If Next-Gen Is Too Pricey Go Retro

Via RetroGaming with Racketboy, a story in the San Francisco Chronicle suggesting that you go retro if the new consoles are too expensive. They single out the (still excellent) Sega Dreamcast console as the best buy for your money vs. enjoyment. The folks at SF Gate also mention several other older games and consoles that will allow modern gamers their fun without breaking the bank. From the article: "Scenario 4: I'm poorer than any of the characters from 'Angela's Ashes' but not quite as poor as Jim Braddock's family when the heat got shut off in 'Cinderella Man.' (I pulled this newspaper out of the recycling bin at BART.): You've presented a challenge, but not an impossible one. I saw a copy of the PC game Grim Fandango, a complete masterpiece that most people never played, for $6 on eBay. Since it came out in 1998, you can probably find an abandoned computer on the curb that will play it. You'll be experiencing about 98.5 percent of the fun that the Getty heir who bought the PS3 is having, at about 1 percent of the price. "

Comments

Exactly right

[Kraeloc]

Indeed, I did exactly that. I rescued an old IBM Aptiva with a K6-2 processor of the side of the road, and played through the entirety of Grim Fandango on it. It was awesome.

Re:Exactly right

[TrekCycling]

The Dreamcast can still be purchased NEW for $100. If you want your vintage in mint condition that's a great deal. Then you can proceed to have fun with Crazy Taxi, Jet Grind Radio, Chu Chu Rocket, etc.

Re:Exactly right

[spire3661]

Link please

Re:Exactly right

[sesshomaru]

Oh and don't forget Beats of Rage, that's the price of a blank CD.

For professionally developed games, I recommend Ooga Booga... (Oh, and an import CD player and Shenmue II and Vampire Collection)...

Don't forget the VGA cable!

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[Broken scope]

Will sony or developers be providing the dedicated servers for the 64+ player games that will inevitably come along?

Atari Flashback 2.0

[7grain]

From the article:
The Atari 2600 has come back in several different forms, but the Atari Flashback 2.0 is the only product I've seen that captures the feel of the original late 1970s Atari 2600 console -- including the first Atari Flashback, which is a piece of junk. Among the console's 40 games are the three most important ones: Combat, Pitfall and Yar's Revenge. It's not hard to find a Flashback 2.0 discounted below its $29.82 retail price.

I was initially going to post that I bought one of these last week directly from atari.com for US$19.99, shipping included. Point being that if anyone was interested in this great console, then that was the place to get it.

BUT, now that I'm going to the Atari website to look for a link that I can post, there is no mention of the Flashback console on their website. So... I'm thinking: if you want one, and you see one in the stores, buy it today because it might not be there next month. Whenever I see it in the stores, it's $30.
I'll try to give you this link to the google cache for the page that I ordered from about two weeks ago. Which doesn't help you buy one for twenty bucks, but it does prove that I'm not crazy. :)

Yes, indeed that link does work. Good luck hunting for a deal.

Cheers.

PONG!

[freewaybear]

Ok, I kid. But I still find old NES systems at yard sales for almost nothing, usually with games, dirt cheap, and they are still a blast. (Plus I can actually keep up with the kids, kinda.) Don't go to Gamestop, or pawnshops though, because they caught onto the "retro" thing, and try to rape you on the price.

sad

[grumpygrodyguy]

How did Slashdot get so incredibly populated with noobs?

EMULATORS

I'd ask you to look the word up on wikipedia, but you've probably never heard of that either.

RIP SD

Re:sad

[kestasjk]

Have you ever actually used a Dreamcast emulator? There are always sprites that don't render, polygons which are the wrong color, games which don't load, graphics which were meant to be viewed on the relatively blurry TV looking terrible on a computer screen, etc.

Also the computers required to run an emulator with any sort of speed will always be more expensive than the console, unless you're talking about an antique console which you can no longer find. That kind of defeats the object of trying to be cheap; who doesn't have the money to buy a modern console but does have the money to buy a PC which can emulate one?

Re:sad

[Lord Kano]

How correct you are, Emulators have allowed me to rediscover the joys of the old school games of my youth. At one time, If you had told me that I'd play Below The Root on a 19" LCD, I would have laughed at you.

You can emulate damned near everything from the Atari 2600 to the Playstation, and in some cases get better results than with the original system.

LK

Re:sad

[mrchaotica]

Well then, you just need to go really retro and get SNES/Genesis-era games. Just think, you can go back and play all those rare "gems" you missed, like Michael Jackson's Moonwalker for the Genesis (seriously, it's hilarious for at least a couple of minutes)! : )

Not to mention you could also play actually good games, like Mario Kart and Ecco the Dolphin.

Re:sad

[mwvdlee]

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that it's all a rather "gray" area. Especially with emulators for systems like Playstation and Gameboy Advance, which are still being sold. Even the older titles and systems are still copyrighted; the "gray" being that these are no longer commercially sold.

Buying an actual retro console, or atleast something properly licensed, comes without any moral qualms and includes controlers and all the other hardware for which these games were designed.

FYI, I used to have a vast collection of emulators myself. Pretty much everything you could find upto 2000 or so. I stopped when they started doing PS1 emulators and such, which seemed to be more like a commercial effort rather than the labour-of-love emulators used to be. It was around the time a lot of old-school emulator programmers quit the scene for pretty much the same reason.

Re:sad

[mgblst]

Can you really say that playing Soul Caliber on an emulator is the same experience as playing it on the dreamcast? Two people hunched over each side of the keyboard.

I mean emulators are great, but they never match the whole experience, how can they? I am sure that a dreamcast wouldn't cost that much. Every heard of ebay?

Re:sad

[cafard]

Two people hunched over each side of the keyboard.

'Every' heard of joypads?

