AK Bell

Yey. Just an update that the VPN thing still works and you can spend the 10.99 conversion out of MS points bought by rewards points. That's me for the next 3 years. Anyway, back to Chained Echoes! 

1 hour ago, spatular said:

Ive been looking at getting one of these, the rg353p looks good, but if you guys arent having to pay customs on the retroid pocket 3+ Its only a little more cost so i guess would be the one to go for?

If you can find one and it's not too marked up in price (and shipping). It's saying "pre-order" on goretroid.com which I assume is their system saying sold out since it was out last month? Otherwise it's the same price on eBay or droix.net (also pre-order) as a (also sold out) Odin Lite at $220+ ...when it should be 150.

What Anbernic has going for it is that they tend to be available and for whatever flaw that model has (and it'll have some quirk) you can get it quick at the right price. 

Depends what you want to play. If you're not fussed about (some!) PS2/GC (or some heavy PSP) then there is no need to get a Retroid Pocket 3+ ...it's just good extra value. 353s can do up to N64, surprisingly good Dreamcast and less demanding PSP

If you're not planning on streaming anything like game pass or steam link, then there isn't much use for a widescreen too (PSP is widescreen tho!). If it wasn't for that, I'd be a bit annoyed with my Odin Pro wasting space as I'm not a fan of widescreen hacks. I kind of want a machine for a dedicated not-widescreen aspect ratio. 

Has anyone use geekbuying.com before? It's got a v90 on there with free shipping for £33 ... I don't need one, I already have more than one, but that's a hell of a deal for someone's xmas box this year. 

Ooh, my game pass ends tomorrow. Now, remind me...

Nm, i think I've got it.

4 hours ago, strawdonkey said:

53. The Typing of the Dead: Overkill (Filth of the Dead/Scottish Slang dictionaries)

 

In 2008 I went to Japan and remember finding a Typing of the Dead arcade machine. I speak only a few words of Japanese but was still able to make it all the way to the third boss very comfortably on one credit, but that was a bit of a stumbling block as the third boss' mechanic is that it asks you a question, and then you have to type in the correct answer from a choice of three. So that was awkward.

 

Anyway Overkill is delightfully over-the-top B-movie nonsense in the same vein - a zomb- er mutant comes after you, a word appears above its head, and you type the word in to shoot it in the face until its head disintegrates. Pretty simple. I've completed it a while ago and it's really good! Gone back to it to try out some of the sillier dictionaries and as fun as it is typing "minger" to dispatch your enemies, the custom dictionaries kind of ruin the balance of the game as they will often just drop in a 30-character phrase for a regular enemy instead of a single ~7 character word.

 

It's big and stupid and brilliant but probably stick to the regular dictionaries other than as a curio.

You wouldn't believe the effort that went into the official dictionaries for not just good words but ones that are pleasant to type. It just feels like you're getting a good spread and bounce across the keyboard for each word and never tangled up. 

Not to out myself too much, but I should get around to actually playing it because when I worked on it I used a cheat function that just rattled through the alphabet one way for player 1, and backwards for player 2, to leave it running overnight to see if they stayed in sync. 

Game of the Year

1. Chained Echoes

2. Boomerang Fu

3. Opus: Echo of Starsong - Full Bloom Edition

4. Tunic

5.

Biggest disappointment:

1. Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

2. Nintendo Switch Sports

3. 2022 generally

Best visuals

1.

2.

3.

Best audio

1.

2.

3.

Best writing

1.

2.

3.

Best not 2022 game:

1. Chrono Trigger

2. Final Fantasy XIII

3. Tales of Arise

Best developer:

Matthias Linda

Best format/console/controller/brain interface:

Ayn Odin Pro

5 minutes ago, thesnwmn said:

 

I actually think it started happening much earlier. With the N64, but solidified by the Gamecube.

 

I'd agree with that in a way. Nintendo repeatedly being reported as "losing the console wars" despite the fact they were quite happily being the only machine that made a profit rather than loss per unit and their first-party titles still sold well enough that any other publisher would be happy (and they didn't have to pay a license like everyone else). This is all while their handhelds were doing better than everything else put together. 

