The Missing Retro Gamer features

[markopoloman]

Hmmmm - if you need an example of how to troll, please feel free to re-read your past comments.

My answer was pretty straight forward and doesn't need explaining mate.

[samhain81]

What..really?

Thanks mate, some great info there.

[mikeb]

Samhain, please stop deliberately baiting/trolling. You WILL get hit with a ban-hammer if you carry on.

[knight_beat]

Folks, let's all calm down. Samhain81 made a very funny meta-comment, to which I responded with an equally entertaining meta-meta-comment. The intent was to amuse rather than troll in both cases (although I'm impressed that MikeB read a valid point in my post, one wasn't intended!). If the ban feather needs to be applied in these circumstances, we will all end up being tickled with it at some point.

On that note, I'm hoping to see a feature explaining why the PS3 is retro in the near future. Darran, make it happen!

[knight_beat]

The Ultimate Guide features have often had maps or level layouts.

I was hoping to replace those ugly pixelshots

It depends upon the game being covered. The wireframe graphics of certain 8-bit games look terrible when enlarged to epic proportions, while others look beautiful. However, I've started to wonder if the formula needs to be shook up a bit to make RG's approach distinct. Nintendo Gamer has adopted the same idea, and even GamesTM has begun to add text to their pixelised pages. Perhaps a combination of enlarged screenshots and game maps could be used in an issue to give a bit more variety. Alternatively, I wonder if two reader reviews could be used on the odd occasion to provide contrasting views on the game (Person A loves the game, Person B hates it - that type of thing).

[HalcyonDaze00]

Folks, let's all calm down. Samhain81 made a very funny meta-comment, to which I responded with an equally entertaining meta-meta-comment. The intent was to amuse rather than troll in both cases (although I'm impressed that MikeB read a valid point in my post, one wasn't intended!). If the ban feather needs to be applied in these circumstances, we will all end up being tickled with it at some point.

On that note, I'm hoping to see a feature explaining why the PS3 is retro in the near future. Darran, make it happen!

Well said. After reading the thread I was staggered to see people accusing Samhain81 of trolling and talking of a ban. Taking offence on other peoples behalf is a modern disease and with the mood of McCarthyism sweeping the forum at the minute it's good to see you stopping it dead.

[crusto]

Two things..

A: what is McCarthyism?
B: what is a meta comment?

[samhain81]

Two things..

A: what is McCarthyism?
B: what is a meta comment?

Don't know, but I'm sure both of them have something to do with Gary Busey

[knight_beat]

B: what is a meta comment?

It's a specific type of meta-reference. To quote the Wikipedia page,

Michael Palin coined the term meta comment during the writing of Monty Python's Flying Circus. It refers to a moment of commentary or dialogue spoken by an actor referring to the situation that character is in.

There's no existing definition as meta-meta comment as far as I'm aware, so I'm defining it as a a meta comment that describes the situation in which a meta-comment was made. I'm sure there's a better term for it. Someone once told me that 'paradata' was the correct term to describe metadata about metadata, so I suppose para comment would be more accurate.

[MikeFishcake]

To quote another Monty Python reference:

"MY BRAIN HURTS"

[knight_beat]

To quote another Monty Python reference:

"MY BRAIN HURTS"

Oh hush you!

[NorthWay]

I know a game that is 20+ years old, written for hw you can't buy any longer (and you probably haven't seen), you probably haven't played it, it is multiplayer only, had no soundeffects (originally at least), and is amazing fun to play. Plus it was inspired by games that were old at that time.

The name? XPilot. (Homepage at http://www.xpilot.org/)

Two friends of mine developed it while we were studying and had a Dutchman join in on the team not too long after. We did lots of "testing" in the student lab during development and subsequent versions. We had HP PA-RISC Unix workstations, and I believe HP later included it with their official sw distribution for HP-UX.

[antsbull]

What about an In the Chair with one of the Bitmap Bros, or a company profile on the Bitmap Bros. I would love to hear some of the techie bits and challenges they faced when creating Xenon, Speedball, Gods, Chaos Engine etc - also some more details on working with Bomb the Bass.

[noobish hat]

Not sure if this would be too much of a problem getting permission for reprints or whatever, but surely an amusing feature would be a look back at April Fools articles from various mags. I remember CVG had plenty of funny stuff, like a ridiculous VR get up that was just a photo of Ed Lomas or someone with all kinds of electronics and TV aerials taped to them, as well as a number of fake cheats. You could also include reader comments from people who fell for them back in the day!

[Dave300]

I don't know if it's already been mentioned (purely by laziness I haven't read the 12 pages of this thread) but how about a cheat code page in each issue, just like we used to get in the old magazines. It would always be the first page I'd turn to, nervously excited to see if there was a code for one of the games I was playing at the time! I know there are Ultimate Guides now in RG (which I think are a great idea) - I just thought perhaps a one-pager with some famous old cheats (some of which I could never get working) would be a nice idea.