Amnesiac

@RoomWithaMoose Oh, even at the time it reeked of desperation. But M&A aren’t about what’s best for consumers or employees. They’re mostly about giving people who already have a lot just a little bit more.

I may be wrong, but I thought the Bungie purchase was to stop Sony’s share price from slipping after Microsoft’s move to acquire ABK. I mean, I’m sure they were also hoping for Bungie to be a successful studio, but at the time their stock had dropped more than 10% and they had shareholders to placate.

It’s a bit odd, but my wallet isn’t complaining. Also, I missed them having their Japan focused Golden Week sale this year. That always had some fun stuff in it, but maybe it was too niche.

Among Street Fighter homages, I’ve always had a soft spot for World Heroes and Data East’s Fighter’s History. I could swear that I have some kind of collection of the World Heroes games on PS, but it might have been from the Japanese store.

The trailer brought back memories of that solo Nina Williams game Death by Degrees from back in the PS2 days. They’re not particularly good memories.

Always nice to read a Graham review, and I’m glad to hear that they nailed the perspective. A bit baffled as to why they won’t allow smooth turning, though. Maybe something for a future patch?

@Waa-Laa I’m afraid you’ll have to ask Ed Boon and John Tobias about that. The games are just as brutal as they were in their heyday. Fortunately, you can still fight cheese with cheese to beat them.

@LeeBB_Art Much like the original Star Wars trilogy, it’s an example of post release tinkering degrading the experience.

Nothing like having a delusional conspiracy theorist as your leader. I should know, I’m an American.

Seems like part of a larger number of EVs from multiple car companies no longer coming to the US due to deteriorating market conditions as we slog through year two of our great leap backwards.

@KillerBoy Same here. My play through essentially became “The Adventures of Barbara Gordon” and it was a lot of fun. I wasn’t a big fan of the ending, but getting there was entertaining.

Nice to see that surprisingly buff gadabout Prince Adam make an appearance. He always seems to disappear when things get tough. Reminds me a bit of that ripped reporter with the bad eyesight in Metropolis…

For what it’s worth, I’m enjoying it. The rewind feature is a godsend for some levels, and it’s been interesting to see the differences between the versions. I was impressed with the Jaguar version and the GBC one off is good fun too. It’s another good Digital Eclipse retro release, but unfortunately many won’t get past the Ubisoft logo at the title screen.

Wow, they really cranked the anti-aliasing up on that one Final Fight guy on the subway!

Thanks for the great write up and photos. I have a few Capcom art books, but seeing all of this up close and in person must have been amazing.

Despite being saddled with a name that triggered gag reflexes for many, I thought Thirsty Suitors was a lot of fun. Much more entertaining than the sum of its parts. Very much looking forward this new endeavor.

Sometimes I find text heavy games to be draining, but the therapy aspect might be something I can sink my teeth into. Besides, if the price is reasonable, there won’t be much at stake if I don’t like it. I won’t be coffin up more than $20 for it though, or my wife might get cross.

I loved playing El Viento on the Genesis back in the halcyon pre-internet days. This collection has aimed straight for my nostalgia and hit a bullseye.

Thanks for covering this; it’s heading straight to my cart. I generally skip over games whose titles are illegible on the PS Store. Nifty font designs are nice and all, but not if they completely sacrifice readability.

It’s a really fun fighter. There was a pretty solid beginner mode for doing special moves to begin with, but if these additional assists get more people to try it, great. Also, the battle passes are pretty low pressure. I’m fairly bad at the game and have breezed through the couple of passes I picked up.

@Oram77 13’s soundtrack is absolutely loaded, and Saber’s Edge is a masterpiece. For me, it’s definitely a case of the music outshining the game.

@GamingGod Losing half their staff after the buyout was awful. I just hope things have stabilized so that no other shoes are dropping in the near future.

@Tintin I have a wishlist ready to go for the next Bandcamp Friday on 12/5. And I agree with you that listening to most game soundtracks out of context isn't compelling, with a few exceptions of course. I have a soft spot for the soundtracks for Katamari Damacy, Child of Eden, Lumines, and a few others. Oh, and a few Final Fantasy tracks and the music from the first Dr. Wily stage in Mega Man 2, which never fails to amaze me.

Even after the sale to Epic Games and the somehow even more worrying sale to Songtradr (sic), Bandcamp remains my music platform of choice by a country mile. I’ll be picking this up to go along with the Tetris Effect soundtrack. Good stuff!

Just got the notice that Death on the Nile and The Mortuary Assistant are on sale. Time for a little Poirot and a bit of post Halloween horror.

The first half of the trailer is so promising! Beautiful underwater scenery with colorful designs and what looks like a fun swimming mechanic but then…you’re on land in a world of brown. Still might be worth a try, though.

