What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Sima Tuna]

Seafoam Gaming is a dude who posts on this very forum. I've always been interested in the Shockman games but never bothered to play them. I've heard at least one of the games described as a mega man clone. No idea if that's true. What I've seen of the gameplay reminded me more of general pc-engine action platformers.

I'm currently messing about with the Tomb Raider 1-3 remasters, in between time spent dying in my Dark Souls 1 Conan themed playthrough. I'm frankly shocked that I never played the old school tomb raiders as a kid. I guess it was down to the marketing. I never cared about the "sexy" Lara marketing I saw in magazines and I still was in a phase of not wanting to play as a girl. You have to remember that I was a little kid then. If somebody had actually sat me down with the games and showed me what they were, I would have been all over them. I loved the first and third Indiana Jones movie as a kid and was hugely into dinosaurs. A 3d platformer where you kill wildlife and steal artifacts would have been right up my alley.

[Lemnear]

Seafoam Gaming is a dude who posts on this very forum. I've always been interested in the Shockman games but never bothered to play them. I've heard at least one of the games described as a mega man clone. No idea if that's true. What I've seen of the gameplay reminded me more of general pc-engine action platformers.

I'm currently messing about with the Tomb Raider 1-3 remasters, in between time spent dying in my Dark Souls 1 Conan themed playthrough. I'm frankly shocked that I never played the old school tomb raiders as a kid. I guess it was down to the marketing. I never cared about the "sexy" Lara marketing I saw in magazines and I still was in a phase of not wanting to play as a girl. You have to remember that I was a little kid then. If somebody had actually sat me down with the games and showed me what they were, I would have been all over them. I loved the first and third Indiana Jones movie as a kid and was hugely into dinosaurs. A 3d platformer where you kill wildlife and steal artifacts would have been right up my alley.

I only liked the first Tomb Raider, although i never appreciated shooting animals in a "non-arcade" way.
Shockman 1 and 3 are more Hack&Slash, you have a katana and a charged shot, in 2 you shoot like in Mega Man.
The nice thing is that they are all co-op too

[vol.2]

I'm currently messing about with the Tomb Raider 1-3 remasters, in between time spent dying in my Dark Souls 1 Conan themed playthrough.

I actually think the second game is better, especially because 2 introduced the fully range of motion and attack. Sure the first game is super iconic, and it's got all the base elements that would be carried over to the rest of the series, but 2 is really where Laura hits her stride.

If you are finished with the first game and you want to check out a fun post mortem, this youtuber does a great take on it.

[Sima Tuna]

I'm currently messing about with the Tomb Raider 1-3 remasters, in between time spent dying in my Dark Souls 1 Conan themed playthrough.

I actually think the second game is better, especially because 2 introduced the fully range of motion and attack. Sure the first game is super iconic, and it's got all the base elements that would be carried over to the rest of the series, but 2 is really where Laura hits her stride.

If you are finished with the first game and you want to check out a fun post mortem, this youtuber does a great take on it.

Well, I've got the full trilogy included in the remaster, so I'm going to slowly work my way through all of them. One thing I have noticed is that the remaster graphics, while beautiful, have slightly less visual clarity in design compared to the OG. I find myself swapping to the OG visuals when I want to actually find switches, keys, items on the ground, secrets and enemies. Something about the remastered version's use of shadows is just too stark in some spots, and objects tend to blend in more.

The original visuals are still super charming btw.

Spoiler

FUCK U NATURE!!!11!

[Arino]

[Lander]

System Shock Portable was all that and a bag of chips long before ND got their hands on it. It runs buttery smooth, has all the modern control options and a seamless install process. The ND version doesn't add anything at all. The graphics are just scaled up OG assets, and that was an option in SSP if you actually wanted that.

Alright, let me educate myself on it a sec...

SSP runs on Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8+ via the included DOSBox emulation.

Oh, c'mon man emulating a DOS machine, even with massively enhanced virtual hardware and a perfectly-dialed config, is never going to touch what a native port can do.
Those old software renderers - and in many cases, game code - just aren't built to scale. Sure, you can push them a bit and make up the difference with upscaling and patches, but they'll still underperform or outright crash if you exceed their built-in limits.
Even then, you can't retrofit hardware rendering, modern architectures, major engine enhancements, or anything else that lies outside their virtualized domain.

And Enhanced Edition isn't an upscaling of the original assets; the optional redrawn textures and portraits are from the Mac version. Nothing is filtered or otherwise mangled.
It also uses the system mouse pointer, runs at native res, and is otherwise as sharp and snappy as you'd expect of a good port.

The other game I was referring to is Dark Forces, which is done far better by The Force Engine. https://theforceengine.github.io/ and you can look forward to a lot more features being added over time and compatibility with mods.

But seriously, I'm shocked that you're shocked. Dos era games have been a major focus for the past 20 years. Check out Darkplaces if you want to play Quake or GzDoom if you wanna play Doom, etc. Or Eduke32 if you wanna play Build Engine games.

