Mal Venus

Closing out the month, we have a leak from Sega which reveals that Sega's bitterly disappointing portable Genesis, the Nomad, was codenamed "Venus" (in keeping with the celestial bodies theme for its other consoles of the 1990s) and that it was planned for release in Japan. And here's how that looks, courtesy of Sega City.

Looks like a first model Nintendo DS knocked boots (and bytes) with a Nomad, or maybe a Game Gear. I wonder if Sega made any attempt to deal with the easily dislodged cartridges and low visibility screen of the American version of this system. Maybe these faults are why the Venus never left the prototype stage. My understanding is that Sega took such a bath on this boondoggle of a portable that they probably wished they hadn't released it anywhere.

Nintendo had the good sense to keep its own advanced handheld, codenamed Project Atlantis, in R&D until they could whittle down its size and power consumption. What we eventually got was the successful Game Boy Advance, proving that good things come to those who wait... and the Sega Nomad is the booby prize for those who won't.

By the way, Retro-Bit... you promised us a Nomad that actually works at least a year and a half ago. Where is that...?

Saudi 'Ya Like Me Now?

Well, that was an out of left field sucker punch I wasn't expecting. After years of being under Chinese management, SNK is now at least partially owned by the Misk foundation. Those really were the worst Life Savers, you know.

Finally, the flavor of a ripe underarm in a candy!
(image from Pinterest)

Wait, I'm told that it's the Misk foundation, owned by Saudi prince Mohammad bin Salman. The previously linked Eurogamer article claims that Misk owns a third of SNK so far, and wants to push its share of the company up to 51%, giving it a controlling interest. What will this mean for the beloved manufacturer of the Neo-Geo arcade jukebox? It's anyone's guess, but since China remains a key market for SNK, it probably doesn't mean an end to the removal of Taiwanese teams in the company's sports games.

So there you have it... SNK is now a Middle Eastern game developer. If this upsets you (and considering Saudi Arabia's dismal record on human rights, it very well may), just wait another fifteen years. The way things are going, the company will probably return to Japanese ownership after making brief stops in the Netherlands, Australia, Nigeria, and the Maldives.

Get Equipped with Goofy Micro Console

Remember the folks who ported an Atomiswave game to the Dreamcast? In the weeks since King of Fighters XI made its debut on Sega's last console, MegaVolt85 and yzb has brought a substantial chunk of Atomiswave games to its console cousin... fifteen of the twenty seven available, at last count. The last game ported to to the Dreamcast was the oddball fighter/beat 'em up hybrid Guilty Gear Isuka, which lets up to four players battle on dual tiered arenas that bring to mind the Fatal Fury series, or Treasure's Guardian Heroes. More ports are coming, but with heavy hitters like Fist of the North Star and The Rumble Fish 2 already converted, there's really not much ground left for this dynamic duo of programmers to cover. I for one won't lose much sleep if they skip the hunting games and, uh, Net Select Kaiba Victory Furlong.

Now for the big news of the day. Not satisfied with their absurdly oversized novelty joystick from last year, Capcom is set to release a palm-sized arcade machine packed with Street Fighter and Mega Man titles. Damien "Don't call me Bobby" McFerran of Nintendo Life reports that the machine will be designed by the same team that gave us the Neo-Geo Mini two years before, and will include the two Mega Man arcade games, along with Street Fighter II titles ranging from the game's 1991 debut to the much later spin-off Super Puzzle Fighter II. There are a lot of omissions from the history of both franchises, but I'm sure hackers will quickly fill in those blanks.

image from NintendoLife

What's odd is that the machine kind of resembles Mega Man himself, with a metallic blue sheen and yellow orbs on either side representing the ear cups on Mega Man's helmet. I'm not in love with the design, but at least the joystick and buttons more closely approximate what you'd find on a real arcade machine than what you got on the Neo-Geo Mini. Also, the abstract design reminds me of Tomytronics' Pac-Man, which bears a faint resemblance to the title character.

image from Dave's Stuff on Wordpress

Yeah, you kind of have to squint to see it.

