Areala

4 hours ago, arlinn said:

Totally agree on the sorcery bit. When I learned what save states were, I was blown away. It made so many of the more difficult NES games beatable.

Believe it or not, I was aware of save states before I was aware of emulators! Naki made a piece of hardware called the Game Saver for the Super NES. It had the side effect of letting you play Japanese carts on North American SNES units without having to physically modify the console, so my brother and I bought one so we could import games if we wanted to. But the thing's primary function was to create a save state for the game you were playing so you could quick-save and quick-load on the fly and avoid having to go back to the start of the stage, or a checkpoint, or whatever. It was extremely basic, with only one state possible on the game, and it only worked as long as it was plugged into the wall (you ran the power cord into it directly, and it had its own passthrough cable that then went to the AC power port on the back of the SNES), but still. Save states in, like, 1995. 

*huggles*
Areala

I remember discovering iNES all the way back in, what, 1996 or thereabouts and being utterly blown away that I could turn my little Toshiba laptop into a Nintendo Entertainment System. I mean, I had a vague idea that it was possible to run games previously designed for one system on another system, thanks to carts like Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits on the SNES. But I had no idea some random person in the world could just write a program on their own that would translate the ROM data from an NES cart into information that could be read and processed by a PC. Like, that was utter sorcery to my teenaged brain.

*huggles*
Areala

Not to brag, but I have a complete-in-box copy of Madden 2005 for the original Xbox. I'm not entertaining any offers for sale at this time, but rest assured, if the day ever comes when I just REALLY need some Taco Bell, it'll go up for sale.

*huggles*
Areala

On 2/14/2024 at 7:41 PM, OutworldArcade said:

I recall seeing a feature in a gaming magazine maybe Summer/Fall 1993 era that gave a first look at Mortal Kombat II arcade game. If my memory serves me, it was a very brief mention and was just a few low quality camera shots of the game that showed Reptile and the Dead Pool stage. This was definitely the first time I saw any look at the game and I would stare at it over and over!
I have scoured through EGM, GamePro, and Game Players '93 issues, among a few others with no luck. It looks like the main coverage of that game started in December '93 with photos from the October AMOA show and was then a main feature in Jan '94, but considering it started hitting the arcades that Fall, I expect what I'm looking for would have came well before December.
I can't remember what magazine it was in or what month and have been looking for this for years! Anyone else recall this? No one I've talked to seems to remember. I would love to be able to find this again and soak up that nostalgia! 

Welcome to the site, @OutworldArcade! I'm doing some digging into the archives to see if I can find anything out. I can't promise anything, but I'll certainly do my best.

*huggles*
Areala

On 11/21/2023 at 8:48 AM, Liquidd said:

I remember a particularly humorous event though - which occurred in the forums of either PSM or EGM - where a reader complained about all the scantily clad female game character art stating that she would be happy to see just a pic of Cloud Strife (FF7) in his underwear. So I drew a pic of Cloud in his skivvies and sent it in. They printed it under the headline "One Reader Comes Through For Another" lol. Unfortunately, I'm still looking for that issue, but I'd love to see how much my art has improved since that piece.

Oh my gosh, I remember both that letter and the Cloud In His Undies artwork that showed up a couple of months later! That's freakin' HILARIOUS! Good on you for making her wish come true! 

For anyone else wanting to check this out, the letter appeared in EGM #100, page 16, written by someone using the pseudonym "Terra" from Springfield, MA. EGM's response was that after all the controversy surrounding them publishing the info about the Nude Raider website, they couldn't possibly show such a thing.

The responses came in issue 102, on page 12, first with a letter from "Celes" excoriating EGM for printing a picture of Lara in a bikini on the page immediately following "Terra"'s letter (in EGM's defense, that was an ad, not internal artwork or a reader-submitted piece) and asking for said Cloud in Undies picture. Right below that is @Liquidd's letter and artwork.

As another amusing aside, the letter just below that is about the secret message EGM ran in issue #100 about GamePro. The response from the editor tells readers to keep an eye out for other hidden messages from EGM, because sometimes they just throw one in there for the heck of it. Which they actually did right there, since the first letter of each sentence spells out the word 'THANKS'. Cheeky buggers...

