This is actually my first time ever playing this game. I remember seeing an old AVGN episode about it iirc and it always looked kinda fun to me so it’s been in my backlog for a few months now. For a simple repetitive game it actually has some decent depth & mechanics. The game manual absolutely helped, especially learning that holding down the A button allows you to quick-turn while swimming. The mini sub was a bit of a let down considering you have to go out of your way, probably do several dives just to get it, and then more on the way back to the next port, only for it to disappear after a single hit. Still, it was a cool being able to launch bombs and the regular shots while using it. Not much to say about the music other than it wasn’t bad. The famous Jaws theme on the title screen that would fade into & out of silence added a nice bit of suspense to the initial experience. The power up system did exactly what it should and it felt pretty tight for a LJN movie title. The ending screen, although very simple, I found gorgeous. Just a beautiful shot to end on. I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who doesn’t love Jaws or these early arcade/high score (but with an ending) style hybrid games. I definitely had fun and can see myself popping it in for a short gaming session again now that I know how to finish it.

History doesn't look back on FMV games too kindly...

I'll never forget the time I walked by Electronics Boutique at the mall, and saw Quarterback Attack playing on their demo unit. "A game that looked true to life! Amazing!" I thought. But 10-year-old me didn't know to ask "but how does it play?"

It wouldn't be until many years later that I finally got a chance to play some FMV games, and... yeah. They're a novelty that gets old fast, and in 2026 they're not really a novelty either.

Are there any FMV games that you truly enjoy? What's your favorite?

I have 2 of these and use them for all my retro consoles (and occasionally my newer systems or PC, depending on the situation). Well, actually I only use one - I never got around to using the second one which is still in its original packaging. A couple recommendations though. Firstly, after the Kickstarter ends I recommend getting the Retro Scaler add on (renamed the "Pro Upgrade" I believe for this batch). It adds more inputs such as RF, Component and S-Video. Secondly, a Mister FPGA or Raspberry Pi Pod (I own both). Then you can have the convenience of installing the Mister or Pi directly inside the monitor. The carry bag is beautiful and well worth the $50 or whatever it was. Be warned, these monitors aren't cheap. I don't remember exactly how much I paid but I went all out and purchased all the add ons that were available at the time. Plus shipping from the UK where these are shipped from, to the USA was around $100. My total was close to a thousand dollars. I had purchased my second monitor from someone on the official Discord that had money issues and sold me his brand new unit for around half that (located in the United States).

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/checkmateproducts/retro-styled-ips-display-internally-upgradeable-batch-2

By "legit" I mean, without using any tools outside of the game itself.

• No Game Genie
• No Save States
• No glitches or tricks way beyond way the game intends you be able to do. So if you've only beaten Super Mario Bros by earning 99 Lives via jumping on that stairs turtle, it doesn't count for this discussion!

and by "hardest," I mean:

• Games widely considered to be "hard," like Battletoads or Ninja Gaiden.
• Or, a game that you personally consider hard - or at least, hard to beat!

Let's hear it, impress us.

After decades of eying this game I recently played it for the first time and it was an absolute blast. The blend of "simulation" and platforming sequences make it a truly unique game, there's nothing quite like it.

For those (few, probably) among you who don't know anything about it: You act as a deity (actually, the biblical God in the original) and alternate between a top-down view for town building, where you guide your worshipers and perform "miracles" such as weather events, earthquakes, etc. Don't expect a Sim City like simulation though, those parts are mostly for advancing the story, interacting with your worshipers, collecting their "offerings", and support them when they run into problems. For each town you populate, you have to clear two stages of monsters so the civilization can flourish.

What makes the game special is how symbiotic those two game modes blend together and how your accomplishments in one influence the other. For example (and mind you, this is not explained, not even in the manual) the higher the score in the action scenes, the higher your maximum population will be. On the other hand, you need to max out your population in the town-building sections by enforcing optimal support structures, in order to get maximum HP. For this, you have to resort to radical measures at times, that's all I'm saying at this point.

