Do you still have those old systems? I pulled mine out of storage a couple years back, and they're still fun as hell. Got to play (get my ass kicked by) my old game saves from in some cases 30 years ago, and it's great fun.
The only old system that doesn't work is my NES, and I found one of those hardware emulators that takes the old cartridges. Not perfect, but works well enough for the games I have.
I worry more about my disc-based systems than my cartridge-based ones, since the disc ones have moving parts.
I think my PS2's DVD drive is almost shot. The original PS2s of course has (unofficial) support for playing games from the hard drive. I think someone has developed something for the dreamcast that lets you play games from a USB stick.
I do agree emulators are great, but there's still something about playing games on the real hardware. I wish more people tried to do hardware-level emulation using FPGAs (especially for the older generations of consoles that were much simpler), but I acknowledge that's probably extremely difficult if not impossible once you get to the PS2 era.
I've pretty much resorted to hacking my old stuff for things that have a drive. Although I think PS2 and Dreamcast you both mention are the only disc based things I can't play on hardware. Those libraries overlap a lot with everything else I have though.
I've been tempted to try to get one of those Analogue pockets if they are ever available. FPGA and the form factor of a ton of different handhelds is sweet. I'm a little wary of game collecting though, trying to get old Nintendo cartridges can be a bit crazy sometimes.
OK those Analogue pockets are pretty damned cool. That's the sort of thing I had hoped would be developed back when the third-party consoles started coming out 10-15 years ago.
People in the emulation scene used to complain that the emulation chips weren't nearly as accurate as the best emulators, and seeing people like kevtris start working on FPGA designs I had hoped it would be more common nowadays.
They are pretty sweet and there's a reason they sold out really quick on a pre-order. I didn't know about them until after the fact or I'd have tried to get one. I've heard great things about their other stuff, but for some reason when it gets as old as cartridges I'm just more attracted to old handheld games.
I went through this when I sold my collection of systems. Turns out CD's like Sega CD and Sega Saturn only have a 10+ year life span. Most cartridge games have a life span of a few decades but I was surprised how many Atari and Nintendo carts stopped working after sitting on a shelf for years. Most of them in good plastic cases too.
Your best bet is to build a small PC for your TV, invest in some proper controllers whether you want arcade or console, and get the games you want on an emulator. Emulators can also cleanup some of the problems with running old games on new TV's. N64 games are sometimes awful and blocky looking on new TV's. Sprites from old 16 bit games can look bad too but the emulators can clean it up a bit and make it look better.
I second the controller thing no matter how you're playing. I found a new respect for old console games when I quit trying to play them with an Xbox controller. Get something similar to what the game was meant to be played with.
the video chip on mine is shot. I keep having this idea that one day I'll buy a "does not work" NES and try to fix it.. Nice thing about old electronics is they're easy to repair.
Even if you don't, emulation is an option. Not just on your PC - with setups like the Raspberry Pi you can install an old console emulator inside the shell of the original console (or an alternative) and feed it into your TV same as the old days.
If you have the Frontloader NES, the typical failure point is the 72 pin connector that connects the cartridge to the board. It's actually a pretty easy fix with the appropriate screwdrivers, the easily available part, and some time. Then get yourself an Everdrive N8 (pro if you so desire to play massive homebrew titles) and load the games you have to that and never change carts again.
I don't think it's the ZIF connector. As I recall the typical failure mode associated with those is the flashing screen when you turn the system on, which mind doesn't do. What mine does is the game plays, you can hear the audio and things display on the screen; but the display itself is scrambled.
I had multiple things associated with the ZIF connector, the blinking screen bit is more in line with the lockout chip failing to communicate between cart and board over the connector. scrambled graphics depends on connection of the other pins involved in the series of pins.
Did you ever use something like a Game Genie with your NES? These due to their nature of the design, were pretty stiff and caused damage to the ZIF connector and basically made it so that you had to use it to start your games Even if you didn't want to use it.