I play all emulators with a ps2 controller plugged in with a usb adapter. While i have no idea for Soul Caliber on dreamcast, all variants of Street Fighter II and the entire Mortal Kombat franchise feel as good under mame as they are on arcade.

Re:sad

[ShakaUVM]

You can buy USB gamepads. It's quite fun, really, especially with the older arcade games like Magic Sword and Golden Axe.

Re:sad

[Das Modell]

Some day, I should try running an emulator program of some sort inside an Amiga emulator. I wonder if it would be possible to run an emulator inside an emulator that's running inside an emulator. That would be really weird, to say the least.

Re:sad

[funfail]

Years ago I tried running the Sinclair Spectrum emulator (kind of... It only emulated BASIC interpreter) running on a Commodore 64 emulator running on an Amiga. Today it is perfectly possible to run the same setup using an Amiga emulator on PC instead of a real Amiga.

Even my cell phone (Symbian 60) has a fully functional (with sound) C64 emulator on it. Too bad that you cannot connect a joystick to the phone. I should have bought an NGage...

Re:sad

[Mattintosh]

There's no "gray" area if you own the original games, but not the console (except in cases where the console has a BIOS, which started becoming common with the PSX). The games are often easy to find at thrift stores (like Goodwill) or resale shops (there's a good chain called "Slackers" here). Ebay is also decent.

Once you have the game, the ROM is legal, or at least as close as you need to worry about being. (Technically, the ROM is only fully legal if you rip it yourself. It's just that you could claim to have ripped it if you show the original cart, and nobody would bother to call you on it.) PSX games are even easier, as you can play them directly from the CD, and it's not difficult to rip your own ISO if you want the convenience.

As far as controllers are concerned, well, it's easy to find dead consoles, salvage some spare parts, and make a cool console-controller-to-USB or -parallel bus converter. There are even premade drivers for some of them.

Re:sad

[Anonymous Coward]

EMULATORS I'd ask you to look the word up on wikipedia, but you've probably never heard of that either.

I'll F U now, but I'll emulator.

Re:sad

[lupinstel]

Emulator!!! I hardly knew her!

Re:sad

[KrazeeEyezKilla]

Until emulators add a feature where you have to blow into the roms to make them work they won't be able to match the enjoyment of a real console.

Re:sad

[brkello]

How did you get modded up instead of flamebait?

Of course the majority of Slashdotters know about emulators. Some people would rather play legally. Some people would rather play on consoles.

I am sure the majority of people on here know about wikipedia too. Instead of insulting people who are probably vastly smarter than you and more humble, you could try to present your thoughts in a way that doesn't make you look like a jerk. Just say something like "Another great way to experience classic games is emulators. Here are some of my favorites...and try these games..." You will get better responses and people will actually appreciate your post.

Re:sad

[DanTheManMS]

There's an NES emulator for the Gameboy Color called either "nes2gb" or "fcgb2" (can't remember exact name) which runs a select few NES games (Donkey Kong, Popeye) at a horrible framerate (but with sound!). This GBC image can then be emulated by Goomba Color, a GBC emulator for the Gameboy Advance. The GBA can then be emulated by the PSP (or by a PC). As far as I'm aware, no PSP emulator for the PC is advanced enough to add another link to the chain here.

Re:sad

[dosius]

Some emulators still exist as labors of love. Like AppleWin, or my own Dapple (which is only sporadically updated). It's only the ones for the newer systems, really, that are done for leetness factor, I'd think.

-uso.

Re:sad

[xtieburn]

Got emulators. Got them for just about every console you can think of. Have quite literally tens of thousands of games.
Played on about 10 of them for a fairly short period of time and that was only when we had hooked an X-Box in to a jamma cabinet.

Getting every game in existence usually means you play none of them. On the other hand my megadrive stack (MegaCD, megadrive, master system adaptor.) has us playing while drinking, chatting and generally relaxing.

Why this is is probably for various reasons. Easier to pick out games when you only have a shelf of specially bought ones. My friend likes the fact that he has a collection of games that he was once denied due to being too young to come close to affording them. Far more tactile having all the original controllers. Aesthetically pleasing to see your systems all set up (I have megaCD1 and its about the meanest looking console you can get.) etc. etc.

Emulators are good for a tinker, I could imagine being fantastically pleased if you were writing one, but ultimately playing them, at least in this house, is completely unsatisfying.

Which is probably why we have, SNES, Megadrive, MegaCD, Mastersystem (In three different forms), Gamegear, CD32 (My particular favorite.), Spectrum, Dreamcast, Original Gameboy (If only for the original and best Nintendo Tetris.), Jamma cabinet, all set up to play at a moments notice. Every bit of it, well worth the cash.

Re:sad

[Soul-Burn666]

Playing PS1, N64 and DC games in 1280x960 is pretty damn cool.
I've recently finished Ocarina Of Time on an emulator and in all honesty, it looked great! Certainly better than on a real N64.
Soul Calibur also scales well to high res. Even tho the emulation is far from perfect, the gameplay itself is still awesome.

margin of error (+/-) 0.5%

[thatguywhoiam]

You'll be experiencing about 98.5 percent of the fun that the Getty heir who bought the PS3 is having, at about 1 percent of the price.

Boy am I glad they are finally measuring these things with properly calibrated Fun-O-Meters so we can get an objective read of the situation.

Hang on, '1% of the price?' He got a Dreamcast for $6.50? Nice.

Re:margin of error (+/-) 0.5%

[Gothic_Walrus]

I'm going to take a wild guess and assume you didn't even read the full summary.

I saw a copy of the PC game Grim Fandango, a complete masterpiece that most people never played, for $6 on eBay. Since it came out in 1998, you can probably find an abandoned computer on the curb that will play it. You'll be experiencing about 98.5 percent of the fun that the Getty heir who bought the PS3 is having, at about 1 percent of the price.

