Does anyone have experience with MAME and building a system?
Need some general advice to get me started, I've been doing some reading online but still a bit unsure. Most importantly, what software is best? MAME or is there another "brand" that is better? How do the older CRT games translate to newer HD screens?
I'm a big time console collector, I think there are around 16 in my collection from Intellivision, Atari, Coleco, to all the Nintendos, Segas and current stuff. Also have a few full size cabinets in my garage, NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat 3 and Cruisn' USA. I've been thinking and planning on emulating the older coinop arcade stuff for years now.
I'd suggest not going with MAME directly, use RetroArch instead. It's a lot easier to setup that way and you get access to older MAME cores, which help with certain game compatability. Also RetroArch has FinalBurn Neo, which used to be an emulator only for the Capcom arcade machines but now supports almost everything. I find it far superior to MAME in performance, compatability, and options. My setup uses the RetroArch FinalBurn Neo core for most of my arcade games, and then the MAME 2003-Plus core for a few tricky games that don't run on anything else
With Doom Eternal being one of the hot games out now, alongside it in the Xbox Store is Doom 64! I remember being so hyped about this game when I was a kid. Me and my brother had a "Doom 64 fund" to save up our allowance money to buy it. Being playing it and holy F, I don't remember it being so difficult at some points. Also very strange to not be able to use the RS to look all over the screen. Have to strafe when shooting.
Still, a great nostalgic trip down memory lane if you were a fan of the N64 version.
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Being a Star Wars buff and a vintage game fan I dusted off my steam copy of Star Wars Rebellion. It didn't look like much, but its a very deep game.
Of course I played as the Evil Empire today and set forth on bringing order to the galaxy. I forgot how complex the resource part of the game was and found myself running out of money and unable to build things. But I got lucky and amassed the Imperial Fleet lead by Darth Vader and his two Sith Acolytes Piett and Daala (Vader found out they were Force Sensitive. The Imperial diplomatic core got to work swinging systems to our side. Meanwhile The Imperial Fleet lead by Grand Admiral Thrawn started the outer rim sieges lead by the Super Star Destroyer Iron Hand the Imperial Storm Trooper brigade lead by General Grammel started conquering the outer rim and found resource rich planets. Our Ship designers got to work upgrading our Star Destroyers to the Imp and Victory 2 initiatives and we build the Death Squadron made up of 10 Star Destroyers 10 Victory class Star Destroyers and 2 Super Star Destroyers the Executor and Imperial Will. We rolled through the inner rim and pushed the Rebels to one sector in the outer Rim. Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine took command of the newly christened Death Star 2, which was lost by a lucky shot by Luke Skywalker, but this time there was no loss as Death Squadron finished the war using brute efficiency and we captured and executed Skywalker, Princess Leader and the rest of the Traitors.
I had a great time playing it.
I still dust off rebellion from time to time as well.
If I am feeling more casual, I sim all the battles and just worry about the movement, diplomacy, resources, etc.
As empire, my main go to is to find the sector with rebels in in closest to Yavin and go crazy after that place. When I see where else they pop up, it gives me hints as to where their hidden base is.
As rebels I recruit hard at Yavin, then send them all off with Han (as he travels faster in the Falcon) to a sector with a garrisoned planet - take that and you often get a whole sector defecting en masse!
I used to play this over LAN with one of my buddies back in the day. My trick with him was to rename my ships by keeping the generic name, but making the number after them bigger, so he thought I had more destroyers than I did
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Location: In a land without pants, or war, or want. But mostly we care about the pants.
Exp:
I've been playing Caster of Magic, which is an update to 1994's Master of Magic, done by patching the original game without access to source code. Considering this is the case, it's amazing - the AI is challenging now, and plays aggressively both in strategic and tactical combat.
I still dust off rebellion from time to time as well.
If I am feeling more casual, I sim all the battles and just worry about the movement, diplomacy, resources, etc.
As empire, my main go to is to find the sector with rebels in in closest to Yavin and go crazy after that place. When I see where else they pop up, it gives me hints as to where their hidden base is.