Best advice, if it's been sitting in storage for a long period of time, it's a good idea to open it up and clean it up from the inside anyway, at least you can get a good look at the connector pins that way,(check for dirt or corosion) as well as check the condition of the caps of the board. (another failure point of these older systems) And while you are in there, do the lock out chip pin snip to stop blinking screen.
No game genie. It never worked quite right after I cleaned the connector, which is why I suspect I fried something. I kinda think I didn't let it dry out before I turned it on and shorted something out.
It stopped working probably about 20 years ago, so I doubt the cause of failure was capacitors or dust. And I think I took it apart about 10 years ago trying to locate evidence of damage (eg. burn marks on pins, blown capacitors) and didn't seen anything immediately obvious.
Usually if you are cleaning it, you are using an alcohol though. Unless you used a watered down alcohol that is. Drying isn't all that important unless that is the case. Now the cleaning head used however can cause damage if it is too thick or in a worse case, breaks off a piece in the console's connector.
Capacitors can fail at any time, sometimes from shorting out, sometimes from poor manufacturing. The signs aren't always obvious but the barrel shaped ones will usually bulge a little from the top or bottom.
That said though, Even Nintendo claims that failure of the connection between the cartridge and the system can cause both flashing screen andscrambled graphics. And my NES's ZIF connector bit the dust back about 21 years ago as well. It had developed a small hairline crack that was hardly noticeable without looking under magnification but would basically render any effort to put a game in useless with Flashing or broken graphics. So Assuming that the system still powers up, try getting a new ZIF connector. It's not like they are that expensive.
Member those crazy people on the street corner shouting about the end of the world? I'm starting to think those were the last people of their generation, and were alone in the world, after seeing everything go to shit. That's who we're slowly turning into as the world keeps sliding down shit creek and more and more people like us die out (either physically or ideologically).
But personally I think you're looking at things through rose colored glasses. Remember that back then 90% of the MSM was owned by 6 corporations (much like today) and propaganda flowed one way. The reason they seemed like better times was because the people in charge had more power and an easier time of pushing their bullshit. Now we get to deal with their useful idiots because the plebs have been talking too much amongst themselves.
Eh, I think now we get to have the burden of knowledge without a corresponding increase in our ability to effect change. The internet has shown us the falseness of mainstream narratives, but our capacity to alter or stop those narratives remains functionally nil. It's way more depressing.
Honest truth? There was a lot of politics, you just didn't hear about it. Heck, the guy who financed Atari still can't be mentioned online. He's probably dead, and yet all the books with his name don't show those pages on Google Books ect. I assure you, it wasn't Wells Fargo.
During the congressional hearings of the 90's, the videogame companies were told to stop making false sales numbers to show how they acquired money from other enterprises. Nintendo of America was so deep into lawsuits, their president was also their lawyer.
No one knows what Sony has been doing. The sales numbers for consoles vs top selling games is weird. What is known, is Nintendo was in negotiations with them for a CD Rom drive, and suddenly dropped everything and kept far away from Sony for the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube. Nintendo is a company that didn't mind working with the Yakuza, or Mafia or even military contractors for new games.
It was usually done behind closed doors or away from the public. When you start to get into the subject it can be a real shock, but also fascinating.
The difference was that was the management of those companies and not the creative content of the games, like today. It wasn't until the 360 era that companies really began to push what customers were comfortable with.
I'm with you overall in that games have declined a lot. At the very least I lost interest in multiplayer for the most part and so many new games have become so samey. I've just adapted by still playing old stuff. I'm the weird one that was a PC gamer in the past and became a console gamer later. The early push for big money 3D accelerators in particular came at a time that they were totally unreachable for me and when I was very busy, so I ended up just almost skipping a few years gaming.
I play all kinds of old stuff pretty regularly though, so that makes up for it. Since I was a DOS guy, I've been revisiting some of the old point-and-click adventures, or even playing some I never touched. Lately, that's been The Dig. Totally new to me and fun. I've also screwed around with making a retro gaming blog type thing to encourage me to try new old stuff. In the end, it will probably not even be an echo chamber but a soundproof room where I talk to myself, but hey it's still fun. I always enjoyed the creation side of games.