$6 game + $0 computer = $6. No Dreamcast involved there.

Re:margin of error (+/-) 0.5%

[$1uck]

Read the summary... PC found on the roadside = 0. Game on ebay = 6. Thats a total of $6 bucks.
So yeah.

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[macshit]

$499 'too pricey' for games that already look like this(Motorstorm):

Yes.

I've played the PS3 in the store, and while it looks nice, it clearly didn't live up to the hype, and my overall impression was sort of "meh". Not worth the price. I may get one when it hits $250 or so.

A new spin on it

[ILuvRamen]

I was in the Sega Genesis and N64 generation and now that I have emulators and N64 controller to USB adapter, it's not only fun to go back to my favorite games (Phantasy Star 3 Generations of doom w00t!) but now there's universal forced pause and forced save state options that can make for some extra interesting situations as well as a fully integrated game genie/shark system that's way more efficient than the original. It's like playing the old games and then some! The best part is it was all cheap or free and I do still actually own the cartridges so it's legal too! I'd suggest emulation over actually playing older consoles. As for PC games...Comanche 4 is still compatible lol.

Re:A new spin on it

[crankyspice]

I do still actually own the cartridges so it's legal too!

Really? You sure about that? Which part of Title 17 of the United States Code do you read as permitting reproduction into a different media for the purpose of playing (private performance)? 117 might apply, but you didn't reproduce the contents as an archival step, you made a transformation into a different media. Space-shifting as a fair use was built atop the Audio Home Recording Act's carveout, so I don't think RIAA v. Diamond helps you here (though happy to be proven wrong).

I'm not saying it's legal. Or that it's not. Just that it's anything but clear-cut.

Re:A new spin on it

[ILuvRamen]

ROM sites put it on and don't get shut down. That's all the proof I need. Btw don't copyrights run out after 10 years anyway? And wtf, the RIAA has nothing to do with games at all. If they got into games, people would storm their HQ with pitchforks and torches.

Re:A new spin on it

[mrchaotica]

Which part of Title 17 of the United States Code do you read as permitting reproduction into a different media for the purpose of playing (private performance)?

Oh, well of course that would be subsection 42, paragraph Q, clause IV, entitled "Common Fucking Sense!" It's a little known clause, especially among those involved in the legal system...

Re:A new spin on it

[Anonymous Coward]

ROM sites put it on and don't get shut down

There is absolutely nothing legal about ROM sites hosted in the US (or in any country that has signed the Berne Convention or any similar international treaty). Even if you own the original game, you most certainly do not have the right to distribute that game.

Btw don't copyrights run out after 10 years anyway?

If you insist on being misinformed, then at least abstain from spewing your nonsense all over Slashdot. There's enough of that here as it is.

Re:A new spin on it

[crankyspice]

ROM sites put it on and don't get shut down. That's all the proof I need.

I was in a car going 95 mph, and I didn't get a ticket! It must be legal!

Btw don't copyrights run out after 10 years anyway?

At least in the U.S. (with most of Europe being similar, IIRC; part of the Berne Convention), for "corporate" works like most console video games, it's 95 years from date of first release.

And wtf, the RIAA has nothing to do with games at all.

There's this thing called stare decisis, you might know it as "precedent." There was a case in 1999, the RIAA suing Diamond over its Rio MP3 player. That case gave us precedent to cite for "space-shifting" as a fair use, however, it appears to have been applicable only to digital audio, for which an exemption from the copyright act's blanket (subject to "carve-outs") reservation of the reproduction right as exclusive to the copyright holder was made by the Audio Home Recording Act.

You're right, the RIAA does not administer rights to video games per se (if anyone does, it would probably be the ESA). But they were the plaintiffs in a case that one might cite in support of the position that ROM files may be legal.

Hope your brain hasn't exploded. I know there's actual information here, which might be too much for you.

Re:A new spin on it

[crankyspice]

Oh, well of course that would be subsection 42, paragraph Q, clause IV, entitled "Common Fucking Sense!" It's a little known clause, especially among those involved in the legal system...

Tell that one to the judge, you'll all get a good chuckle before he enters judgment against you. :)

Re:A new spin on it

[Jackmn]

Wow, what a blatant misuse of mod points. Hopefully metamoderation will catch that.

Re:A new spin on it

[Jackmn]

Err, that was sitting at -1:Troll when I posted that.

Re:A new spin on it

[sesshomaru]

I don't understand, does this guy keep getting modded down because he's explaining what the actual laws say and not what people on Slashdot wish they would say?

The mods today remind me of my girlfriend when I tell her we can't afford something...

Re:A new spin on it

[Mattintosh]

The AHRA certainly puts a lot of pressure on other forms of media to conform to the same measure of "fair use". RIAA v. Diamond sets a strong precedent, and not just for audio.

It could also be argued that, as the hardware used to play older games is no longer produced, space-shifting is in itself a form of archival preservation, and use of archival copies is simply fair use.

Re:A new spin on it

[crankyspice]

The AHRA certainly puts a lot of pressure on other forms of media to conform to the same measure of "fair use". RIAA v. Diamond sets a strong precedent, and not just for audio.

The AHRA was a legislative construct where the 'private copying' exemption was (at least in theory) offset by the tariff [for lack of a better word] placed on blank media. The (c) industry as a whole is pretty strongly opposed to such "taking" and, representing our single largest export and ~5% of our GDP, has some pretty strong lobbying support on the Hill. The odds of an AHRA-like piece of legislation passing both houses is pretty slim, I'd wager, but we'll see what the new Congressional majority's temperment is. As it stands now, Diamond applies only to audio, since it was only space-shifting being presumably "within the ambit of the [Audio Home Recording] Act" that made it fair use. Other copyrighted works don't fall within the ambit of the Act.

