The soothsayers at analyst group DFC Intelligence have revised their already rosy outlook for the game industry in 2009, predicting that the market, including consoles, PC and online games, could now reach a mind-blowing $57 billion by next year. DFC foresees that much of this growth will be driven by (surprise!) the Wii, a platform DFC's David Cole feels "has the chance to be one of the best selling systems of all-time."
Looking further ahead, DFC backed off of its previous prediction that annual PS3 game sales would surpass those on the Wii by 2012, now stating that the pair will simply be equals. Still, with the lion's share of top selling titles for the Wii coming from Nintendo itself, fellow analyst Jeremy Miller adds that "for many third party publishers this means they will have much greater success on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, even if Wii sales continue to be strong."
But what of the PC? Oh, there's love there as well, with gaming on the personal computer expected to reach an impressive $19 billion on its own by 2013, no doubt steered by online sales, which exceeded a staggering $7 billion in 2007. If DFC is on point with its prophecy, the future is so bright, we may just have to reach into the drawer for some shades.
What better way to bring your childhood into the present with these Nintendo Famicom business card holders. Your $8.80 will get you one random cartridge or controller, which may or may not be a that really horrible knockoff one made by that one lousy company in the mid '80s. We're looking at you, Ice Climber. If you're lucky, you'll get Zelda, Ballon Fight, or Mario instead.
J Allard, who most recently helped give the Xbox and the Zune a really, really good user experience has gotten a promotion to "Chief Experience Officer" of the Entertainment and Devices devision. The E&D devision, for those of you who don't know, encompasses Xbox, Games for Windows, Mobile Communications (including Windows Mobile), Zune, Connected TV, Microsoft Surface, Mac Office, Microsoft Auto and Windows Embedded. Now that Allard is essentially going to have his fingers in all these pies, you can expect a Zune/Xbox 360-level of UI polish that projects like Windows Mobile haven't seen before. You can't see it, but we're doing a fist pump now
Today's weekly Wii update brings us one from column A, one from column B, and a side of downloadable content for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A King. What downloadable content? Well the press release doesn't say, and my Wii is erroring out connecting to the network, so find out for yourselves! It'll be a grand adventure!
On the WiiWare side we have Magnetica (1,000 points), the DS marbles-in-a-track puzzler redone for the console crowd. It includes 4-player multiplayer and the ability to have your very own Mii launching the marbles. Joy!
This week the Virtual Console library gets padding with Fatal Fury 2 for the NEOGEO (900 points), which introduced five new fighters to the series (including Chesty Mai) and featured the ability to smack your opponent back to another line.
A nice pair, but I got my fill of Magnetica on the DS and Mark of the Wolves ruined me for older Fatal Fury titles forever, so my limited Wii storage space is safe for another week.
Well has already passed the hangover of the Euro and we have also dismissed with very good humour celebration of the 25 anniversary of the MSX system.
The download is now ready to add that the only tengais ROM or DSK into folders created for this purpose and goals to bootdreams to make a CDI autoboot.
Most games are supported, practically all work with the pad of the Dreamcast. Even the games extended to MSX2 as abbot of the crime and many others.
Cruceta = Cursors
X = Menu
A = Select
And Button = Joy MSX
B = Esc / Back
Start = Enter
Y + B = Select Player 1
The emulator is still at very early stage of development as it is a fast port, operates at full screen with sound, supports the Dreamcast keyboard and what you can already begin to taste, all testing and help is welcome.
The next step on my efforts to port Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection to the GP2X. This is now a set of 30 addictive logic and puzzle games (3 are new to this release!). Some are old favourites (like sudoku, sliding puzzles and minesweeper) and others you may not have seen before. An awful lot has changed in this release, not just some extra games, so make sure you read this whole thing!
You can download BETA 5 of STPPC2x immediately from the main website or from the GP2X archive (which may take a while to change from Beta4 to Beta5).
PLEASE NOTE: This release is a bit of a leap in how the collection operates. It is recommended that you create a new folder for this version - the directory structure has changed significantly. INI's and SAV's from previous versions are, of course, still compatible but may need a little renaming (same_game.ini to samegame.ini or rect0.sav to rectangles0.sav, etc.)
So, what's new? First, we have a fantastic menu drawn and programmed by juanvvc:
Many thanks to juanvvc for the great work on that, I think it really makes the collection look much neater and more professional. In fact, it works so well with the games that it is now the default menu, even on my own GP2X. Eventually, it'll get merged into the program itself so that there's just one piece of code for the whole thing.
The games are now just one program and one menu to run that program. If anybody still wants to be able to run each of the games individually as they did before, give me a shout, because I still test the games individually on my own machine. If there's demand, I can do two different releases - one with a single executable, one with an executable for each game.
There are also three new games: Slide, Sokoban and Maze 3D.
Slight change increases heap size, doesn't check for cover art being greater than 170x170, and instead of only showing info of playing track shows info of highlighted track in browser
Pxl_Installer of Pxl_Team's , I'm a developer , who allows you to download and install official PTF themes and unofficial CTF themes on your PSP, thanks to its automatic update at gamestart. It also installs the CXMB software, according to your Firmware release. You don't even need a computer to change the XMB, so take a drink and stay on the sofa.
Quote:
What's new ?
- Bugs correction.
- Superposition of the Wallpapers with the icons of the XMB for a better preview.
- Improvement of the scrolling.
- Improvement of the CXMB Software Installation.
How does it work ?
- X : Select
- O : Return
Themes/ menu :
- Up and Down for the shift
Good to know :
- It is possible that a theme which you personnaly made appears as : "Anonymous author". If that's the case, contact us by Mailling Post in our forum : www.pxlteam.com
- The last CXMB PRX release displays CTF themes in the PSP themes menu. To display PTF themes you need to disable the CXMB PRX.
This is a simple plugin I made a long time ago for my personal use. I just found the source code while going through some old stuff on my computer, so I thought I'd clean up the code a bit and release the plugin.
I realize that there are other plugins that feature similar functionality but I wrote my own because I wanted to be sure its coded optimally, as there are a few careless ways in which these functions can be improperly used (the point of this after all is to conserve battery life).
It does the following when the Hold switch is enabled:
* Switches off the LCD backlight.
* Switches off the actual LCD screen.
(This is important because the backlight and actual screen are two different things. You can have an image being displayed on the screen while the backlight is switched off, such that you can see the image if you use a flashlight. You can also have the screen switched off while the backlight still illuminates the powered off screen.)
* Underclocks the CPU to 61MHz
(Sony has changed the clock speed functions such that only certain combinations of speeds work correctly. Simply trying to underclock to arbitrary values will result in the CPU simply running at the stock speed. I have verified that Hold+ successfully underclocks to 61MHz.)
* The original screen brightness and clock speed are restored when the Hold switch is released.
* Prevents the PSP from going into suspend mode if you accidently push the power switch too far when turning off Hold mode.
Installation:
You can install it in the seplugins folder, and make an entry in VSH.txt. Thus it will be active in the XMB. Its also possible to use it in games by adding it to GAME.txt, but some games may crash etc., if the CPU is underclocked to such a low value.
Optionally, its also possible to install it in your PSP's flash0 so that it will work without a memory card. For this you can use FreePlay's "NewBTCFNedit" and enable it for VSH mode in the all the PSPBT?NF.bin files. Add it after vshmain.prx.
Credits:
Thanks to adrahil for helping with preventing the suspend mode.
Spoiler for Changelog:
Changelog v2.0
----------------------------------
Added feature to prevent PSP from going into suspend mode if the power button is pushed too far when turning off Hold mode.
Note:
I never made any previous hold plugins, those are not by me.
If you want to change the clock speed to your own values, you can use a hex editor to change them. The offsets in the file for v2.0 are
0x278, 0x284 - CPU,GPU (Both should be same)
0x27C - Bus (Should be half the CPU speed or less)
The values should be entered in hexadecimal. The default value for CPU/GPU is 3C (60 MHz in decimal) and the default value for bus is 1E (30 MHz in decimal).
Note that simply using any arbitrary value will not work. You will have to test and see which values for CPU/GPU and Bus speed work.
Uguru let me know via PM tonight of a release of a new MSX Emulator for PSP, Windows, Linux and Dreamcast.
Heres the translated release details;
uMSX is an emulator-based MSX fMSX of Marat Fayzullin. The Gui and other changes have been implemented by Uguru.
Current Status
Emulation functional
Save and load states of game
Cheater
Scaling screen
To do
Enable sound. -- OK!
Integration of all options Gui.
Integrators emulator options in the Gui.
Implementing the virtual keyboard. -- OK!
Change drive for the games multiple discs.
Versions for other platforms.
Clean and climb to SVN source.
Documentation under construction
Download the Dreamcast & PSP Versions and Give Feedback Via Comments
Uguru let me know via PM tonight of a release of a new MSX Emulator for PSP, Windows, Linux and Dreamcast.
Heres the translated release details;
uMSX is an emulator-based MSX fMSX of Marat Fayzullin. The Gui and other changes have been implemented by Uguru.
Current Status
Emulation functional
Save and load states of game
Cheater
Scaling screen
To do
Enable sound. -- OK!
Integration of all options Gui.
Integrators emulator options in the Gui.
Implementing the virtual keyboard. -- OK!
Change drive for the games multiple discs.
Versions for other platforms.
Clean and climb to SVN source.
Documentation under construction
Download the Dreamcast & PSP Versions and Give Feedback Via Comments
------------------------------
Mario Kart 64v1 - PSP Edition
Coded By SeanPaul223
------------------------------
------------
What's this?
------------
Here is a new Lua coded game.It's a kart racing game, including Nintendo
characters Mario and Luigi, as the tile implies.
--------
Features
--------
# 3 Tracks for a "Best time Challenge"
Koopa Troopa beach
Moo Moo farm
Kalimari Desert
# 2 Characters (Mario and Luigi)
# HighScores Manager System
------------
Installation
------------
Extracts Contents into ms0:/PSP/GAME
--------------
Compatibility
--------------
Fat and Slim PSP Compatible
Should work on 1.50/3.XX/4.XX kernels
------
Notes
------
This game has been tested and it works properly.But it should freeze on some systems because of the RAm usage.
This will be fixed in a new update.
Finally, writing SEGA Saturn games in Lua becomes reality!
Lua is a powerful, fast, light-weight, embeddable scripting language. The Saturn Lua Player is a powerful runtime environment for homebrew Saturn games written in Lua. It provides access to hundreds of functions of popular Saturn programming libraries.
It's simple, it's fast, it's powerful and it makes fun! Making Saturn games is now as easy as opening up a text editor and writing:
slPrint("Hello World", 5, 5) while true do slSynch() end
The Saturn Lua Player has proved it's usefulness by running Police Officer Smith and various complex 3d demos. It successfully handles multiple 2D scrolls, rotational scrolls, complex 3D scenery, realtime gouraud shading, textures, save files, CD reading, PCM playback and a lot more!
Download the all-in-one Saturn Lua Player package as Zip (15 MB) or 7-Zip (8 MB) archive.
It includes 12 demos with prebuild ISOs, docs, tools and complete source code of the SLP runtime and all demos.
Hi all its taken me hours to update the links for the DS site but we are now up to scratch, ive also removed those dreaded play asia ads that showed what games were new out and what was new on preorder, i thought it might be a neat addition but all it did was slow the site to hell because of problems on play asias end.
So good news for those on slower speed internet connections.
Emulators for Nintendo DS will stay on the left column for the time being, hopefully this will help those on lower speed connections as well as clean up the front page, ive also removed links to my rather out of date guides and faqs for homebrew, i suggest any questions be directed to the forums because the users around here are much more up to date than me
Following recent rumours that have suggested Microsoft may allow electronics firms to develop hardware featuring Xbox 360 technology – effectively paving the way for third-parties to build Blu-ray players, PCs and set-top boxes which play 360 games – a leading analyst has said that such a move would prove too expensive.
Michael Pachter, of Wedbush Morgan Securities, believes that any such radical repositioning of Microsoft's hardware business model might help the Xbox 360 penetrate Japan, but in other markets it wouldn't be a viable business for third-parties.
"It doesn't sound likely to me, as the 360 is hardly as ubiquitous as, say, the DVD drive," said Pachter, speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz.
"I think it may be possible as a way to penetrate more difficult markets like Japan, but don't really see how it would work in practice in other markets.
"To add 360 functionality to another consumer electronics device, such as a Blu-ray player, the manufacturer would incur relatively significant additional cost. That would place the hybrid device at a disadvantage," he added.
The pre-E3 rumour emerged last week, suggesting that third-party manufacturers could help Microsoft reach the elusive Japanese market, as well as a more mainstream consumer who wouldn't be buying just a console, but a multifunctional home entertainment device.
EA has told Eurogamer there has been a "misunderstanding" about the Rock Band 2 date in Europe.
Word had originally pointed to a simultaneous European release alongside the US this September.
"There was a misunderstanding and there is no confirmed date for Europe," a spokesperson from EA told Eurogamer.
Rock Band 2 was unveiled yesterday and named its biggest features as the ability to carry downloadable songs between the first and second games, in addition to fresh instruments and more expansive party and online options.
The sequel will be a timed exclusive for Microsoft in the States, with other platforms due to follow later in the year.
The Q4 release puts it in direct competition with Guitar Hero World Tour, which also comes with drums, microphone, and guitar.
Majesco has decided to make another Cooking Mama game for Wii. It's due sometime this year in the US, but there's no word on Europe.
Subtitled World Kitchen, this sequel will come to life in full 3D and have lots more recipes to teach you: from parfait to shrimp something or other. And we like shrimp.
There's a bit of comedy mixed in when you botch something up as well; flip a burger too high, for example, and Mama will catch it in her apron. Probably rendering the burger useless.
We're also promised some sort of rhythm mechanic to make boring bits like stirring more enjoyable.
Cooking Mama has been a storming success and has baked its way to over 2 million units sold around the world.
Cooking Mama: Cook Off (released May 2007), alongside the DS original (released December 2006), still commands a spot in the UK all formats top 40, albeit at 39.
The DS sequel Cooking Mama 2, released in February 2008, finished this week at 22.
Pop over to our Cooking Mama: World Kitchen gallery to see what it looks like.
Nintendo will fight a court's decision to deny the game maker's appeal of a $21 million patent infringement verdict involving game controllers.
After the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Lufkin Division told Nintendo that it must pay millions of dollars to Texas-based Anascape for patent infringement, the famous game company appealed the decision, asking for a reduced verdict.
But on Thursday, judge Ron Clark denied Nintendo's appeal, and upheld the jury's May 14 decision.
However, the fight over the patents isn't over yet, Nintendo has told Next-Gen.
"Nintendo does not agree with the ruling of the trial court on the remittitur motion," said Charlie Scibetta, senior director of public relations at Nintendo of America in an e-mail. "Nintendo intends to appeal this case to the Federal circuit court."
The jury said that Anascape's lawyers presented enough evidence showing that Nintendo had infringed on patents in the production of the GameCube controller, the Wavebird, the Wii Classic controller and the Wii Remote.
In a statement issued Friday, Anascape's lawyers praised this week's ruling. "We appreciate the Court's thoughtful consideration in upholding the jury's decision," said Doug Cawley, principal at McKool Smith and lead counsel for Anascape. "Although not a giant corporation like Nintendo, Anascape has every right to protect its technology."
In 2006, Anascape also filed suit against Microsoft and Sony for alleged patent infringements pertaining to game controllers.
Funcom has sent out its latest chest-beating press release for its MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, announcing the creation of an impressive 700,000 player accounts for the month-old game.
To put that in perspective: long-running space-trading cult EVE Online is known to have around 250,000 active player accounts, while World of Warcraft famously has 10 million. Korean hits Lineage and Lineage II are thought to have around a million subscribers apiece.
Funcom also boasted that "it is also clear that Age of Conan has taken the position as the undisputed #2 subscription MMO in the Western world".
There are some who might dispute that. Created accounts are not the same as active ones; not all of those 700,000 players have necessarily chosen to continue playing the game. What's more, a great many of the accounts that are still active will still be on their free trial period of 30 days - so their owners are not committed subscribers yet.
Meanwhile, British developer Jagex claims to have over a million paying accounts for its Java-based MMO RuneScape.
We won't know the real picture of Age of Conan's success for a few months yet, but it's clear the game is off to a strong start. We'll be following its development closely on Eurogamer MMO.
Jagex has launched the live beta of their long-awaited RuneScape update, RuneScape High Detail. The popular free browser-based MMO has had its graphics completely overhauled to better appeal to people finally ready to leave Ultima Online behind. The beta is really only a beta to forgive any bugs that might crop up, as subscribers who join the beta do so with their live characters, with anything that occurs in beta carrying over when the beta ends.
While the beta is currently only for paying subscribers, Jagex will be letting everyone else in on the fun in due time. Hit the jump for the new trailer for the title, which features the awesome blurb "Now Playable In Full Screen" which makes me giggle every time I see it.
After years of hoping, praying, cajoling, and begging for a follow-up, Blizzard has finally announced Diablo III, and fans all over the world cheered before getting down to business - complaining. A petition has gone up at whiner headquarters PetitionOnline, with over 2,000 fans signing on to complain about the game's art direction. Petitioners feel that the graphics we've seen so far depict a world that is far too bright and cartoony for their liking, citing World of Warcraft as one of the influences ruining their dark and macabre series. Where is the light radius? Why are those shoulder pads so huge? Here's an example of something they are complaining about.
Outside scenarios with vivid colors, beautiful forests with colorful vegetation, shinny and beautiful waterfalls where even rainbows take place.
They hate rainbows! They can't draw gothic fan art with rainbows in it!
*sigh* It just goes to show you that no matter how hard you try there's just no pleasing some people.
Activision will be offering you the "Top Gun Anthem" for Guitar Hero III this Thursday.
It's to celebrate Independence Day and so it will be completely free, and Eurogamer's been told that the song will be on the European PS3 Store the same day.
"Top Gun Anthem" is an instrumental guitar piece. We could hum it to you but you're better off listening yourself. Importantly it isn't "Danger Zone" or "Take My Breath Away".
Did you know that Top Gun instructor Jester is played by Michael Ironside, who is known as the voice of Sam Fisher? You probably did actually. We're not special.
Treyarch has apologised for comments calling Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway "a crappy war game".
