Oh, haha I thought I’d heard of Aki in the context of wrestling games, but assumed I must have been thinking Yuke’s.

Currently we’re sticking to 8-bit and 16-bit, though we’ll eventually start graduating into PS1 and so on. He doesn’t really have any awareness of or demonstrated interest in wrestling yet, but I’ll keep it in mind. I always did envy WCW/NWO Revenge when it came out…

Same same. I literally have hundreds, if not thousands, of games in my digital libraries. The absolute entertainment value of that is astronomical, but at the same time, the experience of receiving any given game has become devalued to the point of meaninglessness in some cases.

I wanted to try and recreate that feeling of reading about a game, falling in love with every screenshot and drop of info, and working hard (or begging hard) to get it as one of the 2, maybe 3 games you’d get in a year. You read the manual twice on the car ride home, you save the box, you learn everything about it. I’ve told him about pausing the NES because you just got farther than you ever got before, you only have one life left, and you need to go to school. The idea of having an experience like that is being lost in today’s culture in my opinion.

Edit: Forgot to answer, no, I have not tried the Aki wrestling games. I only ever played WCW/NWO World Tour for a while in college with my buddies for the four-player bikinis, but I never really was into wrestling games or TV otherwise.

You’re getting so many responses that are just “have you tried indie games?” or trying to dispel the rose-colored glasses. I suspect it’s because of the headline saying modern gaming sucks, which I think can be pretty objectively disproven.

That said, I can tell you about my experiment. I’ve instituted a program with my 12 year old stepson where he can earn marbles through chores and other tasks, and he can trade those marbles in for retro games I find in local stores and flea markets. One of the things he can also buy for a very low price is a downloaded retro magazine from retromags.com - he can ask for an issue with a particular topic in it and I’ll find one and send it to him. He isn’t really very internet savvy yet, so he’s not likely to hit up IGN for info or anything.

The result of this so far (only a few weeks in) has been serious excitement and engagement. He has access to Xbox Series and PS5 consoles, but getting to own physical games and accessories (we play them on a Retron 3 HD console) has motivated him more than I’ve seen almost anything else do. He keeps asking me if Street Fighter 2 will come to the “store” anytime soon because of my stories of how badly I wanted that game as a kid his age. Little does he know that for Christmas he’ll be getting an excellent condition, complete in box copy of Street Fighter 2: Special Championship Edition for the Genesis. He’s gonna flip.

The upshot of all this is that I really do think there was a certain magic to the experience back then. I’m doing my damnedest to recreate that magic for him, and so far it’s at least kinda working!

I figured you meant something like that, but if you’re the kind of person who has cravings for Wipeout and you haven’t played it in VR, it’s something you should aspire to.

That said, I would probably look into emulating the highest possible system, which would be PS3 or maybe fall back to PS2 for a higher framerate. Looks like someone did some testing for you up to PS2 though: https://youtu.be/zlVWdk4i-1Q?feature=shared

If you ask me, get a PSVR set up and play it that way. You might need a strong stomach, but it’s amazing.

Me: “Why is there cinnamon all over your pants?”

Him: “Because I’m 12 and I had a cinnamon roll.”

So many options. Some deep cuts for you though:

PlayStation:

Rakugaki Showtime - a bizarre four-player arena battle with a ton of zany unlockable characters, this game was never translated but is worth the effort since it was made by the gods of game design, Treasure (makers of Gunstar Heroes, Contra Hard Corps, Silhouette Mirage, Ikaruga, and many other gems - made up of some of the OG designers of Contra).

Trap Gunner - two player split screen 3/4 view game where you lay traps to try and kill the other player. Not a ton of longevity, but worth several fun afternoons.

Blast Chamber - four player frenzied dystopian sportsball game that takes place in a cube-shaped arena with a clever gimmick: any player can run up to a wall and rotate the entire arena 90° and cause their opponents to fall.

Return Fire - frantic two-player capture the flag with a variety of military vehicles and a fun classical soundtrack.

The Unholy War - made by Toys For Bob, which was at the time the home of the creators of Spyro, Skylanders, Archon, and the greatest PC game of all time, Star Control 2 (now free on Steam as Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters). A beautifully balanced and fun combination of chess-like board tactics culminating in asymmetrical 1-on-1 live combat.

Genesis/Mega Drive

Gunstar Heroes - a cooperative run and gun game that out-Contra’s Contra. The game that put Treasure on the map.

General Chaos - weird, small scale real time strategy action with cartoony soldiers. Strange but quite fun.

Star Control - two-player strategy/action in a similar formula to Unholy War (these guys loved this formula and made many variations of it), this game has you navigating a small star map to position your fleet. Conflicts are resolved in a top-down ship combat mode that is incredibly fun on its own thanks to a wild selection of unique ships.

Mutant League Football/Hockey - two versions of the same concept, these games really liven up the sports for those who aren’t die-hard Madden junkies. Most of my games I ended up winning by default because too many of the opposing team members had died. Playing against a friend, you really feel it when you get one of your players murdered.

Super Nintendo

Metal Warriors - split-screen, asymmetric, side-scrolling mech combat. Always fun to get the drop on each other.

Bomberman - obviously not a deep cut, but I had to mention it. Controller-throwing four-player competitive deliciousness.

Let’s try this out on a completely random, unbiased sample: Pandora Directive. 7 CDs, features Kevin McCarthy who played the antagonist of Weird Al Yankovic’s masterpiece UHF, and it’s one of the best PC games ever made.

Yep, checks out.

I did play it. It was silly and fun, but the gameplay felt so much more banal than GCK, which was amazingly All The Genres and shockingly successful at it.

Oh man, Giants: Citizen Kabuto is a gem. Nice call.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2645580/Free_Stars_The_UrQuan_Masters/

Hands down. One of my favorite games of all time, an open world, hilarious, fun, sprawling adventure with music that slaps SO hard. Originally titled Star Control 2, went through some crazy copyright hell but now is getting an official sequel soon, over 30 years later.

EDIT: Oh wait, you said Linux. I think it works on Steam Deck and Proton though, does that count?

Yep. Buncha bastards.

Don’t forget Lion King!

https://www.cbr.com/lion-king-brutally-difficult-platformer/

Nothing says 90’s marketing like “we ain’t got time for capital letters.”