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F-Zero courses from a dead Nintendo satellite service restored using VHS and AI
- ByQuyzzy 3y agoActual link to content here: https://archive.org/details/bs_f-zero_deluxe_v1.0 https://archive.org/details/bs_f-zero_deluxe_v1.0
- charcircuit 3y agoI would say recreated is a more appropriate term.
- westurner 3y agoF-Zero: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Zero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Zero : > F-Zero begins in the year 2560 where the humanses' countless encounters with alien life forms throughout the universe greatly expanded Earth's social framework resulting in [...]
- stonogo 3y ago"Humanses"? Even if it weren't mistranscribed that's not a particularly useful excerpt. F-Zero is a futuristic racing game series from Nintendo.
- mock-possum 3y agoOdd excerpt… ai summary bot?
- hifikuno 3y agoDidYouKnowGaming did a great video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDcrM706gws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDcrM706gws My favourite part is where they used specialty software to recreate the button presses on the video with frame-perfect precision, and from that was able to recreate course layouts.
- rideontime 3y agoDidYouKnowGaming has been on such a tear for the past few years, ever since Dr. Lava joined them. They've gone from aggregator to legitimate researchers, making substantial contributions to the video game history & preservation scene, putting in the work to translate materials previously unknown outside of Japan and track down & interview game devs. I realize I sound like a shill, I'm just really impressed at how far they've come from the old tumblr blog posting fun facts back in the day.
- askiiart 3y agoHuh, really? I never watched them because it was just aggregation stuff, but I guess I'll have to give them another try.
- karmelapple 3y agoI concur with the previous poster: they’ve really impressed me with the research they’ve done. It used to be fun but not revelatory… but stuff like this? Pretty wild!
- noirscape 3y agoYeah they've come a long way from just reading off facts from TCRF. Nowadays they do plenty of original research into these sorts of topics.
- yieldcrv 3y agoThis is really fascinating We should have events like this where games are altered substantially with external inputs like this I know of several modern examples where sound is used to transmit saves and other rudimentary things, but no hosted events or games ready to accept those hosted events as input online matchmaking and “seasons” might be better for the companies for now, but I think this would just be more fun
- Terr_ 3y agoFrom when this was previously posted two days ago: > For the JRPG fans, Satellview was also used in a Squaresoft game called Radical Dreamers, a kind of side story for the much better-known Chrono trigger. Since it's been re-released, it's not quite so big of a target for preservationists though. > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Dreamers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Dreamers
- crims0n 3y agoAnd also served as the inspiration for the "true" sequel, Chrono Cross. I have fond memories of emulating Radical Dreamers on my Pentium 1.
- p1mrx 3y agoHere is FlibidyDibidy's "every Super Mario Bros. speedrun all at once" video mentioned in the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NisWoTNyfeU&t=70s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NisWoTNyfeU&t=70s
- echelon 3y agoThat's amazing, and I want that for every speedrun now.
- eru 3y agoIt might be a lot harder for games that aren't side scrollers. Though I would like to see someone try for eg Elden Ring.
- mikepurvis 3y agoYou'd need to render all the player ghosts into a single world and then have a "god view" camera that pulled out enough to focus on the handful at the front. Would be interesting figuring out how to render enemies/npcs with that, but it might not really matter— especially for a game where the route is well understood, everyone knows exactly what is going on just from watching the main character's actions.
- echelon 3y agoI would watch that! Especially if the leader(s) could be highlighted or focused.
- JoshTriplett 3y agoI love how you can visually see the effect of the frame rule clumping players together in each new level.
- vinnymac 3y agoThe fact that a $5k bounty still exists for the original makes you wonder where the copy is going to be found. What content is being produced today that we will offer a $25k dollar bounty for in 50 years? Perhaps something in Roblox or Minecraft?
- Kye 3y agoAt least that much could have gone into the effort to find the seed for the Minecraft splash screen world.
