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So, that Retroblox console has been rebranded the POLYMEGA.

 

Here's a video showing the UI:

 

All very PSNy. The console looks interesting and the disc drive is attractive. I bought Die Hard Trilogy PS, you know, just in case.

 

Negatives for me include the change of language around the price - they had said it would be 'significantly less than a Switch'; now it's just 'less than a base Nintendo Switch' - that's just for the base, one module and the wireless pad. The quality looks good but pricing this with the other consoles would be a big risk. IMO any more than $200 won't work, and that's pushing it.

 

Also, I don't want ANOTHER pad. This needs to support PS4/Xbone/Switch Pro/Steam controllers. NOBODY who buys this needs another pad. Keep costs down and remove it from the bundle.

 

Also also, while I get it, the name isn't doing it for me. Logo's alright.

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The name change is a shame. Adjective-adjective is much less memorable, somehow, than adjective-noun. The logo weirdly reminded me of Project Cars, and looking it up they are very similar.

 

I assume bluetooth means other wireless controllers will be supported eventually. That controller design looks mostly okay, apart from the bizarre decision to cheapen it by including turbo/clear buttons (and making them more prominent than start/select)! But yes, I can count on one hand the number of decent controllers designed by companies other than major console brands, so expectations are low.

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Even if it's perfect, I've got 3 or 4 pads around that would already do the job.

 

I fired up Wave Race 64

and 1080 Snowboarding this morning and, graphics aside, those games really hold up well. The physics of both are spot-on and the simplicity of the set-up is really refreshing. No boosts, no items - just some great environments and the thrill of nailing an apex or timing a jump.

 

They mentioned on the Bombcast this week the idea of Nintendo putting out a Hits game a la Rare Replay. Instead of spending $60 on a NES Mini, spend it on the NES Collection, with some rare art and behind the scenes gubbins like the Mega Man Legacy Collection. I'm now imagining an N64 Collection with a load of 1st-party games running in HD. With an N64 Mini being unlikely (think about that controller!), I'd jump on a compilation cart.

 

I guess we'll have to see what happens with this online VC thing. Just a shame that N64 library isn't being used.

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Yeah, I guess the WiiU is staying hooked up for quite a while for Virtual Console needs if this is the way it's going on the Switch. Shame. I would love to be able to take all of those with me.

 

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SNES Mini has been announced, coming out in September with all the expected regional variants. 21 games in total. Unexpected details include 2 bundled controllers, plus the official release of Starfox 2. The games are:

  • Contra III: The Alien Wars
  • Donkey Kong Country
  • EarthBound
  • Final Fantasy III
  • F-ZERO
  • Kirby Super Star
  • Kirby's Dream Course
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
  • Mega Man X
  • Secret of Mana
  • Star Fox
  • Star Fox 2
  • Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting
  • Super Castlevania IV
  • Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts
  • Super Mario Kart
  • Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
  • Super Mario World
  • Super Metroid
  • Super Punch-Out!!
  • Yoshi's Island

The highlighted games are US/EU-only, replaced by these games in Japan:

  • Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem
  • Panel de Pon (Tetris Attack)
  • Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers
  • Super Formation Soccer
  • The Legend of the Mystical Ninja

 

A good list. No Pilotwings, Chrono Trigger and Actraiser. And I imagine Turtles in Time and NBA Jam have licensing issues up the wazoo. Otherwise it's pretty comprehensive. Man, what I'd give to just have this compilation on Switch though!

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I still see NES Minis in used games store, so I think they'll be easier to get in EU? 

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I had been sort of messing with this off and on for two months, but I was able to get Policenauts for Saturn up and running on my Saturn. Apparently the patch for this came out end of last year but I didn't know it existed until more recently. The Saturn version of Policenauts adds a bunch of extra features upon beating the game plus some extra scenes and dialogue throughout. Unfortunately it also adds some extra breast grabs so that sucks. One thing it came under criticism for besides that back when the translation was released in 2009 was some of hate speech and dialogue. I can confirm all of the homophobic and transphobic language has been removed as well as any dated internet memes. Apparently those were not Kojima's actual words and the translator embellished that a bit to make the main character seem macho and he has become much more aware of this sort of thing in the last few years.