It could also be argued that, as the hardware used to play older games is no longer produced, space-shifting is in itself a form of archival preservation, and use of archival copies is simply fair use.

There you might have something, under 17 USC 117(a)(1) (permitting an adaptation as a necessary step in using the software with "a machine"). Though you'd probably want to have copied the ROM to the computer yourself for the cleanest application of that doctrine.

Re:A new spin on it

[Not Anonymous Coward]

You've got to be the only person I know that likes Phantasy Star III, with a w007 even.

Re:A new spin on it

[Endo13]

I was in a car going 95 mph, and I didn't get a ticket! It must be legal!Depending on where your hypothetical situation happened, yes it was legal. But I'll play along with you, and assume you're implying USA public roads where all speed limits are less than 95MPH. So with that assumption, driving 95MPH is neither more nor less legal than driving .0000001 MPH over the speed limit. But you've never done that either, have you? However, the one might actually get you thrown in jail while the other they'll just ignore. But if you did in fact drive your vehicle at 95MPH past many on-duty officers many times, you can safely assume that they most likely don't care about your infraction, whether or not it's legal. The same can be said about ROMs sites. No one's trying to hide them. Look at the way they're going after bit torrent sites that don't even host the actual files, and then look at the way they ignore the ROM sites. Yeah, I'd say it's safe to assume they probably don't care - and that's even regarding all the people downloading ROMs who don't own the original cartridge where you know it's not legal. The law only carries any weight as far as those responsible for enforcing it can and do enforce it.

Hope your brain hasn't exploded. I know there's actual logic here, which might be too much for you.

Re:A new spin on it

[Anonymous Coward]

Misuse? When I see assholish shit like this tacked onto the end of a post:

"Hope your brain hasn't exploded. I know there's actual information here, which might be too much for you."

Then I'll mod it right the fuck down where it belongs.

Re:A new spin on it

[Jackmn]

Misuse? When I see assholish shit like this tacked onto the end of a post: "Hope your brain hasn't exploded. I know there's actual information here, which might be too much for you." Then I'll mod it right the fuck down where it belongs.

I have absolutely zero sympathy for the individual who was replied to after posting something full of so much idiotic misinformation. A five minute Google search would have cured him of his ignorance, but instead he decided to shoot off nonsense as fact.

The post putting him in his place 'belongs' at +5.

Re:A new spin on it

[CelticWhisper]

Now you know two. :-)

It wasn't the series' best (IMHO, that was part 4), and the pacing was rather slow, but it still pulled off a neat fusion of fantasy and sci-fi with easily the most medieval feel of the series. Plus the soundtrack was quite memorable for the resources they had to compose it.

ONLY "98.5%"?!!

[MuNansen]

Believe me...anyone playing Grim Fandango is having a great deal more fun than someone playing anything currently available for the PS3.

Re:ONLY "98.5%"?!!

[tsa]

Not my father. The poor man tried so hard, but he just can't get his head around adventure games. He has more fun playing card games on his PC.

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[miro f]

when you have an installed base of 200k compared to 8 million, it's much easier to supply people with lag free servers...

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[Broken scope]

Who is providing those servers? Who will pay for them on 3rd party games? That is what I am asking.

Indie Games

[ith(4mor3)]

There are so many freeware and shareware games that have been released online by independent developers and programming hobbyists.

The Independent Games Festival is a good start. And to make things easier, there are a many sites and blogs that review indie games and make recommendations: the2bears and Shoot the Core cover shoot-em ups/STGs; Jay is Games handles flash and casual games; and TIGSource (for which I'm an editor), Independent Gaming, and Game Tunnel cover all genres of games. You can expect to find some overlapping, but they each have plenty to search through.

Re:Indie Games

[ith(4mor3)]

I meant to say there are other alternatives such as indie games for the PC. I'd have to agree with the SF Gate article that the Dreamcast is the best bet for the $ to fun ratio (I'd say the Sega Saturn and N64 tie for second), but I'm more of a fan of the pricier Turbo Grafx CD and Turbo Duo.

As for really retro and cheap gaming, Atari Age has ROMs (including homebrews and prototypes) and emulators for the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, and Lynx. One of my favorites is a prototype for the 5200 Blaster, which is a rail FPS. I love the giggly square explosions.

When I talked to one of their guys at the Oklahoma Video Game Exhibition, he said Atari was pretty cool with all the attention AtariAge brings to their old systems.

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[Jerf]

As a computer programmer by trade, I tend to "see through" the graphics to the underlying engine.

So far, while my PS3 sampling is anything but thorough, I am yet to see any engines that are any more advanced than anything on the PS2. Graphics? Nice, and I can't argue with the sharpness. (On TV equipment I don't own, but that topic's been done to death.)

I'm sure some Grand Theft Auto 4 sort of thing will eventually knock my socks off (Grand Theft Auto 3 was the first PS2 game that I saw that I really felt like the Dreamcast couldn't have handled), but we're not there yet.

Nintendo gets the nod here, because the controller means that even though there may well never be a Wii game with an engine that the PS2 couldn't technically have handled competently, the PS2 (and the rest of the current generation) wouldn't be able to let you interact with the engine. So maybe they won't be richer or more powerful but at least they'll be different.

Game engines: The underappreciated component of gaming fun.

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[Broken scope]

Devs can use dedicated servers. The BF games run on dedicated servers run by EA. The early unreal game ran on dedicated servers provided by players and epic. It purely a choice by the DEV.

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[ith(4mor3)]

I'm thinking of waiting for the PS3 slim myself.

C64

[tsa]

You can of course also buy an old Commodore 64. And if you want something new, you can also buy a joystick that looks like Spongebob, which has a C64 plus a lot of games built in. I'm thinking about picking up one of these. They're only around 20 euros or so.