ActRaiser was planned as an SNES launch title but did not quite make it in time, anyways, it's a real early title and this shows a bit. Still, it rightly received high praise from critics and fans alike due to the unique combination of gameplay styles; the music is phenomenal for its time to the degree that legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu did a complete overhaul of the almost finished music for Final Fantasy IV when he heard ActRaiser's soundtrack. It's real phenomenal. The setting and - by extension - overall mood is heavily influenced by Milton and Dante, which I adore. I won't go into it here too much, I just this much: It captures the spirit brilliantly.

Long story short: If you haven't, do yourself a favor and play it now. It's fantastic.

Grew up with Road Rash, Gex, FIFA, and Shock Wave. Now that I CAN explore the library, what should I be sure to try out?

I'm trying to figure out whether something is wrong with my RetroTINK 4K Pro, whether there's a compatibility issue with my monitor, or whether I'm missing something major in the setup.

My monitor is a Dell 2007FPB, Mexico A03 IPS, with a native resolution of 1600x1200. The RetroTINK connects to its DVI input through HDMI to DVI, and the output was configured for 1600x1200. For comparison, I connected the same console directly to the Dell's S-video input.

The Dell's own processing looks substantially better. Not a small difference that I have to stare at to notice. The text is easier to read, colors look better, fine details are more recognizable, and the image is cleaner and fills more of the screen. The RetroTINK looks much softer, with dull colors and an almost painted appearance where details blend together. I've compared PS2 and N64 games, and the Dell consistently looks better to me.

This isn't just the Dell's sharpness setting. Increasing it from the stock 50 to 60 helps, but even at 50 it still looks much better than the RetroTINK.

I'm using a Blue Jeans S-video cable, which is the best S-video cable I've used. It looks excellent on my Sony CRT and gives me a good picture directly into the Dell. I also bought the enhanced S-video adapter for the RetroTINK's HD15 input. Enhanced mode helped a lot compared with the normal front S-video input, but it was still far behind the Dell's internal processing.

I've tried a lot of settings, loaded the built in default profile, and tried different firmware. I even had AI help configure files and profiles on the SD card, so I'm being upfront that those custom settings could have been wrong. However, loading the built in defaults didn't solve the poor picture either. I've also tried automatic gain calibration, auto phase, manual adjustments, different deinterlacing settings, and color adjustments.

Brightness has been another major problem. Calibration brought it up quite a bit, but the game image still looked dim and lifeless compared with what I expected. The RetroTINK menu itself looked much brighter than the game. Increasing gain further started washing out highlights instead of giving me a convincing picture.

Scanlines actually helped the appearance considerably, but they made the image so dark that I couldn't comfortably play. I tried the energy normalization setting too. The Dell is very bright when used with my desktop, so this isn't simply a monitor that can't produce a bright image.

I also couldn't feel a latency advantage with the RetroTINK set to its minimum lag buffer mode. That's just my impression while playing, not a measured latency test.

I know component would be a better source connection for the PS2, but I have a large setup built around S-video and want to keep using it. The same S-video source already looks good through the Dell and CRT. I'm trying to understand why adding the RetroTINK makes it look so much worse.

I haven't tested another display, including a standard 1920x1080 monitor. I really like this Dell's panel and its 4:3 format, and it's the display I want to use.

Does the RetroTINK work significantly better with certain displays? Could its output format, HDMI to DVI connection, or something involving EDID explain this? Does it automatically select anything based on the detected display? Or does this sound like an input problem or a defective unit?

There's also a separate issue now: after the latest firmware change using the rear blue button procedure, it powers up with a green LED but gives me a black screen on the Dell. The picture comparisons above were all made before that happened.

I'm attaching two photos of the unit and adapter. I haven't included picture comparisons because my phone's automatic processing makes both screen images look brighter and more similar than they actually look in person.

I bought this wanting it to work. I expected a clear improvement over the monitor's own processing, but so far the direct S-video connection wins by a very large margin. Has anyone run into something similar, especially with a 2007FPB?

