Retro Gaming Thread

[Matisfaction]

It's still a WIP , so plenty of fixes to be done. But yes there are a lot of wrestlers that could have been included from other AKI games instead of the modern guys.

It would be cool if someone could patch in the original Japanese wrestlers into Revenge over the custom characters , the moves are all there

[Big Boss Man]

Yes that would be. I believe they are creating a tool to import/export wrestlers out of certain AKI games. They've got face textures for some of today's wrestlers so that is possible too. In theory they could make a modern VPW2 with NJPW and wrestlers from ROH, NWA etc or a more classic one with just the older wrestlers. Both I think would be good. They've also altered the arena textures, I don't know if they could add/replace those but they could add Osaka-Jo Hall as one example and made them look more realistic.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Dr. Zoidberg]

GTV 90 "The Parodius Story Da!" Parodius was a great shooting series, spun off from Gradius with a mix of equal portions all things Konami.

This video is one in a series of Konami games Left Behind in Japan. Be sure to check out the others!

80 Goemon Story



72 Twinbee! Be There With Bells On

[pixel]

I'd love to see more 3D Goemon games. Mystical Ninja is one of my favorites on the N64, rough edges and all.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Dr. Zoidberg]

RIP Kazuhisa Hashimoto

⬆⬆⬇⬇⬅➡⬅➡B A [START]

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Big Boss Man]

A Master System has been discovered called "Game de Check! Koutsuu Anzen"

You can find an English translation here:
https://www.smspower.org/forums/17882-N ... enFrom1987

[Hawq]

[Matisfaction]

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Game & Watch Turns 40: A Look Back at Nintendo's First Gaming Success

Nintendo released the first Game & Watch on April 28, 1980, fundamentally changing the company and influencing gaming to this day.



On April 28, 1980, Kyoto-based toy company Nintendo released the first iteration of their handheld electronic video game series called the Game & Watch Ball. It was Nintendo’s first major success in the industry at a time when most gaming experiences were confined to home consoles and arcade cabinets. Forty years later, Nintendo has grown into one of the most successful video game companies in the world and has created iconic franchises such as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda.

And while the Nintendo Switch has become a smash-hit and one of the most sought-after consoles on the planet, none of it would have happened if not for that first quirky LCD handheld that came out all those years ago.

Before it dove headfirst into the video game industry, Nintendo was originally founded as a playing card company all the way back in 1889. Operating out of a small building in downtown Kyoto, founder Fusajiro Yamauchi initially set out to produce cards for the traditional Japanese game of Hanafuda. But with the playing card market slowly dying, Nintendo eventually had to branch out into the toy industry in order to keep afloat.

All of this inevitably led to Gunpei Yokoi, a toy designer at Nintendo, coming up with the idea for a handheld electronic game inspired by LCD watches and calculators of the time. And with that, the Game & Watch Ball was born, kicking off a series of 59 follow-up Game & Watch games that would go on to sell over 40 million units worldwide.

The Game & Watch series proved to be Nintendo’s first major video game hit, and its popularity steered the company in an entirely new direction from that point on. After successfully launching its own home console with the Famicom in 1983 (released a couple of years laters as the NES outside of Japan), Nintendo and Game & Watch creator Gunpei Yokoi began working on a new product that would combine the portability of the original handheld concept with the swappable cartridges of more traditional video game consoles: the Game Boy.

Nintendo has had a dominant hold on the handheld market ever since, releasing several iterations of the wildly popular Game Boy before moving on to successful follow-ups like the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS, whose clamshell design was largely inspired by the Vertical Multi Screen series of Game & Watch toys from the early 1980s.

It may not have been the first brand to experiment with handheld consoles, but it was certainly the driving force behind their growing popularity throughout the years as Nintendo continued to innovate and push the industry forward.

While the Game & Watch is now mostly regarded as a sought-after collectible and relic of gaming’s history, the products it inspired and its influence on Nintendo as a company have been major factors in the rise of gaming as one of the biggest entertainment industries in the world. Companies like Sony and Microsoft have since followed suit, successfully establishing their own console brands while expanding the popularity of gaming as a whole.

Meanwhile, Nintendo continues to build on its past successes while also learning from its more recent failures. After the Wii U's underwhelming performance, the company launched the Nintendo Switch, a hybrid system that melds the portability of handheld gaming with the high-definition graphics of home consoles. The Switch has sold over 50 million units in just three years and has become one of the best-selling devices on the market. While it seems to take certain design cues from nearly every Nintendo console ever made, none of it would've been possible if not for that first Game & Watch toy kicking off the handheld gaming trend in 1980.

