Retro games and emulation - Discuss retro shit in case you're stuck in the past or a hipster

[HexFag]

In what might be an extremely odd coincidence, the formerly mentioned recomp of Majora's Mask got an update. Also the decomp's PC Port, 2 Ship 2 Harkinian, finally released on the same day. We have got two PC ports of Majora's Mask in the same month, and both got significant updates on the same day. If you prefer one over the other, both save files are compatible.

 

[Jacoren]

Or be a cool gamer and play genuine gemerald kino like Claymates or Rendering Ranger R2, who the hell wants to play trooncore like "DoReMi Fantasy" what pack you smokin rn

He is looking for games for his four year old cousin to play, so I think it's okay to enjoy stuff like DoReMi Fantasy at that age.

 

[TwinPeaksEnjoyer]

In what might be an extremely odd coincidence, the formerly mentioned recomp of Majora's Mask got an update. Also the decomp's PC Port, 2 Ship 2 Harkinian, finally released on the same day. We have got two PC ports of Majora's Mask in the same month, and both got significant updates on the same day. If you prefer one over the other, both save files are compatible.

I tried the update for Zelda64 Recomp and those dual analog are godsend.

 

[Two Dollars]

For anyone who hasn’t heard, Vimm’s Lair is (99%) back. They confirmed that the takedown requests were from a copyright troll, most likely using AI, to target Nintendo games specifically. They will not bring back the boxart and screenshots “to appease Skynet” for the time being since those are suspected to have been utilized in the automated requests, but the actual downloads have been restored.

Spoiler: Vimm’s Announcement

As promised, here's more on the recent DMCA notices.

Last week six notices were sent from brand-protection@mm-nintendo.com with the following text:

I write to report that the website listed below includes links to images that infringe on copyrights owned by Nintendo of America Inc. A full list of URLs with infringing images. In addition, the site displays Nintendo’s trademarks and other intellectual property (including characters) which is likely to lead to consumer confusion.

A list of Vault urls followed. Images in The Vault consist of box scans, disc scans, and title screens. Just to be safe all media was taken offline.

I've read lots of speculation this request is fake and people make many good points, yet circumstantial evidence (no matter how juicy) is not proof. Here's some of the biggest claims.

1. mm-nintendo.com is a fake domain that's not owned nor operated by Nintendo.
Corporations contract out services all the time. That doesn't make them any less real. mm-nintendo.com is registered by MarkMonitor, a known brand protection company. The operator claims to represent Nintendo of America and Garry's Mod can attest they do.

2. It's a DMCA troll spoofing mm-nintendo.com.
Email spoofing is easy to do but nowadays it's just as easy to detect.

3. It's too random to be real and there's obvious mistakes. It must be a troll.
Fair point, but there's two little letters nobody's talking about.
A. I.
Picture a crude bot with lax oversight and suddenly it all makes sense.

Look closer and mm-nintendo.com uses opsecsecurity.com for email. One of their services is Protecting Online Brand Identity and Reputation and this feature jumps out:

Visual Artificial Intelligence (AI) to spot more forms of infringement.
Infringements often manifest in online brand logos, trademarked text, and product imagery. Our platform uses Visual AI to focus on these visual aspects of branding and related media. By augmenting text-based detection, Visual AI is not restricted by channel, and also mitigates emerging threats. Visual AI organizes potential infringements by indicators found in the image for efficiency and enforcement at scale.

Sounds perfect for detecting screen shots of Nintendo games. Some of the claims are clearly invalid (like Kamisama no Marionette) but frankly it's not worth poking the bear. Ultimately this whole fuss could have been avoided by just removing images from the start, and few would likely notice they're gone. Downloads have been restored but to appease Skynet the box scans, disc scans, and title screens of the requested games will remain offline.