As rebels I recruit hard at Yavin, then send them all off with Han (as he travels faster in the Falcon) to a sector with a garrisoned planet - take that and you often get a whole sector defecting en masse!
I used to play this over LAN with one of my buddies back in the day. My trick with him was to rename my ships by keeping the generic name, but making the number after them bigger, so he thought I had more destroyers than I did
Diplomacy is so key in that game. As is sabotage and assassination. I remember playing on LAN with a buddy and we had a end of days apocalyptic battle over the last planet, Where I would have like 10 super star destroyers and about 100 Star Destroyers, and a bunch of other ships, and he would have a similar sized Rebel fleet, and the battle would take hours.
It was a fun game.
The biggest break you could get was to have Vader or the Emperor or Luke find an apprentice, they were seriously over powered characters.
I forgot that the Falcon was like the fastest ship out there.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
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I've played it. As a game, it's not bad. The main benefit is that it's built for two players, and there are not a lot of good games that are, which elevates its status. If you have four to six and time to do it, there's no reason you wouldn't play TI4 instead.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I managed to get my kids playing River City Ransom on my original NES a couple of years ago. Might have to hook it up again and beat up some clowns for spending money.
BARF!
There is a fun River City Ransom game on steam, too. I would encourage you to pick it up or add it to your wishlist.
I remember playing lots of RPGs back in the day, but as I rented many I never got the chance to finish most of them. I am working on Breath of Fire right now through emulation. I will work on another old RPG next.
I also downloaded some Commodore 64 games as my parents bought me a Commodore system and many floppies instead of a NES so I have found memories of some games. Including Squish'Em, Oils Well, Boulderdash, Bruce Lee, Jumpman, and Trolls and Tribulations.
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I also downloaded some Commodore 64 games as my parents bought me a Commodore system and many floppies instead of a NES so I have found memories of some games. Including Squish'Em, Oils Well, Boulderdash, Bruce Lee, Jumpman, and Trolls and Tribulations.
Are the Commodore games even playable or is it just for the memories? I found many of the NES games i used to love aren't playable for more than a single turn. I wonder if our brains are just wired differently now.
Started playing the Arkham series as all three games were on Steam for $15. I love Hamill's joker but not sure how I feel about the gameplay of the first one so far. Doesn't seem to hold up terribly well after 10 years.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Are the Commodore games even playable or is it just for the memories? I found many of the NES games i used to love aren't playable for more than a single turn. I wonder if our brains are just wired differently now.
Commodore games are terrible, but a fun trip down memory lane. I find the SuperNES onwards is where games really hold up on top of meeting nolstalgia.
Outside of Sonic, I'd love to hear some must plays on the Genesis. That's a system I never really found to be all that great.
Commodore games are terrible, but a fun trip down memory lane. I find the SuperNES onwards is where games really hold up on top of meeting nolstalgia.
Outside of Sonic, I'd love to hear some must plays on the Genesis. That's a system I never really found to be all that great.
NHL '94
Streets of Rage trilogy
Earthworm Jim (Sega CD is the definitive version)
Comix Zone
Mutant League Hockey and Football
Toejam & Earl
Vectorman
Gunstar Heroes
Ecco The Dolphin
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Commodore games are terrible, but a fun trip down memory lane. I find the SuperNES onwards is where games really hold up on top of meeting nolstalgia.
Outside of Sonic, I'd love to hear some must plays on the Genesis. That's a system I never really found to be all that great.
In their day Commodore games were awesome. One of the best hockey franchises in that day was Superstar Ice Hockey. It had minor leagues, drafts league schedules, all that stuff. They had a great wrestling game that included interference from the back as you fought your way up the ranks. I think they had Joe Montana talking football, which was a great game.
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Heey, I had a TG16 way back in the day. Pretty cool.
On another note, all the Longest Journey games are on sale on Steam. The original is one of the last, and arguably the best, old school point and click adventure title made. You can play it for $5.
The only Turbo Grafx game I can remember playing to death is Final Lap Twin, some kind of RPG racing game where your random encounters were one lap races. Pretty cool IIRC.
I don't actually remember playing the Bonk series.
Last edited by Deegee; 04-14-2020 at 09:02 PM.
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