Emulators

Playstation Classic runs better with RetroArch.

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At this point it’s more than obvious that the Playstation Classic hasn’t been as well received as other miniature consoles, especially since discovering that it is nothing more than Sony’s own version of a retro pie. But to add insult to injury someone installed RetroArch on it and got faaaaar better results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDDY9ABRot4

It probably would have been better in Sony’s interest to have proper emulation enthusiasts tweak and setup their mini console. It’s no wonder they’ve gone on sale so quickly after launch.

Sunday Evening Open Thread

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On October 26th a mod that I wrote about “Half Life: Year Of The Dragon” was released, and I only remembered that today. I downloaded the game and was bummed to see that it was Windows only. For the hell of it I tried launching it as I already have Wine installed, and aside from there being no in game audio and there being some missing pieces on the HUD it was near flawless. I’ll be sure to play it under Windows at a later date for the full experience. :v:

I also fiddled with epsxe under Linux, as well as another emulator… and I’m kinda bummed by the lack of controller plugins to get my Steam Controller working with it. Granted I have a Dualshock 3 that I could setup but I like the additional buttons I get with the Steam Controller. I haven’t tried it yet, but I heard that there is a PS2 emulator that lets you use both PS1 and PS2 roms, so perhaps some of my old discs and ROMS can be put to the test. I’ll save that for another time… I can only nerd so much in one day.

 

Old games catch me off guard to this day

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I wasn’t aware there were dedicated flying levels in Spyro. I’ve been having fun trying to get all of the treasure. I’m not sure yet if there is a dragon to free in this level, but it has been amusing trying to grab all of the rings and other stuff. It also looks like everything is made of giant gems. :happy: Of course up in the top right is a counter, you have a limited time to collect everything and everything you can collect time for each item you destroy/fly into. That I have yet to properly time. :zorak:

It’s kind of a weird transition if you think about it. For most of the game you can’t really fly, glide yes but never fly… Now all of a sudden for this level you can fly? I wasn’t aware there was a Spyro that could put the entire Superman64 game to shame. :v:

Super Mario Bros, now at a local Steam Workshop near you.

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I glanced briefly at the Sega Genesis/MegaDrive Workshop and saw this thing of beauty. I launched it thinking this was a troll rom or a poor knock off as I’ve grown accustomed to finding, but I was pleasantly surprised to find this was a genuine port. So incredible in fact that I’m anticipating Nintendo will call for a cease and desist any minute.

I didn’t play much of it, but I was in awe over what I saw. I already have this game in my other emulators, but seeing it on Steam Workshop for a Sega console emulator caught me off guard. I wonder how long this will stick around.

Gotta go fat!

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It dawned on me that I haven’t really played much with romhacks in awhile, so I browsed the Steam Workshop and found Sonic XL: The Mod No One Ever Asked For (I may be paraphrasing), and much to the description it remains true. In this version of the game the traditional rings have been replaced with tasty onion rings, and the more you collect the fatter you get. Of course you can burn off the fat by running and finding a random powerup to make you magically thin again, but in certain points that’s easier said than done. If you eat too much you’ll be too fat to do a spindash, or even stop moving entirely with a heart attack taking place shortly afterwards.

There are different custom sprites for each stage of fat ranging to pleasantly plump to DAMN! Nothing else about the game has changed, so it’s not the largest edited Sonic rom I’ve played with, unless of course you mean just the Hedgehog. :v:

From Phantom Pain to Phantomile

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I’ve been playing Klonoa for the past couple days; Made it to the moon kingdom, I can tell that level is going to take a lot of patience to get through the damn vision. I’ve attempted it a couple times today and kept dying endlessly. Best to take a break and head onto another game. I even tried playing the Wii version and my hands seem to be fatigued. Here’s a comparison of the two versions:

I’m not sure which version I like better to be honest. I like the style of the PS1 version, but at the same time I like the updated graphics on the Wii version… Then again I also like the hybrid 3D with sprites for the Playstation version. Plus the pre-rendered cutscenes… something about them seems more magical. Then again pre-rendered cutscenes from that era were fun to watch, look at the original Tomb Raiders. 😛

And oh god… If you ever play this game do NOT use the english version. Switch it to Phantomese or Japanese, you’ll be doing your ears and mind a favor.

Process of emulation: Getting everything dialed into Steam

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Not what you usually see when you launch a game on Steam…

My pursuit to turn my computer into the ultimate console has been going quite nicely. I’ve been adding each emulated game individually to Steam so I can launch them in Big Picture without having to manually select each game. I’ve also been setting up my Steam Controller to work with the emulators, from what I’ve read people really like the Steam Controller with emulators like Dolphin (Wii and Gamecube) and a bunch of others thanks to the extra buttons. Spyro works really well with it, the grips on the bottom of the controller are set to rotate the camera view as opposed to the left and right triggers. It makes the games feel more comfortable IMO.

