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Improbable Lobster posted:That's what "collector's editions" are. Kind of. Feelies were basically copy protection, Infocom basically used them to pass otherwise impossible puzzles. Now you get a statue and stuff but it's nothing directly tied to the game itself. Ni no Kuni was the last really cool one where you got a physical copy of the game's book. The book was in the game digitally but physical owners had a leg up as you had to unlock stuff in-game. e: One of the Gears games wrote your DLC code on the cog itself. I wish more games integrated physical and digital. Look on the back of the CD case for Meryl's code and all that. I know you gotta look out for the digital players but just have an alternate means of success or put it in the digital manual. al-azad fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Aug 17, 2016 |
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Aug 17, 2016 17:19
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Drone posted:Isn't there also often as much demand for the "feelies" that come with those games as for the games themselves? That stuff really came to an end by the mid-90's sadly. Now it's all in the collector's editions. Cliff Racer posted:Why did one of this threads many other baseball fans not call me out first? I suspect that was the other baseball fan in the thread.  al-azad posted:Kind of. Feelies were basically copy protection, Infocom basically used them to pass otherwise impossible puzzles. Now you get a statue and stuff but it's nothing directly tied to the game itself. They weren't always used as copy protection, though that was a pretty common use of them. The Hitchhiker's stuff, for example, has no connection to any of the puzzles in the game (well, other than the Microscopic Space Fleet actually being in the game). Actually, I can't recall any significant time that Infocom used the feelies as copy protection and I've beaten every single Infocom game. Sometimes they were used for hints but they were not required. Maybe Leather Goddesses of Phobos integrated things enough that you might consider it copy protection. There was copy protection in the manual of A Mind Forever Voyaging as well but that was pretty explicitly copy protection and not a cool extra thing. Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Aug 17, 2016 |
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Aug 17, 2016 17:20
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Random Stranger posted:That stuff really came to an end by the mid-90's sadly. Now it's all in the collector's editions. I would argue the copy protection of Hitchiker's Guide is the book itself  .Off the top of my head I know Deadline (the first feelie game) and The Lurking Horror require the information. Suspended's map is absolutely necessary although you could stumble around blind until making your own maps. Not having the feelies didn't lock you out of the game, but outside of their early titles before incorporation feelies (Zork, Planetfall) I couldn't imagine playing a game blind without them especially if it came with a map and they would intentionally limit the information you received on a "look" command. So no, it's not literal "ENTER CODE 52 ON PAGE 15 OR THE GAME WILL SHUT DOWN" but good luck playing those titles without the physical extras in 1980-whatever. e: Shoot, I'm reminded how cool Suspended was. Anyone play Duskers?
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Aug 17, 2016 17:40
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al-azad posted:I would argue the copy protection of Hitchiker's Guide is the book itself They didn't include the book in the box. Honestly, half the time the book gets you through a puzzle and the other half of the time the answer is something totally different from the book and you wind up going down some wrong paths because of it. Because that game is just plain mean.
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Aug 17, 2016 17:54
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Of course it still matters if the disks work. Plenty of people want to use the real version of the game on real machines and not a cracked version. I've returned plenty of non-working floppy games because the seller couldn't be bothered to mark that they were untested.
d0s fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Aug 17, 2016 |
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Aug 17, 2016 18:33
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I assume Apple II's are still commonplace enough that you could probably just hop on Reddit or something and find some computing enthusiast local to you who still has one to test them out.
Drone fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Aug 17, 2016 |
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Aug 17, 2016 18:35
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What lots of people don't realize is 5 1/4" floppy disks are actually reliable as gently caress, way more than 3 1/2" ones even. Out of say 20 floppy disks that were made in factories, 5 won't work and there will ususally be some obvious physical reason why (dented, warped, interior adhesive melted, etc) e: it's the exact same thing as generally expecting FDS games to work, to translate to this thread
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Aug 17, 2016 18:40
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Yeah, 5.25" disks were pretty robust as long as you never folded them severely. 3.5" disks were wonky, though, and it took way too long for them to finally be replaced properly with burnable CD's; I had way too many games in like ZIP or RAR archives across like 17 disks, constantly hoping disk #16 hadn't gone bad.