Re:C64

[Rob T Firefly]

But on the downside, you have to play with a joystick that looks like Spongebob. *shudder*

I'm going to have to agree with the article

[AbRASiON]

There is a mammoth amount of games out right now for the PC, Playstation 2 and Xbox 1.

If you (like I) am a nostalgia style gamer there's so much fun to be had.
Graphics and online aren't everything, for those of us who enjoy a good single player experience with a good storyline - graphics help but aren't the be all and end all.

I could go into naming all the games but I don't see much point, it's opinion which counts - the fact is the PS2 and Xbox are cheap, a PC which will run games from 1985 (yes 85) to 2000 is dirt cheap and that's 15 years of gaming right there.

Now, some of it is despicably bad and just unplayable (example, X-Wing 1, fantastic game but I re-tried it recently and sorry but 320x200 is no good - it's just TOO blocky, specially on the big screens we all own now)
However Monkey Island 1, Loom, even the 256 colour version of Zak McCracken are all perfectly good games despite being dead old.
There's No one Lives forever a nice FPS with, frankly a fucking great storyline - awesome camp humour and good gameplay - it's seriously like they packed about 15 bond movies into one game.

The PS1 games will work on the PS2 and well the Xbox may have the least games for it but it can be used for NES / SNES / other old console emulation and a media centre (plus KOTOR, Fable, Psychonauts, Beyond good and Evil, Jade Empire)

I for one intend to finish Wing Commander 3 soon - it's a great game also and yet any old crappy PC can run it now.

I would recommend people go to Metacritic and pull up their listing of top games on the platforms - then pick and chose what you like.
Also be sure to get a modified PS2 or Xbox and load the games to the hard disk, if you've purchased a second hand unit of either the laser assembly could be somewhat worn and the faster load times are the ONLY way to play games in my opinion, screw noisy, slow, seeking discs

Here's the blog of a chap I know who focuses primarily on older games for the cheap price.
(excellent game on the main page at the moment too)
http://roushimsx.livejournal.com/

Oh and the final good bulletpoint for you guys, the PS3, Xbox 360 and even the Wii will ALL still be there after you submerse yourself in a land of nostalgia for 6 months - only there will be MORE games, and CHEAPER games plus the systems could be cheaper too.
Personally, I'm hoping to hold out a good 12 - > 18 months.

Good luck.

Re:I'm going to have to agree with the article

[meringuoid]

However Monkey Island 1, Loom, even the 256 colour version of Zak McCracken are all perfectly good games despite being dead old.

Play it in ScummVM and you can get them with nice antialiasing, too.

Re:I'm going to have to agree with the article

[Sigma 7]

Now, some of it is despicably bad and just unplayable (example, X-Wing 1, fantastic game but I re-tried it recently and sorry but 320x200 is no good - it's just TOO blocky, specially on the big screens we all own now)

There's a "collectors" edition which is a Windows-native copy. It runs at 640x480 - although that is still on the blocky side, it is much more comfortable than playing at the original resolution.

As for blockyness, try playing the game in a windowed mode - it may cause some other quirks, but it may be a bit more comfortable to watch. This might not be possible in some cases (e.g. using the stock Windows VM), but there are workarounds available.

Re:I'm going to have to agree with the article

[Rhys]

Lucasarts (* or whatever they are now) really needs to put out another good game in the X-Wing series. TIE-Fighter was great back in the mid 90s. And X-Wing Alliance was great. It looks reasonably nice these days if a bit old. Too bad your wingmen are still stupid as ever in it.

Re:I'm going to have to agree with the article

[twistedsymphony]

Interesting concept... PS3 = $600+ (realistically a lot more on the open market)

Xbox 1 = $100 + $50
PS2 = $100
Gamecube = $50

With a PS2, Gamecube, and modified Xbox 1 you'll have the equipment to play:

• Atari 2600
• Atari Jaguar
• Commodore 64
• DOS x86 (yes there is an Xbox emulator for that)
• Sega Genesis
• Sega Master System
• Gamecube
• Gameboy
• Gameboy Color
• Gameboy Advance
• GameGear
• NES
• SNES
• N64
• Playstation 1
• Playstation 2
• Virtual Boy
• Xbox

All for about HALF the price of a PS3, cheaper if you can find those consoles used... For an extra $40-$60 you can pickup a Dreamcast and or a Saturn for those games as well (IMO the Dreamcast still has some of the best games ever made)

Re:I'm going to have to agree with the article

[poot_rootbeer]

I wouldn't list "Virtual Boy" as a platform that you're able to play on your GC/PS2/modded Xbox combo, even if for some reason you WANTED to play exciting VB titles like Red Eyestrain.

Even apart from the inability to do true 3D, Virtual Boy emulation is not very advanced yet. Games run slowly with a lot of lag, and sound emulation is mostly unlistenable.

Re:I'm going to have to agree with the article

[twistedsymphony]

Actually they've got a really cool addition to the latest VB emulator that lets you use the Red/Blue 3D glasses to actually play the game in 3D. I've actually tried it, it's quite cool. It sill runs a little slow, but it's playable, I also didn't experience any of the sound issues you cite.

PS2 here I come

[ditoa]

I just got myself a PS2 with a few games such as God of War and ICO. I also picked up Tony Hawk Project 8 and Call of Duty 3 which is brand new for only £20 (good price considering how new it is) at the moment in some shops. I am having a blast playing these games. The console cost me £100 with an official memory card and a joytech RGB scart cable (im in the UK so RGB is the best picture I can get). For under £150 I have got myself a great gaming system with some stunning games. I thought about a Wii but its still too expensive for me. I would have spent £150 for it but £180 is just a little bit too much. Maybe when the price drops. Until then I am very happy with the PS2 as games are so cheap now (like £5-10 for the ones I want). I own an Xbox anyway for XBMC however never played a game on it. I might pick up an xbox game or two if I see any I fancy.