So far I’ve only setup Spyro and Klonoa (the PSX and Wii versions) and plan to add more as I come across them. At some point I’ll have to copy off my old Playstation discs onto the drive, or turn them into ISO’s. Would be nice to play some Crash Bandicoot and a couple others. Once I have this setup I’ll do the same on my laptop. That should REALLY catch some people off guard when I take my lunch breaks. 😛 I’ve already been enjoying quite a bit of Super Mario.

Nostalgic Feels in gaming and stomach churning

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Motion sickness isn’t something I’ve had in a long time, not even after hours of playing an FPS while knocking back lots of alcoholic drinks… I think the last time I had felt sick during a game was when I was playing the original Doom for an entire day, sometime during all the custom wads I cycled through I suddenly had to lie down and hope I wouldn’t throw up… at least until yesterday when those unfond memories of holding back the urge of throwing up surfaced, and who knew it would be while playing the original Spyro?

I never had access to the game when I was younger, the closest I could get to it was a Playstation Pizza Hut demo disc. I played the hell out of Spyro and some other demos on the disc always hoping that someday I’d get the full thing, sadly that never happened until years and years later when I started to play with emulators. I found roms for the first trilogy and thought “awesome!”, and so I began playing for quite a bit actually. Then after awhile last night my stomach started to turn. I didn’t want to stop playing because I was so close to finishing the level and finding all the gems, so I pressed onward a bit longer and called it good when I rescued one last dragon.

I was kinda bummed, the game itself is a lot of fun… but I can’t seem to play it for very long like I can with other games. I tried again a bit ago after getting the Playstation emulator to work through screen so I could take screencaps, and once again I had to stop after a short while of play… which pisses me off because I found an annoying boss battle and didn’t want to quit.

I wanted to do a livestream of this at some point, but it looks like I’ll have to shelf the idea. I feel the need to experiment though, maybe if I play this distanced away from the TV in the living room… could that solve my problem? Or would the larger TV make it worse?

Fun with Brawl

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Over the last couple of days I’ve been tinkering with Smash Bros: Brawl in Dolphin. I have it setup to work on my Logitech controller, and it handles quite nicely. I’ve been enjoying kicking back and playing in fullscreen mode. 😀 I’ve even started modding the game. I installed Project M and switched around a few playermodels. So far I’ve switched Zelda, Marth and Ike. I’ve downloaded some others but have been having issues getting them to work. Here are a few I’ve managed to scrape together.

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Vocaloid replacement for Zelda
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Nero from DMC4. Replaces Ike.
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Link doesn’t seem to mind the ass stabbing.
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Elsa. Replaces Zelda, also too.
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Raiden (Marth) auditioning for Playboy, or Playgirl?

I was told that last picture looked pretty gay… Though in Brawl almost all of the powerup’s in Brawl are rather “fabulous”.

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I rest my case.

Either way I’m off to a good start. Over time I’ll be sure to find more for my collection. 😀

Process of emulation

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I’m not sure why, but lately I’ve been on a bit of a kick with emulators. Not just DOSBox but some other ones as well, mainly for the Playstation 1 and 2 and a bit of the Wii. Tonight I decided to play a bit of Devil May Cry, which never got ported over to PC and I always wanted to see what started the series. So far the game and the emulator have been pretty straight forward. It’s quite nice running these older games at 1080p with none of the console blur., something that always annoyed my eyes during the PS1 era. It works nicely with my F510, haven’t tried the Steam Controller because I wanted to go for a “familiar” experience.

dante

As far as game play goes Devil May Cry is quite enjoyable, it feels like DMC4 to me minus some features. The controls are easy to get used to, although using Y as the jump button in place of A or X seems weird, but not really that awkward. I’m sure it’ll get hairier the further I get into it, but that’s fine. I’m not much for things that are too easy.

If they did a proper remaster or port for PC I’d definitely buy it. I’m not sure why they would leave the first two games in the series out (although I’ve heard rumor that the 2nd game was ass). You start with Devil May Cry 3 on PC, and because of Capcom’s shitty porting from the mid 2000’s you can’t really enjoy it unless you heavily mod it via nexus mods. Honestly at this point I’m not sure if I should try the mods or just do a full blown emulation. I’ll probably look into that when I finish the first game and attempt to try the second.