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Aug 17, 2016 18:44
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univbee posted:Yeah, 5.25" disks were pretty robust as long as you never folded them severely. 3.5" disks were wonky, though, and it took way too long for them to finally be replaced properly with burnable CD's; I had way too many games in like ZIP or RAR archives across like 17 disks, constantly hoping disk #16 hadn't gone bad. It didn't help reliability when people converted 3.5 disks to "high density" by punching a hole in the corner. My first time in college I lost an assignment to that. 
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Aug 17, 2016 18:50
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univbee posted:Yeah, 5.25" disks were pretty robust as long as you never folded them severely. 3.5" disks were wonky, though, and it took way too long for them to finally be replaced properly with burnable CD's; I had way too many games in like ZIP or RAR archives across like 17 disks, constantly hoping disk #16 hadn't gone bad. 3.5 inch disks in general of the time are just as reliable. They only started to get very unreliable at the tail end of their use period, when factory standards dropped. Additionally, a lot of people treated them less carefully because they assumed hard case = you don't need to take as good care.
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Aug 17, 2016 18:56
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fishmech posted:They only started to get very unreliable at the tail end of their use period, when factory standards dropped. I remember that, that was a horrible time.
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Aug 17, 2016 18:57
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I'd like to offer these retro/modern tidbits. Metal gear solid on psn lets you look at the back of the cd case in the digital manual. Star tropics has a digital manual on wii that can be virtually dipped into virtual water to reveal a code.
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Aug 17, 2016 19:32
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univbee posted:Nah, original media was always write-protected and you needed a set mind to get around that. Disks were always stupidly-fragile and I had a few games which specifically included a mail-in coupon you could send in with like Not always. Not even remotely. Lots of games didn't have separate save disks or play disks and expected you to save to the original disk. This could lead to problems though so eventually most publishers made systems to create play disks. A year or two ago a power issue caused my Atari 8 bit version of Autoduel to fart up because of such things.
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Aug 17, 2016 19:36
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or something for a 2nd set of legit disks because they were extremely failure-prone.
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Captain Rufus posted:Not always. Not even remotely. Lots of games didn't have separate save disks or play disks and expected you to save to the original disk. This could lead to problems though so eventually most publishers made systems to create play disks. A year or two ago a power issue caused my Atari 8 bit version of Autoduel to fart up because of such things. Fair enough, may well have varied between companies, I remember early Sierra games would check that your Disk 1 was legit and then give you a chance to swap it for a play disk instead (i.e. a backup copy you made), with the "original" Disk 1 having hidden files or some poo poo that wouldn't carry over with a straight file copy.
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Aug 17, 2016 19:43
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Random Stranger posted:I suspect that was the other baseball fan in the thread. I was tired. Missed it.
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Aug 17, 2016 19:57
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FrumpleOrz posted:Pushover is a really underrated SNES title if you ask me. That game is a lot of fun, especially if you have a friend to work on the puzzles with. I got it because it was featured in one of the like 3 issues of Nintendo Power I had in elementary school (the Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse cover issue, IIRC.) I like me a good puzzle game, even when they make me feel like an idiot for hours at a time and then I feel silly when I figure it out. 95% of the games I buy I fully intend on playing. I should probably take a good look at my PS1, PS2, PS3, and Wii collections, though. Probably Gamecube, too. There's definitely stuff that's been sitting around too long waiting for time I'll never find.
