Dcubed

Crazy that the Aleck 64 lasted that long, also a really strange choice of hardware for such an arcade game; especially when you had so many PS1-based boards floating around that were cheaper and easier to develop for, not to mention Dreamcast-based hardware like the Naomi and Atomiswave that were both cheap and plentiful. Somehow Aruze making a puzzle game based on a slot machine mechanic is perfectly on-brand for that company; given that they largely traded in pachinko/pachislot games (not to mention buying up and killing off the original SNK for seemingly no reason).

It is now officially the longest a home console has ever gone before being replaced by a successor; beating out both the Famicom and the Xbox 360. The only video game device to ever go for a longer period of time before being replaced is the original DMG Game Boy (which went for a whopping 9.5 years before getting its GBC upgrade, and a full 12 years before finally getting a true successor in the form of the GBA).

This is insane! https://github.com/hedge-dev/XenonRecomp Sonic fans once again prove that they are the craziest and most talented fanbase in existence. They have developed tools to recompile Xbox 360 games into native x86 Windows PC code, and have completed a full native PC port of Sonic Unleashed! It was crazy enough that people mananged to make this work with N64 games, but Xbox 360!? That's actually ridiculous! The most insane thing of all? They pulled off this unprecendented marvel of programming in just 6 months!! Holy shite!

Sorry I couldn’t join in the end. Something came up last minute that stopped me from being able to tag along. Glad you guys had fun though!

I should be able to join, but it might be better if you host @BowserBasher, since I may be a little late for 19:30; plus you already have the rules set up on your save file anyway.

Small update. The broken GBC arrived, so I stole its buttons and swapped them into the OLED GBC... Ahh... much better It really does make a big difference. The custom buttons that these custom GBC shells come with are always utter cack, but thankfully OEM Nintendo buttons fit in and work just fine. If ever you're buying or building a custom GBC? Make sure you swap in some original OEM buttons, your thumbs and gaming heart will thank you for it. It's really odd, because I've had plenty of good experience with GBA custom shells and buttons, but custom GBC buttons for whatever reason are just universally crap.

Honestly? I’m surprised this hasn’t happened sooner. This is pretty normal for streaming services; as 3rd party licenses eventually expire. This is the reason why the likes of Netflix pivoted to original programming that they could retain full rights control over. Hell, even the VC was no stranger to delistings as rights eventually expired. This is the reality of digital distribution.

Yeah, it’s a scummy scam, but unfortunately it works. People are dumb enough to pay the extra for what amounts to nothing, so publishers are gonna keep doing it.

Have to say though, I am feeling a bit conflicted about this decision. This essentially means that mainline Pokemon has now gone mobile, and that this represents the end of the mainline series when it comes to its main battle mechanics. The "mainline" games can now essentially be whatever Game Freak want to do, as they don't need to fit the classic gameplay mold anymore. The only thing they need to do is to allow you to transfer Pokemon that you catch in Gen 10-20-whatever into Pokemon Champions; they could be turned into football puzzle games for all it matters now. Kind of sad to think that there's nothing new to look forward to when it comes to core gameplay mechanics in future Pokemon games going forward... At the very least, Champions severely dilutes the appeal of what we would once think of as the mainline Pokemon series going forward. On the other hand, Mainline Pokemon is fucking crap now anyway; and barely even resembles the classic Dragon Quest-esc RPGs of yesteryear anyway. At least this will give us Pokemon's fundamental battle system in all its full glory...

Going up directly against GTA 6? That's brave.

Heads up, I don't think that @Glen-i is coming round today, so @BowserBasher, you are our only hope!

Looks like we can mix and match core mechanics from all of the various mainline games if we can have both Mega Evolution and Terastelisation in the same battle! So this is basically an official version of Pokemon Showdown? I imagine that this will become the new standard for Pokemon VGC going forward, with the mainline games no longer used for competitive battling; but just for raising Pokemon for transfer into Champions. I'm happy with this direction. It's long overdue at this point.

Looks like ZA is Switch 1 only, cross-gen dreams dead.

An official Pokemon Showdown!? With Mega Evos?! I aint even mad. This should've been done a long time ago!!

