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Post by chibby on Feb 24, 2018 0:01:43 GMT -5
First off, full disclosure, I double checked the FAQ/Rules to make sure this sort of thing was kosher, and didn't see anything suggesting this kind of thread was unacceptable, but if this feels out of place and needs to be deleted I won't feel bad about it. I stumbled across this series (it's relatively new, only two episodes in) called War Stories. It features interviews with (older, thus far) programmers talking about issues they had with their games and how they went about solving them. I'm going to include a link for the first episode about Ultima Online but there's also an episode about Thief that was interesting though the speaker was a bit less charismatic. It reminded me of when Anayo sent me a documentary about the bonkers film production that went into making Night Trap a reality. Anyway, I've seen links to articles and videos go up here and there as they related to other discussions, but I thought it'd be cool to have a thread dedicated solely to (as the title suggests) interesting media surrounding retro games. I know there's a section of HRG set up for member written content, but not for content that we find in the wild. Let me know what y'all think.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 24, 2018 19:56:35 GMT -5
Seems like an excellent idea to me, I don't think there's anything wrong with this thread. The history and technicalities of game development is incredibly fascinating. I can probably dig up some good stuff as well when I have the time.
A shame that the Japanese side of things are generally hush hush though, they are often too humble, can't talk about influences or name drop specific game titles, or even reference stuff if they're not part of some company anymore.
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Post by Ex on Feb 24, 2018 21:49:33 GMT -5
At first I thought stuff like this should go in the Member Articles section. But I've changed my mind. As long as the subject matter has to do with retro gaming, it's fair enough. (Granted if someone writes up a retro gaming article of some sort, then yeah, put it in Member Articles.)
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Post by Sarge on Feb 27, 2018 16:07:24 GMT -5
I don't know if this fits here, but I just got through mostly just listening to Frank Cifaldi's emulation and preservation talk from GDC a few years back. It was super interesting, and raises some very valid questions about how we keep some of these older games alive. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLWY7fCXUwE
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Post by anayo on Feb 27, 2018 16:42:04 GMT -5
Does anyone remember Dave's Sega Saturn page? I got into Sega Saturn sometime between 2003 and 2004. The main impetus for it was discovering the Shining Force games on Sega Genesis, then learning there were actually 32-bit sequels on the Saturn. At an in-store demo around holiday season '95 I tried out demos for Bug!, Sega Rally Championship, and maaaaaaybe Virtua Fighter 2. I'm not sure if VF2 actually happened but to this day I can vividly picture just how good those warpy, pixelated textures looked to my eyes. I begged my Dad to get me a Saturn for Christmas, but it was way too expensive, so I got a Genesis instead. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, since the Genesis was awesome and games were plentiful and cheap in the following years. On the other hand the Saturn didn't have a very auspicious future ahead of it. This frustration and yearning is palpable in the articles on Dave's Sega Saturn page. There's rampant speculation about how the N64's future will unfold, lamentations over incredible Japan only Saturn games inaccessible to English speaking players, and an unrelenting "underdog" mentality to root for the Saturn and see it keep up with the Playstation. There's even news flashes about the upcoming Sega "katana" system and interviews where fans ask Sega reps if there's a Vectorman 2 in the works, or some kind of GPU/RAM booster planned for the Saturn like the 32X for the Genesis. Even though I read everything this website had to offer in the early 2000's, I vicariously felt like I was a part of that community. Owning a Sega Saturn in the late 90's was kind of like betting on the losing horse but refusing to give up on it.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 27, 2018 16:52:50 GMT -5
Rooting for Sega post-Genesis must have been similar to how I felt during the N64, Gamecube, and Wii U eras. At least Nintendo recovered, though; Sega is a shell of its former self. I do wish I'd owned a Saturn at the time, though. Maybe I'd actually have legit copies of all those super-duper-expensive RPGs.
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Post by toei on Feb 27, 2018 17:02:04 GMT -5
There's a similar vibe to reading ol d issues of the Sega Saturn Magazine. I loved the Saturn, I remember that whole mentality well... hell, I was amazed when I discovered that mag even existed around 97... The Saturn would always get less coverage in American mags, games were harder to find in stores, let alone rent, so a full magazine of just Saturn? It was probably overpriced, being a UK import, but I bought it whenever I could.
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Post by anayo on Feb 27, 2018 18:41:41 GMT -5
There's a similar vibe to reading ol d issues of the Sega Saturn Magazine. I loved the Saturn, I remember that whole mentality well... hell, I was amazed when I discovered that mag even existed around 97... The Saturn would always get less coverage in American mags, games were harder to find in stores, let alone rent, so a full magazine of just Saturn? It was probably overpriced, being a UK import, but I bought it whenever I could. omg, I want to download every last one of these and read them.
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Post by Ex on Feb 27, 2018 20:57:16 GMT -5
When I was in high school in the mid-to-late '90s, I knew literally no one who owned a Saturn. A few people I knew had PlayStations. I knew one dude who had a 3DO. I knew one dude who had an N64. A couple folks were into PC gaming. But almost everyone had a Genesis or SNES, those two 16-bit platforms were very prolific. Speaking personally in my high school years (1993-1997) my own gaming platforms were Genesis/SNES/PC). It wasn't until I was well out of high school before I started meeting people in real life who owned Saturns. But even then, I only knew two people who owned a Saturn.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 27, 2018 20:59:40 GMT -5
I think we'll always miss console SEGA.
Xbox? They could disappear tomorrow and I wouldn't care.
I knew one person with a Saturn growing up. He had Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop, and maybe another game or two. It was such a bizarre experience, the controller and everything haha. Literally don't think I ever saw one again until like 10-15 years later when I got some modded ones myself.
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