- maxden 3y agothere' s already a $500 bounty for an early roblox client. https://robloxopolis.com/2006-roblox-bounty/ https://robloxopolis.com/2006-roblox-bounty/
- imiric 3y ago> What content is being produced today that we will offer a $25k dollar bounty for in 50 years? Take your pick from any game that requires an online service to exist. 30 years ago that was mostly unheard of, but today it's a growing trend. Content is locked behind DRM, proprietary launchers, game stores, licensing agreements, subscription services, etc. Even single player content is not safe. It's absolutely insidious. I bought a digital copy of Max Payne 3 a mere 10 years ago, and can no longer play it because Rockstar's launcher has somehow been unlinked from my Steam account, and refuses to start the game. I spent 3 months in a back and forth with their "support" team, and after automated messages telling me to upload everything from receipts, CD keys, and Steam screenshots, and still failing to verify that I'm a legitimate customer who wants to access the content I paid for, I just gave up. The only way to preserve these games is via piracy. And sometimes even that can't save a game with heavily embedded DRM or reliance on servers.
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago>And sometimes even that can't save a game with heavily embedded DRM or reliance on servers. // A game that can't enter the public domain represents a breach of the copyright 'contract': monopoly for a limited (ahem!) time in exchange for enrichment of the pubic domain. A company that leaves the pubic domain with no DRM free version, or no otherwise playable game, got copyright protection gratis. They owe the public the extra value they got from copyright. For companies that are part of MPAA/RIAA that means the full selling price, apparently. Companies/C-suite doing this should be taken in hand and forced to return to the public any monies gained by use of copyright (for the DRM-ed works not able to enter the PD). And the same metric should be used for infringements, so if they claim they get no benefit from copyright then infringement damages will be zero too. Of course a company could say "servers will be available for 10 years" up front, that would seem reasonable, but the game would still need to have a DRM-free copy available for the public domain.
- wodenokoto 3y agoI read the article, but failed to understand what the satellite service was. Did they "stream". Was like twitch? Or did they stream a game over satellite and player could play while game data was being streamed? If the latter, how did the voice over work?
- InvisibleUp 3y agoThe latter. According to this wiki I found [1] the audio was muxed in with the program data, and then separated by the Satellaview satellite box. This audio would then get mixed in with the Super Famicom's audio output and sent to the TV. [1] https://wiki.superfamicom.org/satellaview-soundlink https://wiki.superfamicom.org/satellaview-soundlink
- a1o 3y agoThe Satellaview service was a cartridge plus service combo that gave access to small games you could play on the SNES. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview#/media/File%3ASatellaview_system.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview#/media/File%3ASa... There are ROMS available online for some games that existed and there are lists of all games, from the above I think the person found VHS footage from people playing the SNES with some specific f-zero tracks and from knowledge of the existing ROMs of f-zero used the VHS footage to reconstruct the track data, which I think is mostly tile positions, at least afaik the Satellaview games that were additions to existing games usually didn't add graphics only remixed what the game content was. I think I remember playing a Zelda that was just the map from the NES one with different objectives, so I am going from that.
- kmeisthax 3y agoGame data would be downloaded ahead of time; the Satellaview came with a game cartridge[0] that gave you a system menu in the form of a JRPG town that looked a bit like EarthBound's Onett. It also had a second slot on the BS-X cartridge that accepted a memory card for storing game downloads onto. For SoundLink games, the voiceovers would be streamed from a satellite radio channel while the game ran, and they could also issue game commands. Obviously this also meant you could only play a SoundLink game while it was being broadcast. There were periodic reruns in case you missed a game. The closest modern example I could think of would actually be something like 1 vs 100 on the Xbox 360, which only lasted for like a year if I remember. Other downloadable Satellaview games worked almost exactly like a modern digital download system. You'd have to download the game while it was being broadcast, but could play it later. Except some of them would also have a start-up limit (like 3DS demos) after which the game would expire and refuse to start. Those are easier to preserve than the SoundLink games, assuming you can find an old Satellaview memory pack with the game data still on it. Some of the 'games' were actually just magazines or text. There's some really odd ones we've discovered over the years. After Nintendo stopped supporting Satellaview[1], St.GIGA tried to repurpose the Satellaview as a program guide for their own satellite radio service using this feature. Interestingly, there's a handful of SNES games with the same Satellaview memory slot on them that BS-X does - for example, RPG Maker 2[2]. I'm imagining that they distributed RPG Maker games using Satellaview, but Wikipedia also says RPG Maker 2 was available as both a cartridge and a Satellaview download, which seems like it defeats the purpose of having the cartridge also accept Satellaview memory cards. BTW, if you think this is crazy, wait until you learn about the SEGA Channel, a cable modem that plugged into your Genesis[3]. [0] BS-X: The Story Of The Town Whose Name Was Stolen [1] Because, among other things, they wanted to build the N64 DD around RANDNet [2] Not to be confused with RPG Maker 2 on the PlayStation 2, which is actually RPG Maker 5, because international numbering. [3] Or Mega Drive. I didn't even know Europe had this until I checked Wikipedia!
