Just ordered a SAROO card for my Sega Saturn, should be here within 2 weeks. Got this thing to see if I could preserve my Saturn collection since it needs some maintenance - either laser dying again or needs some capacitors replaced, possibly both. It started not reading about half my collection and I know all those discs have not suddenly gone bad from bit rot, having used many of them within the past few months. So I got this device to see if I can save them before I have to actually have to service the console.
A SAROO replaces the memory cartridge for the Saturn but does more. It also serves as a disc emulator so can play disc images off the memory card in it. You can also rip the discs to the cartridge and play them from there - this is what I am wanting to test with it. Going to see if I can rip the disc image from the disc to the cartridge and hopefully extract a playable image, hoping that the laser is strong enough to read the disc even though the Saturn won't boot it. These have the advantage over items like the Fenris ODE in that it leaves the CD-ROM drive intact and can still be used - both to play and extract images from the disc. Once it is in and I play around with it a bit, I'll put up a video review and results of my test findings.
Will be airing the next episode of my newest show, The Board Gamer, tonight live on Rumble, Twitch and now YouTube as well. Will go over the basics of the game, playing the base game against computer AI and trying to knock out a couple of the achievements (or at least make some solid progress on the grindy ones). Will also take a look at the 1st expansion, Rivers I, which is included in the base game.
Game is a Backward Compatible 360 title so can be played on the One and Series X|S consoles as well. Game is still available for purchase and has 2 other expansions available (need to grab) these myself). This was not released on PS3 so is an Xbox exclusive by default. Game features local (1-4) and online play (2-5), and has a ranked mode.
At a later date I will host some community play weekends for this as well as Catan which was featured in past episodes. I will likely coordinate this with the True Achievements boosting session tool in order to line up some guaranteed players. It will NOT...
Tonight going to be doing some Throwback Thursday action with some more Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast. I'll be starting a new Ranger character to use in next week's episode of CO-OPTED to better complement Gunnie's character created on this week's episode. Live 8-8:30 CDT
I'll be streaming live on my Twitch, Rumble and Kick channels simultaneously (links to be posted just before I go live). I'll be playing this on the original Xbox, possibly taking it online to play with viewers as I am not concerned with unlocking levels this time around -save that for CO-OPTED on Tuesday.
Gunnie & I will be back for a new season of CO-OPTED, the streaming show dedicated to cooperative games...and sometimes delving into the Versus Modes. Featured game tonight will be a surprise as we do not even know what we will be playing yet. It will most likely be something retro, just don't know how far back we are going. So tune in on Rumble, Twitch or Kick as we should be online sometime after 7PM CDT - hoping to get an earlier start but going with this for now and will update if the situation changes.