The Call of Duty: World at War developer said it found the statement made by an Activision representative "offensive", and that it had "nothing but respect" for its World War II competitor Gearbox.
"Over the weekend, we learned that some disparaging comments were made by an Activision rep at a recent Call of Duty: World at War press event. We want to let everyone know that we found those remarks offensive, and they do not in any way represent the feelings of any developer at this studio or at Activision," said "JD", Treyarch community manager, on the Xbox forums, as reported by Kotaku.
"We hold all of our peers in the development community in the highest regard. We have nothing but respect for the guys and gals at Gearbox."
The offending comments were made to Eurogamer Germany by Noah Heller, senior producer on COD5. He concluded that Hell's Highway wasn't "in the same league" after watching a trailer for the game.
"They're not a game we even think about when we're playing, we think about the best shooters, we play [Call of Duty 4] Modern Warfare, we play Gears of War, we play Halo. That's the competition. We want to look at the games that do great storytelling," Heller told Eurogamer Germany during a video interview.
"We don't want to look at someone who's just making a crappy war game."
Treyarch share the Call of Duty franchise with the franchise's originator Infinity Ward and developed the third in the series before working on the current fifth title.
Microsoft will drop the Australian arcade edition of the Xbox 360 by $50 to $349. That's in Australian dollars, in case you thought you missed a newsflash where the US invaded Oz.
The move now makes the Xbox 360 Arcade console the cheapest system on the Australian market. The Wii is selling at $399.
The console war is quite tight in Australia and New Zealand, according to IGN. Whilst the Wii is in the lead with 456,000 units sold, the Xbox 360 is only slightly behind at 410,000. The PS3 is still playing catch-up on 285,000.
Those of us in other territories shouldn't hold their breath for a price cut, however. When asked if this was the first step in an international pricing strategy, Australian Microsoft rep Jeremy Hinton replied:
"Today we're only announcing Australia and New Zealand and what you will see is that certainly over the next 12 months that price drops and price activity will not happen globally. We've been given more authority to do what's best for the Australian consumer."
Nintendo is hosting a series of events across the UK offering you the chance to try out Wii Fit and get a free health and fitness check.
It's all part of the platform holder's Feel Great Britain initiative, which comes complete with an extremely lifestyle website full of white.
Visit the site for full listings of when and where Feel Great Britain events are taking place, get fitness tips from the likes of Rosemary Conley and win an exotic holiday to the Lake District.
Alternatively, you could just read our review of Wii Fit to find out whether it's right for you. Perhaps while eating some chips.
Description
Sleep'n'Wake is THE app for dozing off to your favorite music playing silently and getting waked up again with the music you chose, this time with the volume maxed to the system volume setting on your Playstation Portable.
New in this version
The current version 1.99b adds compatibility to Custom Firmware 3.xx and 4.xx by utilizing Mr305's OpenAlarmLib as well as fixes a bug in snooze mode for AM/PM time users.
Features (as in previous versions too)
Full support of cbr/vbr/abr 8kbps-320kbps 44.1kHz MP3 of arbitrary length
Playlist Management for sleep and wake lists
Set a special more silent volume for sleep mode
Time settings for wake up, fade in and sn00ze
Utilization of OpenAlarmLib by Mr305 for Suspend/Resuming the PSP and thus saving a lot of battery power
Multilanguage Support (EN_DE_FR_IT_NL_FI_PT_PT-BR)
Sony has denied that it plans to offer PlayStation 2 titles as digital titles via the PlayStation Store.
As we reported yesterday, a forum post on N4G allegedly quoted a Sony London insider saying that the store would get PS2 games this summer. They posted a nice screen, too.
According to Sony's Patrick Seybold though, this is not happening. "I'm not sure where the image came from," he said to GamePro. "At this point, we haven't made any announcements, and there are no plans for PS2 downloadable titles on PS3."
Pretty decisive words. The source did claim that Sony would reveal the service at E3 this year though, so there's still a possibility Sony is just staying tight-lipped until the big reveal.
Director of PlayStation Network operations Eric Lempel has posted some answers to the most asked questions regarding Sony's latest PlayStation 3 firmware update.
The FAQ covers subjects like voice messaging and private chat, web browser access, in-game invites and even Eric's favourite cheese. Sounds pretty intensive. Here's the full thing:
Will voice-messaging/private chat be featured in 2.40 as well? If not, can we expect to see this feature added in the future?
We are evaluating the opportunity to offer voice chat, but for this update, we wanted to focus on text messaging as the key priority for communications that our users have asked for.
Can you use the web browser in game?
No, you must exit the game before browsing the internet.
Will In-Game XMB come up during playback of PS2 games, Blu-Ray discs, and DVDs?
The XMB is an exclusive feature for PS3 game titles. Accessing the XMB during gameplay was the top request from our users, which we focused on for this update. However, we continually engage PS3 owners for feedback and will evaluate the opportunity to offer XMB access during movie playback in the future.
Can we go to the display settings and change anything there in-game (resolution, input, etc)?
No, you must exit the game before changing these settings.
Will it be possible to change in-game the sound output?
Yes, sound output changes are supported.
Will we be able to access the PLAYSTATION Store while in-game?
No, but you can view your downloads in progress.
Will we be able to stream music (either via media server or USB drive) for custom soundtracks or is it relegated to music stored on the HDD?
Currently only music stored on the HDD is accessible in games that support this feature. We'd also like to reiterate that Firmware v2.40 merely enables custom soundtracks. It's up to developers to include this feature in upcoming games (or to patch existing ones).
Does 2.4 enable cross game invites? Will it down the line?
No, cross-game invites are not available in this system software update. We are evaluating opportunities to expand on the new features delivered in 2.40.
Will trophies be mandatory for all games release here on out?
We are working with developers to ensure that Trophies are supported across the board in the future.
Where is each player's trophy stat info held? I am going to upgrade my hard drive and I don't know if the trophies will still be on my account if I earn some and then get a new hard drive.
Trophies will be attached to users' PSN ID. Trophy data needs to be synchronized to the online account on PSN to be transferred to the new PS3 system.
Will the patch automatically allocate unlocked trophies according to your saved files or would you have to do it again?
No, Trophies aren't retroactive.
Can we view PSN profiles/Trophies from a PC using a Web browser? Will there be an API for web developers to access the PSN data, so online profiles can be created?
We're evaluating these opportunities to expand where Trophies can be experienced.
Can you only compare trophies with friends that are online?
As long as a friend has a PSN account, you can compare trophies with them regardless of their online status.
Is there a limit to how many trophies the devs can put set by Sony?
There's not a limit on number of trophies, but there's a value assigned to each trophy. Developers must balance out the trophies that are available to stay within an overall value based on whether the game is considered large-scope or small-scope. Essentially, a user that has unlocked every trophy in one game would have the same level as a user that unlocked every trophy in another title, all titles (depending on scope) have the same overall impact on a users' level.
Will new games have a cool little icon on the back saying "trophy compatible?"
We're currently working on how Trophy support will be messaged to the consumer on our software packaging.
When you get a trophy, does it make a noise?
How quickly things can change - there *will* be a sound effect when you unlock a Trophy.
THQ has sent us six new screens and a brand new video for its Wii platforming game, de Blob.
Dubbed (somewhat incorrectly) as the Wii's answer to Katamari Damacy, deBlob pits a lump of goo against a greedy co-operation that turns the city of Chroma into a colourless, sterile landscape.
It's been getting some pretty good previews, which we recommend reading on the game info page.
de Blob is due out on September 26 of this year, only on Wii.
Hey all just spent all night catching up on a months worth of links to add. Ive also removed all the play asia ads that were slowing the site down massively.
also removed the out of date guides, dont want to confuse people with out of date stuff.
Finally ive reduced the size of the main page by taking out and making new pages for all but the Emulators for PSP
If your looking for the following you can find them on the following pages.
The chatter surrounding a possible Xbox 360 price cut got a little louder today, as several news outlets have picked up on an anonymously-sourced Hollywood Reporter piece claiming that Redmond will drop the 360 Pro's price to $299 sometime before E3. That jives with all those leaked ads that hinted at a July 6th date, so we'll see soon enough -- and we'll bet you that extra $50 the $279 360 Arcade sees some price cut love as well.
Finally, a piece of news we can actually do something with. AT&T today announced its pricing structure for the next iteration of Apple's iPhone -- which you can plunk down money for come 8 am, July 11th. There's not much that's surprising here -- new customers and those eligible for an upgrade will be able to nab the phone for $199 (8GB) or $299 (16GB), while "early upgraders" will have to fork over $399 or $499, all with a two year contract and $18 upgrade fee, of course. The telco says a no-commitment version of the phone will be available for $599 and $699, though it looks like that will come after the initial launch. AT&T appears to be leaning pretty heavily towards the all-in unlimited plans, but there are options if you don't want to go that route. We've sorted out the basics after the break, and included AT&T's "iReady" video -- certainly good for a few chuckles.
If you've been scouring the dictionary for sour grapes, chances are you'll find Ivan Seidenberg's picture. Verizon Communications' chairman and chief executive recently sat down for an interview with Financial Times, and while he spent the vast majority of his time boasting of just how amazing Verizon is, he did stop to remark about Cupertino ever so briefly. Granted, he did start off by admitting that Apple was a "great company," but that didn't stop him from pillorying the iPhone as well as Dear Leader himself. He actually accused the interviewer of "declaring [Apple] a winner before it had earned it on the field," suggesting that the iPhone wouldn't become a mass-market handset simply because the next iteration will be subsidized. He also stated that "Mr. Jobs had no monopoly on innovation," and took the conversation even further off track by blurting that "Steve Jobs eventually will get old." At least Keystone knows where to find its next bitter beer face, right?
While the axe that comes with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is pretty sweet, if you were hoping to just get the game and use your Rock Band guitar, you're out of luck. Despite rumors that Activision had opened its doors to the Harmonix-made Rock Band guitar controllers, early users of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith are reporting that the Xbox 360 version game isn't being so friendly after all. The sad message: "An unsupported guitar peripheral has been detected. Connect either a Guitar Hero guitar or Xbox 360 controller and press START to continue." It's like they never even knew each other.
It's never clear how a company plans on implementing a given patent, but Sony's patent application for a haptic touchscreen composed of "tactile pixels" lists former Sony Computer Entertainment chief Phil Harrison as the inventor and makes several references to potential use in "a game device" and to "game events," so it's a safe bet that it was at least developed with the PSP in mind. The patent app describes a sophisticated haptic feedback system that goes well beyond the basic rumble of today's device -- the pixels themselves are able to move up and down between two positions, providing direct feedback to user actions. That's certainly an interesting idea, but like all patent news, we're not going to hold out hope for it to surface in a consumer device anytime soon -- but we're willing to be surprised, you know?
Speaking to MTV Multiplayer, the developer of such epics as Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic confirmed that it is looking into games of a much smaller (physical) scale. Specifically, BioWare co-CEO Greg Zeschuk states that he finds Apple's iPhone "intriguing" as a games platform. Mind you, he's not saying development is underway, but he is a fan.
"Something that's as big a cultural and technical success as the iPhone is something you've really got to take a close look at," explains Zeschuk, adding that, "We've got a lot of folks looking at it." Zechuk's statements come just a few days after the project lead on BioWare's Nintendo DS RPG, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, revealed that the company is also investigating Wii and PSP dvelopment. Now BioWare just needs to look into developing for those LCD games you see at mall kiosks and it'll have all bases covered.
Konami has finally lifted the coffin lid on Castlevania Judgment, the Wii-bound installment of the long-running vampire vanquishing venture. If you missed the Nintendo Power reveal, know that Judgment allows players to "slash, stab and whip their way across a variety of stages and environmental elements," and play as several characters from the franchise's illustrious history. Also, it's a 3D fighting game, "certain to thrill old and new fans of the franchise."
Of course, not every connection with real Castlevania games will be severed -- in fact, you can hook up the upcoming DS game, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, to "unlock bonus gameplay content." Castlevania Judgment will also support head-to-head (Belmont-to-Belmont?) play via Nintendo's online service, perfect for those times when you just want to lash out at internet strangers. Whips! They did it again.
Konami has finally lifted the coffin lid on Castlevania Judgment, the Wii-bound installment of the long-running vampire vanquishing venture. If you missed the Nintendo Power reveal, know that Judgment allows players to "slash, stab and whip their way across a variety of stages and environmental elements," and play as several characters from the franchise's illustrious history. Also, it's a 3D fighting game, "certain to thrill old and new fans of the franchise."
Of course, not every connection with real Castlevania games will be severed -- in fact, you can hook up the upcoming DS game, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, to "unlock bonus gameplay content." Castlevania Judgment will also support head-to-head (Belmont-to-Belmont?) play via Nintendo's online service, perfect for those times when you just want to lash out at internet strangers. Whips! They did it again.
With an a new "card" for my DS, I have been inspired to go back to my forsaken DS and try out more DS games. Safe to say you can probably expect more NDS game reviews from here on out.
An ideal example for later Horror games on DS. Sort of.
Game Summary
In Dementium: The Ward, the take the role of an unnamed admitted patient to a mental hospital. After awakening in a daze, you find yourself one a blood-soaked bed in one of the rooms. Thats not the only blood-drenched feature you find in the hospital, as you soon realize that this may either be a hospital, or a butchery. Fight with up to 8 different weapons against a myriad of horrific monsters as you strive to understand the secrets of Dementium: The Ward.
You wake up in the hospital...
And thats as near close to a story as you get in this game. The storyline is one thing thats not a major seller for Dementium. As far as interaction with others in this game, you get absolutely none, which makes you depend on various notes and clipboards in the mental asylum to figure out the story. Even then, even after you pieced everything together, you'll find yourself thinking "Oh...really. Well thats a twist...I think." Suffice to say, the storyline never goes beyond a single idea to make it good, and even that idea is a bit overused. I think I should back up a bit and talk about the beginning. The Prologues in games are usually one of the single most important parts of the storyline, where it sets the setting, most characters, and the general idea and gist that the game was trying to make its players feel. Not this one. The beginning is literally just you being rolled in a wheelchair through a blood-and-guts filled hospital with demonic little girls and zombies in it. This lasts about 15 seconds. Next thing you know, you wake up on your nasty bed, and go to beat up some monsters. Now this game does have cut-scenes(surprise.), but for the most part, they are only there to introduce you to new monsters, or to fight a boss. There is almost no spoken dialogue in the game, and the written dialogue is usually just confusing. If you get horror games for the often-superb storyline, then well, this game isn't for you.
Gore - Now in 3D
And I'm not talking about the tree hugger. Dementium is one of the few games to sport a high res 3-dimensional engine on the DS. Enemies too are fully rendered in 3D, and they are probably the high point of the 3D engine in Dementium. The enemies, although they may look at sometimes more funny then scary, are very well done for a DS game, and look even better then most N64 game enemies. Sometimes the enemies can look downright stupid, though. Take for example the screaming heads, or "banshees". Scary, sure, but not because of how they look. They look more similar to a cats head with madusa snakes then a decapitated woman's head. Regardless of a few fimply dumb looking enemies, Renegade Kid showed devs that full 3D is not only possible on the DS, it can be made both good, and solid. By solid, I mean that there are little to no clipping issues, glitches, textural errors, framerate issues, or pop-in. The engine is about as hard as a rock. Anyway. Environments are mainly texture based, as just about every wall and floor in the game is the same white wall with blood on it. Courtyard levels prove a little more varying, with some walls looking decrepid and old, and others having rusted surface on it. Now about the darkness. Renegade Kid went beserk when it comes to shadowing areas. To put it simply, when you fire at most enemies, you won't know whether you hit them or not. The flashlight illuminates these areas, but to shoot your gun you have to switch back to a gun, thus making you basically blind for far enemies. It has a severe case of Doom 3-itus to it, except you can't even melee with it this time around. But to be truthful, this game really wouldn't be scary at all without every room being dark as hell. Still, it becomes very frustrating, especially when fighting zombies that spit acid further then you can see. Environments are littered with, well, litter, among other things. Blood splashed trash cans, hospital beds, medicine cabinets and many other hospital-esqe appliances pervade, and often impede, the world of Dementium.
The 3D engine at work. And it does some good work.
Creek...creek...*piano solo*
Sound. The music is one of the major defining features to make this game a horror game. Creepy organ and piano music plays while grunts of zombies and screams echo the hallways. There is an option to turn off the music though, in which case the game does became a good deal less scary. Though the scariest thing here is that most of the music all sounds exactly the same. Another odd designer choice is that some certain rooms don't have music at all, and I still can't well figure out what sets these rooms apart from the others. Music is the scary to this games sound department. Occasionally the sound effects offer a little shiver, but it was too apparent that Renegade Kid was arbitrarily trying to make it scary, so most of the enemies just come off sounding funny. Can't blame them too much, creating a scary handheld game is quite possibly one of the hardest things a dev can do. To that end the sound and music does make the game a good deal scarier--but that doesn't mean that either is very good. They both work though they will get annoying.
I bet he's friendly.
A bit broken, but survival horror at the core
This game may very well be the first well made attempt at survival horror for the DS. Coming into a world of E and E10 rated games pervading the DS's huge library of games, Dementium sets itself apart, which can be seen even from the cover art(Which looks conspicuously like Final Doom. Anyone else catch that?). Dementium is a survival horror game to its core. It has the classic ideas at heart, such as limited ammo, few health packs, and a barrage of demonic monsters that don't seem to care how much ammo you have to waste on them to dispatch them. Ammo does become a bit more plentiful in the later levels, but you'll find yourself running past most enemies to try and conserve ammo for the most part. Beginning weapons are about as imaginative as my toenail, but later weapons are, while not exactly creative, welcome changes from the boring pistol and shotgun. now, the core shooting isn't exactly Metroid Hunters. Control works great, but some issues with the crosshair and where the bullet goes present problems. And even if the enemy is in visible sight, if your crosshair isn't red, you can't hit him. Most enemies, specifically the banshee, take an unnecessarily long time to kill with weapons, and with ammo very limited, that becomes a frustrating problem. Boss battles are rather fun, but some normal enemies are even harder then the bosses. Some intelligently designed puzzles are thrown into the game, but some become an annoyance to try and complete, such as the one to obtain the buzzsaw. You have to backtrack a good bit in that level, and every time you reenter a room, all the enemies you previously slain are respawned, to make you waste as much ammo as possible. Don't take this all the wrong way though; the shooter mechanics are a bit broken, but by no means bad. They worked well and fine, but many smaller annoyances can ruin some to most of the experience. Another thing is de ja vu. Most levels look extremely similar to one another, and may very well be, seeing as there are little to now landmarks to make me think otherwise. Core level design is done decently, but repetition may get on your nerves.