AFA Blood goes, you don't even need a sourceport for that. Build Engine does Vesa resolutions, so you can easily play it in XGA. All you need is a couple UI hacks if you want to change the controls and you're set. It's really the janky mouse stuff that anyone ever cared about fixing in Blood, and that's totally doable and easy.

That's not an apples-to-apples comparison; the armies of Doom and Quake forks, EDuke, and The Force Engine are all enhanced source ports, or reverse engineerings in cases with no source release.
They're already well served for modern enhancements, so the bar is certainly a lot higher. For instance, those new releases of Quake - nice shine-up and new episodes, but they'd be better in Quakespasm or Mark_V.
But for games that never got that degree of fan support, their KEX renditions have been more than adequate.

Blood is a middle-case of sorts; BloodGDX and co. are fine, but they're still based on leaked alpha code and best-guess tweaks.
The whole point of giving it official treatment should be to resolve that for good, rather than adding another strings-attached option to the pile.

And sure, the DOS builds are there, but a nice native version is preferable. What I wouldn't give for a proper modern release of MechWarrior 2.

[Sengoku Strider]

Which i instantly grabbed, since all 3 were just over 13 eurodollars (the first 2 were on sale), plus they were well reviewed.
I love the fact that there are scans of the manuals, the covers (front and back) of the CD or HuCARD and even an image gallery

There are some small errors here and there, i don't know if it's due to the Ratalaika porting or it's actually from the original game, and i would have liked some background to put on the sides instead of the black bands. The games are extremely difficult, why if it's Cute, is it also incredibly hardcore?
I felt that vague need for more "PC-Engine" in my life. In fact i even looked up what exactly the Hudson Soft Caravan Shooter Carnival was. I really need to connect the seasons to what i play.
Too bad there are very few PCE ports...and that none of the 3 games have ports (for now i saw that they used StarForce, Star Soldier and Hector'87).

PC Engine is a happy place to be, it's the most 'feel good' console I own. There were two different promotional summer score tours you might be conflating, Hudson's All-Japan Caravan & Naxat's Summer Carnival.

Hudson:

1985 - Star Force (Famicom)
1986 - Star Soldier (FC)
1987 - Starship Hector (FC)
1988 - Power League Baseball (PC Engine)
1989 - GunHed (PCE)
1990 - Super Star Soldier (PCE)
1991 - Final Soldier (PCE)
1992 - Soldier Blade (PCE)

Naxat's was amazing too:

1991 - Spriggan (PCE CD)
1992 - Recca (Famicom) and Alzadick (PCE CD)
1993 - Nexzr Summer Carnival Special (PCE)

I know some of the Hudson shooters have seen other releases over the years on Super Famicom, PSP & Game Boy Advance, but I don't know if those are any more accessible to you. The PC Engine has a very limited profile outside Japan; sadly the pandemic (and Kanye) drove up prices a lot, and Konami owns Hudson's catalogue and don't care about video games, so unless you got a TG-16 mini (which seems to have laggy emulation anyway) a lot of that stuff's lost to time for now. NEC are a corporate electronics firm and I don't know if they even care much about that part of their history, but maybe Nintendo will come calling for Switch Online like they did with the Mega Drive.

The good news is the PC Engine sold well in Japan during its day and the core system can still be had cheaply (though it only has RF out so I'd recommend biting the bullet on a Japanese Duo R or RX up front for goregous SCART output and access to the Super CD library, it's totally worth it imo). And if you're okay going with loose HuCards lots of stuff is still affordable. Looking at Pricecharting right now Super Star Soldier and Final Soldier are about $25 loose, and GunHed at $50.

I'm seeing lots of other shmups in the $15-30 range (which is rare on rero consoles) like Ordyne, R-Type I&II, Galaga '88, Darius Plus, Kyuukyoku Tiger, Side Arms, Xevious (contains a remixed mode by Compile), Mr. Heli no Daibouken, & Aero Blasters. Lots of the system's most notable non-shmup stuff like Bonk, Military Madness/Nectaris, Legendary Axe, Dungeon Explorer, Neutopia and yes, the first Shockman/Shubibinman are in that bracket too.

[BrianC]

The good news is the PC Engine sold well in Japan during its day and the core system can still be had cheaply (though it only has RF out so I'd recommend biting the bullet on a Japanese Duo R or RX up front for goregous SCART output and access to the Super CD library, it's totally worth it imo). And if you're okay going with loose HuCards lots of stuff is still affordable. Looking at Pricecharting right now Super Star Soldier and Final Soldier are about $25 loose, and GunHed at $50.

The PC Engine Core Grafx consoles are not RF only. Core Grafx and Core Grafx II both have composite out and can have RGB through the expansion port via adapter (like the EDFX available from Krikzz). I was under the impression that the Duo R or RX had to be mod for RGB?

The PCE Bomberman games are also reasonably priced and are among the better games in the series (especially 93 and 94). PCE needs a multiplayer adapter just for 2p games, though.

Edit: None of the Bomberman games in the Caravan competition were PCE games, though it did introduce Hi-Ten Bomberman, which had similarities with the multiplayer in Saturn Bomberman and used custom hardware based on the PCE.

