@zorrobandito@aus.social
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

zorrobandito

@zorrobandito@aus.social

#RetroGames, #film, #CubScouts and #cycling enthusiast. Works in IT, family man, lefty, lives in #Australia, born in #Yorkshire.

Posts mostly about games and cycling. Likes generously and Boosts judiciously.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

zorrobandito, to RPG
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

I've dabbled with table-top role-playing games over the years, playing a lot in the 80s and 90s . I have some great memories of adventures with friends - but I've struggled with the time commit required from a GM.

One of my favourite systems was . After a few games of D&D in mid-80s highschool, we switched to the way more technical Rolemaster and, with a genius-level DM, we played the hell out of that system.

I read that Rolemaster is stagnating and that another system, Against the Darkness, had picked up the mantle, leaving behind the legacy debt to a splintered fanbase.

https://techraptor.net/tabletop/reviews/against-darkmaster-tabletop-rpg-review

Anyone had any experience?

fraying, to random
@fraying@xoxo.zone avatar

One of my least favorite reply guys on social media is the “you’re just noticing this NOW?!” guy.

Yeah, man! We notice things when we notice them. If you agree, welcome me to the fucking club.

Are you the punch-clock of timely awareness or a builder of solidarity? You want a prize for noticing it first, or do you want to actually change it?

Pointing out that someone is late to the party is not what good hosts do, and just makes people less likely to try and help in the future.

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@fraying I have friends IRL who behave like this. They just can't take any joy in your joy and have to be too cool for school all the time.

Fortunately they have other excellent qualities.

zorrobandito, to classicgaming
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

Received a Miyoo Mini Plus for my birthday a few weeks ago and I've been tuning it to perfection since then.

The fact is that I spend more time faffing about with these kinds of emulation devices than I do playing them.

I installed the preferred OS, OnionOS, refined the list of games to my Best Of, tuned my favourites list and am now scraping artwork for the selection menu.

There's still a bit more to do until it's in optimal running order but it's been fun and distracting getting it this far.

https://cultureofgaming.com/miyoo-mini-plus-guide-everything-you-should-know/

historyofpunkrock, to punk
@historyofpunkrock@sfba.social avatar

1980 was a great year for releasing a punk rock long player

16 releases, all of which have cult status

Do you have a favorite or is your favorite LP missing?

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@historyofpunkrock

Fresh Fruit is a great album but am I the only one that wonders why The Selecter is in there?

alexkidman, to random
@alexkidman@aus.social avatar

OK, who angered the sky gods?

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@alexkidman they're not angry, they're just disappointed.

historyofpunkrock, to poppunk
@historyofpunkrock@sfba.social avatar

45 years ago today
Blondie scored their first UK No.1 album when 'Parallel Lines' started a four-week run at the top of the charts, featuring the singles 'Heart Of Glass', 'Hanging On The Telephone' and 'Sunday Girl', 'Heart Of Glass' and 'One Way or Another'

image/jpeg

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@historyofpunkrock every time 11:59 is mentioned, I always finish it with "and I want to stay alive" because of this album.

alexkidman, to retrogaming
@alexkidman@aus.social avatar

It's Friday, which means it's time for my retro game of the week! This week: Capcom's Pirate Ship Higemaru, a bit of a hidden classic from its very early history:

https://alexreviewstech.com/retro-game-of-the-week-pirate-ship-higemaru-playstation-one/

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@alexkidman I've heard the fellas on the Ten Pence Arcade podcast bang on about how good this game is but I've never fired it up.

I'll have to add it to my list.

OutofPrintArchive, to retrogaming
@OutofPrintArchive@mstdn.games avatar

Review for MotorStorm on Playstation 3 from GamesMaster 182 - February 2007 (UK)

This magazine can be downloaded in full here:
https://www.outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/GamesMaster.html



Review for MotorStorm on Playstation 3 from GamesMaster 182 - February 2007 (UK) score: 82%

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@OutofPrintArchive one of the best games on PS3 and one of the best racers ever.

lex, to mastodon
@lex@floe.earth avatar

So , what's your favourite hashtag on here that hits the sweet spot between weird and amazing?