Puzzles are consistantly numeric based.
One way through, no two ways about it
Replay value isn't Dementiums strong point. No multiplayer, no branching stories, and as far as I can tell, no different difficulties. The story mode is a decent length, but after that theres very little to do. I can't see myself playing through this a second time, and I doubt you will be either.
Alright.
Major Selling Points:
-- A full survival horror adventure
-- M rated on the DS
-- Good scary game
-- Great 3D engine
Major breaking Points:
-- Small Story
-- Sub-par FPS control
-- Repitition shows itself later in the game
Story: 2/5
Even with notes and booklets and whatnot, the story behind Dementium is, at best, flat.
Graphics: 4/5
One of the best 3D engines on the DS, and some of the best enemy models. Pity most environments look exactly the same.
Sound: 3/5
Music becames repetitive, and sound effects prove to be the main scary part of the game. Music is a bit scary though.
Gameplay: 3.5/10
An addition to the needed FPS genre on the DS, though the shooter mechanics need work. The survival horror is definatly there.
Replay Value: 2.5/5
A bit of a decent sized champaign mode, but after that you are done. Totally done. honestly though, If multiplayer was in here, I wouldn't want it. The shooter mechanics would be painful.
Value: 3.5/5
It really depends on how starved for a horror game you are on the DS. If your dying for one, heres your man. if not...well that comes into personal preference.
Overall:
Dementium raises no bars on the horror genre, but for DS, it sets a standard. Still, a bit better of an FPS nature to it wouldn't have hurt any.
Electronic Arts celebrates the passion fans have for their national teams and all of the pageantry and excitement of the UEFA European Soccer Championship with the only official and exclusive licensed videogame of UEFA EURO 2008™.
UEFA EURO 2008™ features the world's best players and teams and all of the official stadiums that will be part of UEFA EURO 2008™. Take on the challenge of leading one of over 50 European national teams to glory as UEFA EURO 2008 recreates all of the drama and excitement of the official tournament in Austria and Switzerland. Play as your favorite country from qualification right through to a virtual reproduction of the championship tournament.
The UEFA games has recently ended but the excitement and thrills are still going on. Relive your favorte team's victory, or rewrite the history of the championship through UEFA Euro 2008.
The PlayStation3 version of this game has been chosen as a weekly special a few weeks ago and due to its popularity Play-Asia.com decides to bring it back, this time for Xbox360 players. The Asian version of UEFA Euro 2008 is sold at the bargain price of US$ 24.90 only.
According to importer YesAsia, the PlayStation 3 version of Soulcalibur IV will join the ranks of games requiring a substantial installation to the console's hard drive. How substantial? Substantial. About 6.5 GB worth of your HDD, with 2 GB of space on top of that allocated to save data. The latter disk space requirement makes some sense, as the game looks to have a fairly robust character creation tool, which we hope allows for a larger number of custom fighters than its predecessor. Regardless, 2 GB, if true, is still rather hefty.
Xbox 360 fans may also be in hard drive requirement heaven, as the official Xbox site indicates that Soulcalibur IV requires a hard drive to play. This could have huge implications if... wait, who doesn't have an Xbox 360 with a hard drive by now?
We've contacted Namco Bandai Games to verify this information, but have yet to hear back.
update
So it looks like the good folks over at Microsoft messed up. The page has now been updated to reflect the fact that the game actually doesn't need a hard drive
According to importer YesAsia, the PlayStation 3 version of Soulcalibur IV will join the ranks of games requiring a substantial installation to the console's hard drive. How substantial? Substantial. About 6.5 GB worth of your HDD, with 2 GB of space on top of that allocated to save data. The latter disk space requirement makes some sense, as the game looks to have a fairly robust character creation tool, which we hope allows for a larger number of custom fighters than its predecessor. Regardless, 2 GB, if true, is still rather hefty.
Xbox 360 fans may also be in hard drive requirement heaven, as the official Xbox site indicates that Soulcalibur IV requires a hard drive to play. This could have huge implications if... wait, who doesn't have an Xbox 360 with a hard drive by now?
We've contacted Namco Bandai Games to verify this information, but have yet to hear back.
update
So it looks like the folks over at Microsoft messed up. The page has now been updated to reflect the fact that the game actually doesn't need a hard drive
DKnute has released a new version of his Dreamcast Emulator for Windows. heres the release info
I think I've finally got the DMA code working. Well, for me at least It needs to be tested further on variety of hardware - and that's where you people come in. Expect T10 soon.
Some loose thoughts I feel like voicing:
1) T10 might be a bit slower than T9 series. It'll most likely affect only low-end systems as there isn't really much of a difference (if any) on my E6600.
2) WinCE games usually crash when emulation speed drops below certain treshold. In other words, if you got fast system you should get stable performance.
3) Due to changes in GD-DMA code loading times are back. It's considered normal behaviour since this is how Dreamcast works. Thanks to those changes compatibility has improved and following titles should now boot and work:
- all Dream Preview discs
- original MIL-CDs
- Street Fighter Zero 3
- SEGA Tetris Online
- Tetris 4D
4) CD-DA (audio tracks) will play, but still use the older method of fetching data. This might cause Makaron to crash but it's very unlikely as data reads and playing audio are mutualy exclusive tasks.
5) There are some minor changes in full-screen setup code (the debug window will be hidden and not forcibly refreshed). No 16:x aspect ratios yet.
6) Changes to sorting/drawing code broke shadows in Virtua Fighter 3tb. I'm not planning on fixing that anytime soon though, as it would break many other things. Late T9 versions have this problem too, by the way.
7) Makaron now disables screen saver when run. It's only going to be a problem if it crashes, as it might not re-enable it on exit. Just so you know.
8) If you manually enable MMU the recompiler will not switch to address translation mode until it's actually requested, so there's no speed penalty in BIOS and most games. Some however (like Ikaruga) use only partial translation and this can be emulated without full-blown MMU support. It'll work either way but will be a lot slower with MMU enabled. Some WinCE games are automatically recognized (this works only for GD images) and MMU will be turned on when necessary. In short: keep it off unless Makaron complains about it.
UPDATE: Few more notes:
There were some last-minute cleanups in the code, I hope I didn't break anything
MT version is the one I actively develp, the other is just dumbed down not to support threading. Not tested much so your mileage may vary.
As always, make sure you backup your own INI files if you want to keep them. For GDROM.ini though you should comment out the GDMT setting, or choose one of the following:
-1 is immediate mode. This will block emulator and allow the read to complete. In short: worst performance, but should always work. This is also the default mode for non-MT version.
0 is deffered mode. The read still blocks, just not right away but rather outside SH4 main loop. It might provide smoother emulation (if it works at all
1 is threaded mode. Disk reads are scheduled to separate thread for another core/CPU to take care of. Best speed, smooth emulation, should now work with every game. This is the default for MT version.
Threaded mode can't be selected for non-MT version of Makaron - deffered method will be used instead. This limitation was introduced on purpose, and might be lifted in future. Note that unless you have multiple cores/CPUs it will work just like deffered mode anyway.
I'd also like to remind you that there's a frontend to Makaron called mkfro. Highly recommended for people who can't work my INI files.
UPDATE2: If you experience random crashes while in-game movies play (or are about to start), or from time to time CD/GD image refuses to boot (but works most of the time) - report this. Give me the title and your PC specs.
This J2ME porting can run java mobile phone games even better than the average phone and with more confortable controls, for example it can run DoomRPG, Worms 2007, 300, Company of Heroes, Rainbow Six Vegas, Destroy all Humans 2 ect fullspeed!
in the new release:
- Screen rotation now works properly even for 240x320 games that now can fit perfectly the gp2x screen
- Added a variable to choose when to launch a game with rotated screen or not
- Added Dungeon Dweller as sample game, it's a great Roguelike and is freely downloadable here: http://roguelikedevelopment.org/dweller/
- Some minor bugs fixed
Now the porting needs *only* sound support for MIDP2 games, if you're a developer interested in making a release or you just want to mess with the code follow the instructions and hints in the readme file.
Ac_K has posted a new version of the Sega Saturn Emulator for Nintendo Wii:
Yabause Wii is a Sega Saturn emulator for wii and is the first of its kind as emulating the complex processes of the Sega Saturn is much harder then it looks and now even harder to run it on the limited hardware of the wii. Yabause Wii can now run a small number of commercial games at usable speeds (5-10fps) were it is still possible to play the game.
Development Status
Ac_K:
I use the actual version on the Yabause website.
Changelog:
- ThX to Waninkoko for WAD Manager source.
- ISO selection menu added with help of WAD Manager source.
- Useless functions remove.
- Add CUE and BIN support.
- Littles code optimisations.
- Check ISO extension.
- Check if BIOS exist.
For use, put Bios.bin in the Yabause folder and put ISO, CUE, BIN roms in the Yabause/ROMS folder.
Dragonminded of DS Fame has released a new Media Player for the Nintendo Wii, heres the release details:
A native Wii application (no Wii Linux) with the intent of being a multi-source media player on the Wii.
Controls
A: Click/Select on any control
B: Used to 'drag-scroll' on file browser
+: Up one directory on file browser
Home: Return to loader
Usage
DragonMedia Player will pick up files anywhere on your SD card, and plays sequentially once a file has started. Simply install into the HBC by copying the dmp folder in the zip file to /apps/ and run the program.
Currently, this list is limited, as I have tried to set up the application framework before porting codecs. I am working on getting common formats such as flac and ogg integrated, and I am interested in supporting as many strange formats such as spc, sid, nsf, etc, so look forward to more support.
it
mod
mp1
mp2/mpa
mp3
s3m
wav (8/16/24/32 mono/stereo)
xm
It’s been a few days, so I’m just going to post some brief notes on what I’ve been working on lately.
Twilight Hack: Marcan did a great job of putting together a nice new release that works with System Menu 3.3: Twilight Hack v0.1beta1. It seems to work well; we have some initial reports that some SD cards don’t work with it, giving a “error -1 reading boot.elf”. I’ve found at least two different problems that can cause that, so expect a small update soon — in the mean time, reformatting the card often fixes it.
Updates: No new updates, as seen on Marcan’s Wiimpersonator. I would not expect this to last; Nintendo will probably release a fixed version of their anti-TP hack code which will not be nearly so easy to defeat. For those of you who updated to 3.3, take that as a warning and just don’t update next time. We’re working on a long-term solution.
Korean Wii: We believe that the new Korean Wiis have a new common key, and we won’t be able to use our tweezer attack to recover it. I’d like to take a look at one and see what other avenues of attack there may be. If anyone knows how I can buy one of these and get it shipped to the US, please let me know.
I have updated the Volumetric Shadow (Tech)Demo (formerly know as the "Stencil Shadow Demo" and later "Volume Shadow Demo".)
This version is very likely to be the final one, although the decision as not been made, yet. A more advanced project (VSD 2.0), which will take VSD's place in the future, is already being developed.
Back on topic: VSD is compatible with most, if not all DLDI devices.
Emulators (as far as they emulate used features) and older SLOT2 GBA NOR (without any SD or CF card storage) cartridges are supported via FCSR (build available on the site.)
The demo shows how to use a bunch of NDS features and some otherwise handy lines of source code, like:
- Hardware accelerated volumetric shadowing - mini-tutorial included!
- Motion blur with video capture, using only one VRAM bank, at 60 FPS
- Hardware lighting, texturing, fogging, antialiasing etc.
- Display brightness control
- Viewport scissoring (thanks to gabebear)
- Loading binary and text files from disk
- Converting 24/32bit .tga image data to 16bit NDS textures
- Displaying a custom font and a text area over a background image, all loaded from disk
- Smooth touch input
- Simple frame rate counting and renderer status display
Please, make sure you read the contents of the included readme file!
A mini-tutorial on volumetric shadows comes with the source release (as well as at here in the forum) and some additional information (e.g. on the .tga format) is "hidden" in the source files. ;^)
Since the initial release, I have reworked the sources a lot! There have been quite some rewrites and a lot of renaming and rearranging! I have also included some better (or any, at least ;^D ) error detection and handling.
Now all data can go to ROOT/data/vsd_data!
It was developed and build with devkitARM R23b, libnds 20071023 and libfat 20070127.
It's quite readable, stable (I guess) and relatively easy to understand!
As always, I released the sources along with binary builds. I only supply a DLDI .nds and an FCSR .nds, as I don't think anybody needs a .gba any more (I don't) and the few people who do need it, can easily convert it themselves... But in case that assumption is wrong, please let me know and I'll upload a .gba to the web site.
Note, that there's some code and data structures I don't recommend using in "serious" code, but for the sake of simplicity, I used it here (e.g. the triangle structure.) This issue will be addressed in the next major release, which is already being worked on.
The shadow in the demo is static, that means it's not deforming (but could be moved around freely) - it's up to you to implement dynamic shadows.
Feel free to punch me in the face - right here in this thread - for silly programming and the like (that demo was my first publicly released open source software) - just make sure you read the readme first! ;^)
Anyways, I hope this demo will be useful to at least some of you. :^D
Finally, I want to thank everybody in this forum who's helped me making the jump from GBA to NDS!
Very special thanks go out to Brandon M. and Larry E. for helping me out with the hardware and gabebear for sharing his viewport scissoring implementation.
Published by: Nintendo
Developed by: HAL Laboratory
Genre: Action
Number of Players: 1
Price: $29.99
PODCAST REVIEW BELOW!
Overview:
OH NO! Kirby has been cursed! well, lets show everyone how we roll! in this amazing kirby game!
Gameplay:
Unlike the rest of the kirby games, here, you control kirby by drawing a path for him with your stylus, this takes some getting use to, but later on you will be able to fluently move him arround.
You can tap kirby to make him attack and this will also absorb the power of anyone who has it, instead of sucking them in, he rolls faster.
As always, you play as a ball of fat and air named kirby, except this time, you have been cursed, so now your arms and legs have been removed turning you into a perfectly circular sphere.
Now that you are a sphere, you are trying to get revenge (and maybe your limbs too) but to do this, you must first go through a series of levels with bosses every three levels you complete; There are three different types of bosses, and you can choose which one to fight. (don't wanna spoil so I won't tell what they do)
In each level there are three hidden medals you can collect to later spend away on extras from boring songs, to new playable characters!
Gained some weight haven't we kirby?
Graphics:
Even though the graphics are 2D, they look great, a game like this doesn't need 3D graphics, it is after all a side scroller. The backgrounds look colorful even when they are suppose to be dark, the characters are sprites, simple, but they fit in with the game's art style.
Animations are not often seen, characters walk and explode, very simple, it seems as if they had $5 to make the animations you see in the game.
This scene may have been scarry without the pink ball riding the rainbow.
Sound:
The game has fun and happy music for the most part, but it is mainly overshadowed by the sound effects, you really won't notice that it is there unless you listen for it.
Replay Value:
With unlockable characters and hidden medals, you will want to go back and play through some of the maps again (after you are done with a level, you can play it again at any time) it IS after all fun to play as a different ball of fat every now and then.
Seriously, don't be fooled, at first you will find nothing extra to do, but it is all in the medals, collect medals = collect fun. and then off course if you beat the game there is a special extra feature added.
Conclusion:
It is too bad this game has no multiplayer, but it DOES have good ammount of content outside the main story mode,that is, after you beat the game.
and even if it didn't have the extras, story mode alone is one great reason to get it.
Team XLink released a new version of their global gaming network (that allows you to play system-link enabled games (incl. Xbox and 360) online for free):
What's the point?
XLink Kai(info) 7.4 began a few months ago to address the following issues:
1. Internationalization - the existing Kai UI does not support many languages and character encodings.
2. Platform Independence - Linux and OS X client software is no longer feature compatible with the Windows client
3. Unified Development - numerous versions and variants of the engine and client exist creating compatibility issues and fragmented development/support.
Team XLink prides itself as a 'Global Community' of gamers. To us, this means people who speak different languages, who use different Operating Systems, and who live all over the globe should be able to connect with one another and make Team XLink their home. Our year to year userbase growth and concurrent player statistics tells us we've been making excellent strides towards our global ambitions. Still, to truly move forward with the project, we need to address infrastructure and compatibility issues so that we have a solid platform that encourages further growth. Kai 7.4 addresses these issues and provides a solid foundation for future plan that simply would not be possible with the previous versions of Kai.
So what's new?
The biggest change to Kai is somewhat invisible--the code. Kai was designed primarily as a Windows-based system with compatibility for Linux/OS X (and other *nix systems) added later through the Kaid project and numerous third-party clients. This created a rift in development where any features added to the Windows Engine and Client needed to be added to Kaid and the third-party clients needed to be updated. A small change in the Windows client required all the other clients to be updated. Updates to the Windows engine (ex: new PSP MAC addresses) required Kaid be updated. As developer interest in Kaid and the many clients waned, it has become increasingly difficult to add any new features without breaking existing compatibility for those not using Windows. To address this, Kai 7.4 uses a single codebase and non-proprietary libraries so that the same code that compiles the Windows binary also compiles under Linux, OS X, BSD, etc. This required removing all the MFC code from Kai and replacing it with platform-independent alternatives like the Boost and wxWidgets libraries. With this unified codebase, future updates and changes will be made available on all supported Operating Systems at the same time.
The most visible change found in Kai 7.4 is the Client Web UI. Instead of designing multiple User Interfaces for every supported OS and every language we decided to drawn on the strength of existing cross-platform technology: the web browser. The Kai 7.4 engine contains a small web server which serves the client to your web browser (Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer(info), etc.) and communication between the web browser and the Engine is achieved using Ajax programming. Aside from the obvious elimination of platform compatibility issues, switching to a browser-based client has some wonderful side effects:
1. Updates and additions to the client are served immediately without the need to restart the Engine.
2. The client is 'skinable' allowing users to develop and share their own customizations.
3. Kai can integrate other web technologies such as streaming audio and video.
4. Kai can be controlled using embedded systems with compatible web browsers (ex: iPhone).
5. The Kai engine can be accessed and controlled remotely via the web browser ( chat from work/school :P )
Another notable improvement found in Kai 7.4 is the support for uPnP routers. Most modern routers support uPnP allowing on-the-fly port mapping. When started behind a uPnP router, Kai just works--no port forwarding or router configuration required.