[vol.2]

Oh, c'mon man emulating a DOS machine, even with massively enhanced virtual hardware and a perfectly-dialed config, is never going to touch what a native port can do.

You can't be serious. System Shock played alright on a 486DX 33. It's smooth as silk in SSP. Unless you're just running numbers to hit FPS there's absolutely no reason to try and make it run any faster. You act like DOSBox is some kind of arcane piece of software that breaks if you look at it funny; it's easy to use and there are plenty of great options available that you can't get in a port like support for sound cards and built in display compatibility. I can play Blood with a Roland SC-55 if I want. Staging also takes away a lot of guesswork if you want something that just works.

Blood is a middle-case of sorts; BloodGDX and co. are fine, but they're still based on leaked alpha code and best-guess tweaks. The whole point of giving it official treatment should be to resolve that for good, rather than adding another strings-attached option to the pile.

Which would just be someone making a decision on what is "official" for you, and there isn't any point in that. Just play Blood in DOSBox Staging and use the mouselook patcher. Done. Great game that plays in hi res VESA modes. Why bother with anything else?

That's not an apples-to-apples comparison; the armies of Doom and Quake forks, EDuke, and The Force Engine are all enhanced source ports, or reverse engineerings in cases with no source release.
They're already well served for modern enhancements, so the bar is certainly a lot higher. For instance, those new releases of Quake - nice shine-up and new episodes, but they'd be better in Quakespasm or Mark_V.

I'm not interested in making a point by point comparison between methods for playing older games. That's on you. All I care about is being able to play those games without making compromises that ruin the experience for me. All of these method do that. You wanting the problem to be solved in a particular way that appeals to you is "you problem."

Well, I've got the full trilogy included in the remaster, so I'm going to slowly work my way through all of them.

I have been threatening to replay it from the beginning for awhile, but I keep getting roped back into the Crystal Dynamics games from the early 2000s. Anniversary is amazing, and Legend is one of my favorite games from that time period. I do still have all the OG TR games on PSX and PC on disc, so I will probably do a tour again eventually.

One thing I have noticed is that the remaster graphics, while beautiful, have slightly less visual clarity in design compared to the OG. I find myself swapping to the OG visuals when I want to actually find switches, keys, items on the ground, secrets and enemies. Something about the remastered version's use of shadows is just too stark in some spots, and objects tend to blend in more.

Interesting. Wonder why that is. Maybe it's some kind of interpolation artifacting or something. I have the port on the google store installed on my phone, and it looks pretty sharp on that, but maybe that's just because the screen is so small.

The original visuals are still super charming btw.

Totally. I don't need anything else, but I do really like Anniverasary's take on the first game too.

[Sima Tuna]

The Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider games don't appeal to me nearly as much as these old ones. The old games using a grid system seems to allow so much more freedom in what I can grab, cling to or jump off of. I remember playing TR 2013 and it had the damn batman vision. I also spent most of the time either shooting enemies, running from roller coaster set pieces or crafting shit. So I just see the newer games as completely different in genre. Booting up the original Tomb Raider, immediately it felt like playing original Prince of Persia in 3d. I think we can all agree the new games do not play that way.

Maybe I'm just weird, but I think platforming in a "realistic" game should be difficult. It's why I left the tank controls on. Platforming should be hard and rewarding if platforming is one of the main challenges of the game. The amount of automation in newer platformers (outside of mascot platformers) just ruins them imo. I can't stand games like Uncharted that have obvious signposting everywhere and automate climbing to such a degree it feels like the game is on rails.

Cinematic platformers seem to be a dying or dead genre. But see, I never realized before now that the classic TR games were 3d cinematic platformers. Otherwise I would have been all over them. The only TR games I played as a kid/teen were TR Anniversary (briefly) and TR 2013.

Incidentally, I do really love Soul Reaver 1, Gex 3 and Legacy of Kain Defiance. So I don't hate Crystal Dynamics. Hopefully they get a chance to work on more Gex and Soul Reaver stuff eventually, although the latter is going to be painful with so many original cast members dead.

[XoPachi]

I tried one Uncharted for about an hour and that was enough to never touch the rest of the series.
nuTomb Raider and similar Hollywood games strike me as the same shit.

[vol.2]

The Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider games don't appeal to me nearly as much as these old ones. The old games using a grid system seems to allow so much more freedom in what I can grab, cling to or jump off of.

In a way that's true, because the backgrounds were all so much simpler that basically most of the prominent features in any given environment can be interacted with; almost everything else is a solid color or simple repeating texture. The CD games had much more detail, and they increased the complexity of the puzzles by introducing new ways to control Laura, etc. Because the world was so detailed, there was naturally more in the background that you couldn't interact with, especially in outdoor settings. Interior locations are fine though and play much like the grid system. Underworld is maybe an exception as they really tried to up the game graphically and some of the interior areas suffered a bit. Although I still liked Underworld because the settings are so beautiful. The first level where you get dropped off in the ocean and have to scale a seaside cliff is especially impressive.

