General Arcade & Retro Chat' Special Championship Edition

Tom Mann Centuria

Do any of you good folk have an evercade, (even if you don't) does anyone have an opinion on if it's worth getting or not.

Quite fancy a little dedicated handheld, and games on cart is a nice gimmick, but maybe a different retro hand-held for similar price would be better option (steamdeck is out of price range unfortunately).

Mr.Saturn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120202623#Comment_120202623

I don't much see the appeal of the Evercade in the world of Anbernic and Retroid Pockets unless you're absolutely intent on going legit. It's hard to argue with a pocketable Retroarch machine for €150ish, especially with the quality of latest gen stuff like the Pocket 3.

Tom Mann Centuria

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120202684#Comment_120202684

Yeah I think the notion of cartridges appealed, but then I found myself looking to see if it had a flashcart you could buy for it (you can!) which sort of defeats the whole point! I'll have to do a bit of research around the 150 to 200 ish.

Mr.Saturn

Great time to be getting into the emulation handheld scene as next-gen machines finally hit the market. I'm happy enough with my Anbernic 351mp for the minute, but can't say it doesn't blow my mind that you can now own a handheld that can run some Gamecube games decent enough for less than 200.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov12aBZQ6Mo

Retr0gamer

These handheld machines will need to start supporting good crt filters. I really can't be dealing with pixelated graphics any more since I've gone full RetroArch. Even on analogue pocket, it's grand for handheld games made for these types of graphics but nes, snes and megadrive games etc look awful with bare pixels.

McDermotX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120202623#Comment_120202623

From a collection point of view, it's a nice little doodad, but no more than that. There is a nice feeling associated with putting the the little cart boxes up on a shelf, and somewhat appreciating the fact you're still buying modern physical media. It's a relatively competent device, the latest EXP version has a pretty decent screen to be fair (and WiFi) and while build quality is fair, I wouldn't say its top tier of the game. D-pad is good IMO, and everything is functional, it just probably lacks a premium feel. It certainly doesn't feel like you're holding a PSP or Vita

Back to the games though, collecting may be the best thing about that, because there is a wild variation in worth to some of the carts. Some genuinely decent, some absolute muck, but they're very much mixed and matched on the same release so quality is a bit hit and miss overall, lot of indie stuff which ranges from poor to OK - say the recent C64 release, it's OK but not a decent selection of a system that had so many classics - the Bitmap Bros collection, which has what you'd expect, but they're not the Amiga versions etc etc

If you get the cartridges cheap in a deal it's fine, but going out of the way to pay full whack on release doesn't feel very rewarding. The EXP has the usual Capcom classics built-in which is fine, but we all have at least half a dozen ways of playing them nowadays. Nice frontend to all their devices, and decently supported, but very much a niche product nowadays.

That said, I'm not a huge fan of the Chinese efforts like the Anbernics. Last one I toyed with was the first of the recent metal ones a year or so back - think the 350M. Gathering dust somewhere in the house after messing with it for a week. It's OOOOKKKKK, has a decent feel, but they all reach a point where emulation has diminishing returns, especially post-PS1, with a lot of audio issues and performance problems. Cheap all the same, so you get what you pay for. Just a completely different platform to the likes of the Analogue Pocket.

Not completely bowled over by the Steam Deck emulation scene, as while it's nice to see the efforts made to get Wii(U) stuff and such up and running, and all the 8 and 16bit stuff, it's a relatively fidgety experience even with Emudeck doing most of the work, and any effort with 3DS or Switch stuff usually ends up with you just saying to yourself - 'why am I bothering, I should just play handheld on the real thing. Why should I have to bother with enabling better compatibility, limiting threads etc'. But it's an all encompassing device so gets the benefit of the doubt. D-pad is not good though IMO - some classic 16bit era stuff really shows it up. On the flip-side, it's nice to swap over from playing PC Spider-Man to a far better emulated version of the N64 GoldenEye rom than the recent Switch/Xbox version in seconds.

Tom Mann Centuria

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120204158#Comment_120204158

Nice review, thanks for that.

McDermotX

No worries,

if its just to have stuff to play, like Mr Saturn says above, the more recent Chinese stuff might be more appealing. In reality, the Evercade is doing little extra - just the little rom in the cart etc, and while emulation is probably more refined, and the carts are a nice touch with their colour manuals, better support etc, it's still just another emulation device. Whether it's worth investing in is something only you can say. The Chinese devices have one flat rate in that regard, and I'm not 100% sure whether the Evercade flash carts work on the EXP yet (don't think its worth looking at the older handheld now that that one is out and about), but don't quote me on that - probably just a matter of time at any rate.

Mr.Saturn

Forgot to mention above, but Retro Game Corps on YouTube does exhaustive reviews of these Chinese emulation devices as well as the recent Evercade. He’s generally my go-to to see if a device is worth bothering with.

