My life has changed a lot, to the point where gaming has become almost irrelevant to me. I've got a lot less free time, and I'm way behind the times when it comes to games and/or the discussion thereof. I only found out yesterday that there's a PS4! :lol:

I doubt I could give any intelligent input on anything gaming-related, these days. My consoles gather much dust, whilst the computer only really gets used for practical things and Facebook. To be honest, I haven't lurked or anything since I last logged-in. Just can't sleep tonight, figured I'd have a gander at what's going on back at the ol' Dojo.

I'll never forget this place, or Shenmue. There just comes a point when you have to move on with your life. I'll always post occasionally, but ultimately I'm a grown 27 year-old with a job, bills, girlfriend and all that. Anyone here with these things know that they eat up a lot of time and energy. She wants to try for a baby in December (so we can have a 'September baby'.. don't ask), and I just know that means even less time to myself.

Gaming has essentially gone out the window. I won't be getting the new consoles. Might treat myself to GTa V if it still comes out on PS3. If not - meh.

Thank you for this emulator, Masterchen! I'd say its the best version of nullDC, it definitely runs Shenmue better than another one that I got. Also, both Power Stone games run perfectly.

Been playing a lot of oldschool stuff on PC. Notably:

Alien versus Predator Classic 2000
Brutal Doom
Earthworm Jim 1&2
Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition
Hexen
Manhunt 2
Pandemonium!
Resident Evil 2
Shadow Man
SimCity 4

It's been a blast peering into the earlier PC gaming days from my youth. Some of them are PC versions of console games that I loved (such as Resi and Shadow). Bummer that most of these old games don't work with the 360 pad, but oh well. One becomes strangely-accustomed to the keyboard and mouse. Besides, some are simple enough. Resi for example. Every control you need is on the arrow keys, and Z, X, C, and V. Nice!

I am eagerly-anticipating the rerelease of REmake on Steam, as awful as that makes me sound! I hate games I love being exclusive to one company, or even worse.. one old shitty console that nobody cares about. I'm a huge fan of the Resident Evil series, and REmake is my absolute favourite entry. Badass game. I always liked the oldschool 'static camera' style of the original trilogy, with all the gameplay caveats it brought. That's what made the series.

These days, the original game is quite painful to play. Whilst that is a direct consequence of the static angle game engine, they refined the controls somewhat over the course of the original trilogy. The 'tank controls' were pretty much as good as they were reasonably going to get by RE3. Auto-aim, 180* turn. Lovely. They then basically perfected this concept in REmake.

I'm sure you've all played it, so I won't go on. I'm excited to be leaving GameCube emulation behind for this game, I'll say that! They (the rumourmongers) say RE0 will follow. I suppose it's inevitable. They were made back-to-back by the same team, and the continuity between the two is astonishing (both graphically and otherwise). If they had the assets for REmake available for 'remastering', then I'm sure the RE0 assets are just as available, all in the same format etc. Easy. RE0 isn't as good, but I'd still play it over RE6 any day.

I hope that they do not stop there, and finally give RE2 and RE3 the full remastering jobby they've always deserved. This is probably a futile suggestion. Details are sparse on the exact nature of the upcoming REmake 'remaster', and exactly what has been done to it. Eurogamer says it's 1080p on PC, PS4 and XONE, and 720p on the old two. Here's an image they posted:

http://i58.tinypic.com/2cegfh4.jpg

It seems likely to me that they had access to the original assets. Even the static backgrounds seem to benefit greatly, which would suggest they have not simply been upscaled. Chris' model and textures may have also received an upgrade. I could be wrong, but to me his face looks a little closer to RE5 and 6 Chris in the side-view. Could just be literally vanilla 3D model and texture from the GC. The fact that the backgrounds don't seem to have been simply upscaled is encouraging. Time and better pictures will tell. I'm buying, regardless.

http://i58.tinypic.com/20060s7.jpg
http://i60.tinypic.com/28w0av9.jpg
http://i60.tinypic.com/2mgoze0.jpg
http://i58.tinypic.com/15oj5vo.jpg

I now have nearly every single FPS on the console (once these arrive). To my knowledge, I am missing just Turok 3, Quake II and HeXen. Super-excited about Doom 64 and Quake 64. The former I had when it was new, back in the day. I kind of dismissed it then as lame next to GoldenEye, but it's considered a classic among Doom fans (some even call it "the true Doom 3"), and I myself these days have an appreciation for FPS games of that era. Will be nice to play it again, especially in full screen, full speed NTSC (pretty sure this is one of those earlier N64 games with a crappy PAL conversion).