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Aug 17, 2016 20:22
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Discount Viscount posted:I got it because it was featured in one of the like 3 issues of Nintendo Power I had in elementary school (the Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse cover issue, IIRC.) I like me a good puzzle game, even when they make me feel like an idiot for hours at a time and then I feel silly when I figure it out. That stuff that gets me with that is the RPG's. "Oh man, I've heard this RPG is really good. Now I just need to find time to... you know, gently caress it. I'll play some arcade game instead." Edit: I thought it would be mildly amusing to run through my PlayStation 1-3, GameCube, and Wii RPG's to see the ones that I need to play (some I have played for a day before setting aside and feeling that I need to go back to them). Unfortunately, my cat has decided to nap in front of my game cabinet and I can't get into it. So going by memory, here's what I need to play: Wild Arms 2-3, Suikoden Tactics, Baton Kaitos 1-2, Shadow Hearts 1-3, Radiata Stories, Eternal Sonata, The Last Story, Fire Emblem (GC), Xenosaga 1, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2 (collector's edition is still shut up on my shelf), Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter (I think there's might be an interesting game in there behind some mechanics that people rejected), Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, Dark Cloud 2 (I don't have the first one for some reason), and Star Ocean (PS2). I'm sure I'm missing a few, too. And that doesn't include the ones that I played a bit of and decided that I didn't want to touch it again (hello, Magna Karta and Opoona). Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Aug 17, 2016 |
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Aug 17, 2016 20:33
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^^^ This is the #1 reason why I've played so many beatem'ups and hor/vertical shooters.univbee posted:Yeah, 5.25" disks were pretty robust as long as you never folded them severely. 3.5" disks were wonky, though, and it took way too long for them to finally be replaced properly with burnable CD's; I had way too many games in like ZIP or RAR archives across like 17 disks, constantly hoping disk #16 hadn't gone bad. I remember watching some forensic show a few years back about where some dude cut up a 5 1/4" with a pair of scissors to avoid being caught with whatever evidence. They tried recovering the data using various methods but were unsuccessful. Some tech eventually thought what the hell, scotch taped the pieces back together, put it back into the disk housing, and most of the data showed up! Cool as poo poo how durable those suckers are.
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Aug 17, 2016 20:34
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Tyson Tomko posted:I remember watching some forensic show a few years back about where some dude cut up a 5 1/4" with a pair of scissors to avoid being caught with whatever evidence. They tried recovering the data using various methods but were unsuccessful. Some tech eventually thought what the hell, scotch taped the pieces back together, put it back into the disk housing, and most of the data showed up! Cool as poo poo how durable those suckers are. Given the bit density I'm not terribly surprised this is possible (especially if this was pre-high or even double density), but it's super-neat nonetheless.
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Aug 17, 2016 20:36
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Drone posted:I assume Apple II's are still commonplace enough that you could probably just hop on Reddit or something and find some computing enthusiast local to you who still has one to test them out.  I wouldn't know where to start looking.
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Aug 18, 2016 01:17
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Man the prices on ebay for Nintendo 64 games are depressing. Think i'll just get an Everdrive.
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Aug 18, 2016 01:53
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Jumpingmanjim posted:Man the prices on ebay for Nintendo 64 games are depressing. Think i'll just get an Everdrive. You know what's even more depressing? Whenever the local stores get in good N64 stuff it always sells right back out really quick. If anything ebay is underpricing that poo poo.
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Aug 18, 2016 02:02
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Oh, hey, a new SD2SNES 1.7FW revision: https://sd2snes.de/blog/archives/793
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Aug 18, 2016 03:26
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Random Stranger posted:That stuff that gets me with that is the RPG's. "Oh man, I've heard this RPG is really good. Now I just need to find time to... you know, gently caress it. I'll play some arcade game instead." Oooh oooh I can play this game too! With out looking at any of my lists or shelves I have Dark Cloud 1, Okage, Evolution Worlds, Last Story, Inuyasha and the Secret of the Cursed Mask, Chrono Trigger DS, Glory of Heracles, Legend of the River King, and Legend of the Ghost Lion. And that doesn't include the 3ds RPGS I've got sitting around too. I just axed Final Fantasy Tactics A2 and though not an RPG all my Warioland games from the collection because even though they are good games and loved by many they didn't click with me for whatever reason. They just didn't give me that gut feeling of wanting to play more of them.
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Aug 18, 2016 03:42
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Turbinosamente posted:Oooh oooh I can play this game too! With out looking at any of my lists or shelves I have Dark Cloud 1, Okage, Evolution Worlds, Last Story, Inuyasha and the Secret of the Cursed Mask, Chrono Trigger DS, Glory of Heracles, Legend of the River King, and Legend of the Ghost Lion. And that doesn't include the 3ds RPGS I've got sitting around too. Both of you, go play The Last Story this instant!
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Aug 18, 2016 04:24
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Random Stranger posted:I've kept an eye out for the manga from the 80's about playing video games (as opposed to manga which is just video game tie ins) and not had much luck. "The" you say, as if there's only one of those.
