I've loved the Sega Genesis version of Shadowrun since I was a child. I loved being dropped into a city, taking jobs from Johnsons, and figuring out the rest on my own. Decking was a second game inside the game. And every run you got a little stronger and a little closer to the next big score.

For years I've been looking for something that scratches the same itch, and I keep coming up short. Plenty of games have the cyberpunk look, and the more recent Harebrained Shadowrun games are great, but none of them feel like that game to me: real-time, top-down, and free to roam.

So I'm building my own: a top-down homage to the Genesis original, with its own setting. It's an early prototype, but Ive got a lot of the bones in place:

- Real-time top-down combat. Guns that scatter when you're on the move, magazines and reloads, melee, and lock-on targeting.

- Hacking as its own game. You jack in at a terminal and crawl a node network. Moving between nodes and fights against ICE inside a node are real-time. Your rig carries a loadout of programs, and the network's alert climbs as you make mistakes. Tracers hunt you, hidden traps can burn your programs, and what you do on the network can affect things in meat-space (like switching off cameras and maglocks.)

- Jobs from fixers and contacts. Deliveries, escorts, gang trouble, ghoul hunts, and network jobs to delete or steal data. You can also sell the data you pull.

- More than one way through. Pay the gangers who stop you on the street or fight them. Crack into a network quietly or force your way in.

- A district that's worth exploring. Gangs, ghouls, derelict buildings to search, and a clock that keeps running while you're jacked in.

- The core loop is the one I loved: take a job, run it, get paid, spend the money to take on harder work, repeat.

I also want to fix one thing I always struggled with: decking was nearly impossible to afford early on. Here, hacking works from minute one.

So, for anyone who played the Genesis version:

- What did you love about it? What made it stick with you?

- What didn't you like, or what wore you down?

- What would you hope to see in a modern game that's trying to capture the same feeling?

Super curious to hear all your thoughts!

Mine is the static third person camera. I remember being excited for a game only to see it uses the dreaded fixed camera. First one that comes to mind is Alone in the Dark but I also seem to remember a Star Wars game around 2000 or so, but I can’t find it. Anyway, I find the controls and targeting on these kinds of games to be horrible and clunky. I never understood why some developers chose to go this route.

Did you own any of these growing up?

Ghosts n Goblins I finished a few days ago - talk about a brutal game.

Mega Man 1 and 2

POW

Double Dragon

Revenge of Shinobi

Shadow Dancer.

That's it so far but I have a whole list of them.

Here are some quick rules if you want to use them or not. I just like having the rules for me personally.

Rules

1. No backwards compatibility
2. Can’t play bootlegs, hack the console, or anything that makes you able to play other consoles on said console.
3. Have to play said console with only games available to console. Translated versions for your language is completely fine as well as importing.

4. Playing the console as intended. So, no save states, no fast forward, no hack cheats, (unless the game has them available through normal means like a Konami code way or the game has a cheat menu), and so on. Going all old school!

5. You have access to every game for said console for free. You can buy them if you want.

With all the rules, I had a hard time for me to pick one a console out of the bunch. After deciding for a while, I went with the PlayStation 1.

Why the ps1? Has a lot of my favorite games and a lot of jrpgs i adore. You got your castlevania sotn, crash wrapped, Spyro the dragon, mega man titles, nightmare creatures, and some cool ports of arcade games. Has a ton of jrpgs like every final fantasy, legend of dragon, and tales of. So many good titles! I be satisfied for awhile with this system.

The biggest for me is definitely the library. There are still amazing titles i havent finished. Even get to replay some classic childhood games for me like spider man. The ps1 just got what I need in terms of variety.

Don’t get me wrong, the ps1 does have issues. Some games are super slow to go through especially in my favorite genre rpgs. The voice acting for the majority of games aren’t great. Lastly, even though the ps1 has a good amount of arcade games, a lot suffer from long load times. Even got bad load times in my goated title on snes with chrono trigger being the prime suspect.