Nintendo have been solidly profitable and successful and that's boring!!! 

30 minutes ago, matt0 said:

 

People's interest in games comes across in all sorts of different ways though. I'm not massively fussed about low frame rates or some of the fine details they talk about when I'm actually playing something, but I still enjoy that level of analysis in their videos. Especially when they look at the last gen versions or the switch ports where you can really see a difference and see what choices the developers made.

I think more the point is that it's good for people interested, and bad for people who use it as ammo

1 hour ago, Giddas said:

This talk of Switch emulation on the SD, I've only tried Mario Odyssey and it creaked, was significantly worse than on genuine Switch. Is there some secret to make it play well?

Get both Ryujinx and Yuzu. They are both good but there are swings and roundabouts to both and one may do it better than the other per game.

I think Odyssey is the more complicated end of emulation though. They've only just got the 2D working solid and 3D is still a frontier. At least they're in a better state than on Android's Skyline where Mario still doesn't render correctly. I've not considered emulating Switch yet, mostly for it's current gen moral reasons, but also I don't think it's in a stable enough shape yet. 

It was going to be Dragon Quest Treasures, but it's reviewing like "wait for a sale". Same with Star Ocean the only other game I was interested in this holiday. 

Not sure now. I might have to <shudder> finish something I've already started instead!!!

15 minutes ago, Isaac said:

 

They are essential when evaluating PC ports of console games as too often these still come out crap.

How much detail do you need just for playing though? A PC review is likely to mention things like locked frame rates or moving as if it were through treacle. A quick guide of what settings you should be turning on and off.

When it gets into zooming into foliage to see it clipping, that should only be interesting to a few. I should care a bit but I start switching off by then. 

The Digital Foundry stuff is really interesting if you're interested in that kind of thing. But that should be technical people and game devs, not tribal gamers. Unfortunately until I can get the law passed through by my local MP, who is sick of the sight of me now, we can't block just anyone from seeing it. 

1 hour ago, Siri said:

Testing, too - it's practically impossible to scope out every PC configuration, so they'll usually recommend what's on their test benches (which, even in very small businesses, get a consistent turn-over in hardware due to IT contracting).

The minimum spec is usually quite high because they have to draw the line in what they're going to test. Not just configurations and combinations, but availability... they aren't going to go on eBay looking for a shit graphics card (that is still a stupidly high price). 

They're better off with a high minimum spec as a disclaimer to not go crying to them if it doesn't work. 

My money is on that Returnal will work, everyone will get it based on the early word of mouth, but will keep dying on you after a while. I think the slower storage will actually be more an issue and it'll run a lot longer if you can squeeze it onto a 256 or 512 model's internal storage.

A new challenger for Miyoo Mini alternative is this Anbernic RG3XX. Looks similar, performs similar, but a little bit bigger but with a 3.5 inch screen to match.

Sounds like it desperately needs some custom firmware though, the emulators having barebone features, and they've not released the kernel to let that happen (yet?) ...I'd have tried to get one before xmas if it wasn't for that. 

1 hour ago, moosegrinder said:

As far as anyone knows. Let it expire, load up on guns, bring your friends. with Xbox Live Gold up to 3 years and convert for £10.99.

I get to do that next week, so I expect this exploit to end this weekend.

1 hour ago, Yasawas said:

 

On the one hand that's pleasing, but on the other I want to buy a new toy! 

If you want something bigger and less of a faff to get, an alternative is any of the Anbernic 353s depending on what shape or quality you want. It'd probably be easy to get hold of and have turn up before xmas too.  

Powkiddy RGB20S would do too, but you'd probably get a superior Miyoo Mini for less. 

Maybe a Retroid Pocket 2+ second hand?

I wouldn't really go for anything else too new. They'd either be too powerful and/or widescreen.

I had to turn off their new Scrooge anim after 2 mins. 

I know that's not a good review. But fucking hell it was painfully jolly. 

37 minutes ago, Moodmon said:

 

Hopefully that gives you an idea.  Left is being held down all the time at the end. It seems to be if it hits multiple directions it decides to stop registering.

 

I'm going to try and get it open to see if something is wrong, I'd say it was the way I'm using it but I've never had this problem with any d-pad before.