- wkat4242 3y agoSome B747s also came with F-zero on the seatback entertainment system. I think this was also a special version as I don't imagine they mounted a super nes under every seat :)
- JonathonW 3y agoThis was the Nintendo Gateway System, and it looks like there really was SNES hardware at each seat (actually physically combined for each group of two or three seats, but installed at the seats, not some central location): http://videogamekraken.com/nintendo-gateway-system http://videogamekraken.com/nintendo-gateway-system Also related to the LodgeNet system that showed up on hotels around the same time, although that did use a centralized set of SNES cards rather than SNES hardware for each room.
- wkat4242 3y ago> actually physically combined for each group of two or three seats So from this group only one passenger could use the service? I never realised this (and I only tried it for a short while because I was never a big fan of Nintendo). But interesting, I didn't know that. I did notice that one time part of the entertainment system crashed (videos didn't work and some stuff even showed a typical Windowsy blue-screen) but the SNES stuff did still work. I didn't have to pay anything for it by the way, no $4 per hour. I did notice the controller had a slide reader for a credit card, but it was not needed. I do think it was used for the phone calls though which was combined on the same controller.
- gambiting 3y agoNo, if you read the article it says one device was installed for a group of 2-3 seats, and each device combined 3 Super Nintendos on the same card - so all 3 seats could play at the same time.
- cjrp 3y agoFond memories of playing Super Mario World on the TV (presumably via LodgeNet) at La Quinta :D
- somat 3y agoI am convinced f-zero and metroid are in the same universe, in the core you have big cities, the ultimate motor-sport, and bounty-hunters like capt falcon, on the periphery, dead civilizations, space pirates, and bounty hunters like Samus Aaron. Now, admittedly, this is mainly based on them being based in the far future and having the same art style. But you have to admit Samus would not look out of place racing in Big-Blue
- deebosong 3y agoMy world is richer for reading this. I absolutely can see it. Like Redline meets Cowboy Bebop. Both can be b-side vignettes in a larger futuristic SNES world. Not so sure about Star Fox being in the mix, but not entirely out of the question either. But F-Zero & Metroid is a wonderful pairing.
- skhr0680 3y agoJames McCloud already exists in the F Zero universe
- zwirbl 3y agoThey really went all out with the Star Fox references
- RajT88 3y agoNot the same guy, just a reference. He's human, not animal. BUT - Samus and Kirby take place in the same universe: https://kirby.fandom.com/wiki/Samus https://kirby.fandom.com/wiki/Samus Although if every cameo means that it's the same universe... https://metroid.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_cameos_and_crossovers_in_other_games https://metroid.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_cameos_and_crossover...
- birracerveza 3y agoHuh, that is an interesting take. Also laughed at Samus Aaron.
- _chu1 3y ago
- emp_ 3y agoEvery time I hit back on an Ars article Linus is giving me the middle finger
- thesuitonym 3y agoIt's wild to me to see F-Zero on the front page of... well anything. It's a really fun racing game with a hilariously cheesy story, dripping in 80s glam-rock visuals.
