For years I have been stuck with a working megadrive with a Gunstar Heroes cartridge that works UP UNTIL A POINT, and then crashes.
If it were fully working, this Gunstar Heroes megadrive cartridge would be worth £250 at least at Ebay current prices!
But more annoyingly, I have not been able to play the game properly.
When Sega decided to discontinue the Sega Megadrive Collection on Steam, they offered a low price to buy all of the games, one of which was - you guessed it, Gunstar Heroes.
I hadn’t used the Sega Megadrive Collection emulator on Steam much before, but it is actually a very nice implementation, written by D3 Studios, which is based not too far away from Manchester, and I actually know a few people that work there. They are also behind the recent Shemune remasters.
It contains some pixel filters, one of which, the EPX pixel filter, dyamically generates 4x as many pixels from the original art, I think through a process of AI guesswork. I used this to finish the game.
In terms of a controller, I used my SNK Neo Geo mini controller with a USB adaptor with my PC. Some people do not like this controller, as it has an analogue joystick, but I really like it, and find it much easier to play games with than a 4-way or 8-way microswitch joystick.
Anyway, the game played through amazingly - with good audio, and a 4:3 picture with a ‘TV’ border as if I was back in my parents living room in the 90s.
Gun