Solaris takes the #9 spot with 8 votes (tiebreaker 12 votes).

Top 10:

#1 Pitfall II: Lost Caverns

#2 Yars' Revenge

#3 Adventure

#4 H.E.R.O.

#5 River Raid

#6 Pitfall!

#7 Missile Command

#8 Frogger

#9 Solaris

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.

7800 demo

This is really impressive for the 7800, really beautiful graphics, and effects!

Saw this at Mega Replay. I was shocked at this price, not even sealed. Is there a reason for this price? Place was busy and I didn’t have time to flag down an employee to ask what was so special about this.

Has anyone here bought from Atari Age? I bought a trio of homebrew Atari 2600 cartridges from them like 3 weeks ago and have gotten no shipping notice, I emailed their customer service twice and got no response, and I tweeted at their account and also got no response.

Hand drawn notes As my wife and I share a classic with our 6 YO....

I've been playing through FFV Advance, Breath of Fire and Koudelka recently, and I've realised how much I enjoy trying to get absolutely everything out of these older games.

I'm talking hidden bosses, rare equipment, optional dungeons, secret areas and all the little things you can easily miss on a normal playthrough. I actually enjoy having to work for some of this stuff, provided there's a worthwhile payoff.

I'm mainly interested in SNES, PS1 and GBA-era RPGs, which I play through emulation on PC. I prefer turn-based combat, but I'm open to other systems too.

What older RPGs would you say have the most rewarding completionist experience? Particularly ones where there's a surprising amount of optional content beyond the main story.

There's a game I remember playing on the Apple ][+ as a child that for the life of me I can't remember the name of, and I've searched Mobygames to see if I can find it and nothing's ringing a bell. It was an old game, probably from the early days of the Apple ][; I'd be surprised if it came out any later than 1983, though I suppose it's not impossible. Unfortunately, I don't remember a lot of details about it, but hopefully some of the details I do remember are distinctive enough that maybe someone will recognize it?

The most distinctive thing I remember about it is that every time it started (or every time you started a level?) it played a bit of the Godfather theme. (I didn't recognize it at the time; I only realized this much later when I heard the Godfather theme and thought "hey, this is the tune from that game!")

The graphics were very simple. The player was represented by either a triangle, or maybe just two lines meeting at an angle. I think the theme of the game was that you were a barbarian or a warrior and you were fighting monsters, but you wouldn't know that from the graphics. There were other shapes moving around representing the monsters, and some fixed walls. I don't think the levels scrolled; I'm pretty sure each level just took up one screen. (I'm not even 100% sure there was more than one level.)

The one other thing I remember about the game is that there was a way your character could change size (I think with potions you picked up, or something?) This was often necessary in order to pass through small gaps in a wall. I think the graphic representing your character actually did change size to represent what was happening to your character (since it was just two or three lines, this presumably wouldn't have been difficult to implement).

Like I said, I know that's not a lot of detail, but I'm hoping the few details I do remember—especially the Godfather music and the size change thing—might be enough for someone to recognize it and let me know the name of the game.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

I was a teen when i got this game for my Amiga 500. Played endless hours, making maps on graph paper, sharing notes with a friend with the same passion for the game. Never did finish it when I was young but always managed to go to the bottom of the dungeon and kill the dragon.And eventually, thanks to the internet and being older and more able to properly read english, I figured out how to kill Chaos.

Been doing a run once every year-or-two since then. Nowadays, just for kicks, I do my runs with 2 heroes instead of four (like in this run).

Nowadays i'm lazy, i play using cbswin instead of plugging my Amiga (still runs fine!) and playing on real hardware. Really cool game, still plays good today (but I might be a tad biased)!

WHERE IN GOD’S NAME IS r/Taitogames? I was going to search for a place to talk about Taito retro stuff, but I couldn’t find a thing. Just Taito manufacturing anime figures and what not. I’m confused. If no one today wants to talk about Taito and East Technology games… is this the right place to be in? I wanted to post somewhere bc this will be my first time playing Gigandes. Idk.