Be Excellent To Each Other

Lots of pop up and other rubbish on the page but a good read :

https://www.eurogamer.net/the-making-of ... f-karateka

And a nice little trailer for what it covers :

Yes I watched this when it went live (I love Technology Connections), those old electro-mechanical pinballs are amazing devices, see also, electro-mechanical fruit machines. (Or anything that achieves programmatic style behaviour without any microprocessor control.)

Really interesting story about the 'start' of 3d on the gameboy

https://gamehistory.org/eclipse-the-dem ... -nintendo/

I made a little Arcade Paradise with my Analogue Pocket docked as the core... (and with a new flexible deck my work paid for)

Had to go into the video.json files to get the Tate model working on the cores..

And i want use my Switch too of course, so many shmups there now, most with Tate support..

(sorry I forgot how to edit pictures here)

So much nostalgia buried away here. Hopefully some will playable at the Arcade Archive before too long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsaZ570SfYs

Nice, Romanista! I’m going to try and build a MAME cab with an old PC that’s knocking around, want to use the monitor in Tate mode too. I’ll stick pics in here as and when I make any progress.

What’s that in the corner running Raiden Fighters?

I've done that, if you have any questions.

No doubt I will! Ta x

For anyone who has looked at the increasing prices on the FPGA side of things and thought its just too expensive :

https://www.readonlymemo.com/cheap-mist ... ase-plans/

One thing that's annoying me a lot is Syndicate. The original, and best, one.

I bought it on GOG and got it free on Origin. Both versions got a lot of coverage when they became available because, rightly, everyone loves Syndicate.

The problem is, the PC version appears to be broken. On any level with enemy cyborgs, they wait a little while and then all come and attack at once. Now, when I played Syndicate back in the day it was on the Amiga and they definitely phased their attacks. But now they just run at you dumbly. Get four agents, jab them full of chemicals and arm them with something heavy and they'll just mop up all the enemies easily.

Thing is, no one else seems to have really been too bothered by this but for me it's absolutely breaking the game. It's been 30 years since I played Amiga Syndicate but I'm sure I'm not imagining this.

I remember being obsessed with Amiga Syndicate and being so very disappointed with the PC version. Mainly because fucking around with DOS to free up enough memory and make sound work felt like a huge retrograde step to me at the time.

I don't recall any AI weirdness though

I remember finding a 'loophole' in the Amiga version, which sounds like this might be related.

On the Amiga version (I never tried it on PC) the enemy agents would only ever attack your agents in numerical order -- so, if you brought all 4 agents with you, they'd go for number 1 until they're dead, then number 2 etc. etc.
And you could move that agent around and ultimately end up in a situation where the enemy agents occupied the same space on the map as your agent, and a 'glitch' in their AI meant that they would either stop shooting altogether, or they would carry on firing but their gun stuck out too far and meant that they would just be shooting off into dead space.

This made even the hardest missions (fucking Atlantic Accelerator) very easy -- all you needed to do was load up agent 1 with 8 shields, move around the map 'collecting' enemy agents, and then get one of your other agents with a flamer and fire at your agent, setting all of the collected enemies on fire and they would fan out in a glorious circle of screams and agony.

Anyway, back to your issue -- try playing Syndicate on an Amiga emulator and see what happens? As far as I know the GOG versions are exact copies of the original games, just run via DOSBox etc. so I can't imagine they're any different behaviourally.

There’s a new retro arcade coming to Walsall soon.

https://www.theretrorealm.co.uk/

Much as I love the idea of more retro arcades , that website really doesnt tell us very much.

Its got pricing on it including special offers which looks like I need to steal a kid to get the deals
Opening hours 'school holidays' (which region - just local ?)
It has food and drink (any chance of a menu?)
and its got 'arcade games and consoles (which ones?)
I can book a party room with "all my favourite arcade games" - wow , how do you know which ones that is ?

That's being part run by Craig Turner who runs the Revival retro events that take place round these parts. I believe a lot of the machines are from his own personal collection which is slightly worrying as a lot of the machines weren't in great condition at the last Revival event so it'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

There's some pictures of the inside on his Facebook which you might see here... https://www.facebook.com/share/p/nEd5doEh7hrcJQnH/ I dunno though, does that link work?

Either way, it'll be worth checking out.

Gotta say, the DK barrels, the Street Fighter chibi (I think) for the his and hers toilets and the Street Fighter wall where you can stand next to the fireballs for a photo are all genius ideas.

The graffiti wall art is a bit tacky though. The Darth Vader head in particular is…not good.

I will. I hope that Amiga emulation isn't as much of a CHORE as it used to be with all the faffing about with configurations. I only ever used it to emulate K240, which was amazing, but it's been a while.

Charlie Brooker being interviewed by BAFTA about gaming :

They didn't make Portal 3 because Valve are allergic to the number 3. Everyone knows that.

I bought a DrawBridge recently, along with a USB floppy drive from Amazon which I have now transplanted said DrawBridge into.

Upshot is, combined with DiskFlashback from the same site, I now have a USB floppy drive which can read and write to Amiga floppy disks and even use them with emulators! I've got a big box full of Amiga floppy disks that I can now look through and see if there's anything interesting.

Oh that's cool. I bet my disks are all rotten now

Walsall’s retro arcade opens in a week. £13 for a three hour slot with everything on free play.
We need to plan a visit @mr Russell
https://www.theretrorealm.co.uk/

Yes! We've been waiting since Summer (?) for this to get ready. Let's get a date in the diary

Ooh, that's much closer to me than any of the Arcade Clubs. I wouldn't mind tagging along if you guys go!

Two hours from me...

It's very close to me too so yeah, shall we do a mini Beex Meet?

90 minutes from me...

While you would of course be welcome, Arcade Club is closer and better.

I’m fine with that. Do we want to pick a date between Christmas and new year?

As it stands that would be the 27th 28th or 29th? (Fri/Sat/Sun)

Wouldn’t January be easier for people who are visiting family or doing stuff over the Christmas period? Plus it might help dispel any January blues.

Oh, ok

The one in Bury is fantastic with four floors and all day admission, so if the gaming is the main attraction then it's well worth a visit.
This looks quite a lot smaller and three hour slots.

If we do managed to get a few BEEXers together in Walsall it would be great to see you, so I can increase the number of people I've actually met from <checks notes> three.

I can do all those dates so far but being Christmas, things can change... Perhaps the Saturday would be better?

I think we should aim for January. How does the 4th or 5th sound?

That's probably easier than trying to fit it in around everyone's Christmas schedule.
I'm free for either day that weekend.

I'm free either day too.

@Gazchap? You free then?

I'm in London overnight on the 4th of January, but I could be in Walsall early afternoon on the 5th (and later, obvs)

There’s a 1pm slot. Would that be doable?

Yeah, I reckon so.

Bartop mame/emulator machine. Got the carcass off ebay for £40 with screen and speakers, just needed to add sticks and a raspberry pi.

Running the Batocera image and it's fantastic!

That's a bargain!

How was the process of adding the sticks and Pi? Any soldering in that?

Worked out at around £220 all in

No soldering, but it was a little fiddly. These were the sticks I used:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B075DBJXR7
half of them were wired up backwards though, so I had to swap connectors around to get the LEDs to fire up.

It was all plug and play, apart from drilling a button hole on the side of the machine, to move the hotkey button from the rear to somewhere much more accessible, as you need it to swap games and set controls etc...

So…

Who would be up for the arcade in Walsall on Sunday 5th January at 1pm?

Me!