I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, but I suppose they'd have to find a screen with the right form factor (the GBC OLED screens are all being pulled from Blackberry Q10 phones, which just so happen to fit inside a GBC shell after some modification). I want to see some DS screen mods personally. All the focus is always placed on the GB/GBC and GBA lines, but DS always seems to be left out in the cold. Those screens are pretty ropey these days, so they could certainly do with some modern sprucing up.

I'm an old fucker, and it's my birthday today! So my sister got me something awesome... OLED, since 2025 A modded GBC with an OLED screen! Man, this thing is cool! The custom shell is very nice too. Only thing is that the buttons aren't that great (that's always been a pet peeve of mine with all these custom GBCs, they never get the buttons right), so I've gone ahead and bought a "broken" GBC from eBay for about £30 and will be swapping out the buttons for Nintendo OEM originals when it arrives (I ain't cannibilising my existing working GBC, but I'll gladly harvest from one that's already busted). Otherwise, this thing is tits! I've always loved the original GBC form factor, and the blacks are so black that the game image just melts into the surrounding bezel. Also, the GBC logo can have its colours changed to whatever you want from a choice of 31 different colours! So cool!

Confirmed in a WB statement... Bonkers. They had already spent over $100 million on this game too! I guess it's better to cut your losses than to keep going with a doomed project, but killing off Monolith alongside the game is such an asinine decision. They're clearly a talented studio with a proven track record. Not their fault that they were lumped with a bum IP to work with.

Oh fucking hell! What a disaster! Someone will surely buy out Monolith!?

Fucking hell! Fable just got delayed to 2026. Why even bother releasing the damn thing at this point? It started development all the way back in 2018! and was announced in 2020. That's gonna be at least 8 years of development! That's two years more than the timeframe that the entire original Fable Trilogy! (2004-2010) was released in. What a complete disaster. A complete management failure of the highest order. How can you fuck up this bad!?

https://blooberteam.prowly.com/383560-bloober-team-and-konami-continue-their-collaboration Guess we're getting either SH1 and SH3 remakes coming at some point, or an original Bloober-made Silent Hill.

The lack of challenge until post game or G-Rank/Master Rank expansion has been a looming issue ever since Worlds really. Even MH3G was a big downgrade in difficulty over the base MH3 until you got to G-Rank. A lot of these reviewers are coming from the perspective of players who have already played hundreds of hours of Iceborne (Rise as well, but mostly Worlds, let's be honest here), and are now expecting base Wilds to offer up a similar challenge. Which of course is a silly expectation. But it's certainly true that the base games are becoming easier over time. I think the more pertinent observation is that the series' identity is being continuously eroded away as Capcom continue pushing to make the series more "western friendly", under the guise of "quality of life improvements". I never liked the gameplay changes made in Worlds, and Wilds is doubling down on that. I never liked the focus on story, or the English voice acting, and again, Wilds doubles down on that. Even Rise wasn't free from many of the dumbed down mechanics introduced in Worlds (the ability to heal while running, while at least nerfed a bit from Worlds, is still there in Rise; as is the loss of Hot and Cold drinks for instance). None of this should be surprising. Worlds was a massive success, and the more traditional gameplay seen in Rise is only really appreciated by handheld/Nintendo/Japanese audiences, so of course they're going to follow up with what Worlds started. As for the performance issues? They're really inexcusable. It runs like shit on every platform, and RE Engine clearly isn't fit for purpose when it comes to open world games. Worlds hardly ran amazingly, but it certainly ran better than Wilds reletive to its hardware. You probably won't get any sort of solid technical performance until PS6 comes out and "fixes" the problem with brute force.

I can't help but feel that defeats the purpose of a physical release... What's the point when it still needs a download to be complete anyway?

These skins are neat and all, but it's just making me pine even more for that big gameplay update. I just want the new gameplay content at this point now.

So now Balatro is just as bad as Super Mario 64 DS and Pokemon RBY/GSC. Good to know. Still, a victory is a victory. Gonna start giving EA FC games an 18 rating for their real life gambling PEGI? No? Thought not.

Everything I said about the THPS1 port also applies to this THPS2 port as well. Thoroughly mediocre port job that could’ve been much better, had the N64 version been a priority. But considering that the N64 was very much on its last legs and on the way out by this point? The deprioritisation of this port makes perfect sense here.