Lastly, all language has been stripped out of both the Engine and the Web UI Client and replaced with language templates. Currently, English and Japanese translations are available; however, support for Korean, Spanish, and many other languages are being added as translation becomes available through the community.
This is basically how I think the xbox controller should have been in the first place. Its way more comfortable now and my gaming has improved too.
Its pretty obvious from the pics what Ive done. I moved the right hand stick to be level with the left and moved all of the buttons to the back. I happy with the way it came out.
Minnesota's attorney general will drop the state's efforts to fine underage buyers of violent videogames after a high court struck down a state law as unconstitutional. The Entertainment Software Association, one of the plaintiffs in the case, announced Monday that the state paid $65,000 in attorney's fees and expenses
Fans of this virtual racer have been waiting for five long years since Sega released Initial D Special Stage on PlayStation2. To justify this long wait, Sega upgraded this installment by making use of the advanced graphical capabilities of the PlayStation3 console, the visions of familiar cars and mountain regions are recreated with striking resemblances to reality, making the game play more exciting than ever.
The event scenes and characters are drawn with water color shading techniques similar to the style of the comic artist Shuichi Shigeno so players can experience a full absorption into the world of Initial D.
The old courses in the Gunma prefecture and characters as featured in the arcade games are included in this new installment. In addition to that, the developers put in new characters like the pro-racer Tomoyuki Tachi whom Takumi regards as his eternal rival and new courses in Happogahara.
The twenty eight race courses in the game are from the hilly regions of Akina and Myogi etc. There are twenty three cars and twenty six drivers to choose from and to beat. Collect points and customize your car, connect to the network and take on racers from all over the country and aim for the highest place in the National Time Attack rankings.
National Time Attack ranking records the data of the players who raced under the Time Attack mode. Download the ghost car data of the top racer in this chart and launch the Time Attack mode in the game. Make use of PlayStation3's networking facilities and visit the PlayStation Store to download more cars' data, avatars, music etc.
*Please bear in mind that the networking functions may not work for areas outside Japan
Nanashi no Game fights the oppresive summer heat by eliciting a sense of horror in you through its spine chilling plot, visuals and sound effects.
Gossip has been spreading around about a mysterious portable RPG that brings death to its players. Nobody knows who the developer was, the only thing people know is that the players died within a week once they started playing it.
The game brings reality together with terror through your DS, by showing scenes in a first person perspective, it takes you to a dark, shadowy alternate universe similar to the world we live in, thus blurring the line between the game world and reality.
This game makes use of the surround sound facility of your DS to heighten the eery atmosphere, sounds like someone breathing, or footsteps behind you are so real you will spin around in the middle of a train compartment to see if someone is following you.
Square-Enix's Nanashi no Game is not for the faint hearted. But if you are up for the challenge, Play-Asia.com will provide you with a copy for US$ 48.90, shipping as a region free Japanese version.
Dark AleX has released an experimental version of the plugin we've all been waiting for, which allows you to save your progress at any point within the game.
PspStates Experiment for PSP SLIM
---------------------------------
Please read carefully this book... i mean this readme before proceeding to use this plugin.
Note: The author will not be responsable of any kind of damage to units or of data loss
(including game data loss) that this software may cause.
This is true for all my software as they are free, but in this case I would feel like I
would indicate it explicitily.
It is recommended that you backup the nand and important data of memory stick before using this plugin, in order to avoid posible loss of data.
This program was never intended to be part of M33 cfw, it always was planned to be released as
a plugin, just to clarify
This software is experimental work and it may behave incorrectly or not work in all cases.
Requisites:
-----------
- 4.01 M33, 1 or 2, doesn't matter.
- A good memory stick is recommended. Fake memory sticks are... fake... and shit, they could make
load and savestate too slow.
Instructions:
-------------
Copy seplugins folder content (IMPORTANT: including the empty folder SAVESTATE, as the plugin will not create it) in /seplugins and activate the plugin using the recovery.
This plugin at the moment will only work in game mode, don't bother to use it in pops or vsh.
VERY IMPORTANT: because of technical reasons, DO NOT USE this plugins with umd's inserted,
and do not use it of course with UMD's in normal mode, even isofs mode is not recommended.
Use only in march33 (recommended), np9660 or in homebrew.
You can have the plugin loaded in umd's, as soon as YOU DON'T USE IT.
SaveState procedure:
--------------------
- To save a state, press the home button in game, and once in the home button screen, press R
plus one of the followings buttons: up, down, right, left, square, triangle, cross, circle or start. Each of this button is considered a "slot", so you can have up to 9 states.
At the moment these state are global: this means they are for all games, not for a specific one.
- At that moment, the PSP will go to sleep mode and return automatically inmediately.
- After the quick sleep mode return, you will see a black screen for some seconds, don't worry it will end. The time can vary depending of games and cpu speed, at this state the program is copying ram from one place to another.
- When the screen is turned on again, you will see the memory stick led blinking for some time: this is the write of the file. If your memory stick is good, this step should be quick.
- The state is saved, it can be loaded during the game or in another game session. (if memory sitck is same or with similar content, you can load other game states withing a game).
The state is saved to one of the followings files:
ms0:/seplugins/SAVESTATE/globalstate_u.bin -> up button
ms0:/seplugins/SAVESTATE/globalstate_d.bin -> down button
ms0:/seplugins/SAVESTATE/globalstate_l.bin -> left button
ms0:/seplugins/SAVESTATE/globalstate_r.bin -> right button
ms0:/seplugins/SAVESTATE/globalstate_q.bin -> square button
ms0:/seplugins/SAVESTATE/globalstate_t.bin -> triangle button
ms0:/seplugins/SAVESTATE/globalstate_x.bin -> cross button
ms0:/seplugins/SAVESTATE/globalstate_c.bin -> circle button
ms0:/seplugins/SAVESTATE/globalstate_s.bin -> start button
The size of the file may vary depending of the game, as it is a 36 MB dump compressed.
Tests show that the most expected range is: 10-20 MB. The plugin will not check free space,
you are on your own on that.
LoadState procedure:
--------------------
- To load a state, press the home button in a game, and once in the home button scree, press L
plus one of the slot buttons mentioned in savestates.
- In that moment, the memory stick led will blink. This step should be fast on good memory sticks.
- After that, the psp will go to sleep mode and return automatically quickly.
- The screen will be black for some moment, this wait moment is much faster than the one for savestates.
- Once the screen is turned on, and if all went fine, your system will be now in the state in which you saved it.
Comments
--------
- The current release is a 4.01 M33 specific plugin. It won't work in a future firmware without an update, unless that firmware has highly similarities with 4.01.
- For faster operation, it is recomended that you set speed to 333 for game in vshmenu or recovery.
- You can load the state of any other iso or homebrew, as soon as they are really in the same memory stick. Do not change name or path of isos or homebrews after you have saved a state of that iso or homebrew, or the load state will not work properly (would probably work for some moment until game try to load data from ms). Anyways, in some cases, in prevision of hardware
related problems it is more recommended to load states only from the same game.
- A load state is a REAL LOAD STATE with all the consequences.
Lets say you are playing an iso game in march33 mode with the plugin X activated and plugin
Y desactivated.
Then, in another sesion you are playing that game (or another, as doesn't matter), in
np9660 mode with the plugin X desactivated and the plugin Y activated. When you load the state,
the game that was saved will still be in march33 mode with plugin X activated and Y plugin
desactivated.
Because the load state even restores the own pspstates plugin itself, this also causes the
"plugin self-downgrading" problem commented later.
- This plugin is not compatible with any homebrew or plugin using the memory extended size of the slim. It can be enabled while using them, but it SHOULD NOT BE USED.
Interoperability
----------------
- Interoperability between different sony version numbers: this won't be supported, technical reasons. If you were in let's say in a future 4.10 M33 and you want to load a state saved in 4.01 M33, even if the plugin is updated to work on 4.10 M33, it will probably crash loading that state.
- Interoperability between different M33 version numbers (4.01 M33, M33-2, M33-3...): there shouldn't be problem with this. After load state, the system would be temporally downgraded in ram, until you exit to vsh.
- Interoperability with future versions. Because this software is still experimental, future versions could change savestate data format. Even if it doesn't change, the "plugin self downgrading" problem still exists: you have saved a state in version 1, and then you load it
in version 2, the plugin in ram after the load state will be the version 1.
- Interoperability with other psp's. Probably not a good idea to share savestates between psp's... they could cause hardware incorrect answer or data loss. The only test done has been PSP1: TA-085, PSP2: TA-085 v2. The PSP1 saved the state.
The PSP2 loaded the state. The state load apparently worked, but the game, which was controlled
by analogic pad, wasn't answering properly to controls. Wether this was caused by different mother boards or other reasons it is unknown.
Anyways if you want to proceed to do more tests, do it on your own, but have in mind some things:
* Functional issues: the hardware should be the more similar possible. The isos or homebrews
should have same paths. Better not to have another plugin activated.
* Privacy issues: The savedata may contain in plain text or compressed, wep or wpa keys. Also,
if the XMB didn't clear properly the ram, there exist the possibility too of the savedata
containing filenames or even binary data of media that was played in the XMB, which can
be recovered using computer forensics.
FAQ
----
Q: Why only PSP SLIM?
A: In the current implementation, I'm using slim extra memory. The file writing is post-poned
while file read is done before the real load state. This is because we lack of a good memory
stick driver that could be used in situations where the kernel is off. The only memory stick
driver we have, which is the used in DC, is extremelly slow, it has no sense to use it here. Until memory stick dma code is reversed, it is impossible the implementation on psp phat.
Q: After doing a savestate, sound stopped working
A: try to load the state you just saved to see if this fixes. This may happen sometimes in
some games, it is not 100% sure, but the reason identified in tests seems to be: the write of the file. In the current implementation,the plugin performs the real savestate after returning from the induced sleep mode code, compressing it in from one ram to temporal one, then original sleep mode return code is executed,and when the system is stable, the file is written. It seems some games or some sony code may not like that such a big file is written, probably due to the time it may take.
If some day, the DMA memory stick driver is reversed, this problem should be gone too... hopefully
Third party licenses
--------------------
This program uses the FastLZ library, which is relased under MIT license. A copy
of the license can be found at fastlz_license directory.
Since the banda sonora de DUX composed by Andre Neumann is already complete, can now hear a preview several minutes.
DUX Medley (5:32 min./MP3)
Here is a note by the composer himself:
"For me it was important to achieve a banda musical sound a bit like the shooters from 80 and 90 and that in turn combine it with some new electronics / orquestrales, to adapt to fresh style and atmosphere of the game. From a point Technically, I used the sequencer Fruity
7 Loops with some virtual instruments. I added sound effects in some of the additional tracks to improve the harmony of sound. In Level 2, a cave full of water, you can hear some effects of water bubbles. In Level 5, Radiax's Den, the Geiger counter adds to the atmosphere radiated by atoms.
I hope they like the result!
Greetings
Andre Neumann "
If they like what they hear, they can also pre-order the CD from the OST (banda sonora original) HUCAST.net DUX at the store. The launch will take place in August / September.
STPPC2x Beta 5
(I forgot to include some files... redownload if you got the earlier file!)
A GP2X port of Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection, a set of 30 addictive logic and puzzle games. Some are old favourites (like sudoku, sliding puzzles and minesweeper) and others you may not have seen before.
This is the fifth beta release of the entire collection of the games, which I call "STPPC2x".
This beta has 29 fully-working games - only one is completely unplayable on the GP2X - mines.
The full changelog from the previous Beta includes items such as:
- 3 new games
- New menu (thanks, juanvvc!)
- A single monolithic executable for all the games.
- A new "loading" screen.
- Several optimisations to try to reduce CPU use.
- Changed the background colour (well, I had to keep juanvvc happy after he made the menu for me!).
- Lots of tiny interface updates.
Feedback is appreciated (especially from F-200 and USB mouse users) and full source code is available from Ledow's website. I'm also looking for help from any SDL/C coders to create a nice menu, add some more features, etc.
Note that this is an unofficial port - so please don't bother Simon Tatham with any problems, although he is aware of the project's existence.
Heres a release that i found today from Captain Hero:
Added Wiimote Cursor control to the left bar + rumble feedback when ball hits the bar + rumble when ball was lost. Now pong is really wii specific, with a real big fun factor. I wander what else can be made out of this simple pong.
I was bored and added wiimote support to that chess game because I don't have a GC controller. If somebody really wants it I'll add IR too but I am probably going to just forget about it.
Note: This is an unofficial version of the one by hanse but mine is better besides the fact that you can't see the help at the beginning.
Thanks to lowlines for the icon.
Heres a question you would think that could be answered by saying the latest Custom Firmware Released but to many and especially veterans of Custom Firmwares there may be one that stands out as the best Custom Firmware of all.
So to the PSP Community, Which is the Best Custom Firmware at this time ? Please also explain why too
The Moon Books Project is holding a Contest from July 1st to August 31st.
There are numerous categories to choose from DS game reviews, hardware reviews, book and film reviews, graphic and audio design, fiction and non fiction writing, ds homebrew app and game coding, and game design using DSGameMaker.
The contest is sponsored by AceKard, DSGameMaker and GameFace Graphics. Prizes include AceKard 2 cards, DSGameMaker registration keys and DS Lite skins.
So, head on over, and have some fun!
Oh, and the above banner is the first entry in the graphics design category. Excellent work Josiah!
I made a Bible-reading program a while ago and didn't release it because some extra features (bookmarking, searching, verse look-up) had seemingly unfixable bugs and the code was a huge mess even though it was the second time I rewrote the whole thing.
Anyways, I've still been using it and have been finding it still quite useful so I've decided to release it here.
history:
* Support almost old batch R6 cart, the first "all-in-1" menu for R6 Gold and R6 Silver
* Update the R6 CHEAT CODE database to 2008-07-01 version
Mastiff, a San Francisco based developer and publisher of videogames, announced today that Nihon Falcom's action-RPG, Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure has become the first third-party PSP (PlayStation Portable) system title available for online purchase and download to the PSP system through the PLAYSTATION Store and is available now.
Upon its release last year, Gurumin immediately won over the hearts of countless reviewers.
Gamespy, for example, said "Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure delivers the classic Japanese RPG experience and is simultaneously adorable and hilarious. If you're only planning to get a single RPG for your PSP this year, this could well be the one to play."
The Associated Press said"Gurumin" is filled with a uniquely Japanese sense of whimsy that translates well into English, and it's one of the nicest surprises of the year so far." Review site Deeko said "Gurumin is one of those rare games that should be in every PSP owners collection." Console Gameworld, echoed the sentiment, writing "Gurumin is definitely one of those titles you have to pick up, period."
"Charming, full of personality, and with a gentle sense of humor, Gurumin is a bright and catchy portable game," said Heather Campbell of Play magazine. And Geoff Haynes of leading gaming website IGN.com, called Gurumin "...an excellent title that should appeal to action fans." Gurumin's strong reviews earned it a place in the top 50 of almost 1100 PSP titles ranked on IGN.com.
About Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure:
Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure stars a strong-willed girl named Parin, who is sent to live with her grandfather in a small mining town while her parents are off excavating an ancient ruin. With no other children living in this town, Parin is surprised one day to encounter a young girl being tormented by a stray dog. After Parin drives off the mongrel, she is shocked to discover the young girl is actually a monster, and like all monsters, invisible to adults. Parin is soon invited to the mysterious Monster Village, which happens to be hidden right behind her town. Parin has just started making monster friends when evil spirits, known as Phantoms, invade the village and monsternap most of the inhabitants. Parin soon learns of the Legendary Drill, a weapon hidden underneath the village that is powerful enough to destroy the Phantoms. Thus begins Parin's quest to reclaim the Legendary Drill and set the world right.
Gurumin features Include:
Non-linear game play in over 30 stages set in a variety of environments.
23 non-player characters, 48 unique enemies, and more than 90 items to collect.
18+ costumes to unlock, and 15 equip-able headgear to level up.
Destroy everything in your path with your legendary drill: almost all objects in a stage can be destroyed, and many hide money and valuable items.
Challenging boss battles, puzzles and traps.
Mini-games galore!
Hidden characters, modes and other secrets.
For more information on Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure please visit www.gurumin.us.
Electronic Arts Inc. today revealed it has created platform specific experiences for its best-selling* FIFA Soccer 09 franchise from EA SPORTS. FIFA Soccer 09 has been designed and customized to deliver a unique gameplay experience that takes advantage of the hardware specifications of each available platform— the PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system, Wii home video game system, PC, PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system, Nintendo DS, PSP system and mobile—when it is released worldwide this autumn.
"We have listened and responded to gamers and soccer fans around the world by building customized gameplay experiences for FIFA Soccer 09 on each platform," said Andrew Wilson, Vice President & Executive Producer for the franchise. "Everyone wants to play a soccer game that is customized to their system and delivers a unique and enjoyable experience. We understand that and have innovated features, created new modes and designed controls that are tailored to each specific platform."
With over 250 additions and enhancements to core gameplay, FIFA Soccer 09 on the PLAYSTATION 3 system and Xbox 360 deliver an authentic soccer simulation that enables you to customize the game to suit your style and ability. New animation technology creates more responsive first-time shooting and passing, faster and more controlled dribbling, and improved trapping. New player momentum physics, which exploits the power of these platform engines, delivers realistic player collisions, authentic jostling for the ball, and more variation in tackling.
"We listened to our consumers to make the changes that they wanted," said David Rutter, Producer of FIFA Soccer 09 on the PLAYSTATION 3 system and Xbox 360. "No other game has over 250 feature changes and additions focused on improving core gameplay. We have an absolutely authentic recreation of the real sport through attention to detail."
For the first time, go inside the game engine to customize the strategy and positioning of your teammates to decide exactly how your team will play in any situation. With new Custom Team Tactics you have all the tools to become a first-team coach. Adjust and customize tactical settings so CPU players and your team perform just like the real-world team plays and make strategic decisions to exploit your opponent's weaknesses, all on-the-fly. The popular feature innovation Be A Pro has expanded to a career mode called Be A Pro: Seasons where you can choose or create a professional player and then develop his skills at a single outfield position over four years with the ultimate goal of becoming a national legend. The matchday experience is now true-to-life with a referee and linesmen on the pitch. Plus, crowds, stadium atmosphere and commentary have all been regionalized in exact detail.
