I have an Rpi with Batocera installed and two SNES controllers connected with USB.

I can play NES and SNES multiplayer games perfectly fine, but not on GBA.

Is there any way to emulate local multiplayer gaming on Game Boy Advance?

I noticed today that bookkeeping and Zelda quests are the same. If you lose your spot or forget what you were doing it takes hours to get back on track.

This Mario 64 one is my particular favorite. I think it's so funny that Metal Mario has a reflection of what looks like open land and clouds. Pairs well with the fact that in-game his texture was some flowers and a cloudy sky.

Recently got a CRT and have been hooking up my old systems to it. Never got a chance to play Dreamcast on one since I bought mine just a couple years ago. Felt like I transcended when I finally did

In a project update mail to previous Kickstarter backers, Henrique Olifiers set the date for the third (and likely final) Kickstarter campaign for the ZX Spectrum Next project as July 19th, 2025.

The ZX Spectrum Next issue 3 will have two new cores: a complete Sinclair QL core with support for the SD card, WiFi, joysticks, expansion port, Real Time Clock, 65K colours and dual 68000/68020 CPU running at 44MHz, and a Commodore 64 core with HDMI (with sound) and VGA output, joysticks, cartridge and D64 disk images and tape loading via the audio port.

The announcement has yet to hit the official site, so stay tuned if you missed the previous KS.

This Mario hack is so cool! The story is inspired by the Bowsette meme, and by the end, you even get to make a choice 🙂

The level design is excellent. I really appreciate small details - like coins that guide you where to fall, or how all the dragon coins are placed either before or after the checkpoint.

The difficulty is similar to the original game. Some of the Special World levels were pretty tough, but the hack has an adaptive difficulty system: coin blocks sometimes turn into power-up blocks if you have 5 lives or fewer. If you're down to your last life, the level even adds a few Starman power-up blocks!

There are also a bunch of quality-of-life improvements. I especially loved the removal of the timer and the fact that falling into a pit doesn't immediately result in a game over.

And the soundtrack is absolute banger. Most of the songs are well-known hits ported into SNES. Here is the link to the playlist.

And here is the link to the hack.

What’s your favorite SMW hack? 🙂

In terms of gameplay, Unstoppable Gorg doesn’t do anything innovative. I mean, you’re pretty much building income, doing research, and placing turrets.

But what makes it memorable are its gloriously campy cutscenes, lovingly styled after 1950s sci-fi B-movies. It leans hard into the genre’s cheesy charm, delivering pure, self-aware fun with a sense of humor that’s genuinely funny.

So I just tried to play Warriors & Castles, a game I bought back in 2015—but haven't launched until now.

The conceit is that this is a medieval Capture the Flag. You can be a knight, an archer, or a wizard. And the goal is to get inside the castle and defeat your opponent's queen.

There’s just one issue—it’s a PvP game, and the servers are a ghost town. No one’s playing. Whoops.

So instead I opted for a bot match. And unfortunately, the bots aren't too smart. I pretty much just avoided them and stormed the castle gates.

Tediously, it took a long time to break them down. I died lots in the process. But after many, many respawns, I finally defeated the queen.

The win was very unceremonial. I just got text on my screen that said "Victory"—then a chance to start over again. Since I knew the result would be the same, yet would be just as tedious, I opted not to continue.

In all, it took me 40 minutes. I guess I "beat" the game. Or, at least, as much as a PvP with bots would allow.

I will say this much for Warriors & Castles. For a game that started development in 2015, it still looks somewhat okay. Not impressive, but okay.

Do I recommend this? No, Warriors & Castles is stuck in "early access", and the last update was eight years ago.

Nevertheless, it was a good idea for a PvP. If all you want is a casual PvP with a medieval theme, this could have been good. Alas, the developers abandoned it and whatever community existed has vanished.

Vancouver Retro Gaming Expo (VRGE) is taking place on Saturday, June 14, at the Anvil Centre in New Westminster, with vendors, panels, and live entertainment happening throughout the day.

When: June 14, 2025

Time: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Where: Anvil Centre – 777 Columbia St., New Westminster

Admission: $25, purchase online. Children under 10 are free with the purchase of an adult ticket.

via

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/39548338

Always interesting to see people doing builds of Doom with various constraints just for the novelty factor.

Dev page with dl links here
https://freds72.itch.io/poom?ac=jXdAbFQF

Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior (2003) is the first ever FPS in the Warhammer series.

That means it predated Space Marine, Deathtide, and Boltgun.

Now you could make the case that Space Hulk was an FPS. But since movement is grid-based, and you have limited control over a single space marine -- I'm not counting it.

Meanwhile, Fire Warrior behaves more like a typical FPS. Perhaps too much. Other than the Warhammer license, this is a perfectly normal FPS.