The only version of the original Quake I ever played was the Saturn release. It was a strong technical achievement on that console, from the venerable Lobotomy Software (who did amazing work on the Saturn). Still, the SlaveDriver Engine isn't the Quake engine. Thus, just as Duke 3D doesn't feel quite right on Saturn because it's running on SlaveDriver, and Duke 64 does because Eurocom actually ported Build to the N64, I imagine a similar scenario with Quake. On another note, I always preferred the gothic style of the original Quake to all that cyborg Strogg nonsense of the sequels.

I've never played Diddy Kong Racing (I know..), so it will be interesting to see what all the fuss was about. People say that it's the go-to racer on the console after Mario Kart 64. Can't see it topping 'Kart, personally, but who knows? It's a Rareware title from their heyday, so it's probably a strong effort. Mario Kart 64 is the only game in my N64 collection that everyone seems to love. Only old gamers will play GoldenEye etc with you, but 'Kart seems to appeal to all. If DKR is as good as everyone says it is, maybe I'll have two games for family get-togethers?

I had 007: The World is Not Enough back in the day on my old PAL system. I actually loved it back then, and didn't get all the hate it received. Perhaps the ire was directed towards the PSone version, which as I understand it was completely different. The N64 game was made by the awesome Eurocom, and was a great title. Not revolutionary like GoldenEye, of course, but not every game can break the mould. I remember TWINE on the N64 as a solid FPS game. Let's hope my memory serves me well.

Can't wait for these to arrive! Collecting imports for an old console is difficult, expensive and time consuming. For example, there's a million PAL Quake 64's for a relative pittance on eBay, but once in a great while, an NTSC cartridge will pop up with a heavy price tag. Thems the breaks, I guess. I've now got a sizeable collection, though. It's only going to get bigger, too. One day I dream of going on The Antiques Roadshow with all this NTSC N64 crap I've accrued. I even have a limited edition golden console to play them on! :king:

Hey everyone! I'm sorry I'm late to the party, but I made it. It's been great reading through your posts in this thread, reading about how everyone's doing these days. It's a great feeling. So many old names - a truly a nostalgic experience. I unfortunately hit some hard times and was homeless for some years. I'm back on my feet now, and have a decent little job (I run the inbound, outbound and retails departments of a logistics company), and I'm posting this on my very own iMac! How life throws it's twists and turns.

This place held an important part of my gaming crazy days. I'll never forget it. All the friendships, the epic debates about games, and even life, the silly little feuds we used to have with one another. Remember when I hated everyone's coloured text? Now it just makes the place feel like home. That's what the 'Dojo always was to me, I suppose. My internet home.

I used to post on one called Cubed3 then as well, but Shenmue Dojo was always better. We had a strange freedom here to talk about whatever we wanted, pretty much. We were also free to speak however we liked, offensive language and obscene humour be damned. There were never any parental controls as such. If someone got out of line, the mods handled it. But that person was often treated like a member of the family and forgiven. We sort of grew up together. Though I must have been eighteen or nineteen by the time I joined, I still had some growing up to do. :lol:

I actually hadn't heard of Shenmue III until today. I've really not played games hardly at all the past few years, and have not kept up with gaming news. I'm sad about missing the announcement, but to see that Shenmue III is being made, for real, no Kikizo-like rumour, no fan-made substitute - the real deal. I honestly pumped my fist in the air and shouted like LFC scored against United. Absolutely amazing. I never thought I would see the day, and it has been years since I gave a tuppenny fuck about anything to do with games.

I'm going to try and stick around, have only recently been getting into games again. Downloaded Steam and the Half-Life series. Times like this you regret getting a Mac :sad: My old PS3 would actually be a better option, lol.

Anyway, it's great to see you all!