So, my suggestion would be to try some old stuff. If you don't have a system, emulation works really well now and that's how I've played those. If you want a community, then we have one here. I'm down for a Gameboy and Pokemon club. I don't know much about either but I started Link's Awakening last year for a bit. The mod(s) have even suggested the community here getting into some actual gaming.
Sarcasm? It looks awful. I was able to enjoy it after forcing my eyes to glaze over all the visual problems. Perhaps I could blame the director for the lack of cohesive artistic direction, but that was Iga's choice, just like referencing outside games and anime.
I also am not impressed with Iga's childish hate-boner for Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. He's been open about thinking it's a mockery of the franchise, yet he took the innovations it laid out with no qualms. He went out of his way to subtitle his Bloodstained spinoff Circle of the Moon just to try to override the title relevance. Really makes me want to see the Circle of the Moon guys come back and btfo Iga with innovations again.
To Iga's credit, though, I have loved many of his games.
I wish the internet was never created then maybe the world wouldn't be so shit cause all these like minded retards can get together online and spread their stupid social justice garbage
The whole remasters thing has just got stupidly out of hand. I saw a couple months ago someone was asking for a remaster of Batman Arkham Knight. Really?! Yeah let's remaster a game that's a few years old.
Which goes into part of the problem with games. Graphics sells more than fun. I'm not sure that's a dev problem versus a consumer problem either.
Wut? Arkham Knight still looks amazing, especially on PC (as unoptimized as it is). Doesn’t make up for the story and the over abundance of the Bat-Tank, but whatever.
Crazy isn't it? It was just a rando on Reddit that said it a few months ago and not an article or anything, but still. I saw another such comment just a couple weeks ago, but I can't remember what game they were whining about, but it was also just a few years old.
Do you still have those old systems? I pulled mine out of storage a couple years back, and they're still fun as hell. Got to play (get my ass kicked by) my old game saves from in some cases 30 years ago, and it's great fun.
The only old system that doesn't work is my NES, and I found one of those hardware emulators that takes the old cartridges. Not perfect, but works well enough for the games I have.
I worry more about my disc-based systems than my cartridge-based ones, since the disc ones have moving parts.
I think my PS2's DVD drive is almost shot. The original PS2s of course has (unofficial) support for playing games from the hard drive. I think someone has developed something for the dreamcast that lets you play games from a USB stick.
I do agree emulators are great, but there's still something about playing games on the real hardware. I wish more people tried to do hardware-level emulation using FPGAs (especially for the older generations of consoles that were much simpler), but I acknowledge that's probably extremely difficult if not impossible once you get to the PS2 era.
I've pretty much resorted to hacking my old stuff for things that have a drive. Although I think PS2 and Dreamcast you both mention are the only disc based things I can't play on hardware. Those libraries overlap a lot with everything else I have though.
I've been tempted to try to get one of those Analogue pockets if they are ever available. FPGA and the form factor of a ton of different handhelds is sweet. I'm a little wary of game collecting though, trying to get old Nintendo cartridges can be a bit crazy sometimes.
OK those Analogue pockets are pretty damned cool. That's the sort of thing I had hoped would be developed back when the third-party consoles started coming out 10-15 years ago.
People in the emulation scene used to complain that the emulation chips weren't nearly as accurate as the best emulators, and seeing people like kevtris start working on FPGA designs I had hoped it would be more common nowadays.
They are pretty sweet and there's a reason they sold out really quick on a pre-order. I didn't know about them until after the fact or I'd have tried to get one. I've heard great things about their other stuff, but for some reason when it gets as old as cartridges I'm just more attracted to old handheld games.
I went through this when I sold my collection of systems. Turns out CD's like Sega CD and Sega Saturn only have a 10+ year life span. Most cartridge games have a life span of a few decades but I was surprised how many Atari and Nintendo carts stopped working after sitting on a shelf for years. Most of them in good plastic cases too.
