https://twitter.com/SEGA/status/1533478779619786752 Finally Sega's games on GOG? Can't say how happy I would be, buuut I'm still a bit sceptical. Hopefull this week will reveal this mystery.
I am repenting for not buying Sega Rally Revo at launch by making sure we document it to bits. Do Microsoft store Xbox 360 achievement images anywhere? There's a few third-party sites that log lists for fun, but I don't want to sully Sega Retro with horrible JPEGs if I can avoid it. That banner should be red! (if so, I'll write guides and/or download everything en masse so this isn't a problem in the future)
For Xbox stuff, Exophase has .png pictures. Xbox 360 (I don't know about the other consoles) is 64x64. For PlayStation you could use PSNProfiles. All their PlayStation stuff is 240x240. Also all .png.
That'll do - ta p.s. Icons can differ between the PS3 and 360 verisons of games (i.e. more than a resolution boost), so this will be fun.
This is why I asked about dual icons or whatever a while ago, which was delivered in a way. Also, Exophase might have all achievement icons we need for non-PlayStation consoles, i.e. Phones and Steam. Not 100% on that though.
It's not an area I know much about: Jet Set Radio/Achievements I have Jet Set Radio on Dreamcast, so there was never a need for me to explore the 360/PSN versions. I'm guessing there's a reason it has has fewer trophies on PlayStation consoles than achievements on Xbox - whether platform holders were enforcing wacky rules, or games were patched later, or what. My approach was almost certainly "someone else do it" (which includes maintaining any templates). Steam is my weak spot because I don't do PC gaming.
There's a theory that sports games get a different reception depending on which side of the Atlantic they're being played - American football is meant to rate badly in Europe because we don't understand it, while in the US, real football is rated badly for the same reason. Except spoilers: this isn't really a thing, as good games tend to be recognised as good regardless of where you are. Instead it's more about amount of press coverage and sales figures, but I still like to look out for exceptions. Here's one: Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation/Reception We don't have masses of reviews so this isn't super reliable, but it appears Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, aka "I Hope You Like Egypt" wasn't much cared for in the US, with this Dreamcast version seen as a lacklustre port of a lacklustre game. In Europe, there was heaps of praise, Lara made magazine cover stories, and particular attention was given to how much the visuals had improved... so pretty much the opposite. So what's going on? Well Core Design were being forced to make annual Tomb Raider games at this point, recycling the same engine year-on-year with only minor improvements. We know it was bad because they tried to kill Lara at the end of this game specifically to stop further sequels (although it didn't stop Eidos demanding them!), and this seems to have been a feeling shared with the US gaming press - this is the fourth iteration, and yet it still feels very much like the first. The Last Revelation has the extra "problem" in that for whatever reason, it's tighter in scope - rather than a globe trotting adventure of previous entries, it's really just about raiding Egyptian tombs. Meanwhile by 1999, third-person action games were no longer rigid, blocky affairs, as evidenced by Eidos' own Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (which was brought up a lot when discussing this game). If you're expecting the latest and greatest from a franchise making millions, Tomb Raider IV doesn't offer that - the Dreamcast version just gives the game a new coat of paint. If slower paced platforming and puzzle solving in the vein of Prince of Persia or Flashback (but in 3D) was never your thing (or the US "angry shooty gun guns" cover misled you), this won't change your mind. I'm not sure what the cause of the bias - Tomb Raider was a top British export which might explain something, but I was vaguely following this story in 1999/2000, reading about the model and texture improvements and coming to the conclusion that "yeah, sounds good". It hadn't crossed my mind that the gameplay was "dated" - it was just how Tomb Raider was. It's like saying we need to make Chess more fluid and dynamic. Although I was only 9 at the time. Is it just because it's a bad Tomb Raider game? I wouldn't say so - I actually think TLR is the second best "classic" entry (my order is 1, 4, 2, 5, 3), benefiting by not leaning so much into the "action" (which the engine can struggle with), and not being horribly designed (like Tomb Raider III, aka "buy the strategy guide"). Also it has Werner Von Croy in it, and he's wonderful. I do recall the controls being slightly awkward on Dreamcast because you have fewer buttons, but I'd still probably recommend it - I love classic Tomb Raider. The difference of opinion is smaller with Chronicles. But when you can feel Core's apathy towards that project during play, it's perhaps not surprising.
From my point of view growing up in the US, there probably is a bias amongst reviewers and consumers against churning out sequels that offer nothing new, but I wouldn't put any credence to any implications that such bias has anything to do with a game's country of origin. While there are granted some Western gamers with a Japanese gaming fetish (to be fair, they're typically fans of Japanese-exclusive genres like JRPGs and the anime aesthetic), no one really cares which country a "Western" game originates from, at least not in my experience.
I got it on christmas for PC, so I don't know how the console versions were besides the lower specs of the PlayStation version, but it's the game that I like the less from the first five (2->1->3->5->4 in my case, though 1 lost to 2 only on the technical side), mainly because, while they added some obvious or wonderful things the games needed (going around corners, using different kinds of ammo with the same weapon), they also added scarabs you couldn't kill with your guns, mummies you couldn't kill with most of your weapons, etc (I like peaceful exploration, those don't help). Some "improvements" also caused the silliest collisions, and having teen Lara as a reskin of her adult model made her look kind of absurd. But yes, 3 is the hardest one: no one tells you is better to choose Nevada first because they'll steal your weapons and ammo, and it's better if that happens as early as possible, and I also had to make the map of some maze by counting blocks like I was playing the first Phantasy Star. It's not a user-friendly game. I also loved the Legacy of Kain series and played the DC version of Soul Reaver to death (it's one of my favourite games ever), but, guess what? Puzzles with respawning enemies and some awkward movement derived from the physics not being tightly linked to blocks like in Tomb Raider games. Like playing Sonic Adventure after playing Sonic 3 & Knuckles. To be a bit more on topic with what you were asking about, I suppose there's some kind of cultural influence in how to approach games, just like westerners can't understand why japanese like grinding so much in online games, something terribly demanding and boring, yet they do because that's the way they understand them. Maybe level packs of the same formula worked better in Europe (it worked for me, at least). Or just tradition versus innovation predominating the discourse instead of just checking what works and what doesn't, new or old.