 

Anyway before I started I ordered the Action Replay cart for Saturn because I was tired of losing all of my saves every few years first of all. The battery backup method Saturn uses is so bad. Also the main reason is now you can soft mod your Saturn to play backups with this cart by installing Pseudo Saturn on it. I'm not sure if this makes your cart lose the save function or not as I've heard conflicting stories. It wouldn't really matter anyway besides that you would have to own two carts because the way my Action Replay works for that is still not great. You can't save directly to the cart from any game and it always involves booting up action replay and copying the saves over every time.

 

However on a whim I thought I would just throw the burned Policenauts CD into the Saturn to see if it booted without me having to do all of that soft mod stuff. Sure enough the intro cutscene played with no issue at all. This was strange as I saw no reports of this being possible with a CD-R. (Also I did buy the Japanese version of this game from Ebay for the included art booklet so I'm not pirating for whatever that's worth with Thumbs' law rules here).

 

Action Replay only allows you to play all region but does not allow CD-R games to be played without a soft mod or mod chip. So this got me wondering if there was something weird going on with my Saturn. The reason I wondered this is because I won this Saturn off of Ebay for $50 way way back in 2003 shortly after I had gotten my first job. When I received it, it would not play North American games and I had my Dad look at it and he saw the jumpers for the region had been soldered from US NTSC to Japanese NTSC. So he put those back to me and it worked fine. The listing did not mention any of this and was just a fairly used, tested, works, AS IS listing. I guess I was too young and dumb to even considering complaining to the seller. If I recall Ebay didn't give much of a shit if you got ripped off back then.

 

So I got curious and took apart my Saturn and sure enough, there sat a mod chip with the wires hooked up. Sort of looks like this:

saturn.jpg

 

That's how it looks on the right hand side. These things run you about $60 these days, slightly more than I originally paid for this Saturn. So this was a nice and surprising find.

 

But then it also got me wondering about another thing odd about this Saturn. It always had a little removable metal cartridge above the tray for the battery back up in the back. It allows you to view photo and video CDs which I thought all of this time was just a thing Saturns came with and so I left it plugged in. Turns out, nope, this was yet another sort of expensive extra added to my Saturn by whoever owned this before. I'm starting to think whoever listed this originally inherited this thing from a dead friend or something and was auctioning it off.

 

It looks sort of like this:

250px-Saturn_MK-80310.jpg

This Video CD cartridge was apparently only released in European and Japanese territories. Mine has Japanese writing on one side and English on the other. There's no name brand and I haven't matched this to any existing models of this cartridge so that is still somewhat of a mystery to me. Apparently this is also used by a dozen or so Japanese games to playback higher quality video. So I have deduced whoever owned this thing modded it to play Japanese games and also most likely was using it to play burned games from the US region. It's definitely a North American model Saturn.

 

I'm going to see if I can hock this thing on Ebay because I have no use for it. I'm never going to play those Japanese games that run it. No North American or European games actually utilize it. The cheapest available one runs for $80 used but it has a name brand. I have a video CD for the band Garbage I can actually test but I haven't run it yet. What's funny about video CDs is they will still run on a lot of blu-ray and DVD players. Like the firmware is still included just in case. This is apparently because in Asian markets these stayed popular for a long time, much like the Laserdisc.

 

I looked up the Photo CD aspect but back in 1995 Photo CDs were not just jpegs on a disc but the actual Photo CD™ format. I thought maybe I would burn one for kicks but it seems like it's a lot of work to track down burning software that still makes these ancient and useless discs.

 

So I learned a lot of nerdy shit.

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Anyone else excited for the Super NT?

 

I never saw myself getting into the "luxury retro console" thing, but the SNES is one of my favorite consoles and this thing manages to hit a pretty appealing price. Plus there's the rumor of it getting custom firmware (like the original NT) that would enable support for other consoles.

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Apparently it's coming preloaded with an expanded Director's Cut of Super Turrican featuring an extra 2MB of stuff that had to be cut from the original 4MB cart.

 

It's an attractive little box. I never had a SNES so a Mini would make more sense for me, but I've played most of those games on VC or GBA ports, so it's tough to justify 80€. And tougher still to justify another 100 on a Super NT - I've got a handful of SFC carts (Starfox, SF II, Front Mission, Yoshi's Island, Marvellous) but nothing else. A 64 NT could probably tempt me, but that's a long way off.