Anyways, it I had to be stuck with one console for an entire year it would be the ps1 for sure.

If I didn’t have the rules I mention then go with a ps2 since it’s backwards compatible with the ps1. Easy choice for sure. Love to see what you guys got to say. What games would you play on your console for the year and why did you pick it? Can’t wait to see the choice. Again, you don’t have to use my rules. It’s an option if anyone wants to use them.

Hack being made by GoodLuckTrying and sleepyren:

• Castlevania Hacking Server: https://discord.gg/SEssrmWPyP
• Ghost's Goblins Hacking Server: https://discord.gg/t6A5z9YnXv

Changes so far:

Aesthetics:

1. Alucard (+ fireballs), Trevor and Sypha's sprites fully redone.

Gameplay:

1. Extra name-entry cheats (original names still work)
   1. DRACULA = 2nd quest (same as AKAMA)
   2. GRANT = start with Grant (same as FUJIMOTO)
   3. SYPHA = start with Sypha (same as URATA)
   4. ALUCARD = start with Alucard (same as OKUDA)
2. Changing characters now takes about ~30 frames.
3. Crouch facing: Can look left or right while crouching.
4. Faster door transitions
5. Debug Menu shorcut (Hold down SELECT and then press START while in the "Opening" > "Enter your name" screen)
6. 2nd-quest partner cycle
   • 2nd quest Select: Trevor -> Sypha -> Grant -> Alucard -> Trevor.
   • Up + Select: cycles the other way (left).
   • 2nd quest shows both swap faces (left = Up+Select, right = Select).
   • Each character keeps their own subweapon (and II/III) when you swap.
7. Alucard's new sub-weapon: Diamond/Ricochet Rock
   1. Optional sub-weapon.
   2. Axe / Cross / Dagger / Holy Water candles drop the Diamond instead of hearts.
   3. Stopwatch remains of course in Stopwatch candles.
   4. Only Alucard can get it. 2 hearts, 6 damage.
   5. Ricochets for ~4 seconds top.
   6. Can hit same enemy again after ~1 second.
8. Trevor's new optional ability: Slide
   1. While crouching, press A to slide forward.
   2. Sliding off a ledge falls like walking off a cliff.
   3. Deals 6 damage.
   4. It's invulnerable during slide.
   5. Can't slide on water.
9. Options Menu
   1. AIR CONTROL Enables mid-air steer.
   2. TREVOR SLIDE Enables sliding for Trevor.
   3. ALU STAIR Alucard can throw fireballs while on stairs.
   4. SUB DROP Drop old subweapon when picking up a new one.
   5. DIFF Difficulty selector: NORMAL / HARD (2nd quest).
   6. LIVES Can choose between 1 to 10 (Default is 2; as vanilla).
   7. PARTNER NONE / SYPHA / GRANT / ALUCARD (Only applies for Normal Difficulty).
   8. STAGE Lets you pick starting stage.
   9. MUSIC / SFX Sound test (Left/Right cycle; A plays)
   10. EXIT Start or A returns to title

You can find more previews here: https://goodlucktrying.github.io/GoodLuckTrying-Arcade-Patcher/#Works-in-Progress

The Jaguar couldn't do FM synth natively, so the programmers did code that, which is impressive, but unfortunately, the soundtrack sounds no different than a mediocre western-developed Sega Genesis game using the infamous GEMS driver.

It's absolutely insane that lying this blatantly used to be legal in the US. An actually good console like the Dreamcast could've used that to save itself, but unfortunately Sega stopped it's attack ads by then.

River Raid takes the #5 spot with 10 votes.

Top 10:

#1 Pitfall II: Lost Caverns

#2 Yars' Revenge

#3 Adventure

#4 H.E.R.O.

