IrishNinja
Member
he does, but fuck those are incredible
Digital Culture, Meet Analog Fever
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And yet, any argument that analog fever is a purely rational matter old stuff is just plain better! seems fishy. Theres a murkier romance involved, a variation on the process that rebrands the dated as vintage, traditional or artisanal. The very marginalization of the analog has propelled it into the realm of luxury, by making its admirers come up with an answer to the obvious question: Why squander extra money and/or time on a less efficient alternative to the digital?
I definitely think this applies to some aspects of retro gaming. Certainly the lavish reproduction carts of Metroid/Zelda/Earthboand by Rose Coloured Gaming and the like are quite similar to 'deluxe edition vinyl' Beatles records (except, of course, that RCG is actually a premium illegal bootleg, and the original creators get nothing).I read this opinion piece in the NYT today and it immediately reminded me of retro game collecting.
Retro collecting is certainly becoming a luxury pastime for geeks, given the prices and focus on equipment like we talk about in this thread.
Link
Some other methods of playing it are not worse (eg Wii, emulators with no save states etc I guess), but none are better.
what's the consensus on getting a CRT vs. using a combination of scalers and effects boxes to use on a plasma? I'm in Australia, so no idea what would even be the best TV to get should I go down the former route.
With very few exceptions (imported niche european brands like Grundig), Australia had no Scart on TVs.Didn't Australia got Scart on their 50Hz TVs?
I have a 20" CRT that I use everyday & it's perfect if you're 4 or 5ft away.
Very interesting write up of why we collect and play retro games D Lo!
I think for me, its all about reliving that childhood. How I had to save all my money, only to be able to buy a magazine to read about games (the games themselves were way out of my league), so while i had an Nes growing up, and could trade games and systems with friends, most of the stuff that came out was things I could only dream about. I think this has led to a desire to go back and finally try out all this stuff, which started with emulation, but I wasnt really satisfied with that, which is why I started to collect some of the stuff, especially for Snes, that I had always wanted - but never gotten. Just look at these magazines we had:
Made all the games look so awesome! I was reading guides about NBA Jam and Mega Man X, but knew nobody who owned them lol.But now I can easily obtain them, play them and have that fun I dreamt about. I remember in particular this huge guide on Willow for the Nes, which was a pretty obscure title even back then, but this guide made the game look amazing with tons of secrets, sidequests and lots to do. I guess the game didnt quite live up to the hype when I finally got it about ten years later
Those magazines would also occasionally write about more obscure stuff, like when they wrote about a swedish-developed game for the snes:
Apparently this was never finished, which is sad as the game looked decent, but yeah, all articles about stuff like this, has made me interested in exploring the obscure, the connections, the stories, and what went on behind game development back then and how that had an impact on the product, so I guess that also plays into it for me. Anyways, while the prices keep climbing, I just love this hobby too much to stop in the near future.
What game is that robot from?
CRT is better.
Didn't Australia got Scart on their 50Hz TVs? If so, use that. Best IQ ever. Countries without Scart seem to have Component instead, and it's easy to convert RGB to YUV without losing picture quality, and is the way to go to game on a consumer CRT TV.
Or you can chase an elusive professional monitor, or fork $300 for a laggy (but beautiful) Framemeister on HDTV.
Very interesting write up of why we collect and play retro games D Lo!
I think for me, its all about reliving that childhood. How I had to save all my money, only to be able to buy a magazine to read about games (the games themselves were way out of my league), so while i had an Nes growing up, and could trade games and systems with friends, most of the stuff that came out was things I could only dream about. I think this has led to a desire to go back and finally try out all this stuff, which started with emulation, but I wasnt really satisfied with that, which is why I started to collect some of the stuff, especially for Snes, that I had always wanted - but never gotten. Just look at these magazines we had:
Made all the games look so awesome! I was reading guides about NBA Jam and Mega Man X, but knew nobody who owned them lol.But now I can easily obtain them, play them and have that fun I dreamt about. I remember in particular this huge guide on Willow for the Nes, which was a pretty obscure title even back then, but this guide made the game look amazing with tons of secrets, sidequests and lots to do. I guess the game didnt quite live up to the hype when I finally got it about ten years later
Those magazines would also occasionally write about more obscure stuff, like when they wrote about a swedish-developed game for the snes:
Apparently this was never finished, which is sad as the game looked decent, but yeah, all articles about stuff like this, has made me interested in exploring the obscure, the connections, the stories, and what went on behind game development back then and how that had an impact on the product, so I guess that also plays into it for me. Anyways, while the prices keep climbing, I just love this hobby too much to stop in the near future.
Yes, there's a certain element of 'premium' retro gaming (RGB monitors, good sound amplifier, dozens of games for a console) that is kind of like recreating what it would be like to be a millionaire in the 80s, with a top shelf setup and buying any games you want at will.
Evetyone whinges about prices, but on the whole, inflation adjusted, these things on average cost vastly less then they did new.
Haha I have those 2 issues in my pile of old game mags over in the library. I scanned that interview about Dorke and Ymp a while back too. It was released by some guys as a reproduction cart.