Which is why some people don't like this game. Enemies come at you, you shoot them. Grab a key card, go to the next zone. You fight bosses, and that's that.

But in 2025, I think Fire Warrior has something going for it. The low res poly look is actually quite beautiful. And the fact it is so basic makes it approachable to people who don't typically play an FPS.

Fire Warrior is nowhere near as good as Quake, Unreal, or Halo -- other games it aesthetically resembles. But fun is still to be had.

While not a retro game itself, I was playing Atomfall just now and came across this metal head in the robotics section, which is a lovely little hidden reference to a late entry in the Bitmap Brothers catalogue, Z.

Z was a decent game back in the day, and yet another example of the Bitmaps showcasing their skills at being able to produce top quality games in whatever genre they chose.

Rebellion gained ownership of the Bitmap Brothers games a few years ago, so it's not out of place in Atomfall, but still a nice nod to one of British gaming's most beloved studios.

Microsoft is now doing the Nintendo thing: Xbox Retro Classics.

And thank God!

One of my big fears when Xbox acquired Bethesda and Activision was that they were just going to sit on their extensive, decades-long catalogue of classics -- just let everything rot. But looking at what they're offering, I'm genuinely excited.

To me, the most attention-grabbing thing is access to Activision's 2600 games. I'm talking Demon Attack, Kaboom!, and Pitfall! And then you have games from Sierra too. And MechWarrior is definitely a standout too.

Looks like they're partnering with Antstream to provide this. That service has been around for quite a few years, and it's pretty stable.

If this is just the beginning, Xbox might finally become the retro powerhouse it was always capable of being.

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/play/games/retro-classics/9MTVJ3HHTQGS

Lately, I've been seeing many social media posts about skyrocketing prices of retro video games.

Which is funny because I see complaints about that every few years. It's cyclical. In fact, this was my big complaint all the way back in 2013 when every copy of Earthbound seemed to be going for $100.

So let me mention how I dealt with that problem then -- which is still applicable to now.

I stopped focusing on physical console games, and I started buying PC games -- both physical and digital. This ended up being a good idea because on the PC side of retro, games are much cheaper. I regularly walk into game stores and thrift shops and find classic PC games, complete in box, for $5. Games in my collection, that I acquired for an obscenely cheap price, include Black & White, Aliens versus Predator (2000), and Myth II. I also buy tons of games off Steam and GOG.

Best of all, if you're patient, you can often get games for free. Just a few months ago, I got the Castlevania Anniversary Collection for free from Epic, which included nine classic games—titles that would’ve cost hundreds on original hardware.

Now I'm sure some of you will say, "It's not about the games, it's about the memories -- and that means playing on original cartridges/discs on original hardware."

I understand that. I still have my original SEGA Genesis and Xbox, and I still occasionally buy physical media.

But never underestimate the value of creating new memories with old games. And that's something I truly treasure as time goes on. For example, I never played Septerra Core when it originally was released in 1999. I did, however, acquire it in 2015. And after playing this game for a solid 10 years, it's become something that I truly treasure. I remember buying that game for $1, and I now love Septerra Core every bit as much as Final Fantasy VII.

Which brings me to my next thought about why collecting retro games for PC has proven so invaluable. If you're open to trying something off the beaten path, something that gets little attention -- because YouTubers rarely talk about old DOS games -- you will be surprised at how much gold is out there at a low price.

One gem I see regularly on GOG for under $1 is Nosferatu: Wrath of Malachi—easily one of the best survival horror FPS games I’ve played. If you love vampire games, this is your ticket to fun. Sure, you could pay $140 for Silent Hill without the jewel case (the current going rate). Or you can try your hand at something that's still retro but can be had for a fraction of the price.

Good retro games don't have to be expensive. They're easy to find if your heart isn't set on a complete-in-box Conker's Bad Fur Day. If you focus on deals, deals are to be found.

I have been really into Half-Life 1 and just recently finished the first 2 expansions.

Opposing force was awesome. I loved all the new weapons. The expanded lore into the kinds of research that Black Mesa was doing was nice. And the HECU squad mates were so much more helpful than the scientists and Barneys.

Blue Shift on the other hand was much shorter and didn’t have any new weapons but it did have a bigger focus on the lore of black mesa and had references to Half-Life, Opposing Force, and even Decay. Dr. Rosenberg did a lot of exposition to explain the lore further as well. Overall it was a good experience with very little downtime compared to Half-Life.

I’ve even started playing Decay now with my 8 year old and we are having a lot of fun with that. Its mission structure compared to the unbroken chapter structure of the rest of the games is quite the difference but it works with the co-op gameplay. We are only about 4 missions in but I look forward to experiencing more of it. Dr Rosenberg is back too so I love that it’s another perspective of the events that happened in the other expansions and base game.

I just wanted share my thoughts and maybe here more of the community thoughts as I just love Half-Life despite never really experiencing it until last year