I remember playing TR 2013 and it had the damn batman vision. I also spent most of the time either shooting enemies, running from roller coaster set pieces or crafting shit. So I just see the newer games as completely different in genre. Booting up the original Tomb Raider, immediately it felt like playing original Prince of Persia in 3d. I think we can all agree the new games do not play that way.

I don't like the reboot games nearly as much. I think you can draw a hard line in the sand between Crystal Dynamics before and after the Square takeover. So many of the core team assembled by Dave Morse had left by that time that it was unrecognizable.

The trilogy that was made by CD (Anniversary, Legend, Underworld) is my favorite. They have my favorite tombs, and I love how much great croft manor content there is.

That said, I don't hate the reboot games; I just don't think they are true "Tomb Raider" games in the sense that (as you point out), they are not the same mechanically. They did get combat a lot better though. The OG TR games all the way up to the reboots never managed to crack that nut. The reboots aren't amazing at it either, but they are competent. All previous TR games the combat is actually just awful. Legend probably did it best among them by making it easy.

I would say this is also close to how I feel about the Resident Evil games. The last true RE game was RE Zero. Everything from RE4 on was "part of the series," because they are "survival horror," but we all know it's not that simple. The RE series built itself on the foundation of a particular type of mechanics. I still loved RE4, and I even liked 5 okay, but they never felt like a Resident Evil game to me. I wish they would make another one of the old style games, but with better camera angles and a higher level of detail. I'm tired of them just endlessly remaking the older games.

Maybe I'm just weird, but I think platforming in a "realistic" game should be difficult. It's why I left the tank controls on. Platforming should be hard and rewarding if platforming is one of the main challenges of the game. The amount of automation in newer platformers (outside of mascot platformers) just ruins them imo. I can't stand games like Uncharted that have obvious signposting everywhere and automate climbing to such a degree it feels like the game is on rails.

Cinematic platformers seem to be a dying or dead genre. But see, I never realized before now that the classic TR games were 3d cinematic platformers. Otherwise I would have been all over them. The only TR games I played as a kid/teen were TR Anniversary (briefly) and TR 2013.

I agree. But I think that the CD trilogy kept the difficulty high by introducing new mechanics, and making the puzzles much more difficult. The difficulty comes from solving the puzzles and making jumps, and not from constantly restarting due to insta-deaths that you can only learn about by dying (although there was still a number of those to be fair). The actual gameplay in the CD trilogy is much more difficult. The main issue is just that the more frequent checkpoints take a lot of the stress away, but by that time people were becoming a lot less tolerant of getting kicked back and I think it wasn't feasible. Perhaps they could have made that toggleable with difficulty level or something.

Incidentally, I do really love Soul Reaver 1, Gex 3 and Legacy of Kain Defiance. So I don't hate Crystal Dynamics. Hopefully they get a chance to work on more Gex and Soul Reaver stuff eventually, although the latter is going to be painful with so many original cast members dead.

Those are all fantastic games, but I think that ship has sailed. The OG Crystal Dynamics is gone, and we are left with a subsidiary studio that is tasked with cranking out platform shooters and movie tie-ins. They are supposedly working on a Perfect Dark reboot which is being helmed by your favorite guy who did TR 2013 yay. If they did a Kain game, it's probably nothing you want to play. Best hope is someone else has the rights to those games, or licenses them out.

[Sima Tuna]

I don't like the reboot games nearly as much. I think you can draw a hard line in the sand between Crystal Dynamics before and after the Square takeover. So many of the core team assembled by Dave Morse had left by that time that it was unrecognizable.

The trilogy that was made by CD (Anniversary, Legend, Underworld) is my favorite. They have my favorite tombs, and I love how much great croft manor content there is.

That said, I don't hate the reboot games; I just don't think they are true "Tomb Raider" games in the sense that (as you point out), they are not the same mechanically. They did get combat a lot better though. The OG TR games all the way up to the reboots never managed to crack that nut. The reboots aren't amazing at it either, but they are competent. All previous TR games the combat is actually just awful. Legend probably did it best among them by making it easy.

I would say this is also close to how I feel about the Resident Evil games. The last true RE game was RE Zero. Everything from RE4 on was "part of the series," because they are "survival horror," but we all know it's not that simple. The RE series built itself on the foundation of a particular type of mechanics. I still loved RE4, and I even liked 5 okay, but they never felt like a Resident Evil game to me. I wish they would make another one of the old style games, but with better camera angles and a higher level of detail. I'm tired of them just endlessly remaking the older games.