Re:PS2 here I come

[hurfy]

Right on, i just bought a Xbox off my buddy to help support his Xbox360 habit :) $80 with 2 games and 2 controllers plus $45 for 5 more games off ebay. Now i just add the couple specific games i wanted and i'll still be under $200.

Re:PS2 here I come

[gunny01]

Please get a copies of GTA 3, VC and SA. A gamer that has not played GTA is a (culturally) poorer gamer.

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[DoktorSeven]

Or so you've been told. Reality is that no, it's not so advanced and PS2 games can actually hold their own in gameplay with Motorstorm. I have no scientific facts or such to back that up, of course, but I didn't see any in the above post either. Yet by simply playing the game and comparing it to similar games on the PS2, and even the Dreamcast, there's not much difference in any physics. Nothing noticeable, anyway, since if it's true that there is more physics stuff going on, I sure didn't experience it.

It's basically everyone being told that these expensive, shiny new systems are superior in every way, and people see the shiny graphics, drool, and believe every word of it. People want to believe what they are told, and especially those who buy these systems defend the price they paid for it in their minds by fooling themselves into believing it will do everything including curing cancer, and do it better. Sure, the PS3 and the XBox 360 are a bit more powerful than their predecessors. The issue is whether they are significantly more powerful so that games for them are truly next-gen. And in general, except for the graphics, they're really not. And graphics, sorry to say, are not the most important part of a game. If you like pretty graphics and stuff exploding, go watch a movie, go outside, or whatever.

On topic, it amazes me how we march forward into the next generation of gaming and are so willing to pay so much money to be entertained in the same way that we have been entertained by consoles in the past. Given that there are so many good games available for past consoles that you haven't played (unless you are just a hardcore, no-life-outside-of-games gamer that has literally played it all), it's hard to imagine the need for a new console generation. The same, unfortunately, can be said about other entertainment media, especially film which is suffering from the same style-over-substance problem that gaming has, so it is not just gaming that is at issue here. Just like many modern film fans who love the latest SFX-filled action yawner and turn their noses up at old black-and-white cinema classics, new gamers that drool over graphics and won't give old games a second look are shallow people who do not care about the substance of the medium.

It's sad, really.

Right now, I'm replaying (actually re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-replaying) The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past for SNES and loving it. Old Commodore 64 and Atari 2600 (granted, only a few 2600 games are compelling enough to get regular play, but there are a few of them) games get regular play. I even played through Zork 1 recently. All of these are gaming experiences lost on the latest generation of gamers whose gaming snobbery prevent them from even looking twice at a game without shiny new 3d graphics.

Their loss.

Custom Team Fortress

[ShakaUVM]

If you go to www.customtf.com you can download everything you need to play the original Team Fortress for Quake1, which came out 10 years ago but still has tons of players.

Essentially, CustomTF is Team Fortress, but you can build your own classes, using a cost based system. It's a lot of fun, and I'm not just saying that since I wrote the mod myself. =)

Get a GP2X ..

[torpor]

And you can have the best of a lot of worlds .. SEGA, MAME, Nintendo, Playstation .. all platforms being emulated, quite well, on a handy, inexpensive, portable, 100% open, Linux box...

Re:Get a GP2X ..

[Anonymous Coward]

The gp2x is a great system (I love mine a lot) but please don't claim it emulates the Playstation..very few games are anything near playable.

Anything older though? The emulation is frickin' awesome. And GBA is about to get very good, what with the gPSP port.

Grim fandango

[franksands]

Oh how I miss the PC adventure games...

Re:Grim fandango

[badenglishihave]

Check out this site for fan-made adventure games (I believe they are mostly free) - http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ . Some of them are quite good!

Re:Grim fandango

[CyberSybil]

I own a PS2 and refuse to upgrade to a PS3 until I find that damned Amulet of Yendor. That gives me about three years.

Tremulous

[rwa2]

I've never done Custom Team Fortress, so I might be comparing apples and oranges, but the open source game Tremulous (http://tremulous.net/) based on the Quake3 engine also has a cost-based upgrade and construction basis. Plus, you can play as an opposing alien race very different from other FPSs.

Re:Tremulous

[ShakaUVM]

Looks different, somewhat. Building structures, etc. But as in CustomTF, you get stronger as you kill people (though in CuTF it is capped at 50% over the base starting point, so people can't get too out of balance). We have tesla sentries, too, and I'm reasonably sure we did 'em first. =)

Shameless plug (was: PONG)

[Dwonis]

Want to play pong? Download my pong clone.

don't get this emulator-rage

[Wooky_linuxer]

Let's see. If people are reading this in /., they most probably already own a computer, so it is hard to say that it will be much more expensive than buying a second-hand console.

Second, most emulators allow you to use USB joysticks. So there goes the argument of two people crammed in front of a keyboard. Also, most decent (and that doesn't mean expensive) GPUs today sport some sort of TV-OUT capability, so you can just play the games in your TV-set.

I concede that sometimes emulation isn't up to pair with the original console. But that doesn't mean it is always inferior.

Re:don't get this emulator-rage

[funfail]

Correct. But a Dreamcast is really cheap and it is almost as good as a PS2. I always prefer a dedicated gaming machine instead of using my PC. If my PC is turned on, it is most probably doing something cpu intensive. If it is turned off, then it's easier to turn on the Dreamcast.

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[revlayle]

Wow... 5 million vs. 8 million vs. 200K - you are even more of a moron. The ratio of Sony vs. MS online player base is still pretty freaking small. Splitting hairs is making you sound like an idiot.... no really... it is.