Retr0gamer

What if I told you that konami aliens is an 8-bit game.

https://twitter.com/topapate/status/1623356719916281856?t=zyIy7jP5D4Km3A_cTLPmxQ&s=19

KeRbDoG

Thats interesting - wonder if its like the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine, known to most as a 16bit console but has an 8bit CPU and a 16bit chipset

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120221475#Comment_120221475

The Simpsons runs on the same hardware. It seems like a powerful processor as it can handle scaling unless there's a dedicated math processor for the matrix calculations involved. Further down the thread someone asked if there's 16 bit video processors and the author said they didn't check but they imagine there's some very powerful video chips.

o1s1n

It really would be great to get some of that Konami stuff finally on miSTer, The Simpsons, Sunset Riders and Turtles are huge omissions at the moment. Would love if Konami Asterix could get added in too.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120223536#Comment_120223536

Pretty sure they are all on the same board as aliens. If they get that working then I'd say they will follow.

geotrig

? pretty sure they are very different boards for aliens, simpsons ,sunset riders and one of the turtles. One of the turtle games is on a similar board to one of the other games above ,I just can never remember which one 😆

have never really looked or taken notice if any or any of the custom chips seemed the same really or unique though

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120223655#Comment_120223655

Think you are right, sunset riders looks to be 68000 based.

I know those sunset riders based games hard emulation issues on Mame for years and only got got fixed recently. They had incorrect layer sorting.

geotrig

yeah 6800 seems right for sunset but to be fair they all just have numerous konami chips so hard to **** know what was going on !

i just remember aliens being very different to Sunset Riders and Moo messa and the xmen only have sr left and have never had a simpsons :(

interesting on the aliens being "8bit" and kinda makes sense in hindsight when you really think about as it= defo never got a 16 bit vibe of it either. well maybe snes like rather than ng like :P

Retr0gamer

I just find it weird that there's so many scaling effects in it when it's a 8-bit game. Even the sega super scalers had an entire 68000 processor just for those calculations.

Then again 8 and 16 bit definitions kind of don't really dictate how fast a computer is either and was more marketing by Sega which ended up sticking.

DaveyDave

I must give Aliens a go, I've wanted to play it for got knows how long. I think one of the AvP games is also worth checking out?

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120224394#Comment_120224394

Capcom Alien Versus Predator is one of the best arcade games of all time IMO, it's absolutely brilliant.

If you want an interesting go at it, pick the female character Linn Kurosawa. She has a move set far more advanced than your usual beat em ups, almost feels more like she's out of a fighting game.

geotrig

☝️ what he said

Retr0gamer

I wholeheartedly endorse this endorsement.

Kimbot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120224454#Comment_120224454

My absolute favorite arcade game of all time, I spent an absolute fortune on this in the local bowling alley when it came out :)

Retr0gamer

Seems solar assault is finally playable in mame. Always wanted to give it a go. It's basically gradius as a starfox game.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120224703#Comment_120224703

Wasn't Stillorgan bowling alley by any chance was it? Only place I ever saw it in Ireland and threw a fortune at it too. It really drew a crowd in too, there were always queues for it.

I sold all of my CPS2 PCBs a while ago but couldn't let AVP go, it's been sitting in one of my arcade machines now for ten years. Other PCBs have sat on top of it over the years, but AVP has never left!

Kimbot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120224740#Comment_120224740

No it was leisureplex in tallaght :)

My ain is to own a cabinet someday and AVP is the 1 game I want for it, I have played the game to death on my pandora box and now I will have to play it again this evening when I get home from work :)

Kimbot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120224845#Comment_120224845

Oh and I want to own a Naomi cab for Virtua Striker :)

o1s1n

Anyone else see this absolutely bullshit article on RTE?

https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2023/0213/1356333-video-games-golden-age/

Clearly written by someone who grew up playing games after the year 2000 and has absolutely zero knowledge or experience with anything that came before.

'The 1990s was an era in which the creative potential of developers remained constrained by the limited capabilities of early consoles and domestic computers. The developers of the 8-bit era made the most of the hardware available to them, and pixelated arcade style games seemed quite cutting edge at the time. But the technology just wasn’t sufficient to deliver rich, immersive playable spaces: a developer’s imagination and what could actually be made into a game were worlds apart.'

Based on that article, you'd swear the late 90s never happened.

johnny_ultimate

Even worse than being ahistoric, the suggestion that contemporary games are creatively stagnated while entirely ignoring the sheer vibrancy, diversity and experimentation within the lower-budget and indie space invalidates the entire central thesis of the article. And that he singled out Elden Ring of all AAA games for criticism is particularly amusing :P

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120236665#Comment_120236665

The comment re Elden Ring is certainly something alright 😁

'The game is beautiful, but its mechanics feel like something from 2004: hit one button to dodge, the other to attack. It’s a common complaint: you’re either dodging or parrying then countering. Rinse and repeat (oh, and collect some stuff).

It's 100% case in point of the writer becoming bored with AAA games in general and rather than realise that, laments that 'the golden age of videogames is over'.

No mate, you've just spent too long playing AAA titles. Maybe play something else.