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Aug 18, 2016 04:27
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Tyson Tomko posted:I remember watching some forensic show a few years back about where some dude cut up a 5 1/4" with a pair of scissors to avoid being caught with whatever evidence. They tried recovering the data using various methods but were unsuccessful. Some tech eventually thought what the hell, scotch taped the pieces back together, put it back into the disk housing, and most of the data showed up! Cool as poo poo how durable those suckers are. I remember that too. it was ether an A&E show or a TLC show. I want to say it was a Cold Cases show.
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Aug 18, 2016 04:48
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Light Gun Man posted:"The" you say, as if there's only one of those. Accidental word slippage. I know there's around a dozen of them. Neddy Seagoon posted:Both of you, go play The Last Story this instant! No can do. I'm currently in the middle of some furious work and I have to steal an hour every so often to play something light that I can pick up and put down. And that's why I have so many RPG's piled up. 
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Aug 18, 2016 05:26
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Gio posted:Would you happen to know of a subreddit that could connect me to some locals in Metro Detroit? I googled "reddit detroit" and this was the first result: https://www.reddit.com/r/Detroit/
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Aug 18, 2016 06:51
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Gio posted:Would you happen to know of a subreddit that could connect me to some locals in Metro Detroit? https://www.reddit.com/r/fallout
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Aug 18, 2016 07:25
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univbee posted:Received mine today, Firmware 11.0 out-of-the-box. How do I check the panel shenanigans again? I apologize how far back this reply is from. I am off the internet for 2 days and 7 pages of posts goes by. You check it by turning it at a severe angle and seeing if the colors change the same way on the top screen as they do on the bottom. If you see drastic color changes on the top (you WILL see them on the bottom) then you have a TN panel. For what it's worth, the two SFC n3ds consoles I ordered both had TN panels  I am thinking Nintendo only used IPS back when the n3ds XL first came out because if you remember, there was a shortage of them and they were probably sourcing screens from anywhere possible. Tyson Tomko posted:I remember watching some forensic show a few years back about where some dude cut up a 5 1/4" with a pair of scissors to avoid being caught with whatever evidence. They tried recovering the data using various methods but were unsuccessful. Some tech eventually thought what the hell, scotch taped the pieces back together, put it back into the disk housing, and most of the data showed up! Cool as poo poo how durable those suckers are. It was "Forensic Files" in the episode called "Shear Luck". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JT0xhK5Cjo I remember my wife and I laughing our assess off that the police actually handed him the disk. "Oh here's the evidence to put this man away for life, and he would like to see it for a brief moment? Sure why not" Anyway, enjoy the episode. It's one of my favorites. Nail Rat posted:The oldest post I could find on rec.games.video.nintendo...from 4/20/1993. I was able to find video game posts on usenet from 1989. One guy describing Mario 3 (some Japanese preview version) was magical. Sadly, Google for some godforsaken reason completely got rid of the ability to search their archives. It used to work back in 2013 or so. I made a bunch of posts in the old thread directly linking to them but good luck sorting through my 80,000 posts in that thread. Caitlin posted:Gamefan was a trainwreck. I loved Gamefan but after they gave Earthbound a terrible review I cancelled my subscription like a whiny 13 year old (which I was). Edit: oops, looks like I messed up and I was confusing them with Game Player's:  You're part of the reason this game failed, Lundrigan. Blood is on your hands!! Chumbawumba4ever97 fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Aug 18, 2016 |
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Aug 18, 2016 14:41
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Usenet was invented by nerdy college students, so you can find video game talk on it from the first year it was around, 1980.
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Aug 18, 2016 15:00
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Uncle at Nintendo posted:I loved Gamefan but after they gave Earthbound a terrible review I cancelled my subscription like a whiny 13 year old (which I was). Not just in magazines, either, I recently read an old review for Planescape: Torment on Eurogamer that made it out as pretty mediocre, because the fact that you constantly respawned took all the tension out and with conversation giving out ten times as much XP as combat, the XP system was obviously out of balance. 
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Aug 18, 2016 15:04
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fishmech posted:Well they stopped adding any new games to the backwards compatibility on the 360 after like 2009 or something. Rumor is that they're going to start doing backwards compatibility for original Xbox titles on the One though, sometime next year. And considering how much more powerful it is than the 360, it should result in better support among more games. Oh wow. Can you imagine playing Mechassault again? Online? I know the servers got shut down a while ago but man... 
