For somebody who doesn’t care about who owns the corpse of SNK so long as he can play games we’ve all been able to play for decades on his blood diamond machine, he sure seems to be upset that other people do care.
He’s wrong, you’re figuratively killing him. Literally killing people is what the owners of zombie SNK do.
Neo Turf Masters is easily in my top five games and I’d rather do my own dentistry with a house brick than buy what is realistically just a fancy bootleg with proceeds to somebody who never made the game in the first place.
I’ve been keeping up to this and it looks pretty damn good!
Sometimes it is strategically very difficult to not give your money to very bad people, like when you buy petrol. Sometimes it’s incredibly easy, like when you don’t buy a superfluous console and a bunch of games you already could play from the reanimated corpse of what used to be SNK.
I picked up Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions cheap, I’m not familiar with the franchise but as an arcade style football game it’s really good! Think somewhere between Tekhan World Cup and Hat Trick Hero series. Really good fun in versus mode. youtu.be/futiptE6BtY?...
I’ve been waiting for years for this, finally I can turn my computer on and they won’t have moved something or added some new thing in the task bar I never asked for.
I certainly can’t complain the Saudi links weren’t mentioned enough there! Nice job.
Thought I’d give this a repost for general viewing but in particular might be of interest to @ted90909.bsky.social (I haven’t visited yet in 2026 as I’m scared most of it will have gone).
By the time I first saw it, it was down to 3 cabinets (one broken) and then turned into 2 cabinets. It was barely playable by the end so I knew it was likely to vanish, I’m just glad it hasn’t been scrapped!
Can I just say as somebody who cares about this kind of thing - I want a correct aspect ratio screen with no overlays or background decoration as the default because I am sick to death of having to turn it all off each time I get something.
My first time playing Silent Hill was a US copy on a PS1 without the appropriate cables so it was entirely in black and white, which made it feel more creepy if anything.
This is hyper-specific but on the 1980s ZX Spectrum unemployed-em-up text adventure” Hampstead” there was a bad ending where you were pushed out of a train window by some football hooligans as it went through tunnels, then it would flash up a message in white that would buzz menacingly on your CRT.
The one and only time I saw it, it was £5 a go, which felt absolutely outrageous. Luxury gaming.
This is what Darius looks like if you don’t put it at the top of your shopping bag.
The funny thing is that my best personal memories of the DC were in the decline/death era, when most shops were phasing out DC games so I bought great new games for about £15 each, messing around with readily-available used import titles being freely sold in shops and over the Internet.
Then by the end of 2001 the PS2 had Gran Turismo 3, Grand Theft Auto 3 and Metal Gear Solid 2 all out in a short window and I thought “ah yeah OK makes sense now” but I think some people just never got over it.
I was thinking about this for a while and I think much of it is down to a period around 2000 where the DC was arguably at peak strength in terms of games coming out, but the PS2 lineup felt weaker in comparison. I think it built up a lot of animosity and confusion when it was suddenly discontinued.
If Yuzo Koshiro actually enforced his rights to the Streets of Rage music, every other retro game channel on YouTube would be funding his retirement.
I’ve got to be critical here and say as I think it’s a bit an oversight to mention the SNK brand owner in passing but without making extremely clear in the article that he ordered a journalist to be murdered, especially with you being journalists yourselves.
Neo Turf Masters is one of my absolute favourite games of all-time and I look forward to continuing to play it without giving an oppressive regime any money.
Do a video review of the system and give absolutely gushing praise throughout but be visibly bruised.
Do a video review of the system and when it gets to criticisms the reviewer is replaced by somebody else and never seen again.
It’s a brutal regime that murders journalists, but look at the adorable little plastic cases!
Someone send me a review console just so I can describe something as being “swiftly executed, like a Saudi journalist”.
I’ve got mixed feelings about this - on one hand the brand is owned by a brutal regime and on the other hand I can already play these games without funding a brutal regime.
There was a similar angle from a lot of places on the GTA3 Dreamcast port and I feel that it puts such a miserable and pessimistic spin on the hard work people put in to a cool project.
Crane games
Very hacked about Daytona USA
R.I.P very broken Daytona USA that managed to last until the end of the 2025 season before being replaced by some crane games.
The Hyper Golf: Devil’s Course (Sega Saturn)
The Hyper Golf: Devil’s Course on the Saturn arrived. Been worrying for over a week that I might be getting nuked out of existence before I could play it.
This looks good!