*huggles*
Areala

57 minutes ago, JimJam78 said:

Modern controls, you say?  Excellent.

They're not 100% perfect, and actually make a couple moves harder to execute (those original games were built around the tank control scheme), but I could see the devs listening to fan response and getting them better. They're already taking feedback to some of the changes that made a couple of items harder to see in the new graphics engine.

1 hour ago, kitsunebi said:

Congratulations on your new PR job with Aspyr, btw.

Thanks! Now just gotta wait for that sweet, sweet freelance PR money to come rolling right on in like those boulders that always seem to show up in the narrowest corridors...

All Croft-aholics know that Valentine's Day is the birthday of Our Lady and Savior, the Divine Ponytail. So what better way to say "I Love You" than to pick up the brand new Tomb Raider I - III Remastered collection from Aspyr and Crystal Dynamics?

Yes, for most of us, it was love at first polygon when we caught our first glimpse of The Great One, whether it was that ever-so-alluring pyramid-shaped box or one of the many, many, many magazines whose covers she graced. And today, for a mere $29.99 US, you can take a trip down memory lane with the lovingly-crafted (or perhaps that should be 'Crofted'?) HD remasters of her first three adventures on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC, and Nintendo Switch. She's come such a long way since 1996, wouldn't you say?

I'm seriously blown away at how beautiful these new versions look, and the reviews from the gaming community have been largely positive as well. More than just a texture-upscaled cash grab, Aspyr went to an incredible effort to polish these games up and make them more accessible to modern audiences. They added an entirely new modern control scheme based on controllers now having analog sticks. Subtitles have been added to all FMVs. Every game runs in a widescreen mode, compatible with modern display resolutions. Frame rates have also been uncapped, with a minimum 60 FPS now as opposed to the 30 FPS versions the original games were locked to. Icons have been added to mark where Lara can interact with various bits of the world. Boss monsters now have health bars so you can see how effective your attacks are. The original game had a lighting engine overhaul to bring it into line with how Tomb Raider II and III behaved with their in-game lighting. In-engine cutscenes have been lip synched. And all of these are entirely user-controlled, up to and including the HD overhaul: if you want to play the games as they originally controlled and looked, you can. In fact, you can flip back and forth between the classic and remastered look with the press of a button at any time, even during the FMVs and even the title screens, and the original graphical versions revert to their locked 30 FPS modes.

But Aspyr even went above and beyond that. There are a ton of little, subtle changes to the remasters that really serve to make the games look like my imagination remembers them from back in the day. Cobwebs show up in corners where none existed before. Snow trickles in through the roof openings of Peru's cavernous levels. Ripples flow behind Lara as she wades through water. Design elements like plants, collectible items, and other decorative level details which were flat sprites in the originals have all been remodeled in 3D, giving the worlds a greater sense of depth. The games' soundtracks and effects have been remastered as well by Nathan McCree, their original composer, and the soundtrack to TR1 has been properly implemented for the PC version, something which required a mod for the longest time. The water itself has been retextured and animated so that it looks more like natural water. Enemies have all been remodeled, maintaining the original look and feel of the classic models instead of just upscaling the original texture-mapped polygons:

And it keeps going. Each game also includes its respective expansion pack ('Unfinished Business' for Tomb Raider, 'The Golden Mask' for Tomb Raider II, and 'The Lost Artifact' for Tomb Raider III). This comes to a total of fifteen bonus levels, none of which have previously been available for console versions of the original games until now. An additional "New Game +" mode was added which increases the health and damage of all enemies, and re-implements the original console versions' Save Crystal system, forcing you to decide when to make those critical saves instead of being able to scum the system whenever you like. The number of available save slots for each game has also been doubled. Aspyr even left in several of the games' original faults, like the infamous 'corner bug' which allows Lara to glitch into areas she isn't meant to reach normally and upon which speed runners rely heavily to sequence-break. In fact, a number of the trophies/achievements are based on stunts performed by the games' speed runners and require one or more glitches to accomplish. You even get one for using the level skip cheat, and for locking Winston in the freezer, which is just hilarious.

