Every time I hear a retro reference to the Pompey Pirates I’m surprised by the “Pompei” pronunciation. I always assumed it was “Pom-pee” as in the old slang for Portsmouth
I genuinely can't think of any 16 bit era computer games with loading screens... Intro screens yes, there are loads of them but a loading screen I would more associate with older 8bit systems and loading games from tape. I can't comment in terms of ST games but if you wanted a top 3 Amiga list of Intros then I'd go for 1. Frontier Elite II. The iconic rolling intro that's become almost a benchmark for Amiga accelerators. Gives you a cinematic overview of the games features. 2. Microprose F1 GP. Feels like the opening to a Formula One TV show, just with added cowbells. Lovely animation too. 3. Liberation Captive II (CD32). Another cinematic experience setting up what feels like it should be an epic story of the underdog against the corrupt system even if ultimately the game falls a little short of the mark (imo). I could have mentioned a lot more including some examples of FMV intros although that's probably moving too far from the subject.
-Never played Ultima -Has hair You should rethink about your guests! (Just kidding) 🤣 Great show! Favourite intro screen: Lotus III. Mainly because of the theme song.
Great stuff! Amiga forever!! Lol Also, wishing much joy, congratulations and hopefully a bit of rest inbetween to Neil on his new parenting adventure! Shout out from the Pacific Northwest to my favorite retro podcast!
@@david-spliso1928 Yes. If you have no more than 16 colors per line, you can switch palettes between raster lines. Uses some CPU time, so it works mostly for stills.
My inflatable Amiga Boing Ball exploded in protest. I loved the loading screen segment, they acted to prime your imagination, that gap between the world in your head and the abstraction rendered in real time. I was responsible for some dire loading screens on the ZX Spectrum, possibly some of the worst. That might be an interesting future segment, the worst loading screens ever made.
I remember that name, but not the book...! He was a wizard and a friend of mine claimed his name 'Raistlin' sounded like a drug you can buy at the pharmacy.
Strictly speaking, pixel artists did not design their graphics to look 'better' on CRTs - it's just that the graphics were actually made on CRTs, so what you're seeing is closer to what they were happy with at the time. So sprite based games generally look better on a CRT, but games with more text, or 3d graphics can look better on modern monitors.
Reece really is the most natural choice for a co-host in Neil's absence. Well either Reece or the Fake Austrlian. Either way, I think TWIR will be just fine - great job guys.
I think the biggest appeal of the Dreamcast is that you can basically have a late 90s / early 00s arcade at home. By doing what the Neo Geo did a couple of generations previously and having practically the same hardware on the console as in the coin-up, the Dreamcast offered almost everything you could want in a home arcade - racers like Daytona and Sega Rally, Light Gun action with House of the Dead and Confidential Mission, sports games like Virtua Tennis and Virtua striker, fighters like Soul Calibur, Street Fighter 3 and Marvel vs Capcom 2, shooters like Ikaruga and Bangai-O as well as other classics like Bass Fishing, Crazy Taxi, 18 Wheeler, Space Channel 5, Jet Set Radio and many more. And of course outside of the arcade you have open world games like Shenmue 1 and 2 and a couple of really great RPGs in Grandia 2 and Skies of Arcadia, and completely daft games like Typing of the Dead, Samba de Amigo and Seaman. Just a wonderful line up for the hardcore gaming fan.
I am a heavy user of flat screens for all kinds of retro gaming. Tbh I find anything pre-32 bit (so 8-bit consoles / computers, St, Amiga, Genesis, SNES, etc.) all look fantastic on a flat screen, really very clear and beautiful. Issues creep in a bit in the 32-bit era; the N64 is notorious for looking rough on a flat screen. My belief is that becasue the N64 used cartridges, along with attendant low memory storage for textures, N64 programmers got great at `fudging' the textures to take advantage of the CRT's analogue picture delivery. This sometimes impacts the PS1 as well, but to a far lesser extent. It doesn't render any of the games unplayable, for certain, but I do sometimes wonder if I am not getting the best from the games visually. Once you get to PS2 / Xbox / Dreamcast everything starts to look good again as the resolution is suitably enhanced on that gen... I guess I can sympathise with folk who feel compelled to use a CRT, but I am in my 50s now and quite happily left blurry and badly tuned CRTs behind over a decade ago!
TWIR = This Week It's Rees. Fully agree with Carrier Command being one of the best, one of the first games that really showed what the 16-bit machines could do.
