Saturday 28 September 2024
Recent Discoveries…..
Saturday 31 August 2024
* 100th POST!! *
Well here it is my 100th post! I never thought when I started this blog that I’d ever reach this milestone but here we are! Thanks to everyone who’s discovered this blog and have read and hopefully enjoyed it, I hope you will stay tuned as The Retro Joypad will continue!
Just a reminder that I’ve set up a Facebook page for the blog at https://www.facebook.com/theretrojoypad where the link to each new post is uploaded shortly after it is posted, this I hope will be prove a useful way of finding out when new content is added.
My thanks also to those who commented to say that they’d read the blog as a result of my letter in Retro Gamer, much appreciated, hope you’re enjoying it and will stick around!
Here’s to the next 100 posts! :-)
Zero Zero : Perfect Stop is the best and most impressive Playdate game yet!
Regular readers will know that I’m a proud owner and fan of Panic’s unique little yellow Playdate handheld and that I’m also a fan of the Densha de Go series of train driving games so was very excited and curious when I read that a train driving game based on the series was being released for the Playdate, would it be any good? Let’s find out…..
The game is called Zero Zero : Perfect Stop and first off let me say it’s amazing! It really pushes the Playdate to its technical limits, the graphics are detailed and movement is smooth and not all jerky. There is an excellent tutorial included in the game for those who’ve not played this genre before although it’s very simple to get into, acceleration and braking can be controlled either using the crank handle on the side of the machine, the face buttons or by pressing up or down on the d-pad, my personal control preference is the d-pad as it offers a little more precision than using the crank where you run the risk of over accelerating which, in a game where you have to adhere to speed limits is not good!
Of course as well as adhering to speed limits you must also keep as close to time as possible and ensure you’re stopping accurately in stations, this is undoubtedly the hardest part but very rewarding when you pull it off!
This is without a doubt the best Playdate game I’ve played to date and just adds to an already impressive library on the machine of quality titles. If you have a Playdate this is a must have. Now available via the built-in Catalog and via itch.io. TRJ RATING : 5/5
Wednesday 21 August 2024
My letter’s been published in Retro Gamer!
Only four posts to go!
I’m amazed to say I’ve now written 96 posts on this blog since launching it in 2021, meaning I’ve only four posts to go until my 100th post, I never imagined when I started this blog that I’d find so much to write about and never expected three years later to be so close to 100 posts.
My continued thanks to everyone who has read and continues to read my posts, I hope you still find them enjoyable, entertaining and interesting!
Stay tuned for the century post, coming soon!
Move over Wave Race 64, there’s other excellent jet-ski racers in town!
Anbernic RG Cube Review
As previously mentioned in this blog Anbernic have been responsible for some of the best emulation handhelds around having absolutely nailed it recently with the clamshell RG35XX SP device. Now they’ve launched the RG Cube, which is notable first of all for it’s narrower 1:1 screen, best suited for playing systems which support the 4:3 aspect ratio such as GameBoy and SNES, I wouldn’t attempt PSP on it though due to the massive black borders which appear at the top and bottom of the screen.
So is this another winner from Anbernic? Let’s see……
Firstly let me say this is without a doubt the most comfortable emulation device to hold and use that I’ve experienced for a very long time, it feels really great to hold and use. The build quality is excellent as you’d expect from Anbernic featuring hall effect joysticks which also feature the option of different colour surrounds, although these can be turned off in the Settings but I think they look pretty cool!
For me the 1:1 smaller screen took a bit of getting used to but for systems that support it they look great and in most cases completely fill the screen which is a gorgeously sharp and bright affair.
I did run into a couple of issues on the Cube, firstly on the Dreamcast Redream emulator, the menu options at the top are chopped off including the Exit option meaning the only way to exit a Dreamcast game is to press the Home button, a minor irritation but still annoying nonetheless.
Next, even though I was using exactly the same roms which worked perfectly on another device I simply could not get any Saturn games to work through the standalone Yaba Sanshiro Pro 2 emulator and ended up creating a playlist in Retroarch in order to play them, thankfully they play flawlessly this way. I also tried the Saturn.emu emulator but the Cube is clearly not quite powerful enough for this emulator as some Saturn games ran pretty well, others were slow with choppy audio so this wasn’t really an option either.
I experienced no other issues with any other system though I’m glad to say!
This is another cracking device from Anbernic but not without it’s issues, their best machine recently in my opinion is still the RG35XX SP but this takes a credible second place for sure.