Yeah, I think Resident Evil is a good comparison point to Tomb Raider. In terms of both where the games started and where they've ended up. Classic RE is dead and gone. The last "real" RE game (in gameplay meaning) was either RE Zero like you said, or maybe REmake. After that, the ship sailed to RE4 Action-Horror and then to Modern Remake Land. They've reinvented the style again with the most recent round of remakes, beginning with RE2make, then RE3make and now RE4make. Fixed camera angles and tank controls are never coming back. You either get action horror like RE4 (I do love RE4) and RE5 or the modern RE brand of survival horror which eschews tank controls and fixed angles. I know some people like the RE2makes+++, as well as the RE7 and Village, but none of those appeal to me. I didn't play the ps1 RE games until I was an adult either, so I don't think it's just nostalgia leading to me holding up RE2 and 3 originals over the later games. I mean, it wasn't totally random that survival horror games into the ps2 era were still using tank controls. There is a benefit to these old control methods that modern players assume are just shit.

I do agree combat in TR1 is not good. But the ways in which it is not good also push the player to treat it as a resource hog to be avoided or cheated when possible. Murdering animals from atop a ledge is a bit of cheeky, intended dickery. Tense combat (because fights can go bad quickly) feeds into the exploration loop too, encouraging one to search around for healing items and ammo. As far as I'm aware, there aren't many cinematic platformer games with decent combat. Sands of Time's combat was pretty bad, honestly. Older games in the genre tend to be even worse, either instant killing you or you instant kill the enemy. Soul Reaver's combat was just about bearable if the enemy you weren't fighting didn't have some pain-in-the-ass gimmick trick. I guess what I'm saying is TR1's bad combat is par for the course. At least Lara has infinite ammo in her pistols so you can just spam them.

[vol.2]

The last "real" RE game (in gameplay meaning) was either RE Zero like you said, or maybe REmake.

Yeah, I would definitely consider REmake to be part of classic RE. I just didn't mention it because I kind of lump it in with the first game. It's a lot harder than OG RE though, so I think it definitely gets included. I haven't played anything past 5 yet, but up to that point, I think REmake is the hardest RE game. After that, I'd say Code Veronica X, and the RE3. They are close, but RE3's just such a short game, and CV has some boss fights that are basically impossible and you have to get god-level lucky to scrape past.

I didn't play the ps1 RE games until I was an adult either, so I don't think it's just nostalgia leading to me holding up RE2 and 3 originals over the later games.

Dang. Yeah, I got hooked early. My friend at work had it in 1996, and I remember playing it with him in the fall of that year. We would take turns getting as far as we could through various sections of the mansion, bickering about when to use an ink ribbon. Fuck man, those were good times.

I mean, it wasn't totally random that survival horror games into the ps2 era were still using tank controls. There is a benefit to these old control methods that modern players assume are just shit.

God. What I wouldn't give for a new RE game with tank controls and a fixed camera.

I do agree combat in TR1 is not good. But the ways in which it is not good also push the player to treat it as a resource hog to be avoided or cheated when possible. Murdering animals from atop a ledge is a bit of cheeky, intended dickery. Tense combat (because fights can go bad quickly) feeds into the exploration loop too, encouraging one to search around for healing items and ammo. As far as I'm aware, there aren't many cinematic platformer games with decent combat. Sands of Time's combat was pretty bad, honestly. Older games in the genre tend to be even worse, either instant killing you or you instant kill the enemy. Soul Reaver's combat was just about bearable if the enemy you weren't fighting didn't have some pain-in-the-ass gimmick trick. I guess what I'm saying is TR1's bad combat is par for the course. At least Lara has infinite ammo in her pistols so you can just spam them.

The animals are by far the best enemies in OG TR. They all actually have different attacks and there is at least some strategy involved in taking them out. Human enemies are just health pack checks. I can't pretend I like that at all. They should have just left them out of the game IMO. The bosses should have been like "hahaha, you'll never catch me," and then they runaway and you have to solve a climbing puzzle and maybe fight off a bear to get to them, and then you take them out by knocking down a platform or blowing up something destructable.

You have to hand it to the TR reboot for managing to integrate okay combat into the game though. They smartly created "combat areas" that are distinct from "tomb areas" and let you have your confrontations in that fashion. I also don't much like the Batman vision BS they used, or the focus on crafting stuff. I like getting new weapons in a game, but they took that shit way too far. I also don't want or need Laura to power up along the way. All of that crap is unnecessary and the time could have been spent on better level design and more puzzles.

[Lander]

You can't be serious. System Shock played alright on a 486DX 33. It's smooth as silk in SSP. Unless you're just running numbers to hit FPS there's absolutely no reason to try and make it run any faster. You act like DOSBox is some kind of arcane piece of software that breaks if you look at it funny; it's easy to use and there are plenty of great options available that you can't get in a port like support for sound cards and built in display compatibility. I can play Blood with a Roland SC-55 if I want. Staging also takes away a lot of guesswork if you want something that just works.

DOSBox is perfectly good, the games themselves are the arcane and breakable part. And yes, they run fine under their original spec, but that's not the point in a discussion about modern ports and their provenance, is it?
It isn't about fast for fast's sake. Not having to emulate an entire 486 to get it done is ideologically pleasing, but ultimately throwaway in the face of tangible things like better rendering, sound, input, networking, viability for modern consoles, and so on.

I'm baffled that you're making this argument while also extolling the virtues of The Force Engine. That makes sense as a high-bar comparison for the KEX release, but why not play Dark Forces in DOS if emulating a 486 should be good enough for anyone?