I'm not seeing any such bother. I'm on latest firmware. It's a pro but I doubt it'll be much different to lite in this regard.

10 hours ago, Moodmon said:

Don’t know how many people have one, but running into weird issue on my Odin Lite.

 

The d-pad has a weird issue.  It works fine as long as you release to neutral briefly after each movement.  If I play like I usually do (sliding my finger across without releasing it) it eventually stops registering inputs.  I was trying Gradius Collection on PSP, and ship would periodically stop moving (normally stops moving left first).

 

I go into the game pad settings to see what is happening.  Again it registers it fine, the buttons are not broken.  Holding the dpad down in any direction and eventually it stops registering any input at all - until you release to neutral then it is fine again.

 

I am not sure if this is a software bug, a hardware bug or if it has been like this all the time and I’ve never noticed (only tried the bare minimum of dpad games).

 

Really annoying as using the example of Gradius it only has to happen once for you to get bodied.  I’m totally blaming the pad and not me for being shit at it.

How long do you need to hold down for?

Is this the first lego game to be on game pass? 

AetherSX2 top tips that I use for Odin Pro PS2

Vulkan renderer. There should be another thing to switch on for threaded drawing to a backbuffer too that is Vulkan only.

Disable Hardware Readbacks can make a massive performance improvement. I've not seen anything go wrong yet.

If you're upscaling, and most things should do x2, you can turn a bunch of the other filters off too for an extra boost. Fractional upscaler now too might let you tweak to get it running.

75% EE Cycle Rate and Mild Underclock, unless you have bother and whack them up. Multi threaded VU1 and Instant VU1

Most games work great now. I'd expect Lite to mostly keep up with Pro (and improve in future if they tweak to its newer hardware). 

1 hour ago, Moodmon said:

First time setting up an android device.  Good luck, get a guide and follow it.  Grab your emulators individually, maybe stick a front end on (I'm now in habit of using Dajisho for retroarch stuff and individual emulators for higher end stuff - it launches through Dajisho but doesn't seem to pick up my settings or save states). 

 

It should work really well with RetroArch for doing this sort of thing. 

A gotcha on RetroArch is that you have to keep saving your configurations for platform, folder or game ... it doesn't save anything automatically. 

I found that you should have some button shortcut to quit it as well to go back to Dajisho. It then saves where you last were as a quick save state and loads back there again. If I swipe away instead it mucks up.

Really worth going through the Retro Game Corps guide just for RetroArch. Or go through it again. It's a bloody nightmare to set up right. 

For other emulators, it's pot luck how nice it plays with something like Dajisho. But what I've got set up all now start loading the game from scratch and there should be some menu there to load a state from there. If I need to do anything more complex like faff with settings, I load the app direct. 

AetherSX2 wasn't working for a while but seems fine now. I've been having a number of issues with Dolphin MMJR, including getting in from a dashboard, and I've hooked up the official one to Dajisho now. Citra was acting up to back when I was using Launchbox but also seems better, but after having to convert everything from cia to 3ds for Dajisho... but sucks in its own way for not having save states. 

Not sure with PS2 on Lite. I'll have a poke around and report back with some common settings that really help. Make sure you have a very up to date AetherSX2.

1 hour ago, Lorfarius said:

I used to do loads of loo gaming until I heard about poo particles. Now its a throw away mag and nothing more.

Just shut the lid when you flush and have an extractor fan. 

I always have the lid shut when not in use too. I never understand why people keep it open all the time or these debates about seat up or down. Just shut the whole thing. Why do you want a constant hole in your bathroom for things to fall into? 

Do you have kids? For me there is no point in getting a decent handheld unless you have a comfortable bathroom and toilet to lock yourself in and keep everyone else out for a believable amount of having a dump time. 

I got mine last week but it was a bit of a soggy mess pushed through the door flap. Was readable after going on the radiator but been away.

Not using plastic to protect them isnt saving the planet. It's just wasting trees. 

I'm using Daijisho on my Odin now. To be honest, it's a bit cluttered and I prefer the look and feel of Launchbox ... but it's so slick and fast in comparison I have to use Daijisho