Game Sack

[Barone]

I just rewatched the Naxat pinball games ep, and Crüe Ball and Sonic Spinball are way better than Dragon's Revenge. I can't comment on Dino Land since I haven't played that.

Psycho Pinball is much better than those three.

[M4R14NO94]

Psycho Pinball is much better than those three.

You're right, but he only mentioned Crüe Ball, Spinball and Dino Land.

I'd say that the best pinball games for the Genesis are both Devil Crash MD/Dragon's Fury and Psycho Pinball.

Also, I can't believe that they didn't mention that the covers for Dragon's Fury and Dragon's Revenge are basically the same.

[Barone]

You're right, but he only mentioned Crüe Ball, Spinball and Dino Land.

I'd say that the best pinball games for the Genesis are both Devil Crash MD/Dragon's Fury and Psycho Pinball.

Also, I can't believe that they didn't mention that the covers for Dragon's Fury and Dragon's Revenge are basically the same.

Yes, I was just giving some help to Psycho Pinball, 'cause only few people know about it. Only released for DOS and Mega Drive... One of those great games from the golden era of PC-DOS games. And the conversion to Mega Drive is incredibly good. Codemasters was a very very good company and chose Mega Drive instead of SNES to be it's favorite 16-bit platform. Good for us!

[SpaceFlea]

Psycho Pinball is also one of those few games that was PAL only. That probably lends it to be oft forgotten in Genny pinball discussions.

[Barone]

Psycho Pinball is also one of those few games that was PAL only. That probably lends it to be oft forgotten in Genny pinball discussions.

But it's region free, widely available and plays beautifully on any 60hz Mega Drive/Genesis.

[Joe Redifer]

I just rewatched the Naxat pinball games ep, and Crüe Ball and Sonic Spinball are way better than Dragon's Revenge. I can't comment on Dino Land since I haven't played that.

Oooooh.... I dunno about that. Crue Ball broke my ears with its horrible audio quality that did no justice to the mediocre band. It also had some pretty bland and boring graphics. Sonic Spinball is just atrocious. The title screen breaks my ears with some of the worst audio ever on the Genesis, the gameplay is boring at best and the graphics are all very dark and ugly.

[Olls]

I used to enjoy Crue Ball quite a lot. I don't know how it holds up today, but I remember playing that and Dragon's Fury/Revenge a lot.
Never liked Sonic Spinball though.

[M4R14NO94]

Oooooh.... I dunno about that. Crue Ball broke my ears with its horrible audio quality that did no justice to the mediocre band. It also had some pretty bland and boring graphics. Sonic Spinball is just atrocious. The title screen breaks my ears with some of the worst audio ever on the Genesis, the gameplay is boring at best and the graphics are all very dark and ugly.

The Spinball options screen music is the worst though. The people who did the GBA Sega Smash Pack pretty much did us a favor by removing that track... and every other one. The only ones remaining are the title screen music, Toxic Caves (now used for EVERY LEVEL!) and that song on the intro.

[kool kitty89]

Good episode! I also have to agree that the only controller better than the six button Genesis pad is the Saturn pad. Love 'em both, though!

For me, it's 3 button all the way! (great size, feel, etc -albeit it depends somewhat on the model)
For games needing the 6 button, it's great too though. (both are better than the SNES, Turbo, SMS, and NES pads)

I disagree about the Saturn pad though, I don't like it in general. The Genesis 6 button pad is MUCH more comfortable to hold and even the mode button is easier to use than the Saturn shoulder buttons (the US one is even worse in that respect, but both are bad IMO -the triggers on the 3D controller, OTOH, are totally awesome, as are the general ergonomics -a damn shame they downgraded to the dreamcast controllers).

I actually prefer the feel/shape of the US model 1 Saturn pads, but the D-pad is kind of weak (not terrible, but not as good as Genesis d-pads -the Saturn JP/model 2 d-pad is slightly worse than the shape of the MD ones IMO -slightly shallower than the 6 button), and the buttons feel a bit off for some reason. The overall shape is very well suited to my hands though, much better than the JP pads and possibly better than the genny 6 button. (if they fixed the shoulder button shape and placement, D-pad, and buttons, but used basically the same case, the US saturn pad might have been truly superior to any Sega pad released before it -and probably better than the 3D controller for non-analog games)


All of those are miles better than the terribly uncomfortable Sony pads though. Yuck. (the one good thing is the decent placement of the shoulder buttons, but even those are only good compared to the awkward SNES and Saturn ones . . . but the D-pad is terrible, the buttons are mediocre, and the grips are uncomfortably small -they fixed that on the original dual analog but then dropped that design and never used it again -with a game with little to no D-pad use played with the original dual analog pad might actually be pretty good for me -I can suffer through using those normal pads, but I don't like it at all -the layout isn't bad either, I live some 3rd party controllers that cloned that configuration -Thrustmaster's Firestorm or some of the Logitech pads, I just hate the way Sony did it and has continued to do it for 3 generations -with the exception of the dual analog, which was a step in the right direction that turned into a dead end)

I can't see how people can complain about the N64 controller being "made for kid hands" and not totally freak out about the even worse grips on the Sony pads.