The Retro Station will be sold next month for $210 in Japan. That's too rich for my blood, but considering the steep price cuts we've seen on similar systems, I wouldn't be surprised if that price is drastically cut by the end of next year.

Garfield Was Right About Mondays...

You want the good news or the bad news? I think we've all had our fill of bad news, so I'll start with the good news first. The Dreamcast has been getting a steady diet of Atomiswave ports, courtesy of MegaVolt85 and another hacker who calls himself yzb. Yes, Dolphin Blue is one of those titles, although bugs in the conversion process mean that you can only play through half the game before it loses its marbles. More stable arcade ports include Faster than Speed, Maximum Speed, and King of Fighters NeoWave, the game I warn-told you about in the last post. I'm just sayin', man, I wouldn't have picked it, but if you plan to port all these games to the Dreamcast, even the one where you're slinging sushi to hungry customers, I guess NeoWave would be an unfortunate inevitability. Like death, or taxes, or overpowered SNK bosses, which this game certainly has.

Okay, now on to the bad news. Hey, I warned you it was coming! It seems that ReedPop is pulling the plug on USGamer after seven years of publication, a move which is already drawing uncomfortable parallels to the shuttering of 1UP ten years earlier. I wasn't an avid reader of USGamer, but I respected its "business casual" approach to games journalism, and continue to admire its writers, including Mike Williams, Jeremy Parish, and Nadia Oxford. Here's hoping that 2021 will reverse their ill fortunes... along with everyone else's.

The Atom's Family

It's been a stressful week, as I'm sure you can all attest. We had a rollercoaster of an election, with the sweet taste of victory swiftly followed with the unwanted tang of uncertainty. (Trump said he wouldn't concede, and hasn't, perhaps the first time in his presidency where he actually told the truth.) We lost Sean Connery on Halloween, and Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek just days after that. It's been exhausting, and I for one could use a little news that delights rather than distresses, with a clean finish.

And here it is. A hobbyist programmer named MegaVolt85 has managed to port Atomiswave games to the arcade jukebox's close cousin, the Dreamcast. I don't know how he did this- the increased RAM in the Atomiswave should have made porting its games to an unexpanded Dreamcast massively difficult- but he managed, and here's the proof.

Pardon the liquor and the treats... I told you this was a stressful week. Several King of Fighters games were ported to the Dreamcast officially, but King of Fighters XI was not one of them, landing on the Playstation 2 instead. Fifteen years after its arcade release, King of Fighters XI has found its way to the Dreamcast, and it's pretty much the same as it was on the Atomiswave. There's a faint bit of access time between stages on the GD-EMU where I installed it, and that loading could be more significant if you're playing it from a disc, but past that I noticed no other differences.

KOF XI is on Dreamcast now! Whoopi!

However, there are differences between this and the Playstation 2 port... rather important ones. It's a straight arcade port, and as such I haven't found any way to adjust the difficulty, button layout, or other settings. Most damning is that while the backgrounds are crisp, the characters are not, smoothed over with a bilinear filter that detracts from the otherwise pleasant graphics. The Playstation 2 game let you turn that filter off, but it's an option that doesn't seem available on the Atomiswave, and by extension, here.

Hello? Were you gonna give me the stage now?

Another slight bummer is that the game crashed on me about three stages in, which may either be just a freak occurrence or a serious glitch MegaVolt85 will need to address later. Still, this is a pretty nifty accomplishment, and the programmer intends to tackle more Atomiswave games in the future. A port of Metal Slug 6 is already finished, and perhaps its nautical cousin Dolphin Blue won't be too far behind.

By the way, the Atomiswave is an interesting machine, offering a peek at an alternate future where Sega had supported the Dreamcast just a little while longer. Not all of the games in the system's modestly sized library are fantastic- in fact, many of the games aren't fantastic- but the 2D fighters in particular take full advantage of the resolution of the Dreamcast, making them sharper and more detailed than similar Capcom titles. Seriously, Fist of the North Star may not be Arc System Works' best fighter, but damn does it look gorgeous. 

More Atomiswave games would be welcome on the Dreamcast, and I hope MegaVolt85 will continue to port them. (Feel free to skip this one, though.)