It’s been 40 long years since Game & Watch Ball transformed Nintendo from a small Japanese toy company into one of the most profitable and beloved video game developers of all-time, and yet they continue to find new ways to innovate without ever losing the quirky charm that made the Game & Watch series such a delight.

Source: CBR

[Hawq]

Super Famicom’s Given Away to Keep Japanese Kids at Home!



With pretty much the entire world under Coronavirus lockdown, the chances are that many of you have turned to gaming as a way to pass the time in a safe and socially responsible manner. Following a post on their official website, however, the Japan Retro Gaming Association has taken a rather unusual step to help make this easier.

In order to attempt to keep their nations’ kids at home, the organization has announced that it is giving away 100 Super Famicom systems! Yes, giving away!



Super Famicom

With each of the Super Famicom systems (known as the Super Nintendo in the West) being thoroughly cleaned before shipment, 100 of them will be given away to Japanese kids to help incentivize them to remain at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Better still, they’re not just giving away the systems as that would largely be pointless. They’ll also be throwing in a handful of games. Spending time indoors with some classic 16-bit gaming? Sounds good to me!



As a promotion, it sounds like a fantastic idea and judging by the picture above, it’s not as if they were in short supply of the consoles. If anything, I’m just disappointed that there’s not some kind of similar promotion going on here in the UK.

If you are, however, reading this from Japan, you can learn more about the promotion (and how to apply for your Super Famicom) via the link here! – Act quickly though, the deadline for submissions ends on April 26th!
source

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Billy Mitchell takes his Donkey Kong high-score cheating case to court

Newly revealed Twin Galaxies defamation suit has been quietly proceeding for months.



In April of 2018, the Twin Galaxies video game scoreboard announced its finding that well-known classic game score-chaser Billy Mitchell did not achieve his Donkey Kong high scores on unmodified arcade hardware, stripping him of all his accumulated records in the process. Since then, Mitchell has oft claimed that he would fight the decision every way he could. And in September 2019, Mitchell and his lawyers said in a statement they would be forced to "resort to legal recourse" if Twin Galaxies didn't rescind its decision and reinstate Mitchell's scores.

But court filings obtained by Ars Technica show that Mitchell had already filed suit against Twin Galaxies in a Los Angeles County court as early as April 2019.

Mitchell's defamation lawsuit—misfiled as "William James Mitchell vs. Twin Galexies, LLC [sic]" and not reported in previous press accounts—has been slowly building to a planned July anti-SLAPP hearing, where Twin Galaxies will make use of a statute that lets defendants quickly strike down lawsuits that threaten "public participation." Twin Galaxies says in court filings that its statements regarding Mitchell's scores were not defamatory and that finding in Mitchell's favor "would have chilling effects on the freedom of speech."

Speaking to Ars Technica, Mitchell said his lawsuit was officially filed last April to fit inside California's statute of limitations for defamation cases, which ran out a year after Twin Galaxies' April 2018 decision to strip Mitchell of all his records. That case was then officially served to Twin Galaxies in February and updated with a more detailed complaint in March, according to court records.

"My law firm and I are fully confident that we will establish a prima face case for all parts of the lawsuit," Mitchell told Ars Technica.

An implicit "cheater" label

In his amended legal complaint, Mitchell argues that Twin Galaxies' published statement regarding his scores was "libelous on its face" because of the implication that "Mitchell did not achieve his record score legitimately." By accusing Mitchell of "impermissibly and secretly shortcutting [the site's] rules," Mitchell argues that Twin Galaxies "at least implied [that he was a cheater], so that any reasonable reader would understand Twin Galaxies has called Mitchell a cheater who deserved punishment by stripping him of all his Twin Galaxies records and banning him for life from submitting further records."

Twin Galaxies' April 2018 decision on Mitchell's Donkey Kong scores was careful not to explicitly call Mitchell a cheater or make any direct statements about his conduct or character. Instead, it focused more narrowly on the "demonstrated impossibility of original unmodified Donkey Kong arcade hardware to produce specific board transition images shown in the videotaped recordings of those adjudicated performances."

n his complaint, Mitchell repeats his previous claims that the result of Twin Galaxies' investigation was "pre-ordained," and that it was undertaken with a "biased observed intent on generating publicity and internet 'clicks' by accusing Mitchell, the most visible of all video gamers, of cheating."