On the Wii, enjoy FIFA Soccer 09 All-Play one of two ways—a Wii-specific take on the authentic '11 vs. 11' simulation or over-the-top '8 vs. 8' arcade action within a stylized environment with Mii versions of your favorite superstars, like Ronaldinho and Wayne Rooney. Refined motion and point-and-play controls make playing FIFA Soccer 09 All-Play even more intuitive and perfectly balanced for gamers of any ability to enjoy fun, soccer action. Choose to play the style that best suits your skills from advanced controls for experienced players to new EA SPORTS All-Play controls that enables novice players to focus on fun using simplified controls with AI assistance.
"You've never played soccer like this before," said Kaz Makita, Producer of FIFA Soccer 09 All-Play. "Our new '8 vs. 8' Footii Match enables you to play an exaggerated style of soccer where the personality of your Mii comes to life. You can play with your Mii characters against or alongside some of the biggest stars in a truly unique soccer experience tailored specifically for the Wii version of FIFA Soccer 09."
FIFA Soccer 09 on PC now features leading-edge visuals that deliver graphics that exploit the power of hi-spec gaming PCs, as requested by PC gamers. Star players are featured in photorealistic quality with remodeled likenesses for ultra-realistic gameplay. FIFA Soccer 09 on PC also features customizable mouse gameplay controls that deliver deeper, more intuitive command over your squad. Plus, customizable widgets are now integrated into the menu system to connect you to the FIFA community and real-world soccer so you stay connected while playing FIFA Soccer 09.
"We are committed to investing and innovating to create a PC specific experience," said Producer Paul Hossack. "Gamers want a gameplay experience exclusively for PC and FIFA Soccer 09 on PC delivers this."
With 500 new animation sequences and all-new collision and shielding systems—representing the biggest innovations to the multiplatform EA SPORTS soccer engine in four years— FIFA Soccer 09 delivers more responsive, intelligent and realistic physical action on the PlayStation 2 system. The new collision detection system with 360 degree coverage enables players to behave according to their physical attributes where player speed, direction and strength determine everything from the severity of the collision to the outcome of possession. Changes to the animation system reward the skillful gamer during one-on-one situations between attackers and defenders. Tuned acceleration attributes enable swifter virtual players to possess quicker first steps and gain advantage in sprints. Plus, four new skill moves—scoop turns, rainbow flicks, heel-to-heel knocks and ball rolls—give you a total of 32 tricks in your arsenal to perform just like Ronaldinho.
FIFA Soccer 09 on the PSP system and Nintendo DS now include the innovative Be A Pro feature, including the unique Be A Pro camera that re-creates the rush and excitement of racing in on goal, designed exclusively for each system.
Additional major feature innovations for PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox 360 and PC will be revealed later this month and announced at the Leipzig Games Convention in August. Screenshots and product fact sheets can be downloaded at http://info.ea.com.
To learn more about specific features on each platform visit www.FIFA.ea.com.
FIFA Soccer 09, scheduled for worldwide release this autumn, is developed by EA Canada in Vancouver, B.C. It has not yet been rated by ESRB or PEGI.
ok, so this is my first attempt at ad-hoc, and i thought what better than to create a small game?!, anywho so this is two player snake clone, it's also like tron, basically eat the food to get longer, and try and get your buddy to run into you to win....pretty simple
anyways need to point out a couple of things:
1. an ungodly special mention to InsertWittyName, would not be possible wat-so-ever without him
2. must start server first, else the client well never find the server(hopefully i can remidy this, however if u do accidentally start the client first, give it an couple minutes to have a pop up message, simple hit /\ and quit)
3. can only be ran on 3.xx kernel
4. umm...no single player, can only play 2 player
alright so here you go, check the readme for anything else
i know their are bugs(glitchy around and random loses/wins, i'll try and remidy this in the future)
anyways plan for a couple more releases of this than an update to pixel with adhoc, before i implement it into pspbillards, anywho enjoy:
Okay. Sony has released the much anticipated 2.40 firmware update for the Playstation 3. You can update via System Update on your console or download it onto a memory card or other via PC. The full changelog from 2.36 is as follows taken from the company's european website:
Main features in system software update version 2.40
You can now access the PS3 Home Menu screen while playing PLAYSTATION 3 format software.
You can now perform an Internet search directly from the PS3 Home Menu screen.
Other new or revised features in version 2.40
Overall
You can now see the system clock on the PS3 Home Menu screen. The date and time that were set under Settings > [Date and Time] are displayed.
When using a keyboard, you can now clear the entire text entry field at once.
An icon is now displayed when you press the PS button for an operation that cannot be performed.
Users
You can now turn off the PS3 system from the PS3 Home Menu screen using the [Turn Off System] option.
Settings
You can now set the PS3 system to turn off automatically after updating the system software.
[Reassign Controllers] and [Controller Vibration Function] have been added as options under [Accessory Settings].
Photo
You can now print images from a playlist.
You can now sort items that are grouped in a folder by month or year using the [Film Date] options.
Music
You can now use a mini-size control panel while playing music.
You can now play music content encoded in MP3 Surround format.*
* MP3 Surround can only be played in Linear PCM output.
Video
You can now use the [Frame Noise Reduction] and [Block Noise Reduction] settings for video content that is saved on the hard disk or storage media.
You can now play upscaled video content that is saved on the hard disk or storage media. When the video content is played, it is upscaled automatically to fit the screen size.
Upscaling of Blu-ray Disc (BDAV) video content is now supported.
For DTS-HD playback on DVD-Video and Blu-ray Disc media, DTS-ES and DTS 96/24 for DVD-Video and DTS-ES Matrix for Blu-ray Discs are now supported.*
* "DTS" is a trademark of DTS Inc.
Game
The procedure for quitting PLAYSTATION 3 format software has been changed.
You can now collect trophies in games that support the trophy feature.
Network
[Search] has been added as an option in the browse mode menu of the Internet browser.
Friends
The number of Friends who can be added to a Friends list has been increased from 50 to 100.
The [Information] screen has been redesigned and renamed as [Profile].
This is Daniel Chan, developer of the recently-released cWatch program, here to announce another little program I made in Lua. This is a very, very simple program aimed at helping out PSP Developer's who have trouble with constantly having to guess the correct x- and y- coordiantes to align their homebrew properly. With this simple program you can pinpoint a location on the screen and get the coordinates for that position to within 5 pixels. This should greatly reduce some time for those of you that are new to developing and just everyone developer in general because even if you know a pretty good estimate of where each part of the screen is you still need to constantly fine-tune your coordinates several times to get it right. The program also features the ability to activate the PSP's USB mode (it does not turn off when the program closes but only when LuaPlayer itself closes allowing you to switch back-and-forth between your program and pinpoint.Tool without switching off the USB mode) which speeds up development.
Please tell me how useful this is for you, if at all. If you have any suggestions or if you find any bugs/problems then please reply to this thread or shoot me an email(in the README) and I'll see what I can do. This is very possibly going to be the only release for pinpoint.Tool as I am trying to keep development of more complicated projects going but I do have some ideas for pinpoint.Tool that I might possible add in a feature releas so that is why I am taking suggestions.
Also, if you are one of the people that downloaded cWatch v.100 I would like to say thank you and for everyone that is interested the new version is going to be out soon after I release the game I am working on currently so just hold on to your seats. It will feature some fixes as well as new features mentioned in the previous release as well as some other as-of-yet unnanounced features.
Media Molecule's David Smith has confirmed trophies will feature in LittleBigPlanet - and offered a hint at what you can expect.
During a live text interview with Eurogamer Smith said, "We've been having a lot of fun working out what trophies most fit our game. Because we have this catchphrase of 'Play, Create, Share', the trophies (and indeed some of the other scoring systems) reflect this."
He was responding to a question from reader 'will.', who wrote, "Personally, I'm looking out for 'Rocket sack - launch your sackboy into the heavens!'"
Smith co-founder replied, "One of the trophies is close to what you've suggested - for somehow making your sackperson be thrown at some huge velocity. You'll probably need to make a machine using the create tools."
Earlier on in the interview, Smith confirmed LittleBigPlanet is down for an October release and said there are still plans for a beta trial. Read the full live text interview for more, here.
I have just finished the new version (version 1.0) of my app called CoranPSPDownloader
This application allows you to download all sourathes of the Koran of two sheikh (sheikh alafasy and sheikh al-ghamidi) for the time being...
Now in this version, you can know the percentage of downloading, the size of downloading and the speed of downloading...
I would to thanks my mother and my father, sheikh alafasy and sheikh al-ghamidi, the creators of the sdk and the creators of the sdl
Early last week, we were whisked to the aboveground lair that acts as LucasArts's San Francisco office and bombarded with enough information on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed to choke a tauntaun -- or at least enough info to make sure this week's Monday through Thursday plan of covering every version of the Force Unleashed went off without a hitch.
Day One of this expansive coverage belongs to one of the few systems with a metachlorian count high enough to break the bonds of a home entertainment system and take gaming on the road -- the PSP.
Now, no doubt, you've heard all about the console versions of the Force Unleashed and how they will make use of some crazy physics engine that allows you to crush walls and toss crap around. Although that level of destruction and manipulation isn't on the PSP, we can tell you that after lightsabering our way through the first two stages of the game, the handheld rendition of the Force Unleashed is far from any kind of Sith Slump. While bumming 'round the LucasArts office, we got to see every iteration of the Force Unleashed and can report that when you boot up your PSP, you're getting the same voiceovers and the same story of Darth Vader and his secret apprentice as the console versions.
Although you'll play the majority of the game as the apprentice -- name withheld to protect the evil -- the initial outing in the game's story mode casts you as Mr. Padmé himself, Darth Vader. At its most basic level, the Force Unleashed will be all about this dynamic Dark Side duo running around the galaxy and waxing any and all Jedi holdouts. This opening level is no different as Vader lands on Kashyyyk to terminate a former colleague.
As its title would indicate, this game is all about giving you the Force and letting you run wild with it. As soon as Vader stepped off his ship and powered up his lightsaber, that sentiment became clear to us. Sure, the typical stuff such as the Force push (tap Triangle) and bouncing laser blasts back at bad guys with a lightsaber (hold Square) are there, but the Force Unleashed ups the ante. Your HUD is basically two meters. Red is your typical health front (it's refilled by finding red packs thoughout the levels), while Blue is a regenerating Force bar. Aside from the aforementioned moves, this blue goodness will also allow Vader to pick people up and choke them -- which starts with your foe gurgling and ends with an extremely satisfying neck snap -- lift people into the air before pushing them into other bad guys or off an edge, as well as picking people up and impaling them with his lightsaber.
We took full advantage of snapping every furry neck that got in our way on the Wookiee-infested planet. Some of the furballs came at us brandishing a sword in each hand, while others let their blasters do the talking, but Vader's mastery of the choke and his ability to pick up the random, loose crates and use them as weapons made short work of the rebels. Better yet, when we eliminated a Wookiee running an outpost turret, Vader was able to Force grab the gun and have it float alongside him as an automatic killing machine. As we ran from tree base to tree base and over wooden suspension bridges, Lord Vader would occasionally get surrounded by enemies and we'd hold the left shoulder button and tap Triangle to unleash a devastating Force shockwave.
Now, before we were ushered past troves and troves of LEGO Indiana Jones schwag, LucasArts made us promise not to spoil any of this game's story elements, so please excuse us for being a bit vague in the coming paragraphs and such. Anyway, the Kashyyyk levels ends with Vader coming upon his Jedi prey, crushing the HQ the guy was chilling in with the Force, and entering a massive lightsaber duel. We were tapping Square to swing our 'saber, but every now and again, the two fighters would get locked up and try to push their blades into each other's face. This set off a quick action event where we needed to tap buttons repeatedly to win the tug of war. When the Jedi was on his back, we needed to pull off another series of button combos to finish him off and get to the end cutscene … where the real story began to unfold.
Feel the Force!After Vader's chapter is in the books, it's time for the secret apprentice to take center stage. If you've been reading our coverage of the Force Unleashed, you probably know what to expect from the Vader/apprentice relationship. The young one kneels a lot, calls Vader "master," and the Sith Lord orders the little guy around. The second level opens with a cutscene detailing the apprentice's next mission, which is to head to a ship and take out another Jedi straggler (Order 66 my ass!). Before heading off to battle, we meet PROXY -- the apprentice's right-hand droid who apparently will brief us on each mission we're about to head out on -- and Juno Eclipse, the smoking hot female pilot just hired to ferry the apprentice around on the Rouge Shadow spy ship.
Seems Vader killed the last half dozen pilots for incompetence, so good luck with that, Juno!
Once the actual gameplay starts, it's apparent that the apprentice is way more nimble than metal-man Darth could ever dream of -- the secret apprentice is fast, he can leap around with ease, and his moves are brutal. As you play, you're going to find Jedi Holocrons that expand the character's health and Force meters, so he's a bit weak in the beginning, but his powers are devastating none the less. Although the Force push and Force shockwave you learned to use as Vader will be part of the apprentice's repertoire when you start, you'll find that Force lightning will have replaced Darth's chokehold.
The latest issue of Jump reveals that Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 will come to PSP with several new characters, including Yuri from Xbox 360’s Tales of Vesperia, the total characters is reported to be more than 50. A blurry image of the report also shows Arche Klein (Tales of Phantasia), Veigue Lungberg (Tales of Rebirth), Guy Cecil (Tales of the Abyss) and Cless Alvein (Tales of Phantasia). Can’t figure out what is the release date yet (the first game was announced in June and got released in December), we’ll have to wait for clearer image or next week’s Weekly Famitsu for more information.
Bhutan national assembly speaker Nima Tshering has banned Bhutan MPs from bringing laptops into Parliament after seeing them used for playing games.
"I have seen many of our lawmakers playing computer games when others are debating serious issues," he said.
"I have no problem if the lawmakers carry their laptops and use it for data they might need during debates. But I have a major problem if they play games and look uninterested in the proceedings."
Bhutan is a tiny Himalayan country that is slowly joining the modern world. It held its first democratic elections in March and only gained internet access nine years ago. In the last five years, sales of desktops and laptops have risen by about 50 percent. There were no figures about WoW subscribers.
Despite this, MPs have denied the claims. "It is not however true that we were always playing games," an unnamed MP said to the BBC. "We need the laptops because that saves us the trouble of having to carry huge amounts of paper and documents."
I've just had a fiddle with the main bulk of Project4's code to remove the offending line of code, the BSoD should no longer appear.
I also took the liberty of spending a few minutes on patching 4.01M33 to allow you to use the newest custom firmware, and Project4.
There is information in the download on the cause of the BSoD, if you are interested, and why p4ml.prx wasn't included in the original installation.
There is no other bug fixes, this is purely a quick update to remove the 2 main issues, over the next few days I'll be active on the bug reports board compiling a list of errors to fix in the next update, after Sunday I'll be compiling a list of requested updates and starting work on any remaining issues.
reizencroft has posted a new game release for the PSP, heres release details:
Yay!! Finally, I was able to finish my first PSP homebrew game project. I introduce you, Tweexter. I really can can’t come up with a great name so i just combined twist and texter. Tweexter is very similar to Gamehouse’s Texttwist. You are given a set of 7 letters(on future release, it will be a combination of 6 and 7 letters) and you have to unscramble it to a more sensible word. To advance to the next round you need to solve the 7 letter word.
I was really planning on porting Texttwist to PSP, retaining the graphics and sounds but I figured that i could get in a lot of trouble if I do so. So i restarted from scratch, producing the graphics, except for the background. Currently, there is no sound effects, but i’m planning to add sfx on the next releases.
Included in the release is the source code. I am not a great programmer, so please don’t expect super fast and efficient algorithms. It was written in C++, but can be easily converted to C. I’m not an expert in C, so I just used this project as an opportunity to experience C++. The use of classes was a total mess and since i’m too lazy to rewrite it, I ended up sticking to it. To compile the source code, you’ll need a pspsdk, and a couple of it’s dependencies, namely, libpng and zlib.
Mediumguage has updated PSP Filer, a file manager for the PSP.
Heres Whats New:
2008/07/02
version 5.2: MD5=5EB2E395AA8462079C6F1EB9098042D8
filer:
- added "GAME4XX" folder to re-order game icons. (added "GAMEnaa" folder : n=0-9, a=0-9/a-z/A-Z)
picture viewer:
- changed circle button's function to toggle "make a picture to fit screen width" and "to fit screen height".
binary editor:
- fixed a bug that a help screen was vanished when Filer finishes to read a large file.
Hackers have broken into Sony's PlayStation website and visitors' computers are risk, the IT security firm Sophos has warned.
Web security experts at SophosLabs discovered unauthorized code from criminals on pages promoting SingStar Pop and God of War. The code would cause pop-up to appear on visitors screen telling them viruses had been detected on their computer in an attempt to scare the user into purchasing anti-virus software.
"There are millions of videogame lovers around the world, many of whom will visit Sony's PlayStation website regularly to find out more about the latest console games," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.
The group further warned that the hackers who compromised the webpages could easily alter the payload so that it became more malicious, and install code designed to harvest confidential information from users among other things.
"Most would never expect that surfing to a website like this could potentially infect them with malware. If users do not have sufficient protection in place then they might find that before they know it they have been scared into handing their credit card details over to a bunch of cybercriminals,"
"It is essential that all websites, especially when they are high profile like this or receiving a large level of traffic, have been properly hardened to prevent hackers from injecting malicious code on to what should be legitimate webpages," Cluley added.
Square-Enix has revealed that a remake of Chrono Trigger will be released in North America this Christmas.
The new edition will contain all the original elements whilst introducing dual-screen options and touch-screen functionality available on DS.
It will also contain artwork by manga artist Akira Toriyama and a musical score created by Yasunori Mitsuda, who scored the original.
The original Chrono Trigger was released for the SNES in North America and Japan, but not Europe. Fans have been campaigning for the title to be released on the Virtual Console, but to no avail. This could be why...
A simple web-server for the Wii.
Still is very early stages of development and at present can only display a built in test page.
alpha v0.73 Security bugfixes
Added "HEAD" method support
Added space in file name support
Fixed disallowance of ../ or ./ for security
Added .bin file support
Sends server version in header
Media Molecule co-founder David Smith has revealed LittleBigPlanet will run at 30fps in 720p.
