Was tempted to get Double Dragon Revive, but I think I'll take a pass. I'm just not a fan of that "sparkly" style of combat where it looks like a firework goes off every time you hit someone, and special moves have neon demons or whirlwinds coming out the player's bum. I'm a simple pixel guy.

I've worked in film, so I know how much effort it takes to make even a small production. That doesn't stop me really wanting a Caulfield produced documentary for the Amstrad CPC family. There's a rich history there, with many interesting people to interview (maybe not Sugarman himself though).

There's a genuine case for the ZX Spectrum being the greatest computer of all time, and it's really down to two things: Simplicity and accessibility. A no frills system = an easier learning curve, and the low price made it available for all. Anything more would compromise those two. Also, charm!

40 years of the NES. The games library is unsurpassed, with so many classics running on that little lunch box. The mappers took it beyond its original specs, but I find that innovative rather than deceptive. It does (annoyingly) often get presented as some VG messiah that saved the world, though.

Very nice read. Horace was one of the first Speccy games I played, and I got the others soon after. The recognisable personality was a big part of it. If Horace is the Spectrum's Mario then it's a shame he's locked away in controversy, but there's something to be said for not saturating the brand.

I'm 48 today. I keep waiting for the swing to the Right that apparently comes with age, but I still hate racists and phobes and I still love old games. Maybe next year I can qualify as a garbage human.

Is there a database for Amstrad CPC game bundles? I had many back in the day (Durell Big 4 was one of them), but I can't find much info on others bar some expired ebay listings. I'm positive my copies of Who Dares Wins II, Spindizzy, and 3 Weeks in Paradise were from compilation packs.

If AI is as good at generating porn as it is writing code, then this should be interesting. Personally, I'd rather it just got Amiga registers correct...for once.

For me, Tron Legacy felt disconnected, as it ditched all the references to I/O, Bits and Cycles. if Ares is just a big dumb CGI fest with a great score then I'll be happy, but it would have been cool to see GPU powered light cycles, update corruption, or mute programs with broken ASIO drivers.

Ridley, Kraid, and Mother Brain Life Support slow down! But why? Let's do a performance dive to answer this question and also find out why scrolling seems to lag when Samus is flipping through the air... but in reality does not! Part 2 of Metroid Lag - youtu.be/1oCE-hYT3LY

The past three game history videos I've watched are from Americans, and they cover the home computers which were popular here in the UK. It's very nice to be included when discussing global events, although describing the Amiga as a European computer is kind of weird, but also kind of true.

It's hard to describe just how much I love Super Probotector / Contra III. It's top 3 Super Nintendo gear for sure. Such amazing imagination in the level design and boss battles, and that's on top of the incredible graphics and music. Konami and Capcom were on fire back then!

Looking through an Argos catalogue from 1987 is unearthing some deep-buried memories. It's not the toys. It's the carriage clocks, lighters embedded in bricks of marble, ornamental ashtrays, crystal hedgehogs, and various other sideboard adornments. Just need a squirt of Pledge in the air.

It's the ten year mark of when i wrote my first line of code. I was 38 years old. Only done two games, but they took about 4 years a piece so not bad going. Got plans for 4 more on Speccy/CPC- another beat 'em up, a platform game, Metroidvania, and RPG. Just proof of concepts for Amiga FNO. Phew!

I honestly don't remember any malicious playground wars over different gaming systems, and it was always cool when a pal had something that you didn't. I hoovered up anything that I could get to play, and it made some fond memories trying different computers.

Cauldron was one of my favourite Amstrad games! Nice spooky atmosphere, gameplay variety, and great graphics. Some unavoidable hits and inability to change direction mid-jump are really the only negatives I have, but otherwise it's fab! #Amstrad #RetroGaming #Z80

I wish Casio would do a re-run of all their game watches from the 80s, because they are being sold for upwards of £400 on eBay. If they can still manufacture the F-91w after 36 years with practically zero change to the design for £12, then they can do the game range again and charge £60 a pop.

Some delicious budget stuff! None were spectacular, but I had fun with all of them. Last Ninja 2 was probably my fave. I'd say they were worth even less than the asking price. £4.99 would have been fair.

That was a very nice refresher. I'm itching a bit to go back to Z80.

Wonder how much of a game changer it would have been if the Amiga had shipped with just a bit of Fast Ram? I'm guessing not too much, but speedy code execution from the off would have been nice. 512K Chip + 128K Fast sounds ideal.

There's actually a full story behind this Easter egg in Double Dragon: Legacy which re-writes Final Fight 2 a bit. DD:L takes place in an alt-universe where all beat 'em ups exist, so this was meant to be a nod to a possible future project, but I gave up on Game Maker in favour of learning 68k/Z80.

As much as I love seeing Jimmy in hot pink, I'm a sucker for the original arcade colours and coiffed hair. I know Super Double Dragon was a soft reboot of sorts, and I love it to bits, but gimmie big 80s hair and steel-grey leather any day. #DoubleDragon #RetroGaming

Super Double Dragon is one of those games that I could talk about a lot. They could've just made a generic post-1990 brawler with a Lee bros skin, but it was a good update with an interesting combat system & fantastic music. The cutscenes from the unfinished final build would be fascinating to see.

I pirated my first film when I was 7 with this unit of a machine daisy-chained to another. The film was "Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure" with Bud Spencer & Terrence Hill, becasue I fucking loved them! I always bought official if I liked it though (sans hard to find Kung-Fu films). #Betamax

Chun-Li in her Arcade and Super Nintendo ending clothes. Not as iconic as her trad-fit IMO, but nice enough.

