Retrogaming Times Monthly #52 Available

[Albert]

Issue #52 of the Retrogaming Times Monthly is now online. Highlights from the September 2008 issue include:

• NES'cade Gyruss
• NES Realm - December 1986
• Apple ][ Incider - The Apple ][ today - part 2 Summer Games
• Who'd Win - Altered Beat vs Golden Axe
• Old Wine in New Bottles: Midway Arcade Treasures 2 & 3

You can find all these and more inside the Retrogaming Times Monthly, now running 132 months in a row! We didn't report on the August issue, so if you missed that you can find it here. And as always, you can browse through all the back issues of Retrogaming Times Monthly via their archives to get up to date.

[+Cafeman]

I just looked and didn't see a thread on the previous issue, #51. So I'll pop a comment or two here concerning Midway Classics Vol 1 thru 3.

 

The change in controls was mentioned and that has been a problem in some games for me, specifically Spy Hunter on Vol1. At first, I couldn't control the car at all and silently cursed the emulation team for ruining this game.

 

However, recently I went back to it. To my surprise, afte only a few practice rounds I found this setup to be excellent! It just took a learning curve to become adjusted to it.

 

Using the PS2 Dual Shock, the left analog stick steers, the right analog stick is the gas/brake - push forward / back, being careful because like the original coin-op's gas pedal, it's analog and pressing the whole way forward is too fast & you'll quickly crash into the civilians. Once I taught my right thumb how to creep the stick forward in tiny enough increments, I was controlling things even better than I used to with the coin-op.

 

The four trigger buttons are your weapons, and the d-pad shifts Low or High. It all works great!

 

So I've been playing lots of Spy Hunter. My highest score was about 65,000. (And I've tweaked the options to give bonus cars more often than the default setting!) The knives cars you must shoot or oil slick (or outrun), the boss cars you can't shoot so must bump into them causing a crash (or oil slick them, or avoid). the helicopter is pretty easy to shoot down if you live long enough to keep missiles. The challenge is when there exists knives cars, boss cars, AND a chopper overhead bombing the road! I usually lose my last lives when icy conditions appear - I should slow down and live...

 

Also neato is turning into the boat. It seems you can stay in the boat as long as you want, but I usually take the first available exit to the highway again.

 

I've experienced two emulation glitches with Spy Hunter. Often the Peter Gun music glitches out near the end, then fixes itself when it turns back on. The other glitch ... somehow the weapons truck's ramp got stuck on the screen - sprite clutter! It fixed itself eventually when I got on another truck. Maybe that is a glitch from the original game too?

 

The other comment I have is that most of the games on Midway Vol1 are too quiet. I crank up my surround sound on the "orchestra" setting which adds a bit of reverbish slapback to the sounds. But in normal stereo, too quiet and too flat sounding. I might buy the compilation again on Xbox to see if sounds and emulation gets improved - anybody know?

 

(_)3

[+Cafeman]

What? Nobody READS about classic games anymore?

[zerodin]

What? Nobody READS about classic games anymore?

Apparently!

I recently played "Intellivision Lives!" on the PS2...how the hell did they manage to muck up the controls so badly?!

 

Also I would like to clarify something from my article. I called both games bad ports, but later commended Golden Axe on being a good game. This is because as a port of an existing game it is crap, but as a game standing on it's own two legs, it's good!

[envytomdead]

What? Nobody READS about classic games anymore?

Apparently!

I recently played "Intellivision Lives!" on the PS2...how the hell did they manage to muck up the controls so badly?!

 

Also I would like to clarify something from my article. I called both games bad ports, but later commended Golden Axe on being a good game. This is because as a port of an existing game it is crap, but as a game standing on it's own two legs, it's good!

 

I actually like both Altered Beast and Golden Axe for the sms. In some ways I like them better than the Genesis Versions!

Golden Axe has a better ending on sms. Altered Beast can be an unforgiving game on both systems so I always end up using the cheat on the Genesis while the master system limits my continues so I like the fact I have some continues but not unlimited on the sms