Not Atari, but The Ulimate Doom is still my favourite loading screen I know its not console, but it just brings a smile / grin to my face every time i see it. As for Atari, probably Zool.
Not sure if it's the loading screen - you do see it before getting into the game. Wolfenstein 3D, where you can see BJ Blazkowicz positioned next to the corner of a wall waiting for a German soldier coming down the hall.
40:22 Bad shielded cables (thin cables) created ghosting. THis happended with CRT and LCD monitors. I still have a HP L1706 that has a somewhat ghosting problem where one end of the cable has some broken wire and that creates a black artifact pattern at right of text or black things. CRT data cables are thick and not removeable unless we remove the top cover and detach it from the CRT. LCDs have a VGA input and cables can be switched if bad. Yes, vieweing angles are a problem with LCDs, where the RGB layers are somewhere "thick". The alightment of the layers also counted for top-bottom viewing. CRT are more power hungry than LCDs. Who doesn't remember warming up their hands over the CRT top grid during cold days? LCDs were also power hungry, they had to drive upto 4/6 CCFL lamps. The more the bright, the more the heat generated. This was also valid for CRTs. CRTs suffered of dry solder joints where solder had detached from the component legs. Reflowing adding more solder, solved this issue. I remember having a 14" CRT stopped working because of this. It was not used for 3 weeks, until I bought some soldering iron and thick 3mm rosin core solder and fixed the dry joints.... risking my life. LCDs started being small and expensive. Prices decreased and the LCDs got a bit bigger and heavy.
Dreamcast: Resident Evil, Soul Calibre (the game that sold the console to me) and Capcom Vs. SNK! Had others like House of the Dead 2 and Tokyo Drift - the device had a skinny library but the offerings carried weight.
The Ultima games ARE accessible. My boys, all 4 but especially my oldest two, all play Ultima IV. They have the GOG version for themselves, but for a real treat they ask me to bring up the old good computer (the Atari ST) for them to play on.
CRTs for me are all about low latency... there's nothing else I like about them. In fact, the low 50hz interlaced refresh is hella hard on my eyes. Get me a decent LCD with low latency and I'll get that every time.
Yes for the lower resolutions of retro systems you can't beat a CRT, modern flatpanels don't scale well and games appear too blocky - certainly without a CRT shader. I have 3 Sony Trinitrons (14 inch) and as I was watching decided to fire up Head Over Heels on the Spectrum Next and it looks fantastic (an excellent title screen too)...For modern games on CRT then you'll get black bars as the ratios are different to the 4:3 of a CRT. Not sure how the picture quality would look though, so yeah give it a try.
You should rather buy an Anbernic RG40XX which has a 4" 4:3 screen and has great Portmaster support, i.e. tons of classic PC ports console stuff aside.
This Week in Retro brought to you this week by the Atari boys.
Every time I hear a retro reference to the Pompey Pirates I’m surprised by the “Pompei” pronunciation. I always assumed it was “Pom-pee” as in the old slang for Portsmouth
I genuinely can't think of any 16 bit era computer games with loading screens... Intro screens yes, there are loads of them but a loading screen I would more associate with older 8bit systems and loading games from tape. I can't comment in terms of ST games but if you wanted a top 3 Amiga list of Intros then I'd go for
1. Frontier Elite II. The iconic rolling intro that's become almost a benchmark for Amiga accelerators. Gives you a cinematic overview of the games features.
2. Microprose F1 GP. Feels like the opening to a Formula One TV show, just with added cowbells. Lovely animation too.
3. Liberation Captive II (CD32). Another cinematic experience setting up what feels like it should be an epic story of the underdog against the corrupt system even if ultimately the game falls a little short of the mark (imo).
I could have mentioned a lot more including some examples of FMV intros although that's probably moving too far from the subject.
-Never played Ultima
-Has hair
You should rethink about your guests! (Just kidding) 🤣
Great show!
Favourite intro screen: Lotus III. Mainly because of the theme song.
I did consider shaving my head just for this but at my age there's a real risk that it might not grow back 😂
@@ctrlaltrees LOL! 🤣
Thank you for your EPROM device ID list, I have used it multiple times.
By the way I'm not an Ultima fan either 🤫
Good show Dave, Rees, and Duncan! Thanks!
Great stuff! Amiga forever!! Lol Also, wishing much joy, congratulations and hopefully a bit of rest inbetween to Neil on his new parenting adventure! Shout out from the Pacific Northwest to my favorite retro podcast!