They added a Photo Mode, which allows you to pause the action at any time and take a snapshot. In Photo Mode, you can set Lara's expression, her pose, the outfit she's wearing, and the weapons she's carrying. You can also pan and zoom the camera to get in close and see the details on the new textures. It's silly fun, but it's something I absolutely adore and it lets you explore the scenery in ways previously impossible, or set up cute posed shots like this one:

And yes, it works with the classic graphics mode too:

About the only thing they left out is the nude code.

In short, it's been a long, long time since I've been this excited about a new release, but this is just what I didn't even know I wanted. Those original Tomb Raider games were a huge part of my younger years. I've appreciated the approaches that Crystal Dynamics have taken over the years, with the likes of Tomb Raider Anniversary and the more survival-focused reboot trilogy, but those original games were some of my first major video game crushes, if you will, and Aspyr has certainly taken great care to showcase them, flaws and all, for both new and returning gamers alike. I couldn't be happier, and I think you will be too. Happy birthday, Lara!

*huggles*
Areala

2 hours ago, dablais said:

Interesting offer!   Mais je crois que je vais passer mon tour! 

Garçons! Trouvez une chambre pour vous.

Maintenant. 

6 minutes ago, dablais said:

Je pourrais en faire quelques-uns juste pour toi. 

Oui, s'il vous plaît! C'est magnifique! 

54 minutes ago, dablais said:

As a French Québécois, I also have a couple of french magazines that I was wondering if they would be of interest.  If someone think they will, I might upload/scan a couple of magazines in French. 

 

Pour moi, j'adorerais voir des magazines en français!

Sorry if I butchered that...I haven't had a French class in, uh, in a long, long time...

52 minutes ago, PixelBoy said:

I come here to download magazines to my personal collection. I admit that there was over a year when I didn't visit the site or download anything, but I'm catching up at the moment.

I think Retromags is great because although there are sites with more content, and there are sites with slightly better restoration quality, Retromags offers a mix of good quality and wide selection. I have found obscure magazines that I have never even heard about. "Obscure" being a relative term here obviously, because I come from a non-English-speaking country.

I also very much like how Retromags allows to download stuff without registration, and even torrents of some content. If a site claiming to preserve gaming culture is forcing to do registrations and all that, it feels wrong to me. I can understand that in some cases it can be a legal safety cushion, but as most of the stuff is available anyway on Archive.org or somewhere else, it feels a bit unnecessary.

I decided to register here after many years, because I might be able to participate and contribute in some small-scale fashion (not scanning, I don't have such hardware), mostly with non-English publications, like a bunch which I just randomly saw online that was going to be trashed, but I managed to save them... for now, at least.

 

But anyway, as I hadn't said so before, I can say it here and now: your work is appreciated.

Thanks for all the hard work you are putting into this. I do feel a bit saddened when some download counters aren't even going over 1,000, I think more people should be reading these magazines, but maybe most people just want a single issue or two, and not everything available.

Welcome to the site, @PixelBoy! Glad to see a brand new registered user.

It's especially exciting to see users from non-English-speaking countries, because most of us working on the site use English as our primary/only language. Any help you're able to provide with making non-English publications more accessible to our visitors is greatly appreciated! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

*huggles*
Areala

Strong Alicia Silverstone vibes from this one. I'll definitely need to do further research.

*huggles*
Areala

4 minutes ago, Phillyman said:

You guys lucked out that my bukkake gif search turned up no results that could be posted here.

Another hard drive failure, I presume?

12 minutes ago, Phillyman said:

But this spurt, this spurt will be the one.

Sir, this is not normal. Please see a doctor if your spurts look like the attached gif.

Moving backwards through time with the last couple of uploads. Look forward to more of the same, with two fresh entries in Prima's "Secrets of the Game" series, and a big book of really old-school adventure game maps and solutions!

Stay tuned for more excellent oldies from Areala's library in the coming weeks!

*huggles*
Areala

I do not have any of those issues myself, alas.

*huggles*
Areala