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[Endo13]

Actually, the AC is right (though I admit his language is more trollish than needed). How big the overall installed player base is has absolutely nothing to do with how well a dedicated server performs. The only number of players that matters here is how many the server can handle. If MS really is having trouble running servers with just 8 players connected, they seriously need to rework their system.

(main) Retro = Fun++

[Baiken]

lovely Dreamcast of yore, the last "real" console, not the overhyped "entertainment center"(handicapped PC), we get to see today... Soul Calibur, Jet Grind Radio, Skies of Arcadia, Guilty Gear X, those were the games my friend... Even more retro: NesterDc, especial Edition, the BEST Nes emulator for consoles out there: http://www.sch3rz0.com/nesterdcse/ shame the old sega we knew is as dead as the moon...

Inconsiderate

[silentounce]

But on Slashdot, the majority of readers use WebTV. They don't make emulators that run on that!

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[MooseMuffin]

"If you like pretty graphics and stuff exploding, go watch a movie, go outside, or whatever."

Or I can play my shiny new console. Why are you telling me I shouldn't look to videogames for my graphics fix? I was perfectly happy with the way games were played last generation. I was perfectly happy with the way they were played the generation before that too. The pace of gameplay innovations has been just fine in my eyes. Give me the gameplay types I've come to love with an extra dose of pretty and I'll be happy. Obviously I'm not alone. If graphics aren't important to you thats fine, but don't say they aren't important to the genre.

I played and enjoyed the hell out of a Link to the Past. I've probably played through Zelda OOT and FF6 five times each (OOT as recently as a month ago). Those games are no less great now than they were then, but they also were graphically fantastic at the time they were released and that certainly contributed to their success.

Just kick it oldschool!

[1337W422102]

I got an NES with its cables, 2 controllers, the Advantage stick and about 20 games for 30 bucks. Found a Zapper for a quarter. My older brother's SNES died on us, so I got him another one with a controller. Another 30 bucks. "Resistance" can suck it, I'm playing "Dr. Mario" and "Super Metroid."

Cost versus Fun

[NorbrookC]

Finally someone pointing out what I've always considered obvious. You don't need the latest and greatest to enjoy gaming.

Think about it. By the time you've acquired the latest game platform (PS3,Wii, X-Box360), the accessories, and bought the games, you've invested almost $1000. Are you really enjoying those games so much more than the old ones? Is the gaming experience so much better? Yeah, the graphics are cooler, but after that?

I can remember spending many hours working my way through "Crystal Caves." No graphics, just text. I had a lot of fun. I still go back on occasion to Doom 1. Yes, the new FPS's have much better graphics, but for sheer fun of playing, Doom still rocks!

I get a little tired of the hardware treadmill. Yeah, thanks for letting me know that I need to spend another 500 dollars to be able to play this new game, since the system I bought last year (or the video card, motherboard, processor, RAM) won't run it. Oh, and the year after that, we need you to spend yet another $500 because the new game needs it! No thanks, I think I'll use the money for something else, and enjoy the games that will run on what I've got. They're just as much fun.

Re:Cost versus Fun

[Soul-Burn666]

More to your point. When Doom was just released, it was the top of the line fun. Everyone played it and said it's great.
Pick it up now in the form of jDoom, it's still great and ages well due to the added high res and mouse look.

The only things that really make newer games better is technical things like unlimited save points (instead of checkpoints), more customization of UI/tweaks, increased resolution or good scaling, and generally more refined controls.
For example, I really can't think of playing an FPS with anything other than WASD+mouse right now except maybe a Wii-mote. Or playing a 3d platform game without an analog stick.
And yes, I don't think it's reasonable playing a 320x200 game right now unless it's a portable game or upscaled gracefully like most emulators support.

Ummm...

[Anonymous Coward]

A) Like the others said, buy USB gamepads. They're not very expensive. That said, for single player use, for certain systems, I prefer the keyboard to my gamepad.

B) You can emulate more than the Dreamcast. In fact, I've never emulated the Dreamcast, I prefer the NES, SNES and Gameboy/Gameboy Advance games, personally, although I do have a copy of the Gens emulator.

VisualBoyAdvance is one of the finest emulators for any system, BTW.

Why not both?

[MajorG17]

Why make the decision between next-gen and retro when you can have both at the same time?

Quite dependant on age

[Elentari]

Retro gaming's good for those who remember older games and want to play them again, but for young kids born in a generation where graphics alone define the quality of gaming experience, they're a lot less likely to be satisfactory.

why just last month...

[snuf23]

I installed AMAME on my Workbench 3.0 desktop running in emulation under WinUAE. I had a bit of a problem because my ROM sets were out of date, but the ones that worked, worked fine. The only bummer was that I had to use full screen mode to get proper color support for MAME - which meant that there was no really good way to get a nice screenshot of the Windows desktop with Amiga desktop in a window running AMAME in a windows.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks about these things.

Lucasarts

[dank zappingly]

I wish those rat bastards at lucasarts would take a time out from making crappy starwars games and at least port some of these games to new consoles. There was a time when I would buy any game that had their logo on it. How much would it cost them to port Grim on PSP or Xbox Live Arcade. The whole game is done, they just have to port it? It looks like they're making a new Indiana Jones game too. Looks like it has lots of very nicely rendered hand to hand combat. Makes me wish i still had my copy of Fate of Atlantis.

nintendo 64

[Treates2]

the nintedo 64 is a console i use to this day.. perfect dark, zelda, are fuggin awesome.. i wish i had a nses and super nintendo.. good memeries. also if you have an atari you can find some games here: http://www.atariage.com/software_search.html?Syste mID=2600 or go find some roms and an emulater like nses

Counter-Surf

[MrEd]

The best game that I've played lately is Counter Strike Surfing. Same old modified Quake 2 engine, same old sprites, textures, and models, entirely new game. Get Counter Strike classic off Steam and give it a try... the learning curve is steep but it's worth the climb. Begs for a dedicated game to be coded.

