Pak: Looking Into The Light In Super Mario 64

Atariboy

Color photography existed long before the 1960's. There's even color photographs from the 19th century.

And while it took until September 1965 for it to become dominant on prime time television (With several earlier exceptions like Bonanza and Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, thanks primarily to NBC, their stake in RCA, and the resulting desire to promote and sell RCA's new color televisions), color motion picture film has been a regular staple of Hollywood since almost the beginning.

Color slide film was extremely common for regular people to use in the 1950's. And color 8 mm and 16 mm film even wasn't unheard of for hobbyists in the 1940's. The explosion of the USS Arizona on December 7th for instance was filmed in color, although only black & white copies of it exist today other than a single color frame.

Much of the photographic record of WWII was in color, especially by 1944 and 1945. Particularly in the Pacific, color film seemed to be preferred by US Navy and Marine Corp combat cameramen. Most film and still photographs that you'll see from Iwo Jima, Okinawa, kamikaze raids on carrier task forces, and so on are in color.

Re: Indie Dev Shares 'The Last Levels', 36 Super Mario Maker Courses To Play Before Servers Are Shut Down

Atariboy

@Aurumonado There's no rush to download levels. The servers aren't going anywhere. The author of the article just didn't do a very careful job of reading Nintendo's notice.

What's ending at the end of the month is the ability to upload brand new courses. Otherwise, the online features will essentially remain intact for Super Mario Maker.

Worth noting that the 3DS port never featured level uploading. While a sad change, this essentially brings both versions to an equal footing.

Re: Feature: Hyperkin Explains How The RetroN Sq Is Bringing The Game Boy To Your Living Room

Atariboy

@Zidentia There's no software emulation of any sort with a NOAC chip. It's a hardware based solution.

There's no shortage of technical information out there about the various popular NES-on-a-chips that have been manufactured, if anyone wants to go dig and check it out. Some such popular chips are the NT6578 and the SH6578, for any lurkers wondering what the truth is and wish to seek out the answer independently instead of a back and forth between people insisting the other is wrong.

Re: Feature: Hyperkin Explains How The RetroN Sq Is Bringing The Game Boy To Your Living Room

Atariboy

@Zidentia No, normally they are not.

Almost every clone system that has ever came out has been a hardware based solution. Those utilizing software emulation have been few and far between.

In the classic gaming world, system-on-a-chip typically refers to the miniaturization of a hardware based solution that replicates the functionality of an older platform on a single integrated circuit.

The most famous of such chips and by far the most produced is what's known as the NOAC chip. That it was a hardware solution rather than software emulation is the exact reason why NOAC chips typically shared the same faults from different companies and why issues never were rectified, since revising such products is an expensive proposition and it was far cheaper to buy an off the shelf NES-on-a-chip. Addressing a software emulator flaw and flashing newer production models with a later revision of the software program isn't such a hurdle.

We've also seen one chip SNES and Genesis clones, almost a million Atari Flashback 2 clones with a single chip hardware based replica of the Atari 2600's hardware, and the Commodore 64 DTV as some of the most notable examples. And many plug and plays masquerading as something else have used NOAC chips and rewritten ports of classic games such as the original Atari Flashback and many of the Jakks Pacific products. Many such games have even been dumped and are playable on original NES hardware via Everdrive and Powerpak cartridges.

Software emulation based solutions are a relatively recent development in the clone world, driven by the increasing power of small cheap microprocessors. One of the earliest such examples with original cartridge compatibility was Hyperkin's Retron 5.

Re: Feature: Hyperkin Explains How The RetroN Sq Is Bringing The Game Boy To Your Living Room

Atariboy

@Damo You're mistaken about system-on-a-chip devices like the NOAC chip. They're a hardware based solution and don't involve software code.

Something such as the NES-on-a-chip is a single integrated circuit that contains a replica (Oftentimes not a particularly accurate replica) of the hardware circuitry of an older platform (Edit: This post has been slightly edited due to some inaccuracies subsequently pointed out; System-on-a-chip are of course also used in some products that rely on software emulation, especially in the plug and play marketplace in recent years such as Nintendo's own NES/SNES Classic Edition).

It's why the Retron 1 HD for instance has such lackluster video quality on a HDTV, despite the 720p HDMI output. The NOAC chip inside of it only outputs analog video (They at least were able to tap into RGB instead of composite off the NOAC), so Hyperkin literally is sending that signal to a cheap scaling chip that digitizes and upscales it to 720p.

If it was running a NES emulator, it could've been a digital to digital solution and would at least look nice and sharp on a HDTV instead of the very soft image of the Retron 1.

Re: Feature: Hyperkin Explains How The RetroN Sq Is Bringing The Game Boy To Your Living Room

Atariboy

@Damo No, most other systems aren't emulation based (Including most of Hyperkin's range of products outside the Retron '77, the Retron 5, and now this).

