I know I’ve mentioned this before, maybe not here, but Nintendo’s insistence on big “This cabinet is not running MAME” stickers on all of their reproduction arcade machines is really kind of bothersome to see in the wild. It feels accusatory and kind of pointless, and it actually turned my off from putting some change into donkey Kong Jr. while I was at a pizza place today (I played Puzzle Bobble instead)
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The main benefit hardware-based approaches can have over software emulation is lower latency. Which does actually seem very important in a game full of narrow-frame-window jumps like Donkey Kong, so I can understand why they see it as a selling point.
Do these cabs offer that? Honest question, since just saying “not MAME” doesn’t unambiguously answer that question (for all I know they’re using some different high-latency approach). If they do, I agree it’s a bad label, and maybe they should say something positive like “original arcade performance!” instead
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Are these the Arcade1up machines or something else?
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I suspect a big factor is the software license of Mame. They don’t want to be accused of cribbing from Mame then not respecting the license, so they communicate strongly on the fact they aren’t using it in the first place.
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What’s inside the Nintendo cabs?
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no, they were just regular arcade cabs at a pizza place, CRT monitors and quarter munching like old times, just four of them next to the counter you place an order at for you to waste a buck while you wait for your food, but the Donkey Kong Jr. one had a sticker proudly saying there was no MAME in it and ‘real arcade hardware’ and the others did not.
I’ve only ever seen that sticker on Donkey Kong games or Mario Bros so I figured it was some kind of NoA thing, or whoever they deal with to manufacture.
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oh yeah I know the other part of its reputation for sure
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i’m watching a playthru of the re8 dlc now and it’s so funny to me that there’s this one specific kind of, like, pastiche ur-artgame which mainstream titles seem locked into circling around and trying to repeat out of some kind of bad conscience. listen… what if we made something more meaningful, more indie. what if there was a game where you walked around a memory and you got chased by memory monsters and made friends with like a friendly glowing ghost or piece of light or something whose memory you had to recover… a-and what if because it’s a memory there are all these parts where you walk through like, a domestic bedroom but it’s floating in a dark void, or the furniture is floating around like it’s underwater or something? yeh boss.
i get the eternal drive to save money through asset reuse but i feel like if that was the only consideration it’d be more fun, it feels way more tormented and earnest whenever i see the obligatory trudgingly paced art level of a mainstream videogame, it’s as if sometime in 2011 a bunch of people went to a well-intentioned gdc talk that nobody else paid attention to, and they all went their seperate way, climbing the ladder etc, and then finally when it got to the point where they were able to make decisions someone activated their manchurian candidate kill phrase or something and they were overcome with an irresistable urge… left hand slinks towards the phone of its own accord, hello bill? it’s ted, listen, get the staff together, i have an idea i want to tell you all about, a little “wacky” but well sometimes you just want to push the medium forward a bit… miles away a hooded figure cackles in a deserted lot and runs a blade across their palm, drops of blood run downwards before finally falling upon a copy of bloober team’s The Medium carefully placed on the desecrated altar below. that is not dead…
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We’re all still chasing Max Payne, which at least had the good taste to cast it in the same self-serious parody as 2000 AD
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Gender swapped cozy wholesome game called “Min Payne”
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When my brother played this the first time, the graphics weren’t working properly so the paths of blood were invisible. He seriously thought you had to trial and error your way through the platforming. That was the power this hallucination sequence had.
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for the last few weeks, have thought about Alice: Madness Returns (the McGee Sequel to the Quake-Alice #1 title), a 3D platformer that doesn’t do much new tech-wise, but due to its art direction still stands out for me as a better example of how to window-dress a well-trodden path that it becomes (and remains) a memorable experience.
Anodyne2 has strong vibes in the same vein, and as such I also can’t forget about that as well.
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It was different when I thought mark mothersbaugh actually had a hand in composing, but I sometimes think about how the crash bandicoot games were composed with the involvement of the devo guy and the spyro games were composed by the police guy
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I didn’t know how to phrase this wrt to Sting, so let’s just say fuck Sting, Stewart Copeland is the guy from the police now
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Stewart Copeland has always been the only important part of the Police to us drummers ^.^7
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as a bassist, I’ve always held that Stewart Copeland was integral to the band. Love Sting (i even wear my bass vert like Sting), but it falls apart without Steewart’s drums
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one secret to legendary rock and roll 3-piece The Police’s success: have each of them be very good
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You need four people in the band to pull the other classic secret to rock glory: three people who are really good, and one who sucks a lot but is clearly having the most fun
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