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@lex I'm not sure it classifies as 'amazing' but provides a glimpse into a world I didn't know existed with loving shots of beautiful pens and ink.

I don't particularly care for them but it's great to read about people who do...

SirTapTap, to retrogaming
@SirTapTap@mastodon.social avatar

Best games, esp stuff that is not a port?

And more urgently, is that Shining Force game good?

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@SirTapTap Sonic 1 & 2 are pretty damn good on it, as is the Golden Axe game.

DanielSuarez, to movies
@DanielSuarez@mastodon.social avatar

DVD's are making a comeback with movie & TV fans.

As streaming replaces physical media, don't assume movies and shows you 'buy' will remain bought. They can disappear from the platform, or the platform itself can disappear.

https://www.insider.com/dvd-blu-ray-collectors-streaming-apocalypse-physical-media-2023-11

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@DanielSuarez does it really matter though? Over upon a time you had to wait for theaters to play them again and people managed.

Is the desire to have it (my precious) with no strings attached simply another facet of rampant consumerism?

zorrobandito, to VideoGames
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

One of the cool things about playing with home computers on the is that you have to learn how to load games from disk, tape and, occasionally, hard drives in their native form.

On my quest to play the classic games on every system, I'm investigating the Acorn Electron and currently sitting at a command line prompt.

How to load a game on an early 80s, niche, British home PC?

I'll keep you informed...

The game is afoot!

8bit

zorrobandito, to movies
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

I'm a movie nerd and, although my consumption has slowed, I'd like to think my tastes are refining.

This video essay, with excellent clip references, joins some dots about how I've been feeling about so much modern cinema.

In particular, the creator investigates storytelling entropy - the meaning and engagement fractures as it moves further away from its centre.

It also discusses the lack of meaningful relationships depicted. It asks whether a diet of snarky cynicism created a society of snarky cynics or vice-versa...

It's intelligent and well produced. Bravo.

https://youtu.be/5tmxfVWDgMM?si=Fvg9U-Eh3zGRH8su

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@mforester coincidentally, I was listening to a podcast today which mentioned that Peter Jackson had stated that he had considered hypnotism to erase his memory of LotR so that he could watch it like everyone else! 😃

zorrobandito, to zxspectrum
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

Further Adventures with the MISTer - Mighty Final Fight

Some more 8-bit love, this time across two formats.

Mighty Final Fight appeared on the in 1993 and was a super-deformed, somewhat satirical offshoot of their seminal arcade beat-em-up, Final Fight.

Like its arcade big brother, Mighty is a fight and go right brawler. These games all rely on the same 30 seconds of gameplay - making the fighting fun.

The best of these games, like Streets of Rage and Double Dragon, add variety to their attacks and Mighty doesn't disappoint - jumping kicks, throws and unlockable special moves, combined with slick controls and smooth graphics make for a great beat-em-up.

I'd never played the NES game but was led to it by a well-regarded, 2018 homebrew conversion for the . Considering the limitations of the Speccy, this is a killer version and has a great tutorial showing the special moves and because of the 128k's superior FM sound, the music is a lot better than the warbled beeps that usually grace the system.

I had a lot of fun playing and researching both of these.

A grey rooftop with brick walls contains the action but a city skyline and a giant movie poster are in the background. There are three combatants, the player's Haggar wrestler character, a punk-rock Andrew the Giant thug and a spiky punk rocker are all trying to make life difficult for our hero.
A shipyard, with its packing crates and machinery is in the background while our hero, Haggar, a shirtless wrestler (and Mayor), faces off with a Toki-looking MF with sunglasses.
This screenshot is from the ZX Spectrum version. The colours are garish but the detail is retained. A grey rooftop with brick walls contains the action but a city skyline and a giant movie poster are in the background. There are two combatants - the player's character, Cody - and a spiky punk rocker. Looks like it's time for a bit of biff.

CM30, to random
@CM30@ohai.social avatar

Random, but one thing I find interesting in the world of fan game/mod/ROM hack development nowadays is that pretty much all big projects seem to be team projects now.