Wings of Death - beautifully drawn and using more than 16 colours on the ST.
On a standard ST?
@@david-spliso1928 Yes. If you have no more than 16 colors per line, you can switch palettes between raster lines. Uses some CPU time, so it works mostly for stills.
@@bobobear1977 So cool.
That made my saturday. Thank you Dave, bless your scottish heart. I'll be giggling about it for the rest of the day.
My inflatable Amiga Boing Ball exploded in protest.
I loved the loading screen segment, they acted to prime your imagination, that gap between the world in your head and the abstraction rendered in real time. I was responsible for some dire loading screens on the ZX Spectrum, possibly some of the worst. That might be an interesting future segment, the worst loading screens ever made.
Sleepwalker was great, I remember being giddy because it was linked with Red Nose Day
Raistlin Majere was from the Dragonlance books if I remember correctly, along with his brother Caramon
Yep! I said Krynn, which is where they are all set (Dave) I loved those books
I remember that name, but not the book...! He was a wizard and a friend of mine claimed his name 'Raistlin' sounded like a drug you can buy at the pharmacy.
Strictly speaking, pixel artists did not design their graphics to look 'better' on CRTs - it's just that the graphics were actually made on CRTs, so what you're seeing is closer to what they were happy with at the time. So sprite based games generally look better on a CRT, but games with more text, or 3d graphics can look better on modern monitors.
Reece really is the most natural choice for a co-host in Neil's absence. Well either Reece or the Fake Austrlian. Either way, I think TWIR will be just fine - great job guys.
Not sure if they were ever out on the Atari but for me, the Monkey Island openers were just epic. The music, graphics, humor. They had it all.
I was missing this as well. Same as Loom etc
Ask me about Loom
I think the biggest appeal of the Dreamcast is that you can basically have a late 90s / early 00s arcade at home. By doing what the Neo Geo did a couple of generations previously and having practically the same hardware on the console as in the coin-up, the Dreamcast offered almost everything you could want in a home arcade - racers like Daytona and Sega Rally, Light Gun action with House of the Dead and Confidential Mission, sports games like Virtua Tennis and Virtua striker, fighters like Soul Calibur, Street Fighter 3 and Marvel vs Capcom 2, shooters like Ikaruga and Bangai-O as well as other classics like Bass Fishing, Crazy Taxi, 18 Wheeler, Space Channel 5, Jet Set Radio and many more. And of course outside of the arcade you have open world games like Shenmue 1 and 2 and a couple of really great RPGs in Grandia 2 and Skies of Arcadia, and completely daft games like Typing of the Dead, Samba de Amigo and Seaman. Just a wonderful line up for the hardcore gaming fan.
I am a heavy user of flat screens for all kinds of retro gaming. Tbh I find anything pre-32 bit (so 8-bit consoles / computers, St, Amiga, Genesis, SNES, etc.) all look fantastic on a flat screen, really very clear and beautiful. Issues creep in a bit in the 32-bit era; the N64 is notorious for looking rough on a flat screen. My belief is that becasue the N64 used cartridges, along with attendant low memory storage for textures, N64 programmers got great at `fudging' the textures to take advantage of the CRT's analogue picture delivery. This sometimes impacts the PS1 as well, but to a far lesser extent. It doesn't render any of the games unplayable, for certain, but I do sometimes wonder if I am not getting the best from the games visually. Once you get to PS2 / Xbox / Dreamcast everything starts to look good again as the resolution is suitably enhanced on that gen... I guess I can sympathise with folk who feel compelled to use a CRT, but I am in my 50s now and quite happily left blurry and badly tuned CRTs behind over a decade ago!
TWIR = This Week It's Rees. Fully agree with Carrier Command being one of the best, one of the first games that really showed what the 16-bit machines could do.
Finally, This Week in Atari!
Not Atari, but The Ulimate Doom is still my favourite loading screen I know its not console, but it just brings a smile / grin to my face every time i see it.
As for Atari, probably Zool.
Not sure if it's the loading screen - you do see it before getting into the game. Wolfenstein 3D, where you can see BJ Blazkowicz positioned next to the corner of a wall waiting for a German soldier coming down the hall.
40:22 Bad shielded cables (thin cables) created ghosting. THis happended with CRT and LCD monitors. I still have a HP L1706 that has a somewhat ghosting problem where one end of the cable has some broken wire and that creates a black artifact pattern at right of text or black things.