They're typically hardware recreations on a single integrated circuit (i.e., the "NES-on-a-chip" clones for one such example) or on a reprogrammable FPGA (The newer Analogue platforms and the Retro USB AVS ).

An easy way for the novice to figure this out is if a cartridge loads instantly or must be dumped. If it's the former, it's a hardware based solution. If it's the latter, the console is running a software emulator.

Another easy sign is if multicarts are supported. If they work, it's definitely a hardware based solution. If they don't, the system potentially is emulation based which breaks how multicarts work due to the dumping process.

Re: Video: Super Mario 3D Land Deserves to Be Remembered

Atariboy

I disagree that it was a much harder game to play in 2D.

The only areas that took full advantage of 3D were those small single screen bonus rooms like seen at 2:59. Those spots couldn't be fully enjoyed in 2D, but it was a trivial matter to muddle through those few spots.

I played it through to 100% completion for the first time in 2020 and had zero difficulties doing so in 2D (I'm legally blind in one eye so the 3D slider was always kept turned off). While not as visually spectacular such as in the vertically oriented levels that were designed to show off the stereoscopic 3D effect, such levels are still fully 2D friendly.

Re: Video: Here's What The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time 3D Could Potentially Look Like On Switch

Atariboy

Since the trailer is of rather poor quality where the visuals are concerned, here's an actual HD rendered playthrough of Ocarina of Time 3D for anyone actually interested in how the game could look on Switch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7qQckdFUY8&list=PLkBK2hrDcB5uN8x-McG7Wh9y2UCymjwB5&index=3

A Switch remaster should in fact blow this away. I'm sure we'd get reworked textures, upped polygon counts, more details in the environments, etc. Something akin to what we saw with Twilight Princess HD on the Wii U compared to merely rendering the GameCube/Wii game in high-definition via the Dolphin emulator.

Re: Capcom Arcade Stadium Brings More Retro Action To Switch Early Next Year

Atariboy

Hopefully 1943 Kai is also here.

The trailer shows a generic "1943" name, so I suppose it's conceivable it's relegated to a menu setting within the Battle of Midway like if it were a mere regional variant (The Kai edition is a heavily revised update to the original rather than a full fledged sequel).

Probably reaching for straws, but it would be a bit of a shame to see what's otherwise a complete representation of the arcade history of the 194X franchise miss the mark by a single title. But at the same time it looks as if they've planned this with an eye towards a follow-up someday, so maybe they've held it back for a potential sequel.

Re: Capcom Arcade Stadium Brings More Retro Action To Switch Early Next Year

Atariboy

Looks great and features much of what I had hoped to see from Capcom Arcade Cabinet 2, but where's Mercs?

I'm not too upset that stuff like Gun Smoke is AWOL, since I of course own the excellent Capcom Arcade Cabinet release (Which thanks to Microsoft's backwards compatibility initiative, is fully compatible with the Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X families despite originating on the Xbox 360). But hopefully this succeeds and gets some additional DLC packs to pad out the lineup even more.

Re: Random: Turns Out Nintendo Might Be Right, You Can Have Too Much Super Mario Bros.

Atariboy

I'm not worthy I guess. This is the most I can do at this time, within the constraints of remaining official (And ignoring the SNES remaster).

-NES
-Game Boy Advance (Classic NES cartridge release)
-NES Classic Edition
-Wii (Virtual Console)
-Wii U (Virtual Console)

I won't cheat and include my 2nd NES Classic Edition or that I could download the VC release on my 3DS XL or New 2DS XL right now.

Hoping to add a Game & Watch (And a Switch) to that list someday soon. Can't have too many ways to play the original Super Mario Brothers.

Re: Poll: Which Will Be Your Second Console - PS5 Or Xbox Series X?

Atariboy

I only bought a PS4 two years ago and a XB1 a year ago. My focus right now though is on finally buying an AVS and the upcoming Analogue Pocket and Analogue Duo, while those two last gen systems and the Switch will suffice for my modern console gaming needs.

So I don't foresee buying a Series X or PS5 for several years since there's much I still want to experience on the last gen systems. But when I do, I'll probably buy a Series X first. I tend to like playing 3D games better with Microsoft controllers and I don't see 2D style content like Hamster's Arcade Archives line (Which I prefer the PS4 controller for when not using an arcade stick) eschewing the PS4 anytime soon.

Plus, I feel like Microsoft's backwards compatibility program is more robust and I'd want to reward them for their more consumer friendly decisions there (Just as I went PS4 first over XB1 this generation after Micosoft's early missteps with their forced Kinect 2.0 and pre-release plans for an online mandate and tying physical games to accounts).

I would love to play The Last Guardian in 60 fps though, but will probably buy the disc sometime soon and just keep it on the shelf until I buy a PS5. I've had games stay on my shelves for decades before getting played, so 5 years or so will be nothing.