I used joysticks almost exclusively up until the Saturn pad won me over. Even that was just by means of the Street Fighter Alpha games and Virtual On, I played VF2 with my Hori Arcade stick exclusively. I blew through about three of the Genesis 3-button Joysticks and two of he 6-button ones in the years before that and only ever used the SMS control stick. I thought the TG16 and NES pads are way too small, and the SNES d-pad is the only one to ever give me a gaming blister, and my hands have always been too big to comfortably reach those triggers.

I can get by with joysticks, but I rarely prefer them (when I do, it tends to be more from the build quality than the actual configuration -like the nice metal tact switches used in old Atari joysticks).
That's in the context of 4-point switch type control, mind you, for analog I love joysticks for a number of genres. (namely flight sims, though a few others are OK with joysticks as well -some games play better with an analog gamepad though, including some more arcade style flight sims that were made for console and don't offer flexible control configuration options -especially cases that don't allow a throttle . . . Blazing Angels has that problem, or any game that dosn't respect fine movement -if you don't need fine movement, you might as well use a small analog stick and even a d-pad probably wouldn't be too bad -better flight sims respect the need for finer control allowed by a wide throw flight stick)

My only gripe with Nintendo controllers is the d-pad, its so tiny and uncomfortable. If it had circular NEC like d-pad (like one of the 3rd party controllers) it would be far nicer... some day I'll mod a Saturn pad into a SNES pad, that way I get to have all the awesomness.... except awesomness of Sega games :P

They're BIGGER than NEC's, but they're cross pads rather than circular. Unless you tend to bottom out (thumb hits the plastic in the inside corners of the cross), there's no real problem of a cross pad over a circular one (especially a circular one with cross patter in it ).
For non worn out NES and SNES pads, I rarely have issues with bottoming out (the SNES seems to be a little more of an issue -shorter/mushier d-pad- but the nicer feel of that d-pad helps mitigate the disadvantage).

I hate the dogbone for this reason, it has a RAISED plastic dome encasing the d-pad that makes it impossible NOT to bottom out (unless you don't rest your thumb on the center). It's almost as bad as the Sony d-pad. (that one is a genuine auto-bottom-out for anyone who rests their thumb on the d-pad -opposed to wierd people who hover over the pad and prod it with their thumb)

The N64 controller's D-pad is probably the single best example of a cross type d-pad: it takes the good (textured, slightly cupped) cross pad of the SNES, stiffens it up a little, raises it, and adds a CONCAVE domed surface around it to mimize bottoming out. (about as good as it gets short of a really nice circle pad . . . rather ironic that the N64 used its d-pad so rarely -and then the GC got that tiny GBC/GBA d-pad . . . though it's more the placement than the size that's troublesome -the GBA feels a lot more comfortable with the very same d-pad, better than the SP/DS or wiimote/classic controller IMO -I really dislike that smooth/flat d-pad Nintendo has been using recently)



Oh, that and you've gotta have concave buttons . . . or at least broad/flat/comfortable buttons (N64's A and B are OK due to that -same for the Saturn 3D pad, but the MD's A/B/C has the best of both worlds . . . only thing better would be is if they had the silky smooth actuation of the SMS buttons -that's the only thing I really like about the SMS pad, not the shape of the buttons themselves, just the feeling of pressing them -the shape is OK too though, it's convex but very shallow and somewhat wider than the NES buttons so not too bad).
I modded an SNES pad to have all 4 buttons concave (not too tough since US pads have 2 concave already -JP and Europe are tougher -you'd probably need to cannibalize an NES pad for the buttons if it weren't for the US pads), that's one more reason I also prefer the classic pad over the dogbone for the NES. (that and I hate the oddly curved shape and small size -if it had the curves of the SNES pad, it would be fine, but it doesn't)

I don't mind the size of the ball on the Arcade Power Stick at all. It fits in my big, powerful man-hands. I wouldn't consider a microswitch stick far superior (though I must admit I've never tried it and I'd certainly like to). But I don't think it would be any more responsive. Case in point is the Neo Geo CD pad. It is microswitched but that doesn't make it any snappier than a Sega pad. It just makes for cool clicks as you move it around. I have had to repair my Neo Geo CD control pad. DOWN stopped working.