CRT data cables are thick and not removeable unless we remove the top cover and detach it from the CRT. LCDs have a VGA input and cables can be switched if bad.
Yes, vieweing angles are a problem with LCDs, where the RGB layers are somewhere "thick". The alightment of the layers also counted for top-bottom viewing.
CRT are more power hungry than LCDs. Who doesn't remember warming up their hands over the CRT top grid during cold days? LCDs were also power hungry, they had to drive upto 4/6 CCFL lamps. The more the bright, the more the heat generated. This was also valid for CRTs.
CRTs suffered of dry solder joints where solder had detached from the component legs. Reflowing adding more solder, solved this issue. I remember having a 14" CRT stopped working because of this. It was not used for 3 weeks, until I bought some soldering iron and thick 3mm rosin core solder and fixed the dry joints.... risking my life.
LCDs started being small and expensive. Prices decreased and the LCDs got a bit bigger and heavy.
Carrier Command was one of the first games I ever played. Within weeks of playing the likes of Centipede on the 2600. Totally blew my mind.
Dreamcast: Resident Evil, Soul Calibre (the game that sold the console to me) and Capcom Vs. SNK! Had others like House of the Dead 2 and Tokyo Drift - the device had a skinny library but the offerings carried weight.
Welcome to this week in Dave 🤣🤣🤣
Congrats with the TF - I have one in my A1200 - it makes Elite 2: Frontier fly! :)
Pirates , told the story in the loading screen ;) where as Blood Money had a brilliant Loading screen, but nothing to do with the game :D
Good episode without Neill gents you ran the show like champs and had a lot of good stories.
Tf1260 ❤
Nice to have rees on!
The Ultima games ARE accessible. My boys, all 4 but especially my oldest two, all play Ultima IV. They have the GOG version for themselves, but for a real treat they ask me to bring up the old good computer (the Atari ST) for them to play on.
you are winning at parenting
CRTs for me are all about low latency... there's nothing else I like about them. In fact, the low 50hz interlaced refresh is hella hard on my eyes.
Get me a decent LCD with low latency and I'll get that every time.
Yes for the lower resolutions of retro systems you can't beat a CRT, modern flatpanels don't scale well and games appear too blocky - certainly without a CRT shader. I have 3 Sony Trinitrons (14 inch) and as I was watching decided to fire up Head Over Heels on the Spectrum Next and it looks fantastic (an excellent title screen too)...For modern games on CRT then you'll get black bars as the ratios are different to the 4:3 of a CRT. Not sure how the picture quality would look though, so yeah give it a try.
C64 Ghost Busters load screen, because it's a whole other game to play while you wait
Dreamcast 🌀 Jet Set Radio, F355 Challenge, Crazy Taxi, Space Channel 5, ChuChu Rocket!
Yes yes yes!
Skid row vs. Angles.... did they feel it?
"Please don't sing the song."
Well, now you forced his hand, mate.
Great show guys --- but Amiga never dies :)
13:30 It was at this point I realised mistakes were made.
1996, one year later Bill Gates bailed out Steve Jobs / Apple with a loan. Where would the computer industry be without that bailout?
You should rather buy an Anbernic RG40XX which has a 4" 4:3 screen and has great Portmaster support, i.e. tons of classic PC ports console stuff aside.
Wait, a TWIR host with hair? What kind of madness is this? 🤣🤣🤣
Is the Ultima counter still counting?
A thing is only off-topic until someone homebrews a game about it for some sort of old hardware.
I think Rees was talking about Vigilante 8. Interstate 76 didn't appear on dreamcast, sorry for the nitpick Rees.
I'll nitpick back and say he was actually talking about Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense :) the first one was not on DC either.
@@HappyCodingZX that's the one, had the cool disco tunes.
Yes boyz ...Atari ! Atari ! Atari ! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I'm totally in support of the coup d'état by the Atari faction!
Ctrl Alt Reisling?
Nvidia had a sega saturn card
The description has many instances of SAGA instead of SEGA. Autocorrected?
Fixed! Thank you :)
Oh no, they've taken over the asylum. 😜
Dave do you fancy donating me a crt for my megadrive?
This Rees guy gets everywhere, I tell ya!
Wat is this guy talking about 3 years?
It wasn't too healthy to sit in front of a CRT most of your day too. Caused a lot of people to get health problems.
Mortal Kombat was and still is a terrible game, sorry.
Is this show finally going to be about DOS and Atari only 😜💾💾