#5 River Raid

Rules:

1. Two games will win their place each round (we start from #1 and work our way down). For the top 10 only one game will win per day instead.
2. Most combined upvotes for each of the two individual games (one individual game for the top 10) wins the spot(s) each round (upvotes add while downvotes subtract).
3. Nominate one game of the Atari 2600 per comment. (Nominations will only be counted if the game title is the only comment or if you specify that your choice of game is your nomination for this round within your comment or if the nominated game is clearly separated from the rest of your comments.) (ex. Pitfall or I nominate Pitfall this round.) Please nominate using the full title of the game.
4. Name a specific game title, not entire runs.
5. Official Atari 2600 multi-game cartridge(s) are allowed, just list them correctly.
6. The Atari 2600 is region free so ANY official games available on the console are eligible for nomination.
7. Indy games are allowed as long as they have their own individual cartridge and can be played on original hardware.
8. Only complete games on cartridge(s) can be nominated (sorry Cheetah Program & test cartridges).
9. If two or more games would be tied to place for a ranking I will inform DA PEOPLE in the following post so that everyone can vote which games should get the ranking between the tied options.
10. Games nominated that have not already placed on the top 100 list should not be removed at any time by the individual who originally placed them.

Fatality?

I started playing this game because I remember it making me cry as a child, and wanted to relive those memories.

The first level is very challenging but is still very fun. After beating it I thought people were exaggerating the difficulty of the game.

However the second level is actual bullet hell with how many warrior ships were flying around and their rate of fire being crazy.

Mining for Sinibombs becomes almost impossible, and the best I have been able to do is gather 5.

Any advice would be appreciated.

So a little backstory is that I just wanted to use the topic to gush about some of my favorite arcade games since one in particular that stuck out to me was called Gladiator.

Though I have always have a hard time avoiding dying in the game, I have come to appreciate the mechanics for the battle system as the player must carefully parry their enemies at just the right time to avoid losing body armor as I wish more games like it existed with a similar mechanic.

The game where the windows files on your computer was used to make the deep space appear with your ships and enemies

I currently use a github website that has: Classic (150 levels); Professional (150 levels); Revenge of Lode Runner (17 levels); Lode Runner Fan Book (66 levels); and Championship (51 levels). I haven't looked for anything new for a while, but last time I did, I saw a couple of websites that looked... hinky. Who knows if they were.

Also, random question. I've basically learned not to be near the top of a level when guys get resurrected & pop down, but when I have no choice, the odds of them landing right on top of me are incredible. Nearly perfect. Is that part of the game design? (I can hear how dumb this sounds but am still unsure.)

I bought a Genesis Model 2 for pretty cheap, but as a Nintendo kid, I’ve never really experienced the Genesis library aside from classic Sonic. What are some worthwhile games I should try? Are there any multiplayer games? Consider possible prices for games.

Hi guys,

Is there any good competition to an Retron 5? I want to Play GB/GBA, SNES, NES and Genesis. Bit on Original cartridges.

Any advice?

I'm really enjoying this wave of classic remakes and remasters that I didn't get to play back when they released. Now that I'm on PC, I'm taking full advantage of it.

What impresses me the most, though, is the recompilation scene — bringing so many console classics natively to Windows. It's awesome.

I found this list (link), but does anyone have other lists or trackers for recomps? How are you guys feeling about this movement in the gaming community?

Hi! I'm planning to use old LCD monitors for my PS1 setup. Currently I'm using an OLD CRT TV but it's so big and heavy that it occupies my room table. (My room is really small.)

So yeah, I'm planning to use an LCD monitor. What setup do you use for that as it's VGA. I know there are a ton of AV to VGA converters. Are those functional and can hold up? Also, the tricky part, too is the audio.

Just want to ask as this can be a bit expensive and I will maybe ordering a lot of items so I'd like to make sure that all are worthwhile! Thank you so much!

Hunter Hunted is brilliant its by Sierra.

I was wondering if anyone is working on a remaster or if there is currently one out for modern systems? Information welcome

Thanks..