It's odd! I'm coming back to months old code and seeing clear as day where stuff can be improved. I've not learned anything new, so the sudden clarity/ability is weird. I guess "letting stuff sink in" is true.

Missed Mario's birthday. Still, gush...gush...gush. Seminal, amazing etc. Still probably my favourite jumpy game next to Manic Miner. The first 4 are all very nostalgic for me, but Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario World are probably my faves!

Great stuff!

I'm dying to try some console deving at some point. DGMW I love the Amiga, CPC, and Speccy, but not having to faff about with tapes/disks and navigate hardware limitations would be really nice. Some arcade gear would be great too if there's a System 16 or CPS-1 emulator kicking about?

Took the Amiga background then applied the palette to some arcade sprites, and I think it looks very decent. Of course the problem with Double Dragon is the 4-Way scrolling and variable floor heights which would be a pain to code, plus 5-Bitplanes might slow things down. Still, it's quite pretty.

Did places like WH Smith ever sell #Amiga upgrade and replacement parts? I'm talking about ChipMem, FastMem, Disk Drives, and Power Supplies? I can't remember seeing anything like that in high street stores, so I'm unsure what the accessibility was like outside postal services & specialised shops.

#Amiga Double Dragon is running 32-Colours (BPLCON0=$5000) The original coder probably overreached but couldn't get it smooth enough, so instead of redrawing everything at 16-Colours the sprites were all hastily done at half size to cope with the extra processing cost. BGs are good, so it's likely.

Don't know why it took me so long to learn how to write data. Got loads of routines which just fill tables and nothing more, but never knew how to save the results. 3 OS calls and a destination mount in WinAUE = job done. This is for separate tools, so no need to go 100% bare-metal.

I'm not really that into racing/driving games, but Buggy Boy was one of my favourites on the #Amiga. It's not the fastest or most challenging, but all the weird little quirks like jumping/going on two wheels/driving on angled walls adds loads of charm. Love it!

New mini-review up. Been playing this one a lot recently, and it's a great example of an arcade conversion done well. #Amiga, #RetroGaming #Ninja

Been on a bit of a demo/cracktro kick. There's some impressive stuff that's way beyond my skill level, but I'd like to try some starfields and bouncing letters at some point. It was a slightly nefarious way to push your art, but I can't imagine the Amiga without those amazing cracked disk demos.

Another one of those #Amiga games which isn't good, but is interesting. I'm lenient with this one due to nostalgia, and I like what they were going for in terms of variety. None of it is done well though, but the movie clips were impressive. Film licences were generally crap across the board.

I bought this as a budget game BITD. It's not good, but it is interesting. The mini-games are impressive, and the backgrounds are recognisable from the film. Spritework lets it down, and the combat is lacklustre. IK+ whips its arse, but for a 1987 #Amiga game it's ok (does feel repurposed though).

Finally got the problem solved! A text drawing subroutine was corrupting low memory for some reason, and moving it fixed the issue. The WinUAE debugger was very useful in this case. It's GUI is awful and badly needs an overhaul, but the tools were extremely useful.

So even after taking over the system I've concluded that I can't go lower than $3000 in ChipMem for my game binary. Bar the VBR I'm still not quite sure why (I'm not using OS/IRQs at all though)? A 12KB loss is sore, so I'd be grateful if any seasoned #Amiga hardware coders can explain. #Coding

Can't seem to get my disk to boot. Header and checksum are correct, code is relocatable, but I feel like I'm missing a step? Some documentation says that the booblock will be automatically read into RAM by the system, but I feel like that's only for standard #Amiga DOS disks? Pass the aspirin!

This week's task is trying to write my own Bootblock. The RNC toolkit is great, but it doesn't let you choose where the main program is placed in memory. My dyscalculia made checksums hard to grasp too (books do not explain this well). Lots of disk registers to learn, so aspirin at the ready!

Anyone know of any online 68000 disassemblers? I'd have thought by now there would be loads that could do it within seconds, but I can't find any. Same with downloadable programs, as they just lead to broken links. Git has stuff that needs to be compiled but I can't be arsed with that extra faff.

I go online to look at old game longplays, guitar videos, or movie reviews. This internet safety act won't affect me in the slightest, because nothing I watch is worth censoring, and I won't ever give up personal details. I'm still vehemently against it though, because it's just a big scam.

Been trying for 3 days to get a raw binary program file to run in Amiga's memory and it always crashed. ChatGPT took me up several garden paths and completely over complicated things. Turns out I just didn't have the disks inserted. Never trust Skynet.

Absolutely crushed to hear about Ozzy Osbourne. I've been a fan of Black Sabbath and Ozzy since I was a teenager, so this is devastating news. Especially just a few weeks after the final Sabbath show. RIP :(

OS trashing isn't well documented (quelle surprise), so I'm doing some guess work. Amiga HUNK format seems to rely on the system placing stuff in RAM, but that's no use. Using a RAW binary with an ORG to overwrite OS shit at the start of ChipMem seems to be the way. Risky, but no one's gonna die.

Saw Superman. It's clunky and messy in terms of pace and structure, and the script is very blunt. None of the jokes landed either. The cast were great though, and it's definitely pointed in the right direction in terms of sentiment/character, but I'd like to see another director do the sequel.

Getting this sector loader working feels like it's taken an age, but it's only been 2 weeks. It's much faster than #Amiga OS, and takes less memory too, so I'm quite pleased. Again, it feels like it took more effort to find rather than implement, showing that the real barrier is lack of examples.

Very sad to hear that PatmanQC has passed away. He was one of my favourite retro YouTubers, and his videos were always on in my house. I sincerely hope that someone has access to his YouTube account, lest we have another RZX Archive situation where the content is deleted from inactivity.