- d--b 3y agoF-Zero was fun, I spent a lot of time on it. I really liked to find shortcuts by boosting just before a jump and trying to land on a completely different part of the track. But it was so annoying that you couldn’t outrun other opponents. You could do the perfect race, but if you made the slightest mistake in the last lap, the 2nd would be right there on your tail.
- vimsee 3y agoI think you are refering to the [0] "rubberband effect". I also played this game a lot. Great memories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_banding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_banding
- lloeki 3y agoIndeed, in that case "rubberbanding" doesn't quite describe it as it involves giving a boost to the laggards (e.g IIRC in Sega Rally 1v1 second-ranked car max speed would get a very obvious +20kph plus a slight boost to grip). Instead it might be the most egregious case of quantum tunnel rubberbanding: you could cut a ton of corners and they would still be right behind you, I presume the opponents don't run the course at uncapped speeds but are instead hard-warped right behind you every so often, with the illusion preserved as you can't look back when you move forward (although there's a map but it's mostly a progress bar and most of - all? - the time it shows only you). Would be interesting to rev-eng the code implementing it or even have some PoV hack to witness it first hand. You can outrun them on GBA though, the opponent is visible on the map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltO5KjWsFd4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltO5KjWsFd4 EDIT: looks like I'm wrong, crazy custom tracks have the opponent still run the course, e.g: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toumKYIqnss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toumKYIqnss ... or maybe not entirely wrong!: - this shows buggy warping https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR7hIo-s-KA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR7hIo-s-KA - there's just no way the IA can navigate this track, yet at ~2:38 suddenly the opponent is right behind! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-ba7wrrxFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-ba7wrrxFk
- bowsamic 3y agoAnything Satellaview related is endlessly interesting to me
- emsixteen 3y agoI'm glad for this article and these comments. How I've never heard of Satellaview or Sega Channel before now I'll never know, but fascinating to find out about!
- furyg3 3y agoIf you're an F-zero fan, like me, Nintendo has done a really good job taking the original game and turning it into a large scale multiplayer game with F-zero 99.
- Narishma 3y agoSomewhat off-topic but one thing I noticed in the article's videos is the stark difference in visuals between the emulated game and the old VHS recording. Even though the image is much sharper and cleaner, it somehow looks uglier to me compared to the fuzzy recording.
- deaddodo 3y agoThis is what many retrogamers say. It's because CRT was more forgiving and generally fuzzier in its presentation, so gave softer/higher-def feeling visuals. Watching on a pixel-perfect LCD quickly reveals all of the flaws.
- nubinetwork 3y agoI could swear that I've played the bsx version before... did the dump get lost? Maybe I'm just misremembering for another bsx game. Unfortunately I don't have the file anymore if I did, because I lost the mdadm array it was stored on in 2011. Edit: I didn't realize there were two for the bsx... it was probably the first one that I had.
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoActual article: https://www.pressthebuttons.com/2024/02/lost-satellaview-f-zero-tracks-return.html https://www.pressthebuttons.com/2024/02/lost-satellaview-f-z...
- throw4847285 3y agoThe Satellaview was incredible. To think that technology not dissimilar to Sirius satellite radio was used to allow people to download games, stream voice acting tracks, plus there was a whole Mii-like system of avatars. All in the mid-90s.
- NickC25 3y agoI wish Nintendo would give us another F-Zero game. F-Zero X and F-Zero GX/AX were wonderful games. I know it probably won't be super profitable and the brand recognition isn't at the level of Nintendo's heavy hitters like Mario, Zelda, & Pokemon, but still would be pretty cool to see a new one, especially if they were able to modernize the random track creator that was in F-Zero X.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y agoIf you're on PC and want to scratch the high-speed hovercraft racing itch, Redout is worth consideration. https://store.steampowered.com/app/517710/Redout_Enhanced_Edition/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/517710/Redout_Enhanced_Ed... https://store.steampowered.com/app/1799930/Redout_2/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1799930/Redout_2/