Really! Are you swedish or norwegian? I have the Vortex one, but the other one, I just borrowed from a friend, so I did read it back in the day, but I dont have it anymore. Always on the lookout for it though
I need to get on to that reproduction cart, just for the sakes of the memories
Norwegian. I kept all my power player (which was really just a translation of the Swedish version of Power Player, which again translated articles of Super Play from the UK) as well as Nintendo Magasinet. Good memories.
They are selling that game here
https://www.pikointeractive.com/store.html#!/Dorke-and-Ymp-SNES/p/53205742/category=14008398
I need to find the middle-ground for that. Smallish TV (say, 20-25inch) that has the right inputs, maybe not hooked up to an amp but at least some decent amplified speakers. I think the SCART thing might be asking a bit much, though :/Yes, there's a certain element of 'premium' retro gaming (RGB monitors, good sound amplifier, dozens of games for a console) that is kind of like recreating what it would be like to be a millionaire in the 80s, with a top shelf setup and buying any games you want at will.
Evetyone whinges about prices, but on the whole, inflation adjusted, these things on average cost vastly less then they did new.
Cool, will check out that site! I kept all my stuff too, but for some reason, I stopped buying Power Player after the third issue. Anyways, that was really an amazing magazine, much better than Nintendo-Magasinet (which I still have basically all of).I got a PC
So you're a fellow NorwayGAF'er? Where from in the cold forsaken homeland are you at?
Power Player was of much nicer quality and size, but somehow I appreciated Nintendo Magasinet much more. I felt Nintendo Magasinet was a bit more sincere in its tone and design.
Yeah, I disagree, I was really tired of the cartoons, although the manga was slightly better, and i think NM spent too much time on other stuff. I also loved how Power Player tried to cover the whole industry, and not only the Nintendo-bubble (although I loved Nintendo). And Tobias Bjarnabys rpg-section was amazing, and how I discovered stuff like Final Fantasy VI (III at the time), Dragon Quest, Live a Live and the these days often mentioned Secret of Mana. I live in Bergen, what about you?
The RPG sections were mostly direct translations of Super Play's RPG sections. Very few of Power Player's articles and reviews were written by the Scandinavian staff, it was all sourced from either Super Play or Total magazine. Not that it makes it less interesting, but I subscribed to Super Play it always irked me. Man do I miss Super Play, best video game magazine of all time.
I live (d) in Larvik, south of Oslo, but nowadays because of my work I live mostly in Montreal and Seattle.
I know they bought a lot of stuff from Super Play, but at least the rpg-sections felt quite personal since they made it the personal domain of Tobias. Well maybe they just wanted to trick us, if so, that worked fine
Nice to meet a fellow norwegian retro game enthusiast!
Yep that's my sweet spot too. I have a 21" (53cm) on a desk, and I'm comfortably sitting one meter away. I also have a 29" (74cm) (now in storage) that I wanted to switch to, but it's just too big for that distance. I'll put it in front of the sofa for comfy gaming a bit further away.
14" (36cm) is just too small imo, it's the size of computer screens from the 80s, so you have to sit right in front of it to enjoy it. It's cool for the 8 bit computers but not if you want to get some distance with your gamepad. At least that's how I feel. My Amstrad CPC came with a 14" and I pretty much used it like a computer screen even though it was a 15khz display and I only really mainly gamed on it.
What do you get if you combine the nerdy ingenuity of ETH Zurich, the creativity of Disney researchers, and a swanky Swiss night club with a 360-degree projection system? The world's only cooperative 8-player, 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System capable of continuous, panoramic side-scrolling on that aforementioned 360-degree display, of course.
Honestly, you could be sitting much closer to the 20" CRT. At the arcade, you're often standing much much closer to much larger sets and it looks glorious from such close distances.
A standard Neo Geo MVS cabinet has a larger set than 20" and the controls are literally less than 5 inches away from the screen.
Idk. Metal Slug games and shmups take quite a while to beat.To be fair your only doing that a couple of minutes at a time. Where at home the gaming sessions are much longer.
What's a good price for a vectrex? Is it worth it at any price?
Idk. Metal Slug games and shmups take quite a while to beat.
$150-$200. Shipping, if you order online is usually a killer. I miss my Vectrex
I thinking more arcade style. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Daytona, Fighting games etc..
Full disclosure: Above my Gamecube and Mark III sits a Sherwood turntable.
I said etc...shmups aren't arcade style?
I said etc...
Yes absolutely! Shoot me a Norwegian PM some time and let's talk more retro mags. I wrote for many a mag in the 2000's around the world myself and NM, PP and Super Play were basically my main inspiration.
pics or it didnt happen
A bit wider and my PVM is on the shelf to the left.
Not pictured: MSX2, Atari VCS, SG1000.
A bit wider and my PVM is on the shelf to the left.
Not pictured: MSX2, Atari VCS, SG1000.
Yes a Mark III. The thing on top is the FM unit.What's to the right of your GCN? Is that a Sega Mark III?
I've never seen that thing on top of it with the ribbon cable. Then again, I've never seen a Sega Mark III in the flesh, period.
Well I have a Master System too (PAL, 60Hz modded)Is there a reason why you went with that over a Master System?
2) FM Audio. Can't like without it once its been experienced with a good amplifier. And like 40 games support it.