Your best bet is to build a small PC for your TV, invest in some proper controllers whether you want arcade or console, and get the games you want on an emulator. Emulators can also cleanup some of the problems with running old games on new TV's. N64 games are sometimes awful and blocky looking on new TV's. Sprites from old 16 bit games can look bad too but the emulators can clean it up a bit and make it look better.
I second the controller thing no matter how you're playing. I found a new respect for old console games when I quit trying to play them with an Xbox controller. Get something similar to what the game was meant to be played with.
I have two NES both work but only one set of wires for one of them. One was mine as a kid and one was my grandma's.
the video chip on mine is shot. I keep having this idea that one day I'll buy a "does not work" NES and try to fix it.. Nice thing about old electronics is they're easy to repair.
Even if you don't, emulation is an option. Not just on your PC - with setups like the Raspberry Pi you can install an old console emulator inside the shell of the original console (or an alternative) and feed it into your TV same as the old days.
If you have the Frontloader NES, the typical failure point is the 72 pin connector that connects the cartridge to the board. It's actually a pretty easy fix with the appropriate screwdrivers, the easily available part, and some time. Then get yourself an Everdrive N8 (pro if you so desire to play massive homebrew titles) and load the games you have to that and never change carts again.
I don't think it's the ZIF connector. As I recall the typical failure mode associated with those is the flashing screen when you turn the system on, which mind doesn't do. What mine does is the game plays, you can hear the audio and things display on the screen; but the display itself is scrambled.
I had multiple things associated with the ZIF connector, the blinking screen bit is more in line with the lockout chip failing to communicate between cart and board over the connector. scrambled graphics depends on connection of the other pins involved in the series of pins. Did you ever use something like a Game Genie with your NES? These due to their nature of the design, were pretty stiff and caused damage to the ZIF connector and basically made it so that you had to use it to start your games Even if you didn't want to use it. Best advice, if it's been sitting in storage for a long period of time, it's a good idea to open it up and clean it up from the inside anyway, at least you can get a good look at the connector pins that way,(check for dirt or corosion) as well as check the condition of the caps of the board. (another failure point of these older systems) And while you are in there, do the lock out chip pin snip to stop blinking screen.
No game genie. It never worked quite right after I cleaned the connector, which is why I suspect I fried something. I kinda think I didn't let it dry out before I turned it on and shorted something out.
It stopped working probably about 20 years ago, so I doubt the cause of failure was capacitors or dust. And I think I took it apart about 10 years ago trying to locate evidence of damage (eg. burn marks on pins, blown capacitors) and didn't seen anything immediately obvious.
Usually if you are cleaning it, you are using an alcohol though. Unless you used a watered down alcohol that is. Drying isn't all that important unless that is the case. Now the cleaning head used however can cause damage if it is too thick or in a worse case, breaks off a piece in the console's connector.
Capacitors can fail at any time, sometimes from shorting out, sometimes from poor manufacturing. The signs aren't always obvious but the barrel shaped ones will usually bulge a little from the top or bottom.
That said though, Even Nintendo claims that failure of the connection between the cartridge and the system can cause both flashing screen andscrambled graphics. And my NES's ZIF connector bit the dust back about 21 years ago as well. It had developed a small hairline crack that was hardly noticeable without looking under magnification but would basically render any effort to put a game in useless with Flashing or broken graphics. So Assuming that the system still powers up, try getting a new ZIF connector. It's not like they are that expensive.
Amazon link if you are so bold...
Member those crazy people on the street corner shouting about the end of the world? I'm starting to think those were the last people of their generation, and were alone in the world, after seeing everything go to shit. That's who we're slowly turning into as the world keeps sliding down shit creek and more and more people like us die out (either physically or ideologically).
But personally I think you're looking at things through rose colored glasses. Remember that back then 90% of the MSM was owned by 6 corporations (much like today) and propaganda flowed one way. The reason they seemed like better times was because the people in charge had more power and an easier time of pushing their bullshit. Now we get to deal with their useful idiots because the plebs have been talking too much amongst themselves.