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Aug 18, 2016 15:12
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OK so I need everyone's advice on this. It's a bit convoluted so bear with me. I am about to start doing the plexiglass cutting for my MAME cabinet (the machine was already gutted. Do not worry. I did not destroy an existing game) So anyway, I need opinions on how to "angle" the 3rd and 4th player joysticks. Now when I say angle, I mean angle in the sense of will they "line up" with their respective buttons. Due to the layout of the room my cabinet is going in, the 3rd and 4th players absolutely must be on an angle. What I need to figure out is if I am supposed to compensate the directionals. Here is my control panel:  (ignore the fact that players 3 and 4 have 6 buttons. I realized it was overkill and I am filling them in.) So I have read that a lot of people say you absolutely do NOT "angle" the directionals. Meaning they will be the same as the middle 2 joysticks even though those are not angled. Here is a diagram:  So apparently, the example in red is wrong. I can't wrap my head around it. To me, player 4 (red aka wrong) looks correct. To make matters worse, when I relentlessly search message boards for what people did, it's almost a 50/50 split of people having a preference, absolutely hating whichever the other option is. There is no middle ground. I don't want to waste money on plexiglass and artwork and new wood only to hate whichever option I chose. I am also asking opinions here because I will have friends over to play, so it doesn't matter just what I want. The reason I like the way player 4 (red aka wrong) looks is simple. I am standing directly in front of it. Pressing right will make me go right. Whenever I played a console game on the TV, if I wasn't directly in front of it, that did not make a difference. The directional pad on my NES did not magically adjust. But for some reason, people big into arcade games say you cannot compare the two. I am not sure why. However, they must be onto something because check out The Simpsons control panel:  It seems as though they agree with that graphic. I guess the thought is that the directionals should match the screen. So if I am pressing "up" I am really pressing "left" because that's what will make me go "up" on the screen. But I never played the 6-player XMen game. I tried watching Youtube videos but none answered my question. Here is a picture of the control panel:  Does that mean whoever used the leftmost and rightmost joysticks were pressing right or left to go up and down? If that's the case, I guess I could understand it because it's at a way more extreme angle than what I am looking to do. Anyway I positioned my Super Advantage SNES arcade stick on an angle to see which one I would like best but I don't think it's really a good indication. I am asking what the goons here would have as a preference, especially so if you've ever experienced one or the other.
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Aug 18, 2016 15:45
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As far as I remember - that player on the X-Men machine is still facing forward. So directions are as you would expect - up is up, etc.
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Aug 18, 2016 15:50
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Uncle at Nintendo posted:Does that mean whoever used the leftmost and rightmost joysticks were pressing right or left to go up and down? If that's the case, I guess I could understand it because it's at a way more extreme angle than what I am looking to do. I have played 6-way XMEN! Its pretty wild. Yeah, the people standing on the far left, like, everybody uses up down left right as is relative to their facing, it feels pretty natural. If you're on the far left, your "left" would be somebody else's "up" direction, but to you that'd feel right. The TV screen is kinda sideways but its not a big deal. Imagine you're sitting in your living room holding a game controller just facing the screen sideways. You still hold the controller the same way as normal.
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Aug 18, 2016 15:51
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The orientation is the same on all joysticks on x-men. Honestly if space is a premium why even bother with 3rd & 4th players. It makes the control panels look wonky as hell and you'll use it maybe twice ever.
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Aug 18, 2016 15:52
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Zaphod42 posted:I have played 6-way XMEN! Its pretty wild. OK I apologize but I am confused. I agree with your last sentence. But it seems as though you said the far left player would be using the directional relative to their facing. So if they wanted their character to go right on the screen, they would be pointing the joystick towards the right side of their body, or up/away from their body?
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Aug 18, 2016 15:54
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fishmech posted:Usenet was invented by nerdy college students, so you can find video game talk on it from the first year it was around, 1980. The old joke is that the first newsgroup was alt.talk. The second was rec.arts.sf.tv.startrek. Uncle at Nintendo posted:
I just played on the outer sticks on a six player X-Men cabinet about two weeks ago and I can tell you they were orientated for the player rather than the screen.
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Aug 18, 2016 15:58
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