If I'm going to sift through these you're coming along too. Incite Video Gaming is uh... well it only ran for nine issues in the US and you can probably guess why. Here's issue 5 and its cover story, which features the cast of Son of the Beach talking about Dead or Alive 2's boob physics and I can't tell if it's played for laughs or what's going on. I do know they like talking to celebrities about PlayStation games and oh my brain. Thing is, the video game editorial might be on point, but it can be a lot of work getting there. I don't know if it's the worst video game magazine put to print, but good lord.
To add to this, I've logged into my Xbox account online to check the Xbox One achievements I have, and for Xbox One the achievement sizes seem to be 1,365x768. I have no idea if Series X is the same or if they are even larger, and I'm not sure if sites are using that resolution or 64x64 for One/X since 64x64 is merely thumbnail size for the Xbox One as an example.
I'll add that to the list for if I ever get bored of adding cheat codes! As an aside, the first Tomb Raider game I ever played was Tomb Raider 3 on my first ever 3d card enabled PC, where even the first level is really bloody hard. This meant for years I just thought tomb raider games were ridiculous and didn't understand all the hype. Eventually I picked up 1 and 2 from GOG for pennies and was like 'oooohhh I see, it wasn't always like that'. If only I'd played them in order :D
Take this Metacritic! Sega Retro now supports Computer Gamer's unique rating system, the Eecaans Star Guide. You can probably name all the relevant games it will apply to on one hand, which is great because you can't really quantify these ratings (even though I just did). Did you know the ZX Spectrum port of Tapper is a "red giant"???
I like how everything gets better the more you go down, then you get a nebula which isn't even the worst, but second to the worst tha started the ranking. Very intuitive and well presented charting system. XD
As of a few days ago, Tinker Bell + Blicks are new on MAME https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/mame/drivers/segafruit.cpp
There are near-full sets of Spanish magazines Super Juegos and Todo Sega online (among others). Why haven't we done anything with them? Because they're (very) raw scans that need cropping and rotating, and it's a process not easily automated. I've only ever bothered tackling issues when I've had a reason to, and against my better judgement, today was one of those days: https://archive.org/details/Superjuegos_017/mode/2up became https://retrocdn.net/File:SuperJuegos_ES_017.pdf I'm not doing any more without developing a better tool first, since currently each issue takes me the best part of an hour. The scan quality here isn't exactly inspiring - it's perfectly fine for quick referencing, but finer detail was lost by blur filters and JPEG artifacts. And even without the language barrier, content-wise most Spanish magazines seem to just echo what's been said in their Japanese, American or British (and sometimes French) counterparts. They have value - all magazines do - but other than pieces on Spanish marketing and corporate gubbins, most of the time I'm not learning anything. Marketing can be fun if they jump the gunstar and start advertising games before they're ready though. Apparently Gunstar Heroes was briefly known as "Gunstar Hero" in Spain (and probably elsewhere in Europe). They designed a logo and everything.
"A macro-game (as in both great or huge, nothing to do with macros) developed by a programmer team specialized in archade machines. Impressive graphics with level finales (bosses?) that will thrill you. 1 or two simultaneous players. Enemies multiply. Look for an ally!" That's all nothing interesting to read and you could figure that much out without knowing spanish since most vocabulary is similar to its english counterparts. I'd do it at least partially as I'm interested in some specific issues of TodoSega which aren't in the wiki yet (that's the magazine I used to buy but who knows where did my issues end), but I have no idea on how to make the conversion (and I don't know if I would have your patience for doing it). I don't mind translating some stuff like I've done now, but of course not whole issues, that would be an endless task.
If I could scan and edit a magazine in "the best part of an hour" I think I might fall to my knees in disbelief and weep rivers of happiness. Alas, it takes significantly longer than that. So it's worth remembering that any aversion one might feel to taking the time to make those crap scans more presentable is only a fraction of the aversion someone had to overcome to produce every single decent scan that's ever been put online (rarely receiving any thanks for doing so).
Final Fight Revenge is pretty much the last Sega Saturn game anyone cares about, so was picked up by Western media... and then panned because it's not very good. I went on a tangent yesterday to improve our coverage of the game and see if the press were right. Does it have cheats? Let's go to GameFAQs to find out: Come on lads, the game doesn't have replays. All you had to do is play one fight to learn this. As for whether the press were right... erm... they were, kinda? I guess the argument is that the very first Sega Saturn game from 1994, Virtua Fighter, is a deeper, more enjoyable fighting game this effort from 2000 (and Virtua Fighter 2 wipes the floor with it). It feels like a budget fighter from 1995/1996 - almost like some kind of proof-of-concept tech demo, or Street Fighter EX minus most of the style. It is absolutely not worth the three (or four)-figure ebay prices.