Eh, I think now we get to have the burden of knowledge without a corresponding increase in our ability to effect change. The internet has shown us the falseness of mainstream narratives, but our capacity to alter or stop those narratives remains functionally nil. It's way more depressing.
Honest truth? There was a lot of politics, you just didn't hear about it. Heck, the guy who financed Atari still can't be mentioned online. He's probably dead, and yet all the books with his name don't show those pages on Google Books ect. I assure you, it wasn't Wells Fargo.
During the congressional hearings of the 90's, the videogame companies were told to stop making false sales numbers to show how they acquired money from other enterprises. Nintendo of America was so deep into lawsuits, their president was also their lawyer.
No one knows what Sony has been doing. The sales numbers for consoles vs top selling games is weird. What is known, is Nintendo was in negotiations with them for a CD Rom drive, and suddenly dropped everything and kept far away from Sony for the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube. Nintendo is a company that didn't mind working with the Yakuza, or Mafia or even military contractors for new games.
It was usually done behind closed doors or away from the public. When you start to get into the subject it can be a real shock, but also fascinating.
The difference was that was the management of those companies and not the creative content of the games, like today. It wasn't until the 360 era that companies really began to push what customers were comfortable with.
Game makers did push stuff, we just never played it, and it was forgotten.
I'm with you overall in that games have declined a lot. At the very least I lost interest in multiplayer for the most part and so many new games have become so samey. I've just adapted by still playing old stuff. I'm the weird one that was a PC gamer in the past and became a console gamer later. The early push for big money 3D accelerators in particular came at a time that they were totally unreachable for me and when I was very busy, so I ended up just almost skipping a few years gaming.
I play all kinds of old stuff pretty regularly though, so that makes up for it. Since I was a DOS guy, I've been revisiting some of the old point-and-click adventures, or even playing some I never touched. Lately, that's been The Dig. Totally new to me and fun. I've also screwed around with making a retro gaming blog type thing to encourage me to try new old stuff. In the end, it will probably not even be an echo chamber but a soundproof room where I talk to myself, but hey it's still fun. I always enjoyed the creation side of games.
So, my suggestion would be to try some old stuff. If you don't have a system, emulation works really well now and that's how I've played those. If you want a community, then we have one here. I'm down for a Gameboy and Pokemon club. I don't know much about either but I started Link's Awakening last year for a bit. The mod(s) have even suggested the community here getting into some actual gaming.
Ted Kaczynsky was right about everything.
Agriculture was a mistake.
Sarcasm? It looks awful. I was able to enjoy it after forcing my eyes to glaze over all the visual problems. Perhaps I could blame the director for the lack of cohesive artistic direction, but that was Iga's choice, just like referencing outside games and anime.
I also am not impressed with Iga's childish hate-boner for Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. He's been open about thinking it's a mockery of the franchise, yet he took the innovations it laid out with no qualms. He went out of his way to subtitle his Bloodstained spinoff Circle of the Moon just to try to override the title relevance. Really makes me want to see the Circle of the Moon guys come back and btfo Iga with innovations again.
To Iga's credit, though, I have loved many of his games.
I think you'll find those philosophies were first laid down in Super Metroid.
Also you forgot the best one, Order of Ecclesia.
I wish the internet was never created then maybe the world wouldn't be so shit cause all these like minded retards can get together online and spread their stupid social justice garbage
The whole remasters thing has just got stupidly out of hand. I saw a couple months ago someone was asking for a remaster of Batman Arkham Knight. Really?! Yeah let's remaster a game that's a few years old.
Which goes into part of the problem with games. Graphics sells more than fun. I'm not sure that's a dev problem versus a consumer problem either.
Wut? Arkham Knight still looks amazing, especially on PC (as unoptimized as it is). Doesn’t make up for the story and the over abundance of the Bat-Tank, but whatever.
Crazy isn't it? It was just a rando on Reddit that said it a few months ago and not an article or anything, but still. I saw another such comment just a couple weeks ago, but I can't remember what game they were whining about, but it was also just a few years old.