Comrade

I saw the thread title and came in to post a story that turned out being fairly similar to the original post. Well, I’ll do it anyway. So Mario 64 was pretty much all I could think about from when I saw the original report on the 1995 Shoshinkai show on GamesMaster (https://youtu.be/lKBNzjgN_hk) to when the game finally trundled onto UK shelves in March of 1997. I obsessively pored over every scant pre-release screenshot to glean the slightest insight of how this astonishing thing might play like. But the true torment began on the game’s Japanese release, in July 1996 - almost a full torturous year before the British one. I agaonised over the fact that actual people in the world could play this game right now, and I had to wait a whole other fourteenth of my life to date to do so myself. I read every single review of the import version I could find, over and over again. And then the magazines, officially catering to the tiny import market I guess, but in reality likely providing methadone to desperate obsessives like me, started printing full walkthroughs of the game. I remember that since Super Play had been axed (with an SM64 review in the final issue), and N64 mag wouldn’t launch until the console did, Future plugged the gap with a “mini-magazine” section in GamesMaster. There they covered the games out in Japan, and then later in the US, but they also had a monthly walkthrough that I read over and over again. I’d compare the info to the screenshots I’d seen and try to imagine the levels in my head. Eventually I found a copy of the US EGM that was for some reason in a local newsagents, and it had a pull-out full walkthrough that even had crude 3D model recreations of all the levels. I remember sometime in the winter of 96/97 I was stood agog in front of the window of the Virgin Megastore on Tottenham Court Road while a US or Japanese N64 played the attract mode with a sign that said “coming soon” next to it. By the time March finally rolled around and I walked into the Ealing Broadway Electronics Boutique to pick up my console and game I had memorised the position of literally every coin in the game. There was not a single surprise left in there. I still loved it though. Part of the reason I so utterly spoiled the game for myself was out of fear. It sounds silly now I was genuinely worried that I simply wouldn’t be able to handle the complexity of this new-fangled 3D gaming and needed to prepare myself as thoroughly as possible. Until I actually played the game it was impossible for me to truly imagine what playing a game like that might be like. Ocarina of Time was a close second to the madness of Mario 64 as well. In the build up to that I’d got the internet and every day I’d check my list of Zelda fansites to see if there were any new screenshots, usually scanned in from Famitsu. I managed to avoid actually spoiling the entire game for myself though. I remember I got a bit scared again when Mario Sunshine came out that I wouldn’t be any good at 3D Mario without knowing the levels inside-out before I played. Luckily my fears were allayed.

Atreus gets no development?!

Hey, I might be getting this stuff together soon. So, obviously if I’m making an emulation box I need software to emulate. Speaking merely hypothetically, wouldn’t it be great if we lived in a world where people would just contact you, maybe by messaging you in private, with info on how to get those giant collections of every rom for all the systems, perhaps in the form of a trusted torrent or something. Wouldn’t that be great?

There you go, an arcade racer for PS4.

I loved God of War (after not giving a shit about the series previously too), but Red Dead is so obviously the game of the year it’s unreal.

This is one of the craziest things I’ve ever witnessed.

Not sure about this different version of the Eva opening I’ve heard Netflix might be using.

Heh, I almost never watch live TV these days and I had seen every episode on iPlayer so far thinking it was still on Saturdays like it used to be.

How come there was no episode yesterday?

There have been several attempts from the BBC to bring back Tommorow’s World of which this is only the latest. God knows why they had so much trouble, it feels like the subject has only got more relevant as time has gone on.

I think it just stops you from rolling the firmware back which is a problem if the new firmware hasn’t been hacked yet (this has actually happened right now). I think.

As far as I can tell those aren’t real fuses. It’s just something on the circuit board that blows on purpose when Nintendo updates the firmware that stops you from installing an older version. I think.

Thanks for all the advice everyone. But despite the fact that no one mentioned it, I think I’m going to try hacking my Switch. I saw some YouTube videos and it seems relatively easy, and the allure of being able to play handheld and on a screen is too large. Still, I appreciate everyone helping.

MS conference will still have all the third-party multiplatform titles, but yeah, I’m still pretty bummed about this.

So I was considering giving myself a Christmas present, and the idea of a good emulation box really appeals to me. I had a Yod@box back in the day (still do, somewhere) and I loved it, and having avoided the NES and SNES classics because of their limited libraries I’d like an all-in-one device. But it seems like there are a lot of options. My initial thought was a Raspberry Pi, but it seems like they’re not that powerful and therefore can’t do much beyond 16 bit systems. I saw someone mention the Nvidia Shield, which seems like it might be a good idea - but I know it has the same chip as the Switch, which was recently hacked. Maybe the Switch would work, as I already own one and it’s also portable. But then I’d worry about Nintendo banning me online or even worse. Maybe it would be worth buying a whole new Switch for that if I can get a cheap one somehow? Also there’s a bunch of older systems which can be hacked into emulation boxes. Anyway, what would people recommend?