In the olden days there would be lots of insanely ambitious projects where one random person would try to make a whole 100 level game by themself. That seems to have mostly died out by this point.

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@CM30 I wonder if that's a reflection of insanely ambitious, single dev homebrews started vs insanely ambitious, single dev homebrews finished?

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@CM30 @flamepanther perhaps reflective of the ability to stand on the shoulders of those who came before, leveraging asset libraries and knowledge repositories.

Perhaps it's also about a lower barrier to entry too. Intro tools, UIs and abstraction layers from the code can help.

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@CM30 @flamepanther

I remember when I started making levels. At the very start, all you could do was change some of the game's simplest variables, like monster types and counts. Then more geometry changes (Doom Editing Utility), then a better user interface (Doom Construction Kit) and so on, and so on.

It's been a while since I did anything like that, but I imagine most of these niche's are similar.

zorrobandito, to VideoGames
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

Probably the most famous home version of Irem's 1987 classic, R-Type, is the PC-Engine version. Ported by Irem, it is a slick conversion and plays beautifully. You might expect that the Megadrive version would come close but it was never released.

That's now been rectified by programmer Andrea Baldiraghi (@TheRoboZ) who has just released a three-level demo of his unofficial port. I've given it a try and can report that it is spot-on, looking and playing just like the arcade.

The three levels are the first, with its iconic boss and another from the arcade. It also includes the Master System's secret level which I've never seen before.

The title screen for R-Type on the Megadrive. "Blast off and strike the evil Bydo Empire! Press Start/Hot_Key MEGA R-TYPE 2022 By TheRoboZ 1987 by Irem"
The R-Type ship faces off against one of gaming's most inconic bosses - a Giger-esque alien with a prehensile tail and an evil face in its belly that fires at you.

badastro, to random
@badastro@mastodon.social avatar

I convinced Scientific American to publish a scholarly article on werewolves and space exploration.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-happens-to-a-werewolf-on-the-moon/

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@badastro what a finish!

julianwki, to retrogaming German
@julianwki@chaos.social avatar

I installed an Analogue Mega SG (an FPGA-based aftermarket Sega Genesis/Mega Drive) at work. Mainly to show the younger colleagues what they missed in the 90s. 😁

Now I am looking for nice games playable at lunch break. Meaning: Not to complicated, fast startup, maybe games for two.

Any suggestions?

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@julianwki Micro Machines, Speedball 2 and the early NHLs (or EA Hockey to those of us outside NA) are great for two players.

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@mainframed767 @julianwki I don't think the Analgue Mega SG plays 32X or CD games (although it has the edge connector)...

zorrobandito, to Canberra
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

A recent ABC News segment and accompanying article shows bees being removed from the fascia of my house by a professional.

What wasn't covered is that everyone got stung - my wife and son, the cameraman and the bee professional! Everyone was fine, fortunately, and the bees are gone which is a bit sad for the garden but good for our house

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-23/why-bees-swarm-and-what-you-should-do-if-you-find-one/102974434

c0de517e, to random
@c0de517e@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Crazy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaaATngW8iY

zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@c0de517e I'm playing 1080 Snowboarding, Wave Race and Road Rash like it's 1999!

I love the MISTer and I'll be a bit sad when we do reach its limits and all development work is finished. Part of the appeal is all the news!

OutofPrintArchive, to NintendoSwitch
@OutofPrintArchive@mstdn.games avatar

Just received a package from Limited Run.
While all of them are real bangers in their own right, my absolute favourite here has to be Demon's Tilt.

I adore pinball, and some of my favourite video games have been pinball tables as well.
Starting with Pin.Bot on NES by Rare, Necronomicon on Saturn, The Crush series (http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/series/crush-pinball/), and so many more.

So I just adore how we got a spiritual successor to this series.


zorrobandito,
@zorrobandito@aus.social avatar

@OutofPrintArchive I loved the Crush series too! But I think my favourite pinball game is Pro Pinball: The Web. Have you played that series?

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