Which would just be someone making a decision on what is "official" for you, and there isn't any point in that. Just play Blood in DOSBox Staging and use the mouselook patcher. Done. Great game that plays in hi res VESA modes. Why bother with anything else?

Official as in official, sanctioned by the entities that ostensibly control the media in question, and - much more importantly - provide access to resources the community doesn't have, like unreleased source code, which could make the end result better.
There's nothing subjective about it, those are known quantities in software preservation that have plenty of precedent at this point. Look at MAME - an incredible effort, but there's still hunger for the promised arcade-perfection of Hamster and M2.

I'm not interested in making a point by point comparison between methods for playing older games. That's on you. All I care about is being able to play those games without making compromises that ruin the experience for me. All of these method do that. You wanting the problem to be solved in a particular way that appeals to you is "you problem."

Neither am I, though I am interested in making sure the basis is straight if we're going to draw fair comparison between enthusiast work (or painful lack thereof) and the efforts of a commercial studio.
As I said, there are plenty of good reasons to rag on Nightdive, but "DOS is good enough for me" likely isn't one of them.

[Air Master Burst]

I love me some classic Resident Evil and don't really fuck with anything 4 or later, but I will say the RE2 remake is fucking incredible and absolutely worth your time. RE2 is my favorite in the series, and I legit can't tell you if I prefer the original or the remake.

(Make sure you get the mod that adds the graphic content warning splash screen and the classic RESIDENT EVIL voice, and also the one that plays DMX every time Mr. X shows up.)

The RE3 remake is pretty bad, despite making a couple of great updates to the plot. Don't bother.

Bring on the Code Veronica remake already! It's more important to the overall RE plot than 3 or 4.

[vol.2]

I'm baffled that you're making this argument while also extolling the virtues of The Force Engine. That makes sense as a high-bar comparison for the KEX release, but why not play Dark Forces in DOS if emulating a 486 should be good enough for anyone?

All I care about is being able to play those games without making compromises that ruin the experience for me. All of these method do that.

I'm not hung up on a specific way of playing a game, but I appreciate things like being able to play something with OG hardware when possible. I do actually play Dark Forces in DOSBox usually so that I can have the MT-32 music, which is amazing and much better than any of the other versions.

I mentioned The Force Engine because it's such an obvious option for people to play the game on modern hardware with some added graphic and control options. The conversation was about how pointless ND DOS remakes are to me, so it seemed pretty relevant.

In general, I play any older DOS game on a an old VGA monitor with original sound hardware when possible, but I also enjoy checking out and following community projects like TFE.

Official as in official, sanctioned by the entities that ostensibly control the media in question, and - much more importantly - provide access to resources the community doesn't have, like unreleased source code, which could make the end result better.

I've never been one to hang on what "entities that ostensibly control the media" have to say, especially when it comes to remaking old media. That's how we ended up with a bunch of reboot movies and games instead of new ones.

It can be done well, but it so often isn't, and there are plenty of new ideas out there that deserve to see the light of day. We are currently plagued by companies remaking stuff.

There's nothing subjective about it, those are known quantities in software preservation that have plenty of precedent at this point.

The practice of "software preservation" has nothing to do with people doing remakes of older games. You're trying to shoehorn a discussion of preservation into one about a specific company (Nightdive) making specific DOS game releases. You are bringing up arcade games that have nothing to do with that discussion.

It sounds like you're just hung up on some kind of ephemeral connection you might have to the game's "DNA." If you're so hung up on the original intent of the developers, then why wouldn't you just play these titles in DOSBox emulation anyways? Why compromise with a new port just because someone who works at the same company 30 years later declares that it's the new way to play. That's just marketing nonsense to get you to open your wallet again for the same thing.

Neither am I, though I am interested in making sure the basis is straight if we're going to draw fair comparison between enthusiast work (or painful lack thereof) and the efforts of a commercial studio.
As I said, there are plenty of good reasons to rag on Nightdive, but "DOS is good enough for me" likely isn't one of them.

First of all, DOSBox is not DOS. It's a more feature-rich way to play older games with lots of control and graphic options. All of these games play much better via DOSBox on a modern machine than they did on OG hardware. Why do I (or anyone else for that matter) need another solution for something that is already taken care of "better" than it was originally? All of the important updates like control and graphic options are there. System Shock and Dark Forces are not fever pitch perfect arcade shooters, and if you wanted the "OG" experience, it would be slower and more annoying than what you can do currently in DOSBox.

What I am NOT talking about (and never was) are arcade games from cabinets. That's a whole other ball of wax that I think deserves and entirely different conversation from early 90s DOS action games.

[vol.2]

I love me some classic Resident Evil and don't really fuck with anything 4 or later, but I will say the RE2 remake is fucking incredible and absolutely worth your time. RE2 is my favorite in the series, and I legit can't tell you if I prefer the original or the remake.

