SEGA Mega Drive Classics HUB

[Mengels7]

Yeah, you get them from Steam Workshop. You're missing out on "Streets of Rage 2 Except It Makes That Weird Tim Allen Noise When People Die"

[Sharky]

I'll be doing a review of this but I gotta say impressions are not positive. All I'll say right now is that it's extremely underwhelming compared to other games with similar front-ends. The emulation and optimization also leaves much to be desired.

Give it a week, see if they make improvements before you drop a turd on a valiant start to turning around the industry's negativity towards rom hacks and mods. They already fixed Steam Overlay and are on the controller support fix right now.

[crackdude]

Yea, above all this is a huge step towards a future vibrant community of retro development.

[Moody]

I'm not taking a dump on the rom-hacking, I actually think for all its flaws of right now, the ROM-hacking will absolutely save it. I want the industry to warm up to ROM-hacks, but I also don't want the first step toward it to be soured by a fairly lousy program.

And I'm happy to hear they're fixing problems, but A) if you're patching your game that quickly, you should've waited to fix all the bugs, and B) why are the updates not being put on the Steam news feed for the game? There's no mention of the update whatsoever on Steam. Unless you check the community hub, you'd have no idea what was updated.

[crackdude]

That's kinda..... moody .....of you

[Tad]

Are people really moaning about a free update?

[Moody]

Being free does not absolve it of critique.

[Tad]

Being free does not absolve it of critique.

No, but it does somewhat make you look thoughtless and cruel.

[Sharky]

Annnyyyyyway.... How do I use the emulator to quick save?

[SonicFan4Life]

Pretty darn awesome. They will also support rom hacks. Sweet stuff for the fans. I like the 1990's look of it.

[Sharky]

Sad to say I find the review on the front page ill thought out and not all representative of most peoples feelings or experiences. It doesn't matter if its a full game or a 'room corner' if your PC isn't up to snuff to run it even on the 'fast' setting with v-sync disabled then that is not the creators fault. PC gamers know by now that its up to you to find the right settings for your rig.

But I think worst of all, this is a pretty bad case of looking a gift horse in the mouth... Despite launching with some oversights that'll be patched, it's free!

I also think far too little attention was given to the inclusion of Steam Workshop, its quite revolutionary to see a publisher not tirelessly snuffing out fan projects, not turning a blind eye, but actually giving them a legal platform to create, share and play rom hacks and mods...

I would like to see a writers roundtable discussion so that more opinions are presented.

(Not a personal attack on you Moody, we're all entitle to our opinion. I just find it entirely at odds with my experience and thoughts.)

[crackdude]

I also don't understand the justification that "it's simple so it should run on any PC". That simply isn't true. The engine running on the backend is demanding by itself.

Not even that, even SEGA themselves say that if your PC isn't powerful enough, you can use the simple interface:
"The emulator itself runs entirely on your CPU, so if none of the above suggestions have an effect on emulation speed, your processor may unfortunately not be powerful enough to run the emulator through Unity. We have left the "Simple Emulator" as a launch option for those using less powerful machines such as laptops or notebooks. "

So even if your PC is not up to snuff right now, you can enjoy the emulated games anyway (remember the emulated games ARE THE PRODUCT. The Game Room is just a nifty extra)

[Barry the Nomad]

I'm abstaining from opinion on Moody's piece until I boot up the hub for myself. I have a low end "PC" given it is just my mac running bootcamp with a partitioned harddrive. I can easily run some of the lower end SEGA titles, and stuff like Renegade Ops and All-Stars Racing run fine. Interested to see how the HUB performs.

[Moody]

I've actually gotten some opinions from people off the Steam community and elsewhere, and I'm definitely not the only one experiencing issues. People with more than capable rigs are having issues running it perfectly. I also don't see the issue in critiquing a free update. If I don't critique it, then the problems I do have with it may never be resolved.

I'm genuinely curious how much more coverage of the ROM hacking you expected, Sharky. I talked about it very positively, highlighted a hack, I even noted that it'd be enough to overshadow all the other flaws. To me, it's just a feature. A very good feature that opens the doors to hacks becoming normal in most people's eyes, but still just a feature. And the excuse of 'you can just use the simple launcher' doesn't fly with me because it's missing that feature.

Like I said in the review, if patches do releases that fix all the issues I have with it, I'll reconsider my position. I'll probably even update the review to show it.

(And don't worry, none of you are attacking me. I tend to get pretty ruthless in my reviews when I find things I think are really bad, so I expect some disagreement. It's all good :>)

[crackdude]

Yes, don't take it to heart.

The main reason why we're being so critical (if I can speak for most of us) is because overall this is a pretty cool piece of software that we got for free, and generally feel grateful for it. Mainly because it was unexpected.

It's hard to understand your point of view when it runs just fine in our computers.