The high degree of reliability and consistency of microswitches can be nice . . . though really good/clean rubber carbon dome switches can be fine too. (actually, for a d-pad, microswitches might not be the best case; metallic dome/tact switches as used in the Atari CX-10 and CX-40 sticks might be the best case -similar feel to rubber dome switches but a little big snappier and very accurate/consistent -I'm not sure if there's any gamepad that would be easy to mod with those types of switches though, maybe some of the console arcade sticks would be suitable)

For that matter, I'm not sure microswitches are the best for arcade style joysticks either . . . I seem to recall some early (70s and early 80s) arcade cabinets actually used mechanical metal strip/tab based switch mechanisms rather than microswitches. (that, or again, those metal dome switches are pretty nice)

As for modding a Saturn d-pad onto a SNES controller, yes that would be cool, but I don't mind the SNES d-pad. It's the diamond button configuration that chaps my ass. I want two rows of three! Anyway when the Gamecube came out, the d-pad shrunk to its teensy-tiny barely-there current size. But that's a topic for a later episode.

Yes, but in 1990-1992, there was no 2 rows of 3, it was one row of 3, 1 roe of 2, or the diamond layout (or 2 rows of 2 diagonally oriented).

My bigger gripe is the convex buttons on the SNES, at least the US ones only have 2 convex . . . but they're still the 2 most used buttons. (at least the SMS's convex buttons were fairly broad and had the bonus of super silky actuation -though a pretty weak d-pad- but the genesis got it right with the 3 nice concave and big buttons -X Y and Z are small and convex, but that's not too bad since they're much less often used -and, like the US SNES pad, it does at least give some utility for "play by feel" -which is pretty much the only advantage of the GC's otherwise less than ideal buttons -overall a step down from the N64 IMO)

Actually, it's a bit ironic that the SMS d-pad looks like it would be pretty comfortable, but it's actually mediocre in that department (and isn't as accurate as it could be either). The Model 1 Saturn pad OTOH looks like it would be painful and awkward to use, but is actually pretty decent. (not as good as preceding pads, but not nearly as bad as some make it out to be -and better than the SMS or Sony d-pads)

On a side note: the 7800 d-pad is actually pretty decent too (even without the thumbstick), but the buttons could be better. (they're nice and broad, but really convex and a little more springy as the NES buttons -so not as smooth as the SMS or even MD -I like the satisfying click the MD buttons give, though still not as nice as the silky SMS buttons in that respect)
It would have been cool if they'd just re-used the old CX-10/40 buttons for the 7800 joypad. (probably would have saved a tiny bit on tooling too) Not perfect, but still a nice broad concave button.








Oh, also: the original Xbox pad ROCKS!!!
Damn, I wish I had 2 or 3 more of those . . . especially since the one I have has under-sensitive buttons that I haven't been able to fix. (they aren't especially cheap due to the high demand relative to availability)
Of course, I have big hands (about a 10" span), so I can appreciate the large controllers . . . and have more problems with the small ones. (though the Game Cube controller does an exception job at being flexible in that department -better than the N4 in that respect for sure)

The S-pads are OK, but the triggers pinch my fingers and they don't feel nearly as nice overall. (moderately worse than the GC pads, still much better than the Sony pads though)

[TmEE]

They're BIGGER than NEC's, but they're cross pads rather than circular. Unless you tend to bottom out (thumb hits the plastic in the inside corners of the cross), there's no real problem of a cross pad over a circular one (especially a circular one with cross patter in it ).
For non worn out NES and SNES pads, I rarely have issues with bottoming out (the SNES seems to be a little more of an issue -shorter/mushier d-pad- but the nicer feel of that d-pad helps mitigate the disadvantage).

Bigger is not always better, the circular shape is the key point in here, much easier on the thumb and generally more responsive. I don't use tips of my thumbs, only the middle parts. I slide my thumb around on the d-pad

[Joe Redifer]

My bigger gripe is the convex buttons on the SNES, at least the US ones only have 2 convex . . . but they're still the 2 most used buttons.