 

[Lone Wandering Courier]

I was a bit bored today and I found out my PS2 slim has a bad laser. I always figured the freezing issues I had with prior games I tried was due to the discs themselves because I know my games aren't in the best of condition since we didn't take the best care of them as kids. Today though I tried another game in PCX2 which played fine with some small stutters (though it just might be due to the fact I used a USB DVD drive that can use one or two usb ports on my PC but I was only using one), but it completely froze on the PS2. Unfortunately, I never soft-modded it so I don't have freemcboot on a memory card. Even then, my controller is in bad shape and I don't have anything to make the picture look better on a 1080p TV. Yeah emulation makes more sense for me, but like I said I was bored.

 

[Enig]

I was a bit bored today and I found out my PS2 slim has a bad laser. I always figured the freezing issues I had with prior games I tried was due to the discs themselves because I know my games aren't in the best of condition since we didn't take the best care of them as kids. Today though I tried another game in PCX2 which played fine with some small stutters (though it just might be due to the fact I used a USB DVD drive that can use one or two usb ports on my PC but I was only using one), but it completely froze on the PS2. Unfortunately, I never soft-modded it so I don't have freemcboot on a memory card. Even then, my controller is in bad shape and I don't have anything to make the picture look better on a 1080p TV. Yeah emulation makes more sense for me, but like I said I was bored.

Welcome to the PS2, worshipped by loud mouthed millenial cultists and regarded as "huh I had that as a kid" by normal people and "what in the FUCK is this hardware why does it break so much where is the ODE" by anyone that's worked with the other three systems of that gen.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Welcome to the PS2, worshipped by loud mouthed millenial cultists and regarded as "huh I had that as a kid" by normal people and "what in the FUCK is this hardware why does it break so much where is the ODE" by anyone that's worked with the other three systems of that gen.

The hardware was pretty finicky but it had the best library of that generation. so it deserves the praise.

 

[Pepe Cortisona]

Welcome to the PS2, worshipped by loud mouthed millenial cultists and regarded as "huh I had that as a kid" by normal people and "what in the FUCK is this hardware why does it break so much where is the ODE" by anyone that's worked with the other three systems of that gen.

I still think the Fat 50000 series is the best of the bunch. It's quieter than the prior ones, has an IR receiver, still has the HDD expansion slot and has a better cooled power supply. I have nothing against the slimline models, but having the chance to load games from the HDD is more appealing than the smaller size.

 

[Carpenter Trout]

Welcome to the PS2, worshipped by loud mouthed millenial cultists and regarded as "huh I had that as a kid" by normal people and "what in the FUCK is this hardware why does it break so much where is the ODE" by anyone that's worked with the other three systems of that gen.

seethe. But in all seriousness, I agree. Especially the slim models were terrible, especially lasers and power supply units were the most akin to break even if well maintained. But while hardware may not be the best, it still have the best library of its generation (and i would argue of any generation following, especially for Sony consoles), thank to the generally lax licensing (or so i heard).
Of course, retroengineering the PlayStation 2 is a nightmare because Snoy doesn't let anyone read documentation of a console that is 24 years old now, which leads to my other point. In my opinion the PCSX2 emulator is now regressing. The nightly builds are good, but their choices of no longer allowing people to choose which plugin to use is a poor decision at best, since apparently lilypad was superior to whatever terrible thing they're using now for input. As an example, lilypad had no problem natively recognizing the pressure sensitive inputs from a PS3 Controller. Now you need a custom made .dll to put in the folder. It's not really game breaking, but some games like metal gear or ace combat start having issues when the input no longer ranges from analogic 0.0 to 1.0 and instead goes to digital 0-1. As usual, product of no concurrent emulators. Also I dislike that Qt Dolphin layout.

It doesn't help that some devs are assholes:

https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-PCSX2-devs-please-PLEASE-bring-back-LilyPad-support

https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-What-happend-to-plugins-such-as-Lilypad-plugin-in-Nightly-release

https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Individual-button-pressure-sensitivities-QT-nightly

https://github.com/ASI-Factory/PCSX2-Fork-With-Plugins Well, at least someone is forking PCSX2 to bring back plugin support.