I love the Arcade Archives series, but I just can’t get past the new pricing for what are pretty bare bones ports. Include an art gallery or a few developer interviews and I’d be all over it, but for now it can go on my wishlist, next to Ridge Racer, waiting for a sale.

@IkeCrane “The reaction to refunds perplexes me”
It’s a bit like ordering escargot and then sending the plate back because “eww, snails!” These games are as they were, often punishingly unfair. But, once you realize that you can fight cheese with cheese, they are all beatable and still fun for players of a certain age.

It’s always kind of neat to see consoles shrink with age. Sadly, I seem to be doing the opposite…

Thanks for the great read! I never knew that I had Tetris licensing issues to thank for such a wonderful game being made.

I myself have developed significant lag over the years, which is probably why I’m enjoying this collection so much. If you don’t remember seeing the Mortal Monday commercial on TV, and have no idea what ABACABB does, this collection is probably not going to do it for you, and that’s OK! There are other ways to play these games. As an interactive piece of history, it’s pretty incredible though.

Sooner or later they’re going to bring one back that pushes the nostalgia button for me. I played quite a bit of Time Gal, Microcosm, and Silpheed back in the day and would happily revisit them.

@nessisonett I think most of the job losses are in the US, so the only impact on the welfare state will be the number of bootstraps handed out for people to pull themselves up with.

It feels like management types view AI as something of a religion, where the promised rewards are in the distant future, but it needs money now, and a lot of it.

@nessisonett Yes, companies seem to be desperate to remove the cost of expertise. I can use a LLM to create lines of code to complete a task, but since I have no coding expertise, I can only judge the outcome, not the code itself.

In my limited experience, using AI to complete tasks at work creates as many problems as it solves. For every job it does well, there are several where it introduces strange, hard to spot errors or adds things out of the blue. Those who are diving head first into the AI future might find the water a bit shallow at present.

Oddly enough, I read this while listening to Radiohead’s Spectre, which is my favorite Bond theme even though it wasn’t chosen for the film. Must be a Bond kind of day. Oh, and Lana Del Ray is pretty fantastic in her own right.

When these things happen I always wonder if there’s a mobile gaming equivalent of PushSquare on some dark corner of the internet where people get annoyed when games are announced for consoles instead of smartphones.

Feels like he got his shareholder presentation mixed up with his TGS presentation. Generally, talking about a large number of units sold makes people feel like they backed the right horse. Talking about record revenue/profit makes them feel like they’ve been taken advantage of (but makes shareholders giddy!)

A fantastic game, but I have to agree with the nitpick about the controls. It’s early goings, but I’ve accidentally exited to the home screen half a dozen times. Curse you, muscle memory!

I bought it at launch as a freshmen in college. Took many trips to Electronics Boutique before release to pay down my preorder. Really felt like it was leaps and bounds ahead of any other home console. Used to bring it to parties and show off Ridge Racer. Eventually modded it to play imports. Great times.

@Jrs1 Fine choices. I’m looking forward to seeing the chaos that Ratts of the Capital generates. Happy Songs for Happy Shooters?

@Jrs1 Push Square is on a roll with the Smiths content. Just a last week there was an article about changes being made to the Tekken 8 character models. Apparently Katsuhiro Harada had just discovered that some girls are bigger than others, and some girl’s mothers are bigger than other girl’s mothers.

Great unrelated picture! Suda51 should make a game where you break into palaces with a sponge and a rusty spanner.

@gbanas92 As a side note, the music in the museum section of the game is really impressive. I stumbled across a piano arrangement of the original Gradius score last night that’s just amazing.

@Jrs1 The easy modes for each of the games has been excellent so far. It maintains much of the challenge while avoiding some of the cruelty of the original releases. It was always frustrating when one death in the wrong spot meant things were over because you lost all your weapons and speed. Also, I never realized up much I relied on home console slowdown to make it through some of these stages!

This looks promising. The environments and creature designs work nicely together. It does make me wonder why these beasts need herding though. Hopefully the game doesn’t end at an abattoir…

Spending 20 years doing what you love, creating things that bring people enjoyment, and then leaving on your own terms is pretty remarkable. Regardless of what the next chapter brings, the last was well spent.

A humorous take on existential dread? And 10% off at launch? Sold.

I’ve enjoyed these games going back to the Game Boy Color cart that Capcom published. They vary in quality a bit, but all have that Way Forward charm.

This looks great! I remember playing Ms. Pac Man on a friend’s 7800 and being really impressed, and also jealous that I could only afford a 2600. Looking forward to the documentaries as much as the games.

I picked up Gourmet Warriors as a stand alone release from QUByte, but the additional titles are enough to make me do a partial double dip.