Speaking in a Eurogamer live text interview, he said, "The game uses a lot filmic techniques like depth of field and motion blur, so this fits the game pretty well."
When asked about the game's HD install Smith replied, "We haven't finalised the details on this."
However, he did go on to add, "The game is designed to be fairly lightweight, to make the sharing of new content easier. Our levels squidge down into really tiny files, which means that when the community makes new ones, they'll download quickly.
"The HD install is perhaps around a gig. Perhaps more or less. It's not finalised yet."
LittleBigPlanet is out this October. Read the full live text interview for all the latest news.
Sony's PlayStation Network director of operations, Eric Lempel, has said that Sony will fully support any developers who want to patch trophies into their games that are already on sale.
"Right off the bat when the firmware update goes live we'll be patching Super Stardust HD, so that game will include Trophies from Wednesday," Lempel told Next-Gen. "We're also patching Warhawk and PAIN, while Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, a completely offline title, will also be patched over the network, so it's definitely an option for developers and we're fully supporting first and third parties that want to patch, and of course those that want to implement this system going forward with new titles."
There are still a few features missing in the new update, but Lempel added that 2.4 wouldn't be the last PS3 firmware enhancement. "We're not going to stop enhancing the features. Every time we do a firmware update we enhance old features as well as providing new features, so we're taking a lot of the feedback very seriously. Going into this we knew there were some things that wouldn't make it but there's always time to fix those and get them in, but in the meantime this should keep consumers satisfied for some time."
And it look likes PSN will remain free, at least for the short term. "We're happy with what we're doing right now and we're going to stick with it," he stated. "I think being free is always an advantage. The fact that it's free is nice for consumers who want to try out the online experience, those who may be new to it and may not be ready to commit to spending dollars, and that's a really good message for us.
"Being free also gives them the opportunity to spend the money that they may have spent on a subscription on online items or online games instead. We have a ton of games for the price of a subscription and offer a significant amount of great original content that you can't get anywhere else."
Sony has released two new shots of its alien-powered FPS, Resistance 2.
Due around November, the game will feature two campaigns. A single player one with you fighting the war as Nathan Hale a co-op campaign (for up to eight players) that runs parallel to Hale's story. Now that's a lot of action, man.
Check out the new shots on your right and look out for a lot more info on the game at E3 is a few weeks' time.
Police who previously used internet chat rooms to set up sting operations are now playing Grand Theft Auto IV online to catch kiddie fiddlers.
"Child predators are migrating from traditional methods to alternate media," said Detective Lt. Thomas Kish of the Michigan State Police to the USA Today. "They are going to places where children are."
And so the police are apparently following. According to the newspaper, cops are now playing everything from GTA IV to chess and chequers online to make arrests.
Last December, Michigan prosecutors sentenced a man to 10 years in prison for using WoW to lure a twelve year-old girl into having sex with him. The police found that the man had been using a variety of online games to pursue other children.
A number of similar cases have occurred in the past year, with Lt. Jessica Farnsworth of the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force claiming the division has seized many Xbox machines for investigation.
Apparently, Microsoft has been forthcoming on how to extract information from them.
Yes, Diablo III is going to be much more vivid and vibrant than its predecessors, a fact that has some fans signing a petition against the shinier, happier art direction - now with over fifteen thousand signatures. Tracey John over at MTV Multiplayer spoke with Diablo III lead producer Keith Lee about the during the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris this past weekend, who defended the move towards a brighter, more colorful Diablo.
“One of the things that we considered when we were working on the visuals for ‘Diablo III’ is the fact that color is your friend. We feel that color actually helps to create a lot of highlights in the game so that there is contrast. A great analogy is like in ‘Lord of the Rings’ — not everything is dark. It allows you to see what a creepy dungeon can be like but if everything is dark it doesn’t allow you to have a lot of contrast.”
Lee also explains that they want players excited to enter and explore new areas, rather that simply provide the same dark environments over and over again.
Lee does admit that fan feedback is a major factor in how Blizzard develops titles. It'll be interesting to see what impact - if any - the petition has on the development of the game.
While it seems like every time the PlayStation 3 undergoes a firmware upgrade is plagued by people trying to blame broken systems on the update, last night's 2.40 update seems to have caused genuine issues with many posters over at the official PlayStation forums. Owners of PS3s in all shapes and sizes have been reporting that their systems were loading to the initial PlayStation wave screen and simply hanging there after applying 2.40. No icons, no controller functions, no nothing, just the wave across the middle of the screen.
There doesn't seem to be any real pattern as to which systems are affected. 60GB, 40GB, 20GB, and 80GB systems alike have all been afflicted with the issue. We've contacted Sony for word on the issue, but in the meantime several of the more tech savvy forum posters have determined how to fix the issue, if you're willing to yank out your console's hard disk drive.
Users found that removing and reformatting their PS3 hard drive and then reinserting it into the console would get the system to boot completely, after which it asks to reformat the disk again and everything runs normally. Of course they lose all of their saved games and have to redo all of their downloads, but I suppose that is better than sending in the system for a $150.00 [£75] repair.
One can only assume that the update was the catalyst that caused certain data on affected hard disks to become corrupt, rendering the system unbootable. It would certainly explain why only certain systems are being affected, and why Sony couldn't have caught the problem in the first place.
We'll keep you updated on the issue as we learn more. In the meantime, feel free to hit the link below to read through 30 plus pages of quality PS3 forum drama.
I've did in a night many updates to this.I'm happy to share it with you.
------------------------------ Mario Kart 64v2 - PSP Edition
Coded By SeanPaul223
------------------------------
------------ What's this?
------------
Here is a new Lua coded game.It's a kart racing game, including Nintendo
characters Mario and Luigi, as the tile implies.
This Current build is the second release.the game becomes more entertaining now!
Enjoy!
---------------------- Features and Changelog
----------------------
#2 Modes: Time Challenge, and Race
# 6 Tracks :
Koopa Troopa beach
Moo Moo farm
Kalimari Desert
Toad's TurnSpike
Banshee BoardWalk
Frappe Snowland
# 4 Characters Available : Mario, Luigi, Link and Donkey Kong
# Best Time Recording Module
# New Code, New GFXs
# RAM Usage Reduced
# All Bugs Fixed
-------------- Special Thanks
--------------
#Zion, Paiku for GFXs and Sprites (See Credits)
#The Spriters Ressources for Sprites
#Homemister and PickDat for Their LuaPlayerHm
------------ Installation
------------
Extracts Contents into ms0:/PSP/GAME
-------------- Compatibility
--------------
This game is complatible on both 1.50, 3.XX and 4.XX Kernels.Should Work on Slims and Fat PSPs.
------ Notes
------
This game has been tested and it works properly.But it should freeze on some systems because of the RAm usage.
In This Case, please report me.See The ReadMe
Nyko Technologies, the premier gaming peripherals manufacturer, today revealed details for its upcoming Media Hub for the PlayStation 3. The Media Hub easily attaches to the console, adding three additional USB ports and a media card reader slot that supports SD cards and Memory Sticks. Compatible with all PS3 models, the Media Hub matches the color and contour of the system to expand its media capabilities while maintaining a clean form factor.
The all-new Media Hub from Nyko attaches to any available USB port and enables the connection of three additional USB devices including flash drives, PSP, MP3 players and additional controllers. Its unique design requires no tools or internal modifications, draws its power directly from the PS3, and easily installs in just seconds.
"We found that many of our customers who had purchased the popular 40 GB version of the PS3, which has less USB ports and no media card reader, were looking for an affordable solution to expand with these features," said Chris Arbogast, Director of Marketing at Nyko Technologies. "With the Media Hub, an additional three USB ports and a media card reader are now possible for all PS3 models, allowing consumers to enjoy the full capabilities of their multimedia system no matter which model they choose."
Nyko's Media Hub for PS3 is expected to hit store shelves by August 2008 for the suggested retail price of $19.99.
Broadband in the UK is a touchy subject: either you're one of the very lucky ones with a great 24/7 connection or one of those with massive contention rates or your ISP is constantly capping your download speeds.
Paying for a broadband package and actually getting what you paid for is not always straightforward and this week Virgin Media got its wrist slapped - again - for ads quoting inaccurate download speeds. Remember, Virgin's already out to get torrent users.
The 'Hate To Wait' ad series in the national press showed a chart of glowing download speeds for different Virgin Media broadband packages but Virgin neglected to mention that its traffic management system could cap those speeds during peak hours.
From 4pm to 9pm, downloaders exceeding a 300MB limit would have their speeds capped, making a joke of the ad that promised that certain 2MB customers could download a 30 minute TV show (c. 341MB) in 26 minutes.
A complaint by rival BT has just been upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The ASA said:
"We considered that one of the main objectives of the ad was to highlight the speed with which customers could download a TV show on all three of Virgin Media's packages and, in the absence of any clarifying text, readers were likely to understand that those speeds applied at all times. We considered that the text "Acceptable usage policy applies" did not make the peak time restrictions clear and it would not be unreasonable for readers to expect to be able to download at least one half-hour TV show on the M package, or several half-hour TV shows on the L package, during the five hours of the peak time period without breaching Virgin's traffic management system and having their speed capped. Because that was not the case we concluded that the ad was misleading."
So what does that mean for punters and repeat offender, Virgin?
Fines for Virgin? Free surfing for a week? Apologies? Nothing really. Virgin has been told to make future ads clearer and not to be a naughty ISP in the future. In the meantime, how many hundreds of people signed up to the service on the basis of those ads? Still, it wouldn't be the first time that ISP's fudged or massaged download speed claims and it won't be the last.
If we didn't know that this was done by a user, we'd swear that this touchscreen Eee PC was made by Asus themselves. The video shows a super sensitive and responsive screen, flicking quickly up and down on a web page with either the finger or stylus. On a laptop of 10-inches or smaller—what we like to call "tardtops"—a touchscreen fits just perfectly. Why get a Kindle when you have a light, touchscreen laptop that can be carried with you and supports lots of colors?
Ubisoft and TransGaming have announced a partnership which will see the release of several Ubisoft titles on the Mac via the Cider Portability Engine.
Catz, Dogz, and CSI: Hard Evidence will be the first titles released under the partnership.
"To expand our business position and serve the growing Mac gaming community, additional key titles will follow later this year, including several day-and-date releases this Fall," said Jay Cohen, senior vice president of publishing at Ubisoft.
Ubisoft also announced that it has signed a distribution agreement with Square-Enix for the Nintendo DS version of Final Fantasy IV.
The agreement will see Ubisoft distributing the title - currently scheduled for a summer release - in Australia, New Zealand, Benelux, France and Iceland.
If you signed on to the PlayStation Network last night to get Trophies for Super Stardust HD, you may have noticed a humble expansion nestled in the title's in-game store. At the time this article was written, the pack is not mentioned or linked anywhere on the PlayStation Store and can only be purchased in-game, though this is sure to change tomorrow when the store updates.
Called the Team Expansion, this new pack adds several features to the experience. Split-screen co-op and various deathmatch modes have been added, as well as a Ship Editor for tweaking your heroic little vessel. A new Orchestral soundtrack was also added, joining the Default and Retro soundtracks already in place.
The expansion can be purchased for $4.99, though you're really just purchasing the expansion key. From the looks of things, the content is already installed during the free software update that adds Trophy support, version 4.00.
PC develop Topware Interactive, known for titles such as Emergency - Fighters for Life, Earth 2150 and Jagged Alliance 2, have won a court ruling against four people who uploaded Dream Pinball 3D to the torrents.
The uploaders (good name for a band there) were each ordered to pay £750 fines plus costs of about £2,000 after being found to have breached copyright, says the free paper we found on a seat on the Tube this morning.
Topware's solicitors says it obtained disclosure orders for 1,000 names from internet service providers (ISPs) and they intend to use them later this week.
David Gore, a partner at the solicitors, said: "Copyright owners spend millions of pounds developing copyright works for sale to the public for their enjoyment and yet many think it is acceptable to obtain the work illegally and for free by procuring a copy on a peer-to-peer network."
Details on BioWare's first MMO are rarer than finding money on the floor. But company CEOs Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk have expressed their interest for bringing a MMO to console systems. And that's like finding £14 scattered on the floor outside the chippy.
"We're excited about the future," said Muzyka to MTV in an interview. "We think there's potential for an MMO on a console."
Muzyka addressed the problems of console MMO development - storage capacity, player connectivity and voice chat - but added that moving from the PC was not only achievable, but inevitable.
Considering the MMO is widely tapped to be KotOR III, it would make sense also to bring it to console. After all, the first game was one of the best selling games on the original Xbox.
Muzyka also spoke a little about what to expect from the game, claiming he'd offer players options and choices rather than forcing them to do things like group up.
"They can tailor their experience", he said. "This is what we're trying to do with our game, as well. This is why we tend to not make linear games. The consumer expects that."
We'd bet if you press your ear to the floor right now, you'd be able actually hear the hype machine starting to roll out of the station. One thing's for sure - it's about to get a hell of a lot louder...
After searching my username for no apparent reason on the net, I found out that you guys actual use this program so I updated it so it's better
For starters I changed the save system, and ALL save files will be saved to a PEAS folder on the root of your card. You must make the folder in order for it to save properly, as the program doesn't make one.
changes:
-10 save slots
-A cursor to show where you are erasing/lifting pen
-change the file name to save(#).peas
-use a "PEAS" folder, for .peas files.
-Doesn't draw a dot until the pen has moved.
Controls are as follows(pretty much the same as before):
A=Lift Pen(hold)
B=Eraser(hold)
R=Precision mode(hold)
L=Clear screen
Y=Quick Save
X=Quick Load
Start=Save Slot+1
Select=Save slot-1
Arrow keys/Stylus = draw
Sony has pulled the 2.40 firmware update from both its in-console update and website after some users reported that the firmware has bricked their system. SCEA PR director Patrick Seybold told Joystiq that Sony is "looking into it right now and will work with those customers directly to address any issues they may be experiencing." Has it bricked your system? Let us know in the comments below.
Last we heard form Openmoko, it was packing and shipping the open-source FreeRunner for an early July release. So, here we are in early July and wouldn't you know it, the FreeRunner will be available for order starting Friday, July 4 with shipping to begin on Monday, July 7. As for details, we got 'em. The shipped version of the phone will come in both 850Mhz and 900Mhz Tri-band GSM flavors with a 2.8-inch VGA touchscreen, WiFi, AGPS, GPRS 2.5G, Bluetooth 2.0, 128MB WSDRAM, and 256MB NAND flash. If you're down with all that, look to pay $399 on Friday at www.openmoko.com.
Daaaamn, talk about clout. If DigiTimes' sources are correct, then Samsung, the world's primary supplier of flash memory, just told its non-Apple customers to suck it in favor of a "large batch of orders" it received from Cupertino. The order is said to be for 50-million "8Gb-equivalent" (we assume they mean gigabyte, or GB) NAND chips "mainly for use in Apple's iPhone." This order follows a June procurement for 25 million of the same chips. In response, Samsung has reportedly told its lesser customers that it would "sharply cut supply" of NAND to them while the order is being fulfilled. The shortage is compounded by Samsung lowering its manufacturing output in April and May in an attempt to reduce oversupply. Still, if these numbers are true (they seem high and DigiTimes can be hit or miss with its Apple sources) then the world is about to be awash in iPhone 3Gs come July 11th.
Update: We've given the Gigabits vs. Gigabytes a bit more thought. If it's 50 million 8Gbit chips as stated, they would divide evenly across about 2.1 million 8GB iPhone 3Gs plus another 2.1 million 16GB models. A reasonable production run for Apple's global launch but an order which shouldn't be so taxing on Samsung's production capability. Something doesn't add up.
Earlier today Sony launched firmware V2.40 for the PS3 which is mandatory for online play. Too my horror after installing the update my console wouldn't boot, and this appears to be a not uncommon problem affecting PS3's of all age and model. Although there is rampant fanboy denial over at the official Playstation forums, the Kotaku article details issue and has a suggested solution if you don't mind yanking your PS3's hard drive
Get ready to hit the seedier side of Tokyo and slug it out in HD – Yakuza 3 is coming. The "real" Yakuza 3. As first reported on 2chan, the latest issue of Famitsu quotes Yakuza series director Toshihiro Nagoshi as stating that the game is a direct sequel to Yakuza 2, and is in development exclusively for PS3.
Nagoshi states in the Famistu article that Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan! – which is set in Edo-era Japan – is actually considered a spin-off from the "main" Ryu ga Gotoku series (Yakuza here in the West). No release date has been announced for the series' third (well, technically fourth) installment, but we'll keep you posted.
Ensemble Studios' Bruce Shelley says that "several demo stations" of Halo Wars will be available at E3. This is generally considered good news, because it means Halo Wars has gotten to the point where it's no longer held in captivity by the developers who don't want anybody to touch a thing. It also eases our fears of further delays following Ensemble's "when it's done" quote from last month.
We will certainly have hands-on impressions of the game at E3 and with luck, we'll be able to nail down a more solid release window. We keep hope alive that Halo Wars, built from the ground up for the Xbox 360, could finally figure out the RTS genre for consoles.
You may disagree, but we think this MacBook Air keyboard mod for the iPhone looks super neat. The package installs directly from Installer.app and gives your on-screen board the black separated look that the standard MacBook and the MacBook Air both feature. It's just cosmetic, and doesn't affect your typing performance in any way—unless of course you type faster when you see black plastic. It also uninstalls without destroying your phone, which is a plus. Grab it now, but you might have to add this repository (http://planet-iphones.com/repository/) first.
Never one to give up on a dead horse, Sony Online Entertainment today announced that they are launching an online trading card game version of Star Wars Galaxies.
Following in the footsteps of Legends of Norrath: Oathbound, Champions of the Force will be playable through your SOE online account. Playing the virtual trading card game will require a "fully-paid subscription" to Star Wars Galaxies.
The game will let you play on either the light or the dark sides and play on your own or against other players. Hit up the jump for the full run down of the card game as well as some of the other things SOE and LucasArts are doing to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the MMO.
Once again, you must take up the role of famed ninja Ryu Hayabusa, one of the last remaining of the Dragon Lineage. The Greater fiends plot to envelope the world in darkness and chaos, and Ryu is the world's last hope.(again.) Fight through a multitude of levels from tombs to volcanos as you battle to stop the fiend's ambitions.
