No idea if it’s related, but I see similar behaviour (the not loading, rather than the error message) whenever Firefox requires a restart for an update. It doesn’t make it clear this is what is happening, it just stops loading web pages in existing tabs. Only if I open a new tab does it show the “Restart to keep using” message.

I’ve spent far too much time diagnosing network issues without realising I just needed a restart :)

Cool, is that “square one” where we can book a GP appointment for a time before the heat death of the universe? Sign me up!

Pretty much all of them… I have so many memories of old 80s computer games where all I remember is level 1. It appears that I was terrible and perfectly happy with that.

Difficult…

• Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - Genesis
• Misplaced Childhood - Marillion
• Prequelle - Ghost
• Oh, Inverted World - The Shins
• Ten - Pearl Jam
• Tubular Bells II - Mike Oldfield
• Vast - Vast
• English Settlement - XTC
• The Friends of Mr Cairo - Jon and Vangelis
• Appetite For Destruction - Guns n Roses

I don’t have the other devices to compare, but I understands that it should handle those platforms better than the 2+ and slightly worse than the 3+. So some playable games, but not all.

I tried a few GC games (Mario Kart Double Dash and Monkey Ball). They seemed to run okay. Monkey Ball ran worse than Mario Kart.

More powerful chipset and different dpad/left stick placement is the main one. Here’s a breakdown:

https://retroabxy.com/retroid-pocket-2-plus-vs-retroid-pocket-2s/

Yeah, it’s confusing, and not helped by the fact that they release a new one every couple of months.

Funnily enough, that’s one of the reasons I went with the 2S over the 3+. I love the look of the old NGPC!

Yep. Even when clicking the single checkbox captchas, I try really hard to click it “just like a human would”. Which is weird, because I am a human. I think.

Except in the case of the Sega Master System, where the simplistic 8-bit graphics felt like a massive leap up from the terrible box art!

Often it was because the ports were given to different companies to do… one would get the Spectrum/Amstrad and another would get the C64. Also, the whole sound and graphics systems would need to be rewritten, given the Spectrum’s lack of hardware sprites or scrolling, or decent sound. Presumably it just made sense to build them separately.

Can’t believe I missed that one! Sounds like it made some interesting compromises.

I always thought that as well, and was similarly jealous. But in doing these port comparisons, I’ve found that the C64 often got a really bad port. See my Bomb Jack post the other day, for example.

If you can look past the visuals and sound, the Spectrum ports often capture the feel of the arcade the best of all. It’s probably about 45-45-10 (C64-Speccy-Amstrad), with the Amstrad getting some rare gems like Renegade.

I’m not sure that’s the case…

A lot of the time, the C64 and Spectrum/Amstrad ports were done by different companies, in isolation. You’d often see the C64 go its own way, changing up levels and gameplay. While the Amstrad port was usually a lazy port of the Spectrum. You can often see the colour limitations of the Spectrum ported across wholesale to the Amstrad as well.

In the case of Commando, the Spectrum and Amstrad teams had some overlap and the games share some of the same DNA (see the title screen, for example), while the C64 was distinct. It doesn’t feel like a lazy Spectrum > Amstrad port though, so it has that going for it. The C64, as usual, feels like its own thing.

I did a much smaller comparison over on Mastodon a few months back: https://mastodonapp.uk/@davetansley/109767977707445539

It’s one of my favourite games from that era, so I’ll maybe expand it and post here.

Ferries and other ocean-going vessels seem to be a rich source of arcade memories… I remember lurking around the sit down Galaxians cabinet on the Bowness to Ambleside ferry on more than one occasion.

Nope, Lemmy exclusive :)

Just want to contribute something to building the Retrogaming community, after years of being a consumer only on Reddit.

(mostly it’s just an excuse to play loads of games… you know, for science)

In the interests of good comparison science, it’s worth mentioning that a couple of platforms also got homebrew ports…

Over on the Atari 8-bit platforms, we have “Gacek”, a kind of unbranded version of Bomb Jack. It’s really good, and really pushes the old Atari’s to their limits. Varied sprites and colourful backdrops, and a range of music throughout the levels. It feels really good to play as well.

There are oddities though - like the way it plays the theme from Gradius/Nemesis on the high score table. And the way it doesn’t mention Bomb Jack at all (understandable, given its homebrew nature). So it’s not so much Bomb Jack as Bomb Jack-ish. But it’s still very good!

The venerable Colecovision also got a homebrew version, this time staying truer to the original. It’s also very good, and looks way better than a 1982 console has any right to. Control is fluid and fast, and the music is catchy and not annoying.

The bomb sprites are a bit large however, and the game tends to be a bit on the easy side, given there are fewer enemies on screen. But it’s still a tremendous achievement.

I recently switched from Chrome to Firefox as part of an ongoing de-Google effort… and, honestly, I found it fairly easy. The two things I missed and found solutions for were:

1. Profiles - I just use the built in profiles with the Profile Switcher extension
2. Casting to Chromecast - I use the fx_cast extension and actually find it more reliable than Chrome’s casting!

Other than those, I’ve found it to be a very comfortable, familiar experience.

I use it for work. Other than having to think for a second to find weirdly hidden menu items, it’s fine. At least for my purposes, as a .NET dev. One thing I love about it is Windows Sandbox… really wish Linux would could up something similar.