Random Gaming Thoughts

[nullPointer]

thanks, null.

I had also stumbled upon Maximus Arcade. It looks pretty flexible and easy. Any thoughts on that one at all?

Maximus Arcade was actually the first frontend I ever tried based on an article appearing in Racketboy. Fun times! MA was very good for it's time. Unfortunately I don't think it's done a great job keeping up with more modern trends in frontends (AFAIK the most recently released version is still somewhere in 2011). Among other things, MA only offers a limited number of slots for your systems, and even then it is very specific about what systems are supported. If you ever wanted to add something that wasn't explicitly supported by MA you had to get a bit creative and hack-ish about how you did that (and you'd still have to use up one of your system slots to do it).

More damningly though, is that sometime around 2011 the customer support for MA completely fell apart, to the point that people were purchasing licenses and weren't receiving them until weeks after the fact, or weren't receiving them at all. On top of that their support forums were completely shut down, leaving these folks with no way to file support tickets. It was a pretty bad time for MA, and IMO it caused irreparable damage to their business model. It's my understanding that Maximus was either purchased by or partnered up with X-Arcade (the hardware folks), so it's important to mention that things may have gotten better at this point. Having said that, I'm still pretty leery about offering an endorsement there. As in all things YMMV!

LaunchBox will do all types of roms, and pc games, and will do most of it automatically. Not expensive and works really well.

I was not previously aware of LaunchBox, but that also looks like a viable option!

Long story short is that if your desired game and/or system can be launched via a command line interface it should be able to be integrated into any frontend. At that point your choice of frontend simply becomes a matter of personal preference in terms of outward appearance, functionality, and ease of configuration.

[noiseredux]

well, the project I have in mind would probably not even be for any systems. Maybe MAME. But really I just want it to launch Windows and DOS programs. And I want it to be able to do it without ever touching a mouse or keyboard.

When I get to that stage in the game, I'll try out the frontends that you and fast have mentioned. But first I need to raise some funds. :\

[nullPointer]

Sorry by "systems" I was envisioning that DOS and Windows Games would probably account for two "systems" in a given frontend (which I think is probably true). Heck GameEx will even seamlessly integrate your Steam library and act as a frontend for Steam if you let it (which would count as another "System", although in this case you're not strictly limited in terms of the number of systems supported). It's worthwhile to mention that that I believe all the frontends listed do offer trial based versions of the software (though in most cases with a diminished feature set - still it should be enough to do what you want to do). I should mention that GameEx is on sale during the month of October if you were fond of that one, and depending on your license it will be transferable to GameEx Evolution upon release. (Which again full disclosure: I am involved with GameEx so my intent is to be informational rather than to provide advertising ... feel free to advise me to pipe down if I've crossed any lines! )

[noiseredux]

no, no. I asked for info, and you've given me plenty. I appreciate it honestly. It's great to have answers from someone who is that close to the product. And the price is really not bad. GameEx def seems like a viable option for me. I'll def check out the demo.

I'm not sure I understand the lifetime vs yearly thing, though?

[nullPointer]

I'm not sure I understand the lifetime vs yearly thing, though?

Basically the annual license will provide a years worth of updates, and give access to the registered features to the software for that period of time. After that year it will revert back to the trial version of the software.

The lifetime license will do all of the above for an unlimited amount of time, and will be transferable to GameEx Evolution upon release.

(Here's a slightly expanded definition)

[KalessinDB]

I love the look of Hyperspin personally, I bought their Platinum package to get lifetime everything but have honestly not touched it too much since my desire to build an emulation cab died down... I *am* kinda mad at them for continually teasing the "Real Soon Now(tm)" release of 2.0 and pushing it back to the point where people are calling vaporware, even though I kinda understand it since the whole project is basically one guy for the brunt of the coding.

I forget the name of what he used as a frontend, but exoscoraie (i think I spelled that right) from Pleasuredome has a very nice frontend for his eXoDOS collection (and presumably his WINeX0 one too but I haven't used that), which aims to collect up every DOS game under the sun. Might be worth looking at, and free.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Totally forgot that the Famicom had its own version of The Black Onyx! Thought the only cart releases were SG-1000 and MSX, for some reason. Now I can play it without emulation.

Oh, and how did I not hear about this until today?

[Damm64]

Im checking gameplay for the golden compass.. why that movie got a game? Why the girl uses a monkey as a whip? Why the bear kinda rocks? It's like god of war... bear of war.. or god of bear. Gettin this game tomorrow for reasons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecJrCIzmdC0

[Erik_Twice]

I think I might get into beat'em ups. I had played them previously and such but never thought much about them before. Now that I'm finishing Streets of Rage 2 I'm left wanting more so perhaps I'll try to 1CC an arcade game next.

Don't know which one, though.

[alienjesus]

I think I might get into beat'em ups. I had played them previously and such but never thought much about them before. Now that I'm finishing Streets of Rage 2 I'm left wanting more so perhaps I'll try to 1CC an arcade game next.

Don't know which one, though.

Double Dragon could be worth a look. It's certainly not as good, but it is pretty influential.

Or perhaps something like Vigilante or Kung Fu Master if you wanna go early.