(Make sure you get the mod that adds the graphic content warning splash screen and the classic RESIDENT EVIL voice, and also the one that plays DMX every time Mr. X shows up.)

The RE3 remake is pretty bad, despite making a couple of great updates to the plot. Don't bother.

Bring on the Code Veronica remake already! It's more important to the overall RE plot than 3 or 4.

I own the RE2 Remake in Steam, but I haven't played it yet. Thanks for the heads up about the mods. Where is that, on the Steam Community page or something?

[Sima Tuna]

You know what's rather silly. It just hit me that I can play Turok, Shadow Man and ps1 Tomb Raider on my Switch, or any other modern game system. But you can't buy any of the Soul Reaver/LoK games. Soul Reaver 1 used to be on the PSN, but that was the old PSN. I don't think it's on the ps4 storefront anywhere.

The game is on GoG, naturally, but no official remaster of any of the games has ever been done. Not even a quick 1080p ai upscale and throw it out onto the shop.

I remember a time in gaming when Legacy of Kain was a pretty big deal. LoK1, Soul Reaver 1 and Soul Reaver 2 had a very strong reputation. LoK 2 tarnished that rep a bit but Defiance, for me, was the real swan song of the set and a fitting send-off to Kain's story. The lack of any further games in the franchise after all these years makes me wonder if there's some reason (perhaps an unseen force, like an Elder God) the series has avoided an Enshittening. Lara was rebooted twice and now they're going to reboot her a third time. Soul Reaver was never altered or modified in any way, as far as I recall.

I don't think any of the titles was even ported to hd displays! The most recent console I remember playing Soul Reaver on was PSP/PS3, and that ps3 emulation output was in SD quality (or maybe borderline HD, but it was grainy as fuck.)

Code Veronica X deserves the REmake treatment btw. That game has a few minor issues I wouldn't mind them ironing out. Some of the enemies are pretty doofy in behavior and there's that infamous partner zapping pseudo-softlock (which is hilarious to watch when it happens to someone else.)

[Air Master Burst]

Code Veronica X deserves the REmake treatment btw. That game has a few minor issues I wouldn't mind them ironing out. Some of the enemies are pretty doofy in behavior and there's that infamous partner zapping pseudo-softlock (which is hilarious to watch when it happens to someone else.)

I wanna see this game modernized SO badly. It might be the most batshit insane Resident Evil game of all, and that's an impressive bar. Cat-eyed Super Wesker, Steve's hilarious Y2K boy band hair, pretty much everything about the Ashfords... I adore everything about Code Veronica, probably my favorite RE after 2.

Please find a way to keep the iconic Moth Hallway experience, too. It's just not Code Veronica without Moth Hallway!

Also, I don't think there's an actual softlock in CV, but killing the plane tyrant with just the crate takes long enough it doesn't surprise me most people thought it was. You can definitely miss the magnum if you leave the empty fire extinguisher behind tho.

[Sumez]

I love me some classic Resident Evil and don't really fuck with anything 4 or later, but I will say the RE2 remake is fucking incredible and absolutely worth your time. RE2 is my favorite in the series, and I legit can't tell you if I prefer the original or the remake.

RE2make is a pretty fantastic marriage of modern and classic RE, and IMO really should have been the direction that they went in from RE4 onward if you ask me. It would have been fantastic to have more games with this design mentality.

In many ways I actually feel that it fits the classic RE1/REmake design ethos better than the original RE2 did - that game gave you so many resources it ended up feeling like an awkward action game more than a survival game. I still liked it though.

[Arino]

I love me some classic Resident Evil and don't really fuck with anything 4 or later, but I will say the RE2 remake is fucking incredible and absolutely worth your time. RE2 is my favorite in the series, and I legit can't tell you if I prefer the original or the remake.

RE2make is a pretty fantastic marriage of modern and classic RE, and IMO really should have been the direction that they went in from RE4 onward if you ask me. It would have been fantastic to have more games with this design mentality.

In many ways I actually feel that it fits the classic RE1/REmake design ethos better than the original RE2 did - that game gave you so many resources it ended up feeling like an awkward action game more than a survival game. I still liked it though.

Sadly they all give you way too many resources, even on highest diff.

[Marc]

You all need RE4RE in your lives. Might have to give 2 another whirl. Found it mildly enjoyable, but think I'll appreciate it much more second time around.

[Arino]

You all need RE4RE in your lives. Might have to give 2 another whirl. Found it mildly enjoyable, but think I'll appreciate it much more second time around.

The Electric Underground says it was very bad. Therefore I won't play it so I can feel like I am part of the elite

Has anybody played RE4 World S? I loved it, this is how you make the player get some sort of survival horror feeling. Ressources are extremely scarce, you really have to make every shot count and use the knife and melee as much as possible:

https://youtu.be/ceamAK4zQWM?si=7VuKuy8o4gXqA61L

[Air Master Burst]

You all need RE4RE in your lives.

Only if they bothered to turn it into an actual RE game. For me that means limited resources, efficient pathing, goofy puzzles, and zombies! RE4 has exactly none of those things. Dead Rising was more Resident Evil than RE4.