Mitchell takes particular issue with Twin Galaxies' alleged refusal to consider "25 sworn affidavits" from eyewitnesses supporting his claims, in favor of an exclusive focus on "scientific" evidence. Twin Galaxies founder Walter Day is quoted saying that he "find[s] it unexplainable that my testimony as the founder and former owner is disregarded, while others, specifically the ones against Billy, are embraced."

Twin Galaxies' decision was made "with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard for its truth," Mitchell alleges. "The most cursory unbiased investigation would have revealed beyond doubt that the record-breaking Donkey Kong scores were not played on emulation software in private places but were actually played on certified arcade boards in front of hundreds of people."



That's like, just your opinion, man

Twin Galaxies representatives did not have an official response to a request for comment from Ars. But in a wide-ranging March 30 anti-SLAPP motion to strike Mitchell's lawsuit, Twin Galaxies lawyers argue the site's statements regarding Mitchell weren't legally defamatory. That's in part because the statements were "nothing more than the opinion of Twin Galaxies," as evidenced by the leading clause of the sentence, "We now believe that they are not from an original unmodified DK arcade PCB, and so our investigation of the tape content ends with that conclusion and assertion [emphasis added]."

"It is not as if Twin Galaxies made the statement on its own volition without being prompted," the motion continues. "Instead, it was asked by the community as the final adjudicator of video game scores appearing on its website to consider evidence and render its opinion."

As a well-recognized public figure, Mitchell would also have to prove "actual malice" on Twin Galaxies' part to sustain a defamation claim, the site argues. But Twin Galaxies owner Jason Hall, "who headed the investigation for Twin Galaxies, declares in connection with this motion that he had no doubts about the fact that the score performance at issue were not from an original Donkey Kong Arcade system," the motion reads.

"I personally harbor no animosity or ill will toward Billy Mitchell," Hall writes in a public declaration filed with the court. "I am indifferent one way or another whether his Donkey Kong or other scores appear on the Twin Galaxies Website leaderboards. My only concern is to maintain the integrity of the leaderboards."

Neither the time nor the place

Twin Galaxies' motion highlights that the 3,770-post dispute thread surrounding Mitchell's Donkey Kong scores (which is now included in its entirety in the court record) was viewed nearly 2.4 million times as of March 14. That thread includes entries from 170 unique contributors and 211 public votes on the desired outcome of the case. (Mitchell lost that vote 198-13.)

The investigation surrounding that thread cost Twin Galaxies months of time and thousands of dollars in equipment and salaries to adjudicate, according to court documents. And after all that time and effort, Hall writes that Twin Galaxies "could not replicate the images and artifacts" present in Mitchell's video score submissions using "an original unmodified Donkey Kong Arcade system and PCB... and we tried. That fact showed me the scores were not from [an] Arcade cabinet, and they were performed on some other system."

While Twin Galaxies has never directly said that Mitchell's videos were created via MAME emulation, others have presented significant evidence that this is indeed the case.

"Twin Galaxies believes that this was the most professionally documented and thoroughly investigated video game score of all time," Hall said in his public declaration. "We are currently aware of no other video game score investigation that matches the expense, transparency, and length of investigative time that went into this dispute claim."



During Twin Galaxies' months-long public investigation, Mitchell "had the opportunity to submit evidence in support of his score performances and to engage in the lively public debate about the scores," Twin Galaxies writes in its motion. "He chose not to do so. Instead of settling his grievance then, he waited until the adjudication process had come to end and brought suit in court to prove the veracity of his Donkey Kong score performances."

But court proceedings are "not the forum for [Mitchell] to get revenge," Twin Galaxies argues, claiming that its statements regarding Mitchell were "protected activity" under the First Amendment, and Mitchell's suit "seeks to chill the expression of free speech."

To entertain Mitchell's argument would set a precedent that would let others challenge Twin Galaxies score decisions in court, the site writes. That would lead to an "unnecessary waste of the courts' precious resources" and also "have the practical effect of discouraging Twin Galaxies and others from debating video game scores in a public forum," the site argues.


Both sides will have the opportunity to debate these issues on July 6, when a judge is scheduled to hear arguments on Twin Galaxies' anti-SLAPP motion. Whatever the decision, though, we don't imagine this will be the last we'll hear on this matter from Mitchell.

Source: Arstechnica

[Hawq]

[Hawq]

[Dr. Zoidberg]

"Hidden" gems!

[Hawq]