The B and Y buttons are used most on the SNES pad, not A and B. It is not natural to use A as a Jump and B as a fire, the angle is much too steep (this is how it is done on the Neo Geo pad and why I complained about it). Instead, B is used to jump and Y to fire. To this day I have never understood why Nintendo labeled their buttons backwards (NEC, too).

[kool kitty89]

Bigger is not always better, the circular shape is the key point in here, much easier on the thumb and generally more responsive. I don't use tips of my thumbs, only the middle parts. I slide my thumb around on the d-pad

I firmly wedge my thumb in the very middle and push/lean in the desired direction without sliding my thumb. (I tend to push especially hard when things get intense )
It's the same as using an analog stick, keep your thumb on the middle and move the pad/stick, not your thumb. (same thing for times when I play with an Atari joystick as a thumbstick -though that gets uncomfortable after a while)

That's probably part of why I really don't like the PSX pad . . . NOT a good center at all.

And yes, cross pads are rather uncomfortable to slide around with and annoying to do diagonals if you play that way, you'll bottom out no matter what. (for me it really doesn't matter as long as the d-pad isn't super shallow; I rarely bottom out against the plastic on the SNES or NES pads)

The B and Y buttons are used most on the SNES pad, not A and B. It is not natural to use A as a Jump and B as a fire, the angle is much too steep (this is how it is done on the Neo Geo pad and why I complained about it). Instead, B is used to jump and Y to fire. To this day I have never understood why Nintendo labeled their buttons backwards (NEC, too).

For me, it's totally natural for the right button to be jump and the left to be fire (on the SNES, that can be Y as fire/action and B as jump, or B as fire/action and A as jump).
Same thing for MD games. I prefer B or C for jump (I usually use B or C in sonic) and A for action/fire (or B if C is jump). The 3rd button would be for an additional function.

Part of that is probably force of habbit from games I grew up with, but it definitely feels "right" to me. (it somewhat depends on genre though, but for platform and similar games, I prefer the lower most or right most button for jump in most cases -sometimes the middle button, never the left button)

For Star Fox, I normally use the configuration with Y as fire, B as brake, X as boost, and A as nova bomb.



I don't get the "too steep" issue on the SNES or Neo Geo pads . . . I totally get the complaint about the arcade stick though.
There is not "steep" to the SNES pad, just 4 buttons on alligned on a grid with an open spot in the middle. (I think of it rather like having a 3x3 grid with 4 of the spots occupied -like a tic-tac-toe board)
All 4 buttons are easy to reach with the thumb, so definitely NOT the same issue as the Neo Geo joystick.

Plus, it's great to use for games needing dual d-pads (N64's c buttons made that even better), though that's rather rare. (and the genny 6-button pad works OK for that too, but it's a little awkward -though more due to the uncomfortable X/Y/Z buttons than anything else)

Hmm, actually a square layout would be good too (like 2 rows of SMS/PCE/NES buttons with one directly above another) and could still even be used as a 2nd d-pad. (except that the diagonals are not the vertical and horizontal direction)
It would be nice to actually try out that sort of layout, though the PCE's 6 button pad actually does that, doesn't it? (but with 2 rows of 3 rather than 2)

For most games, I do prefer the genesis's 3 button layout to the SNES's layout though, but more so due to the buttons themselves than the layout. (the layout depends more on the game)
The 6 button layout is also pretty good, but I dislike the buttons. (only a real problem when there's button mashing involved though)


Edit:
OK, I think I see more of a problem with the neo's specificaly. The positionign makes it hard to push certain buttons simultaneously, though only if you're used to different controllers. (if you're used to pushing 2 buttons almost directly on top of eachother, it shouldn't be too bad . . . it's not like the SNES though since those are symmetrically oriented)
It's very much like the Genesis 6 button's "steepness", but with larger buttons in general. (more like the Saturn 3D pad)
And a different controller shape on top of that.

[Joe Redifer]

Here's the most recent video that went up on Monday. Tetris and Other Puzzle Games!

[Barone]

Here's the most recent video that went up on Monday. Tetris and Other Puzzle Games!

Superb as always!

However, I'd like to see more puzzle games!
I've pm'ed you a link to a PS1 game, that originally got 2 releases for Super Famicom... Check with an emulator, probably you'll like that very much.

You can check all related releases here:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/search/index...platform=0&s=s

YoYo's Puzzle Park is great too, but the PS1 version of Gussun Oyoyo is an improved version of the best SFC release, that was already a great puzzle game.

[Joe Redifer]

Yeah, we couldn't cover all puzzle games. We'll have an episode in the future dealing with some of the stuff we left behind like Shove It, Junction and others.