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[miro f]

OK I'm sorry but you're wrong (along with the AC)

Because when you have 5 million (or 8, whatever) compared to 200k, you need to provide MORE servers (or have multiple servers running on the same machine, which is more likely) and a fatter pipe to serve the content. In the end, it costs a lot more money and you need a lot more infrastructure. When Sony has an installed base of 5 million people and still have perfectly lag free servers then I'll believe they can provide as good a service as Microsoft.

PS, Before the "fanboy" cries start (oops, too late), the only console I own is a DS

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[miro f]

maybe you should learn to keep your mouth shut before you look like an idiot. (Oh wait, you knew you'd look like an idiot that's why you posted AC)

let's just pick apart each of your points one by one

1) Blind loyalty to one company over another? who's the fanboy? it looks like you're the sony fanboy here (and the moron). As for me, I never owned an xbox or an xbox 360, I am not interested in every buying them. I owned a Playstation (not anymore) and a DS. I'm just pointing out the facts

2) sure, I'll believe you're unfounded numbers, over the numbers I've been seeing all over the place (http://nexgenwars.com, see, this is what you do when you debate someone without looking like an idiot, try providing sources rather than making up numbers)

3) Ah of course, And a dedicated server of course doesn't require money to buy, as well as a place to put them, as well as a pipe to provide the bandwidth to serve the content to the users. Of course, it costs the same amount to host 500 servers as 10000 servers (these numbers are made up)

4) When Sony has as many users as Microsoft, and as many servers as Microsoft, then I'll believe MS just can't handle setting up servers as well as Sony

5) I didn't open my mouth. Don't have voice to text here

MOD PARENT UP! FUNNY!

[bensch128]

Is funny!!

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[Endo13]

Ok first off, no I'm not wrong. Whether you have 200K or 5million online users still doesn't matter. You're still not going to run 10,000 game servers on one machine. The only difference that makes is how many dedicated servers they have to run overall, it has nothing to do with the performance of individual servers. And contrary to what you try to imply, having more servers and more infrastructure will not impact the individual servers either. Unless of course you're a crappy company that doesn't know how to run game servers.

But I'll play along with you for a bit. So let's say overall subscriber numbers actually meant something here. Now what you have to look at is that MS is predicting 10 million console units sold by the end of the year. They have another 2 weeks to do that. If they have 5 million users online now, and they can't even handle that many, do you really think they're going to straighten all that out in another 2 weeks? They've had a whole year to prepare for large amounts of users, they don't have as many users as they expected, and they still can't get their servers to work right.

Downloading Old Games

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody know where to download old games? I was wondering about file-sharing programs like the ones below: http://bearshare.all-downloads-now.com/ http://limewire.all-downloads-now.com/ http://emule.all-downloads-now.com/ http://etomi.all-downloads-now.com/ http://kazaa.all-downloads-now.com/ Any experience downloading games? Thanks

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[Anonymous Coward]

fixed: "You'll be experiencing about 398.5 percent of the fun that the Getty heir who bought the PS3 is having, at about 1 percent of the price."

98.5% of the fun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Going by ratings, assuming that Resistance: Fall of Man ( the highest-rated PS3 game ) is 100% fun, you'd actually have 4.494% more fun with Grim Fandango than with the PS3. ;)

( 89 vs 93 average score. )

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[miro f]

of course it does! do you think that every single one of those servers connects with a different modem to a different ISP? Or do you think that they all run on the same network on one giant fat pipe to the Internet?

Well obviously they're all going to be running on the same network. I don't see Microsoft paying AOL for 5000 connections to the Internet. So now you have all the servers running on the same routers and going through the same connection to the Internet.

So now can you tell me with a straight face that having more servers won't impact the performance of each individual server?

This doesn't go into the fact that the hardware will actually cost money. The more servers you have, the more it costs. You can of course, cut costs by running multiple games on one server. This may not be necessary when you have an installed base of 400k but it might be when you have 20x that. Of course it's more difficult to provide for 20x the people because you need 20x the equipment and it costs 20x the money (note: simplification). Not that I'm saying Microsoft is doing a good job or that they're going to be fine with 10 million consoles or whatever, because I'm not saying that.

All I am saying is you can't compare Sony's network performance to Microsoft's and say that Sony can handle it better because the situations are completely different. It's clearly more difficult to provide lag-free servers for 20x the people.

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,PS3 too expensive,FUD,blah,

[Endo13]

No, it still doesn't. It's the jump from running a few servers to running a few thousand servers that's the actual hard part to make work. If you're already running 10,000 servers, setting up another 500,000 more isn't that big of a deal. More money, sure. What you keep bringing up is the internet connections. That's the easy part, and has been solved many times over for networks far bigger than XBox Live. And it's also really simple to see if connections are the cause of the lag - if your ping is low, your connection to the server is not the issue. (This eliminates actual internet bandwidth, routers, the whole connection shebang. And BTW, if that actually IS what's causing their lag issues, they're far more incompetent than even I would have accused them of being.) If you're still getting lag, its the performance of the server hardware/software config that's causing the issue. And that's exactly what does not change no matter how many servers you're running. Each server will still be set up to handle the same number of users, regardless of how many total servers you have to run. So yes, I can absolutely tell you with a straight face that having more servers won't impact the performance of each individual server. (Assuming of course that they're at least competent enough to calculate things like heat, power needs, etc. Then again, this is Microsoft... maybe I'm giving them too much credit.)

But again, MS isn't even meeting their expectations for number of installed users. Their installed server system should exceed current demand. Instead it's not even adequate for the customers they do have.'

Maybe Microsoft should hire a few Blizzard techs. I'm sure they could give them a few pointers...