---

While this isn't exactly "retro," there's this game called "yiik" which performed poorly due to it's terrible overall design, ranging from mediocre story, bad combat mechanics, and so on. A couple of days ago I was looking at another review/retrospective about this game, the troubled development story and other various trivia, when I noticed something on this title screen:

Namely, the copyright:

"Ackk Studios"
That would explain it all.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

The hardware was pretty finicky but it had the best library of that generation. so it deserves the praise.

It really depended on what you were looking for. Sega Genesis and SNES both had games and genres that they excelled at. For the PS2, their strengths laid in JRPGs (Squaresoft/Square Enix still in their prime) and other quirky Eastern games like Katamari Damacy or Mister Mosquito.

At the time, unless you really like the Nintendo lineup or JRPGs specifically, Xbox was arguably the best of both worlds—more powerful than the PS2 and still got many of the multiplats (GTA, etc.) that the GameCube didn't get.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

At the time, unless you really like the Nintendo lineup or JRPGs specifically, Xbox was arguably the best of both worlds—more powerful than the PS2 and still got many of the multiplats (GTA, etc.) that the GameCube didn't get.

XBOX could also store music on the hard drive which you could then use to play in other games that utilized that feature (of which i think DOA Volleyball was one of them, don't quote me on that)

I had a friend that had one, and I was kinda jelly because compared to the PS2 it seemed like it was better. The only thing that turned me off from XBOX was that big-ass controller with the d-pad and left analog stick being swapped. That, plus the fighters I played religiously back in the day were always on PS2 more than they were on XBOX.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

It really depended on what you were looking for. Sega Genesis and SNES both had games and genres that they excelled at. For the PS2, their strengths laid in JRPGs (Squaresoft/Square Enix still in their prime) and other quirky Eastern games like Katamari Damacy or Mister Mosquito.

At the time, unless you really like the Nintendo lineup or JRPGs specifically, Xbox was arguably the best of both worlds—more powerful than the PS2 and still got many of the multiplats (GTA, etc.) that the GameCube didn't get.

I'd argue PS2 covered just about every genre pretty well. Xbox was stronger, but it wasn't by a wide margin, it was probably less than the difference between DC & PS2.

I didn't use it during that generation but the real distinguishing factor would probably be online play, I hear XB's online has always been better than PS's, and I assume it had a wider selection of online capable games.

 

[GenociderSyo]

PS2 had some really good horror games. I think Siren, Haunting Ground and Rule of Rose were exclusives?

 

[Judge Dredd]

PS2 also had some great racing games. Gran Turismo and the best version of Hot Pursuit 2.

Also the Jak and Ratchet games were top tier.

 

[Pepe Cortisona]

PS2 had some really good horror games. I think Siren, Haunting Ground and Rule of Rose were exclusives?

Yes, Siren had a reimagining on PS3 as an episodic game and it was download only. Thankfully there is a Japanese edition with all the chapters included and the english translation if I am not mistaken.

 

[Two Dollars]

PS2 also had some great racing games. Gran Turismo and the best version of Hot Pursuit 2.

I’d assume the Gamecube version had compressed textures to save space, but what was wrong with the Xbox version?

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

I was a bit bored today and I found out my PS2 slim has a bad laser.

I'm convinced 30%+ of the oft-cited PS2 sales numbers were replacements. I ended up buying three of those goddamn things by the time the next generation was released.

In fact, it was one of the major factors in my decision to abandon consoles and switch to PC exclusively. Console gaming ain't cheaper if you have to buy a new one every two years.

 

[BrunoMattei]

PS2 also had some great racing games. Gran Turismo and the best version of Hot Pursuit 2.

Also the Jak and Ratchet games were top tier.

 

[Lone MacReady II]

PS2 had some really good horror games. I think Siren, Haunting Ground and Rule of Rose were exclusives?

Fatal Frame 3 scares the piss out of me, and it has a silent hill-like atmosphere due to the dead loved ones plot. Or just play Silent Hill since the demake is set to ruin yet another old thing with terminal modernity.

 

[rareblacklobster]

Are there any good HDMI adapters for the Wii that don't introduce input lag?

I bought this guy for my Wii, and so far it's been excellent. Picture quality is great after hacking my Wii to turn of deflicker, and there's no noticeable input lag.