 

I want NES Mini and SNES Mini collections on Switch (compilations of all the games on each Mini.) They could be the same price as the consoles themselves, I'd still prefer them. I've gone digital on Switch just to save space. I can't be clogging up my flat with more hardware!

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Yeah, I hear you on the space issue. The NT Mini custom firmware allowed for dumping/loading ROMs, so that would be ideal if they could do that on the Super NT.

 

To me, the most intriguing thing about this is the idea of it being a perfect clone with theoretically no lag or inaccuracies. I know there's been ways to do digital output in the past with hardware scalers and such, but this is a much more attractive package. I'm pretty fascinated by the idea of FPGA-based clones -- it's a cool solution to that problem.

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Got a Wavebird! Utterly superfluous but I've always wanted one and they're usually £50ish. I also found Rebel Strike (Rogue Squadron 3) which I've heard is very up-and-down quality-wise, but it includes co-op Rogue Squadron 2 and also the original Atari arcade game, which I've never played.

IMG_5146.JPG

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So I took the Wavebird apart, cleaned and reassembled it and it's fantastic (if you like the GC pad.) I've been playing Rebel Strike, which isn't so great. Everything in a vehicle is good and still looks decent now, but the on-foot sections are dull. Mash A until all stormtroopers are dead, run to next batch and repeat. However, it was worth getting just to play Atari arcade Star Wars, which is still fun over 30 years on.

 

In other news, my N64 had a strop and wouldn't output video or audio, although it powered on. I googled possible causes. All of the connections are pretty immaculate so I was confident I wouldn't need alcohol and cotton buds. I tested the cables on a GameCube - all good. I pulled out the expansion pak and put in the original - no change. Then I read that reset buttons can get gunked up. I pressed it several times in a row, powered on again and - boom - we're in business. The button's clean though. Hmm.

 

All in all, an N64 Mini would be the first of the Classic consoles I'd definitely pick up. I'm on the cusp of getting a new TV and even if the reset button holds up, it'll be a muddy mess on a 4K screen!

 

I picked up F-Zero X a couple of weeks ago, replacing the cart I traded in years ago. I forgot just how balls-out metal it is! I got GX a while back too, though I haven't played it much. X feels much more precise to control for me. It feels like I can make much more subtle changes with the 64 analog stick vs the GameCube one.

 

I put Yoshi's Story on too. After lovingly Woolly World, Story is a bit of a nightmare to go back to. I'm going to persevere because I hear it's relatively easy but it's not holding up so far.

 

Also, In The Valley Of Gods has got me pining for some Egyptian goodness and I have had Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy on the shelf for ages. Might give that a whirl too. On that note, what are your favourite Egyptian levels in games? Gobi's Valley for me. Dat music!

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Lots of Super Nt impressions and reviews came out today. Everything looks/sounds great so far. Linneman's Digital Foundry video is coming out this Sunday, which will likely be the best for video, audio, and performance comparisons. But there's already some great videos out today about it. I'd recommend:

 

Gamexplain's video showing the visual differences between an unmodded original SNES, the SNES Classic, and the Super Nt, which makes it pretty clear the Super Nt produces the best, most faithful 1080p image of SNES games.

 

My Life in Gaming's video has some good comparisons as well, a lot more in-depth information, and is interspersed with a video interview with Kevtris (the person responsible for the FPGA in the Super Nt).

 

And Jeremy Parish's video gives a nice general overview of the system.

 

Pretty cool. This is the best, most authentic way to play SNES games in 1080p now. Really love the design of the hardware and packaging (by Cory Schmitz), boot-up screen (designed by Phil Fish; audio by Squarepusher), etc. The only way this system could be more perfect would be if it accepted Saturn Model 2 (Japanese Model 1) controllers, since those are the best 2D controllers ever made, but the SNES controller is good enough. Big thumbs-up from me.

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Has anybody heard much about NES Maker? Essentially, it seems to be engine software a la Gamemaker that outputs Family BASIC that can be played on actual hardware via a flash cart. They just ran a kickstarter but you can still get the software and a cart for $88 at their store. There's something very attactive about being able to create something simple that actually runs on a NES connected to your TV.

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