It's a shame Capcom ran that series into the ground even faster than RE.

[Marc]

You all need RE4RE in your lives. Might have to give 2 another whirl. Found it mildly enjoyable, but think I'll appreciate it much more second time around.

The Electric Underground says it was very bad. Therefore I won't play it so I can feel like I am part of the elite

Has anybody played RE4 World S? I loved it, this is how you make the player get some sort of survival horror feeling. Ressources are extremely scarce, you really have to make every shot count and use the knife and melee as much as possible:

https://youtu.be/ceamAK4zQWM?si=7VuKuy8o4gXqA61L

Hmm ill check it out, but the dude kind of bugs me anyway tbh.

[Lander]

Legacy of Kain not getting any kind of redux is criminal. Modern audiences probably wouldn't get on well with the endless, endless block puzzles, but everything else is so good.

I've never been one to hang on what "entities that ostensibly control the media" have to say, especially when it comes to remaking old media. That's how we ended up with a bunch of reboot movies and games instead of new ones.

Me either - active disdain in many cases - but it's an occupational hazard if they're the gate to some key component of a 'perfect' reproduction.

The practice of "software preservation" has nothing to do with people doing remakes of older games. You're trying to shoehorn a discussion of preservation into one about a specific company (Nightdive) making specific DOS game releases. You are bringing up arcade games that have nothing to do with that discussion.

Fair, it is perhaps an overly-wide pair of umbrellas to invoke.

To specify, the point about precedent in software preservation is about source access - being able to get hold of the original spec, so any reproduction can be considered totally correct before being enhanced with modern niceties. It's an issue that's plagued all sorts of community efforts to continue development of old stuff, and often involves dealing with IP holders that don't much care.

And by 'arcade-perfect' I mean the expectation that it will be based on the broadly-agreed "best version" of whatever's getting ported, with access to the original code if it still exists, or given a professional clean-room reversing treatment otherwise.

ND factor in as a party with the connections and staff to - in ideal conditions - tick those boxes, though aren't the be-all-end-all. As for Blood the story is as above - studio's dead, publisher's a corpse, community efforts are good, but that ideal 'done from first principles' version still doesn't exist. Hence, poor showing all round.

It sounds like you're just hung up on some kind of ephemeral connection you might have to the game's "DNA." If you're so hung up on the original intent of the developers, then why wouldn't you just play these titles in DOSBox emulation anyways? Why compromise with a new port just because someone who works at the same company 30 years later declares that it's the new way to play. That's just marketing nonsense to get you to open your wallet again for the same thing.

Nothing so idealistic I'm a logician, all about a given system being provably correct in the absolute sense, and as optimal as possible.

For a program - i.e. game, the ideal can be quantified absolutely: Accurate, optimized, and able to use the machine to its fullest.

So if a given port does a decent job of that, I'll open my wallet to see it massively exceed the original's technical limits.

First of all, DOSBox is not DOS. It's a more feature-rich way to play older games with lots of control and graphic options. All of these games play much better via DOSBox on a modern machine than they did on OG hardware. Why do I (or anyone else for that matter) need another solution for something that is already taken care of "better" than it was originally? All of the important updates like control and graphic options are there. System Shock and Dark Forces are not fever pitch perfect arcade shooters, and if you wanted the "OG" experience, it would be slower and more annoying than what you can do currently in DOSBox.

I mean DOSBox; I figure that's where most DOS content is played these days outside of folks that have hardware enthusiast setups.

And I'm not saying DOSBox isn't a marked improvement over original hardware, but I am saying it can be improved upon further. Better doesn't stop at the ceiling of the original hardware, it goes all the way to the limit of what we have now.

It might not be terribly pointful to play slow-paced old stuff at blistering modern resolutions and framerates, with all the original pixely textures and blocky models intact, but I find it part of the appeal.

So I don't really see a compromise beyond the added price tag, unless it's a bad port or has a better alternative, which most of ND's haven't.

[Sima Tuna]

Shadow Man in KEX engine has dynamic lighting and shadows. I think there are examples of Nightdive remasters where they added features to the games that weren't possible emulating the original engine. I'm not savvy enough on PC tech to explain exactly what all of those features would be, however. I suppose the easiest way to know would be to look at the options menus for the nightdive remasters and then ask yourself for each feature if it was possible to do that only by modifying the original release. You know, in the original engine.

[SuperDeadite]

I still play classic Tomb Raider through once a year or so. The originals all run great on PC with some patches, so I haven't bothered with the remasters. Personally, TR1 is the best for me. Limited in tech, but the design is just solid. Also best plot and characters in the series. 2 improved a lot of stuff, but the game was very much "stiched together" and it shows. Now 3 is an odd one. On a blind play its a terrible game that just wants you dead. But gets a lot more fun on repeat plays when you actually know what the game expects you to do.

As for me I'm 30 hours into BaldrSky, and it just gets better and better. Go play it!

[Arino]

Just played through "Tainted", an add-on for Quake, it is also part of the official remaster. It was very good.