A Ninja's story. Rated PG.
Ninja Gaiden isn't known for its amazingly in-depth storylines, or just about anything pertaining to the story. Rather, its known by its console versions for having absurd stories, that are often so wacky that they become good. Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword isn't so easy to classify. Unlike the console versions Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword is aimed at the younger age group, obviously in response to the DS main customers. This means that the story won't be bloody, or nasty, or violent, or erotic, or whatever the normal Ninja Gaidens tend to do. Bare in mind though, that this isn't necessarily bad. The story itself isn't near as random as the other NGs, and its character design shows a good bit of cartoon influence. The characters each look as though they came out of an anime rather then the normal getting-to-realism look that Team Ninja primarily does. Still, some of the story is linear and you-saw-that-coming-miles-away, often during parts that are supposed to surprise you. As far as a 6-14 year olds game goes, though, the story is perfectly fitting. Cartoony characters combines with the classic 'caring' hero(I'll be honest with you. I do NOT see Ryu Hayabusa caring about pretty much anything but his duties. This game thinks otherwise.) with, while its still a bit unique, a linear and stereotypical story makes for a very well marketed NDS game.
Again--damn, Ninjas look good
Dragon Sword did for the DS what Team Ninja does for just about every console and game--created great looking character models with very fluent animations. Ryu looks spectacular, and even in his fast flurry of attacks you can see some very nice animation if you look closely enough.(Animation in a game has always been my favorite graphical part. If animation looks crappy, then...no.) Enemies are a bit different. While still sporting some decent looking Character models, compared to Ryu, Momijii and the bosses, they don't look as good. Mainly spider-ninjas and ware-wolves, but all around they do still look nice. Just not great. Enemy animations are still in tact though, as you can relate each one to its root animations in Ninja Gaiden Xbox. Most, anyway. Backgrounds are diverse and colorful, but interaction is non-existent. Unless there is a puzzle or a door, there is zero interaction with the environment. The freestyle running of the Ninja Gaidens has been taken out. There is a reason for this though. The backgrounds look 3D, but don't be too fooled, too fast. Most backgrounds, with a few exceptions, are fully 2D textures. That doesn't stop them from LOOKING 3D though, and to this day, the look has always been what matters most, not the technical ideas in place. As for technical stuff, even in the biggest battles I have never experienced a framerate drop. Clipping is very rare, and the whole engine is rather solid. Seems most DS game engines are that I've played. Ninpo effects are actually sprites(most of them), but they all look well done, and do give you the feeling that you have a little control over nature itself.
Insert Rocky Balboa Music here.
Ninja Gaiden Black, sound off
Sound. The music mostly consists only of music from the original NG. Some lighter hearted songs were added in, probably because of the games younger audience. These are mainly in the Hayabusa village and other non-action parts of the game. But lets get something straight--it may be recycled, but that doesn't mean its all too bad. Annoying to my nerves, simply because I've played NG black before, but to most, it will seem like a decent and well placed soundtrack. Nothing amazing, but it certainly works for what it does. Sound effects also have been recycled, but there are a good bit of new ones in there. All dialogue is text; no voice acting. While it may be a shame to have no voice acting considering the job of the voice actors in the first NG it may or may not be so bad. You decide.
Young Ryu? Nope. Nintendo Ryu.
A furious fighting action title
To let out a summery of whats to come: This game rocks. Gameplay. The core gameplay is just like the console NGs, i.e., slashing bashing and dicing enemies, while enjoying some light platforming puzzles. One may thing at first that Ninja Gaiden, being a usual button-masher game wouldn't fit well at all on the DS. Errrrr. The touch screen was made for these kinds of games. Unlike the normal NGs, Dragon sword has you play with only one hand. You hold the DS like you would a book, and use the touch screen vertically. To attack opponents you merely need to slash them with your stylus. Though it isn't that simple. Certain stylus movements string certain combos, and this game has combos aplenty. Despite having only one melee weapon, the Dragon Sword(I know, I know. I really wanted the Vigoorian Flails in there too.) there are multitudes of combos to pull off, including fan favorites such as the Izuna drop and the Flying Swallow. Buying upgrades for the sword and some extra combo scrolls boost the amount of attacks you can do. The only real annoyance with the combat system is to block you must press a button, often the left bumper where your other hand will be. But to roll, you have to touch a part on the screen, often making Ryu roll in the wrong direction. Besides that minor problem, the melee combat is one of the best on DS, though they really missed out without multiple melee weapons. Like past NG games, you also have ranged weapons, such as the bow and shurikan. Except this time, neither is useless and neither is boring. Simply tap the part of the screen you with to throw/shoot your weapon. Yes thats right, shurikan doesn't suck this time around.(Yeah I know, right?) Ninpo magic is like Ninpo on steroids. You can (and always do) take out many enemies with each massive ninpo you use, and there is a wide variety of element based magics in this game. Not all is good though. At most you can only use Ninpo one time before you must find another dragon statue to recharge it. About the dragon statues. They save, give you full health, and recharge your ninpo. However, in this game you can do that an infinite amount of times. Enemy combat is like watered down Ninja Gaiden. Nowhere near as hard, the enemies pose little threat until about chapter 6, where it starts to build up in difficulty. Even though it gets a bit challenging later on, by comparison this game has nothing on its console brothers in the way of difficulty. Enemies still do have cheap grab attacks, as per usual. Boss battles are linear, but fun. As conclusion to this paragraph, I'd say its probably one of the best DS action title I've ever played.
Bosses are big and scary, but they're generally pushovers.
2 Ninjas, 2 play-throughs. Maybe?
After you beat the game, you get hard mode, which you won't beat. You also get some art. Finding all the Purple birds may be an addicting challenge. Momijji's campaign is fun, but short. Even Ryu's campaign is rather short, take only about 5-8 hours to beat, depending on how thorough you are. This game will last you a good time, but its not exactly the kinda of the the others were, where you had a huge multitude of unlockables. Trade it in after your done, but not until you DONE done.
mmmKay.
Major Selling Points:
-- Fast and furious Ninja Action
-- Looks great, good design
-- Authentic Ninja Gaiden experience(unlike Sigma. You know why.)
-- Endearing, if wacky, story
Major breaking Points:
-- May prove not difficult enough
-- Only a single melee weapon
-- Watered down Ninja Gaiden 2
Story: 3.5/5
Really not too bad. It does have some overly linear plot developments though, and is aimed mainly on the younger crowd.
Graphics: 4.5/5
Spectacular characters and design. Backgrounds look good, which really matter. Interaction doesn't exist.
Sound: 4/5
Its recycled Ninja Gaiden, sure. So?
Gameplay: 4.5/5
A great, authentic Ninja Gaiden experience. Deep hack and slash fighting, and some light puzzles.
Replayability: 3.5/5
There really is little to do after the first play through. The second campaign some may want to do though.
Value: 4/5
$40 may be a bit steep, but this is one of the DS finest. At least deserves a rent. And yes, Blockbuster does rent out NDS games.
Overall:
It may be Ninja Gaiden Lite, but the touch screen works something great, and all the ideas of NG are in tact. A great action game on DS; easily one of the best.
Stella, the great Atari 2600 emulator, can be compiled for Yellowdog Linux on Playstation 3. EmuWikiAdmin has published the steps if you don't know how to compile programs on YDL. There is also a configuration file that already has the Playstation 3 joystick mapped and corrects a small menu display bug.
Emulation, speed, and sound are perfect.
''There's probably more to come, I'll go around the good Linux emulators like those for Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Atari, Playstation, Genesis etc... and try to see if they can compile and if speed can be improved so come back for some more guides. I can already tell you that I found what was wrong with SNES9X being very slow for a lot of people, it is now running full speed and I should publish this very soon.''
PSP coder Dark_AleX released the second version of the SaveStates plug-in for the PSP Slim.
Changelog:
- Fixed important bug in inter-thread code (semaphore wasn't waiting due to interrupts disabled), that caused the load state to not be completely read in some cases. This caused black screen after state load (unless you just saved that state, in this case state was still in ram), or even worse, game not working properly due to partial load.
- Added states per game basis. The controls are slightly different: old controls now do a local savestate/loadstate of the game, while pressing additionally select button will save/load a global state. See instructions for more info.
- Fixed bug that caused normal sleep mode waking up inmediately.
- UMD discs and isos in normal UMD mode are now supported. Check out the Readme for more details.
Note: Remember that states of the old version are all globals, and you need to press select addtionaally. Also, remember that when doing the load state of a state saved in previous version,
the plugin in ram after the load will be the old one, so it is probably better to discard old
save states.
Lest you have no idea what Bungie Day is, that's Monday, July 7 (7/7, get it?). Yes, starting on July 7, Halo 3's newest map Cold Storage will be available on Xbox Live Marketplace absolutely free. Not only that, but Microsoft will also be lowering the price of the Legendary Map Pack from 800 Microsoft Points to 600 Microsoft Points. The best part of all is that these prices will become the permanent prices of the content. In other words, Cold Storage and the Legendary Map Pack price drop aren't part of the limited time, one day only Bungie Day goodies that will be on Marketplace. Joy!
In celebration of Bungie Day and the release of Cold Storage, a special 48-hour free for all playlist is going up. Specific details are sparse, but Bungie's Luke Smith promises that players will be able to control "Rockets, Invis and Snipe." Mmmm ... sounds nice and spammy. Finally, "one last thing" about Cold Storage is set to drop some time today on Bungie.net. Keep your eyes glued to X3F for whatever that may be.
Welcome to this week's Games Update, our weekly summary featuring all new product arrivals from the last seven days.
Plenty US version games are released this week, this includes the much awaited Final Fantasy Tactics A2: The Grimoire of the Rift. Once again, explore the realm of the fantasy and meet familiar characters such as Vaan and Penelo during your travels.
After coming out from the world of fantasy, step into the world's best tennis players's sports shoes, try out their signature moves and styles in Top Spin 3. This tennis game brings the generations of top tennis players together, so feel free to revive the veterans and pitch them against the current stars.
Rise to stardom in the rock music sphere after winning the tennis championship. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith features the performances of the top bands and hit songs. Like tennis players, the legendary band has their distinctive moves and playing technique, be sure to try them out on the guitar.
Step off the stage and enter the Phantom Fortress with Naruto and your team of ninjas. Battle your way through the hallways and your opponent's team with the coolest techniques, brought to you by one of the most finely designed battle systems.
Travel back time to the WWII era in Hellboy: Science of Evil and Operation Darkness. Hitler and the Nazis are back, this time with insane plots or regiments of supernatural creatures to back him up. Bring these plans down with your superpowers as Hellboy or your own team of elite soldiers in Operation Darkness.
As for Japanese games, Intial D Extreme Stage [Asian and Japanese versions] came out this week after five long years. Race through the mountain paths as your favourite character in your favourite car. This time, there are even more cars, race courses and racers to choose from.
Chill yourself out with Nanashi no Game in this summer heat. This game blends horror within your reality seamlessly by making use of the life-like images and surround sound. Figure out the mysteries of the game before the end of the week to escape your otherwise inevitable death.
Lastly, a sleek, red hot PlayStation2 console has arrived. Although the PlayStation3 is already out, it is a good idea to own a PlayStation2 console as there are still plenty of cool PlayStation2 games out there and more are releasing, as you will see in the preview.
As usually, here's a summary of all new releases from this week, followed by a quick preview of what is expected to be hot next week.
Xbox360™
Alone in the Dark US US$ 64.90
Battlefield: Bad Company US US$ 64.90
Battlefield: Bad Company Gold Edition US US$ 79.90
Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath US US$ 49.90
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith ASIA US$ 59.90
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith US US$ 64.90
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Bundle US N/A
HORI Fighting Stick EX2 (Soul Calibur IV Limited Edition) US US$ 79.90
Hail to the Chimp US US$ 44.90
Hellboy: Science of Evil US US$ 64.90
Operation Darkness US US$ 64.90
Supreme Commander US US$ 64.90
Top Spin 3 US US$ 64.90
PlayStation3™
Battlefield: Bad Company US US$ 64.90
Battlefield: Bad Company Gold Edition US US$ 79.90
Boku no Natsuyasumi 3 (PlayStation3 the Best) JPN US$ 38.90
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Map Download Special Limited Edition) JPN US$ 79.90
Enchant Arm (PlayStation3 the Best) JPN US$ 34.90
Game Controller Logicool Chillstream (Black) JPN US$ 24.90
Game Controller Logicool Chillstream (Silver) JPN US$ 24.90
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith US US$ 64.90
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Bundle US US$ 129.90
HORI Fighting Stick 3 (Soul Calibur IV Limited Edition) US US$ 69.90
Hellboy: Science of Evil US US$ 64.90
Initial D Extreme Stage JPN US$ 74.90
Initial D Extreme Stage (w/ English manual) ASIA US$ 59.90
Ninja Gaiden Sigma (PlayStation3 the Best) ASIA US$ 34.90
Ninja Gaiden Sigma (PlayStation3 the Best) JPN US$ 38.90
Overlord: Raising Hell US US$ 64.90
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PlayStation3 the Best) ASIA US$ 34.90
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PlayStation3 the Best) JPN US$ 38.90
Top Spin 3 US US$ 64.90
Nintendo Wii™ Akko de Pon! Ikasama Hourouki JPN US$ 49.90
Alone in the Dark US US$ 54.90
Big Beach Sports US US$ 34.90
Charging Twin Station US$ 24.90
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith US US$ 59.90
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Bundle US US$ 129.90
Jawa: Mammoth to Himitsu no Ishi JPN US$ 59.90
Rock Band US US$ 59.90
Top Spin 3 US US$ 59.90
PlayStation2™
Alone in the Dark US US$ 44.90
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith US US$ 59.90
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Bundle (2 Wired Guitars) US US$ 159.90
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Bundle (Wireless) US US$ 129.90
L no Kisetsu 2: Invisible Memories JPN US$ 64.90
L no Kisetsu 2: Invisible Memories [Limited Edition] JPN US$ 89.90
PlayStation2 Console Cinnabar Red (SCPH-90000CR) JPN US$ 179.00
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters JPN US$ 49.90
Simple 2000 Series Vol. 123: The Office Love Jikenbou - Reijou Tantei JPN US$ 25.90
xxxHolic: Shigatsu Tsuitachi no Izayoi Sowa (Best Collection) JPN US$ 34.90
Nintendo DS™
American Girl: Kit Mystery Challenge US US$ 34.90
Cake Mania 2 US US$ 24.90
DSVision Starter Kit (w/ MicroSD 512MB Card) JPN US$ 39.90
Farm Life ASIA US$ 32.90
Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift US US$ 44.90
Gourmet Chef US US$ 34.90
Headphone DS Lite US US$ 9.99
Midnight Play Pack US US$ 24.90
My Weight Loss Coach US US$ 44.90
Nanashi no Game JPN US$ 48.90
Panpaka Panya-San JPN US$ 39.90
Pinky Street: Kira Kira * Music Hour KOR US$ 49.90
Riku to Johan: Kaeta Nimai no E JPN US$ 48.90
Top Spin 3 US US$ 34.90
Sony PSP™ Bleach: Heat the Soul 4 (PSP the Best) JPN US$ 29.90
Bleach: Heat the Soul 4 (PSP the Best) ASIA US$ 24.90
Hellboy: Science of Evil US US$ 39.90
Minna de Dokusho: Meisaku & Suiri & Kaidan & Bungaku JPN US$ 39.90
Namco Museum Battle Collection ASIA US$ 14.90
Naruto Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress US US$ 44.90
PC Games
Belief and Betrayal (DVD-ROM) ASIA US$ 34.90
King Mania ASIA US$ 14.90
Kung Fu Panda (DVD-ROM) ASIA US$ 31.90
Sins of a Solar Empire (DVD-ROM) ASIA US$ 37.90
Super Star Mahjong ASIA US$ 14.90
Trainz: The Complete Collection (DVD-ROM) ASIA US$ 37.90
Game Guides and Books
Alone in the Dark: Prima Official Game Guide US US$ 19.90
Arcadia Magazine [August 2008] JPN US$ 12.90
Battlefield: Bad Company: Prima Official Game Guide US US$ 19.90
Codes & Cheats Summer 2008 US US$ 9.90
Famitsu Wave DVD [August 2008] JPN US$ 16.50
Fate/complete material I Art material JPN US$ 52.90
Front Mission 2089: Border of Madness Official Complete Guide JPN US$ 24.90
Hellboy: The Science of Evil: Prima Official Game Guide US US$ 19.90
Mana Khemia 2: Ochita Gakuen to Renkinjutsushi Tachi Official Perfect Guide JPN US$ 31.90
Mugen no Frontier: Super Robot Taisen OG Saga Perfect Bible JPN US$ 24.90
Musou Orochi: Maou Sairin Character Setting Sourcebook JPN US$ 24.90
Sengoku Basara 2 Burning Soul JPN US$ 9.90
Sengoku Basara X Official Visual Guide JPN US$ 19.90
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann - Nia Fan Book JPN US$ 27.90
The German publishing company redspotgames, which also published Last Hope and will do the same thing to the upcoming game Wind&Water, has re-opened their website. They now have a shop and an overview of their games on their site.
In cooperation with Redspotgames, a publisher for self-developed Dreamcast titles, we are currently giving away three copies of the extremely rare Dreamcast game "Last Hope". "Last Hope" is a classic horizontal space-shooter in the style of "R-Type."
Sony Computer Entertainment has announced it will be launching the fourth version of the PlayStation 2 for the European and Indian market by October 28.
SCE country manager Atindriya Bose told the Indian Economic Times that the launch would be simultaneous in both markets and the that the new PS2 would be a slimmer model with in-built AC adapters.
"PS2 is an entry-level console, which helps first timers to enter the gaming zone," said Bose.
He further revealed that the new console, which will keep the RRP of the outgoing model, is aimed at penetrating India's and Russia's burgeoning market for games.
"We feel PS2 has the potential to penetrate further into the Indian and Russian markets. Console gaming is in its nascent stage in India. These are untapped markets and are new to the gaming world, hence we have no plans to phase out PS2 anytime soon," he added.
When asked if thought it would impact PS3 sales, Bose responded: "We do not market it as a PS2 or PS3. It is the experience of the PS that we market. PS3 is for the next generation. People who are first timers in the gaming market want to pick up PS2 and experience that, before upgrading to PS3," he said.
