Christian Emmer

I'm extremely proud to announce the release of Igir v5.0.0 on GitHub: github.com/emmercm/igir.... Binaries are now compiled with Bun, and Bun's profiler has helped uncover major performance improvements. Thank you to everyone who contributes in some way, and I'm always open to feedback!

Lol, the Analogue Super Nt+ and Mega Sg+ will have DAC support before the Pocket and 3D. It's hard to think of a company with worse communication.

link holding a cat

Every time a Nintendo Direct shows recorded gameplay footage at less than 30 FPS, an angel loses its wings.

O'Hare is hell on earth

The chintzy-looking M64 clone console of the N64 by a company named ModRetro has been released, I think, I don't pay attention that closely to shit. But as the great @frankcifaldi.bsky.social posted before, it is our civic duty to push back against this company and shun ANYONE who doesn't.

I fear the youth are unfamiliar with Timesplitters

@criticalerrorpod.bsky.social I'm a newer listener and enjoying the content. But that Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties reference out of nowhere last week is going to keep me coming back.

I watched this happen to friends in other industries in 2023. The fear and morale erosion is so destructive. All we can do is support the devs as the waves hit.

this news coming at the same time as "We're stopping physical media production" means I don't even have to explain why fully shifting to digital is Bad

Show me a cool physical game

PlayStation in 2026

Support all your favourite indies doing physical releases, we don't have much of it left and it means so much for them to have the games they worked on in a tangible form

Sony thought to themselves "it sure worked out well for Microsoft to remove everything that made Xbox desirable, maybe we should do the same." Time to go back to PC gaming.

I had fun playing Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards this weekend. I don't remember many games using the N64 D-pad, but it works well for this game, though the controls don't feel very tight. The ability combinations are a ton of fun, definitely more inventive than a lot of Kirby games.

I just published another huge performance improvement for Igir: CHD files are now extracted without using MAME's chdman tool. This entirely eliminates temporary files, and lets you watch the progress of processing individual files. Check out v5.3.0 here: github.com/emmercm/igir...

What makes you think your digital games are safe? Once again, Studio Canal is pulling movie licenses. Purchases to be outright erased from libraries. It's the same that happened in 2022 and during the Funimation-Crunchyroll merger. Digital is rental! (via Twitter user somatyk)

A lot of danger owning games with GTA6 Publishers have always wanted to kill second hand games. It's what those online passes were in PS3 era, why Xbox One was originally DRM and so on GTA realistically can get away with anything but being so mainstream normalises this for everyone

STOP BUYING PHYSICAL EDITIONS THAT ARE JUST EMPTY BOXES WITH DOWNLOAD CODES INSIDE YOU ARE LETTING GAMING COMPANIES KNOW THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT

The Nintendo 64 was released 30 years ago today in Japan, so I spent the evening playing Starfox 64, gearing up for the rerelease. I filled in some of my collection a few weeks ago at the SoCal Gaming Expo. My brother and I rented a ton of games from Blockbuster but never owned a lot of these gems.

I released Igir v5.2.0 today, which improves performance with common, CPU-bound operations. CRC32 calculation and Zstd zip decompression (e.g. RVZSTD) can both now take advantage of SIMD optimizations, depending on the age of your CPU. I notice a difference on my machine! github.com/emmercm/igir...

Ya boy did it. Amazing game, loved every minute of it.

I'm probably 90% through Astro Bot (2014), but these games are really as good as the reviews say. Nintendo should learn how to do a pack-in again.

Loved these games growing up, they're fully worth the price they're going for these days.

I added support for installing Igir via Scoop on Windows, and fixed a few other reported bugs in v5.1.2. Check it out! github.com/emmercm/igir...

we at xbox are coming to terms with the AI-fueled hardware crunch, which we helped create, failing to meet profit margins, that we made up, declining software sales, because we're self-cannibalizing our games specifically, and also everyone hates us which, believe it or not, also our fault

Other than FFXIV on Switch 2, the biggest surprise from that Direct was Nintendo acknowledging a few games getting physical editions (even if not day one). Praying they're not just all game-key cards.

The He-Man movie was fun. I didn't grow up with it so I didn't remember the character names, but I definitely had a couple toys. The recurring corporate speak gag was pretty funny, the movie definitely didn't take itself seriously.

I'm watching the State of Play and can't help but think: I can't wait for "brutal Souls-like" to stop dominating every publisher/manufacturer showcase. I'm not at a loss for other games to play, but it's getting stale.

Fuck ModRetro

Rolled credits on Split Fiction yesterday, and it deserves all the praise it got. Huge improvements to make the platforming beginner-friendly without making it easy (though the signposting is distracting). I enjoyed the story and didn't get tired of the characters. Highly recommend!

I honored Sollan on this day.

I didn't grow up with Sega so I'm not particularly nostalgic for the Genesis or anything before it -- but the deep discussion on the business partnerships, contracts, and rights management involved was fascinating on its own.

Bless. I'll never buy a game-key card.

I spent years of my life on the PS2 version, it's why I bought a PS2 late into the lifecycle. Still holds a special place in my heart.

Dying and seeing "insert disc 2"

I say this with zero irony: if you are even tangentially a part of a retro video game community, it is your civic duty to push back against this company and shun anyone who doesn't. This is fascism tapping gently at the door and as soon as you let it in, it's going to invite its friends.

i'm the kind of guy who will eat some bread