Sony has made a number of attempts over the past couple years to ingratiate itself with the Indian games market, including the opening of a studio in the region and signing up 13 local developers to work on games for the PS2.
The finalists for the SourceForge.net 2008 Community Choice Awards have been announced. ScummVM is proud to be nominated once again for best project in the "Best Project for Gamers" category (also in another one which we don't care that much if we win ;-) ).
Thanks to all our users who voted for us in the preliminaries. You have to vote for your favorite project one more time (hint: starts with "S", ends with "VM") to select the best of the best in SourceForge.net. So head on to the voting place and vote with your SourceForge.net username.
DKNute has posted more news of his impressive Dreamcast Emulator for Windows:
F355 Challenge works again. Turns out it was indeed SH4 recompiler bug - one that crept in with the introduction of MMU support. In short: right now all SH4 modules use common framework for interrupts and exceptions, and while converting TRAPA instruction to use that framework I've made a small mistake. Fixed.
The Skies of Arcadia bug is still there, unfortunately. Sometimes I can go in and out the game menu dozens of times (in rapid succession too) and it works. Then I restart the game, and it hangs on the very first try... You know, this might actually be a game bug, it just never manifests itself on Dreamcast due to much tighter corelation in timings on real hardware. Current PCs are faster but all operations exhibit a certain amount of lag (or should I rather call it "processing overhead") - well, only sometimes, but it happens every now and then and there's no control over it. It might take just a milisecond somewhere, when OS decides to switch threads at different time to balance CPU usage better for example, and there it goes. So... still looking into it.
I've came to belive that the same timing problem plagues GD code. It works for me (most of the time) but breaks horribly for other people. I've spent some time trying to determine the cause and I found out that SoA usually works, but will almost always crash at boot if I lower SH4 speed to some 150 MIPS. Curious, isn't it, especially if you consider GD-DMA speed is now tied to SH4 speed - so why does it even matter how fast it goes?
After a while I've noticed that in MT mode GD buffer becomes empty every now and then and this causes problems. Now, this is very unscientific explanation but my guess is BIOS booting procedure is kinda broken. Oversimplified. Maybe because it had to be short to fit all the code in cheaper and smaller ROM?
Anyway - a real GD drive isn't all that fast but once it starts reading, the data is being constantly streamed from disc to it's internal memory. And from there to Dreamcast main RAM via DMA. Think "hourglass" - constant stream of sand goes through. Now, on a PC it's more like a guy with shovel loading a truck. He can do way better in terms of quantity of sand moved but it's no longer a constant stream. If the truck is full it can supply us with all the sand we want but once it's empty it has to go back to the guy with shovel. If at this point we need more sand we either wait (that's blocking emulator for the read to complete) or go empty handed (DMA will finish later then usual and this might cause crash).
If you're smart you already see two ways to fix that. Either wait, as explained above, or... make the truck so big it will never become empty at the wrong time. In other words, make the GD data buffer at least the size of Dreamcast RAM, which is 16MB. And that's what I did yesterday and that really helped
This method isn't 100% fool-proof, as a real GD starts streaming data the moment the first read sector lands in its buffer. In our case loading some few MB might take longer and still fail because of that. This however wasn't a problem so far (or else the whole "offloading to thread" thing would not be possible) and let's hope it stays that way.
Marionette Company boots now, though there seem to be some geometry missing because I don't get text in dialog boxes at all... It's a WinCE game so maybe it's the Sort-DMA thing again?
And c'mon people, new version of Makaron isn't always going to be better than the last one. This is why I call my releases "Test", you know. So that you could TEST things, like new code and such. And report your findings back, maybe? Some people do - and I thank them for that.
Just because I'm not all over your problems when you report doesn't mean I disregard them. Still, I've no intention of answering each and every comment that shows up - this is a place in which I brag about how great I am, not a help desk.
Sony's PlayStation 3 Japanese console sales showed signs of catching up to those of the Nintendo Wii in June, according to the magazine publisher Enterbrain, as reported by Reuters.
The Wii still managed to outsell the PS3 by 1.7 to 1, putting it at the top of Japanese hardware sales for a seventh consecutive month, but the ratio has fallen significantly since the 6-to-1 lead the Wii had the month before.
The past few months have seen the PS3 reap the benefits of a number of high profile titles not available to the Wii that may have boosted console sales, including Grand Theft Auto IV and the PS3-exclusive title Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
According to Enterbrain, Nintendo Sold 235,990 Wii units of in the five weeks ended June 29, while Sony sold 139,494 PS3 console units.
2K Games has announced that veteran developer Digital Extremes will be helping to bring BioShock to PS3.
"Bringing Digital Extremes on board allows us to continue to deliver the best experience possible to our fans," says 2K president Chris Hartmann, who let's face it is probably a bit biased.
The fairy on top of Digital Extremes' Christmas tree of experience, of course, is its part in the development of the Unreal series - a job for which the Canadian studio proudly claims a co-creation credit.
Presumably, Digital Extremes' CV also rose to the top of the pile by virtue of its work on the recent cross-platform shooter Dark Sector.
Gears of War with a boomerang in some senses, it hardly set Dan Whitehead's world alight when he reviewed it, but it won praise in Round Eleven of our Face-Off series, with Rich Leadbetter making a quietly impressed face at Digital Extremes' very own Evolution Engine.
BioShock is, of course, quite a big deal. The tiny portion of shots currently available in the PS3 cafeteria are showing promise, but there's an awful lot to live up to in the game's original PC and Xbox 360 incarnations, with GOTY plaudits flying around like drinks at an epilepsy conference.
Digital Extremes CEO James Schmalz is confident, stating that "You really can't ask for a more exciting, technically impressive world to work in than Rapture, and the incredible knowledge and talent between the 2K studios and our team at Digital Extremes is unprecedented." The truth, inevitably, will be in the shiny, genetically mutated pudding.
BioShock is due on PS3 in October of this year. Start practicing holding your breath underwater now.
I'm here to release LightMP3 version 2.0.0 BETA 2.
Q: Why still in beta?
A: Because I'm very busy with my work at the moment (and it will be this way at least 'til october/november) and in 2.0.0 I'd like to add support to language like korean and japanese, correctly read filename with foreign chars...
A lot of crash due to strange ID3v2 values has been fixed, if you find a bug please report it.
If the application crash opening an MP3 file with coverart saved in the ID3v2 tag please try to remove (or change) the image with some tagging software (like mp3tag)...maybe I'll ad an option to disable the coverart from ID3v2.
Note: Install the application in your GAME3xx directory or be sure you set kernel 3.x for the GAME folder. If you run it under kernel 1.50 it will crash in some circumstances. Tested and working on CF 4.01 M33-2.
Any feedback is appreciated.
Many thanks to: coach777, giuseppissimo, fabiom, SP1950, netk_jerry (and all the others that I forgot) for testing.
PS3's long-awaited answer to Achievements, Trophies have arrived "too late" to be supported by the console's number one FPS Call of Duty 4, developer Infinity Ward has revealed.
The Trophies feature was added in the now pulled 2.4 firmware update, which also briefly added the long-awaited in-game XMB before Sony realised it was bricking some consoles.
In a post on its official forums, company spokesperson Fourzerotwo said that if support for the feature was available earlier, the developer would've loved to have supported it in its acclaimed FPS.
"At this time, we have no plans to patch in Trophy support for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the PS3," the post reads. "Much like DualShock rumble addition to the PS3, the support for these new features have come much to late for us to add it to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare due to our current production schedule.
"We would have loved to have these in the game at launch if the support was available, or shortly after."
Sony's PSN boss Eric Lempel said the platform holder will fully support any developers who want to patch trophies into their games that are already on sale. Infinity Ward's decision doesn't give us much confidence in seeing many other devs going back for a retro-fit, though.
"We're fully supporting first and third parties that want to patch, and of course those that want to implement this system going forward with new titles," said Lempel.
And here we were thinking Epic was just going to let Gears of War 2 slip quietly onto the market with a minimum of fuss (ie PR). Guess not. No sooner do we get a ton of multiplayer shots than we get some singleplayer shots (well, a few, the rest are more like postcards for game environments), showing what the game will look like when you're not running around cussing at strangers and racking up cheap shotgun kills.
About
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This is just a simple prx that i made to put the psp more organize. it organize the game folder into 2 folders ( games & apps). you can switch between this two folder by the click of a button.
Installation
------------
First create Two folders in the ms0:/psp/ folder and called them games and apps. transfer all your Games to the games folder
and all your applications to the apps folder. then delete the normal game folder( this is important or else the prx wont work) then
Just copy CHANGE-D.prx to your SEPLUGINS folder and add the line:
ms0:/seplugins/CHANGE-D.prx
vsh.txt, enable it in your recovery menu and you are able to use it.
Usage
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L Trigger button to switch between games and apps. Everytime you do this you must select the memorycard in one
of the other section in vsh and the go back to the memory card in the game section( this is because you need to
let the vsh reread the memorycard game section)
So we heard from a very reliable source that mobile user interface guru Matias Duarte -- who you may know as the man behind the Sidekick and Helio UI / user experiences -- actually left Helio late last year to join up with Palm. Although no announcement was made, we hear he and his gang of designers jumped ship (well before Helio completely flooded) to take on the monumental task of designing the UI for Palm's next-gen mobile OS (aka "Palm OS 2.0 or II"). We got in touch with Palm, who confirmed that he's under the company's employ, and his resume online now lists him as "Senior Director, Human Interface and User Experience" doing "Something new..." since September 2007.
Of course, expectations should be pretty high -- Palm's only been promising this supposedly game-changing OS since around 2004, and the company's reputation and pedigree is (or at least it used to be) in groundbreaking mobile UI design. But this news also kind of makes us wonder: if they didn't have a killer UI and user experience team already in place and long-since working their asses off by late 2007, exactly how far along are they on this thing, anyway?
Given that Gateway just pushed out a round of updates including the relatively ginormous P Series, we reckon it was only logical to expect a review shortly. To be frank, the P-6831FX critiqued over at HotHardware is far from being the most potent machine with a 17-inch panel, but unlike many of its luxurious competitors, this one is actually affordable. So, how much gaming joy can $1,349.99 bring you? Quite a bit when the 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTS and 3GB of RAM are included. Reviewers found gaming performance to be downright remarkable, though the 1.67GHz CPU did hamper it a bit in other areas. It should be noted that the unit now arrives with a slightly faster CPU among other minor extras, so if it was good then, we're guessing it's a runaway winner now.
In case you didn't get the message, Sony's due sooner-rather-than-later 27-inch OLED is going to be priced for the Mark Cubans, Bill Gates' and other people not you of the world, at least for the next couple of years. Even with recent massive investments, U.S. head Stan Glasgow tells CNET OLEDs in the future could be seen as a premium alternative to LCDs, but don't expect Sony to jump on smaller screens while they wait for the technology to catch up, HDTV is the focus. As for the upcoming standard def-streaming Hancock experiment? The first of many, if things go well, while at the same time he acknowledges format war winner Blu-ray may not penetrate to the same level as DVD since "a lot of people may be happy with an upconverting DVD player" -- which would be music to Toshiba's ears.
july 4 was the date, but hey, what's the harm in opening up the floodgates just a handful of hours early? Get past the lack of 3G, EDGE, camera, and a rock-solid set of tested, commercialized apps, and open-source phoning nirvana can now be yours for $399 on the plastic.
Nanowires being used for memory is hardly a new idea, but a group of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania seem confident that they've found a way to leapfrog the competition, and shake up storage devices as we know them. Unlike other nanowire-based memory methods, their system employs a non-binary form of nanowire memory, which makes it possible to store three bit values (0, 1, and 2) instead of the usual two (0 and 1) -- crazy talk, we know. That, the researchers say, allows for a "huge increase" in memory density, with fewer nanowires needed to store the same amount of information as a binary nanowire-based memory system, which'd also make the actual devices smaller. Of course, that's assuming any of this stuff actually gets out of the lab, which seems to be a long ways off at best.
If you're tired of waiting for ASUS to offer a touchscreen option for the Eee PC 900 (or you're the proud owner of an existing unit), jkkmobile is happy to show you their shortcut to touchy-feely nirvana. As we've seen on all those other Eees, installing the touch panel into the 900 doesn't seem to be extraordinarily difficult for those with a few mods under their belt and a reliable Chinese parts supplier. For those who'd prefer to simply watch from the sidelines, you can peek the video after the break and lots more photos in the read link.
All you Nerds worried about wasting Mounds of time waiting for Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise should stop being such Airheads. The anticipated sequel will be Star-bursting onto the scene on Sept. 2 in North and Latin America and Sept. 5 in Europe and the UK. That leaves plenty of Paydays for you Smarties to save up the $59.99 you need to buy it. That's not a Whopper of a price ... much less than the 100 Grands it would take to travel to ... Whatchamacallit ... Mars.
Beyond some crappy scans and lots of speculation, real info on the WiiWare return of Mega Man has been scant. Well, GamesRadar just opened the flood gates with its exclusive, proper reveal of Mega Man 9, featuring a hands-on by Nintendo editor Brett Elston and an interview with series creator (and MM9 producer) Keiji Inafune.
Elston reports that Mega Man 9 is ... well, it's essentially an NES game – just as difficult as the original 8-bit installments of the famed series. "Mega Man 9 is easily on par or above the hardest games in the series," Elston says, adding: "Hell, we played for two hours and only made it to three bosses, and even then only beat two." Read on after the break for more new info.
No sooner does Sony (briefly) improve the PS3 user interface with the much-talked-about version 2.4 firmware update, than some at the company feel cocky enough to start badmouthing the competition's interface. Speaking to Next-Gen, PlayStation Network Director of Operations Eric Lempel took the bait in taking a few moments to compare Sony's redesigned PlayStation Store to Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace. "I think if I look over at the competitors' UI they may have some issues just displaying content," Lempel said, "and scrolling up and down lists isn't the easiest way to find things." Tell that to McSweeny's, why don'tcha?
Lempel also pointedly pointed out that the PlayStation Store interface has "a lot of room with virtual shelf space to put a lot of things," a not-so-subtle jab at Microsoft's recently announced plan to de-list some Xbox Live Arcade games. "Depending on what type of UI you have you can accommodate a lot of titles," Lempel continued, "and specifically with our new store redesign which launched back in April we have a great ability to merchandise a wide variety of titles." That's all well and good, assuming your PS3 is currently working.
No sooner does Sony (briefly) improve the PS3 user interface with the much-talked-about version 2.4 firmware update, than some at the company feel cocky enough to start badmouthing the competition's interface. Speaking to Next-Gen, PlayStation Network Director of Operations Eric Lempel took the bait in taking a few moments to compare Sony's redesigned PlayStation Store to Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace. "I think if I look over at the competitors' UI they may have some issues just displaying content," Lempel said, "and scrolling up and down lists isn't the easiest way to find things." Tell that to McSweeny's, why don'tcha?
Lempel also pointedly pointed out that the PlayStation Store interface has "a lot of room with virtual shelf space to put a lot of things," a not-so-subtle jab at Microsoft's recently announced plan to de-list some Xbox Live Arcade games. "Depending on what type of UI you have you can accommodate a lot of titles," Lempel continued, "and specifically with our new store redesign which launched back in April we have a great ability to merchandise a wide variety of titles." That's all well and good, assuming your PS3 is currently working.
Sony has revised a remark made by Eric Lampel that "every game" would eventually feature Trophies. What Lampel likely meant, and what he apparently relayed to GameSpot is that at some point, all new PlayStation 3 releases -- both first- and third-party -- will feature Trophies. Sony has clarified that Trophy patches for existing games are the responsibility of the games' respective publishers and developers, and we should not expect to "ultimately" enjoy a complete catalog with Trophy support.
Insomniac has already pledged its intent to stay focused on Resistance 2, passing up the invitation to add Trophies to its previous titles, the first Resistance and Ratchet and Clank Future. Also joining the "much too late" camp, are Infinity Ward and 2K Games, both releasing statements (here & here) that affirm there are no plans to add Trophies to Call of Duty 4 and Civilization Revolution.
A little ninja scampered across our screen to bring news that Metanet, developer of N+, has three level packs for the Xbox Live Arcade version of the game ready and waiting. According to a post on Metanet's blog, the downloadable content has already been submitted to Microsoft for certification, although it has yet to receive a release date.
The post also reveals that one of the three packs will be free, and that, in total, the DLC-drop contains more than 750 new maps (roughly 300 of which are mutliplayer levels). The maps are reportedly "a lot better than the ones that came with N+" due to the fact that Metanet has "had more time to learn what works." We know what works: 750 more reasons to love the stylish and seductively simple ninja platformer.
Like the rumbling of thunder in the distance, an unstoppable force is audibly and rapidly approaching us. Soon, a cacophony of clicks will ring through our ears, the reverberating result of posting an article which not only concerns Halo 3, but prominently features the word "free." What have we done?
Bungie's Luke Smith has announced via Bungie.net that "Cold Storage," a chilly new multiplayer map for everybody's favorite cyborg shoot-em-up, will be downloadable -- for free -- from the Xbox Live Marketplace beginning Monday Bungie Day, July 7. The map will be implemented in regular rotation in playlists that require the Legendary Map Pack, which will also drop from 800 MS Points ($10) to 600 MS Points ($7.50) on the same day. If you haven't tried those environments out yet, now's the time to join in on the gradual extermination of Earth's population.
2K Games has announced a partnership with Dark Sector developer, Digital Extremes, to aid in the completion of the PlayStation 3 version of superb submerged shooter, BioShock. Digital Extremes is the fourth studio to join the project -- 2K Marin, 2K Australia and 2K Boston have already dove in -- and aims to give PS3 players a "fully optimized experience," complete with new features and content. And trophies, probably.
James Schmalz, CEO and founder of Digital Extremes, noted that the decision to work on the critically acclaimed project didn't even require a brain. "When 2K approached us to assist with development on BioShock for the PLAYSTATION 3 system, it was a no-brainer," he said. "You really can't ask for a more exciting, technically impressive world to work in than Rapture, and the incredible knowledge and talent between the 2K studios and our team at Digital Extremes is unprecedented." Apparently, when it launches this October, BioShock will make the PS3 "sing with Big Daddy goodness and Little Sister 'thank you's'."
Activision announced this morning that Guitar Hero: On Tour is booking gigs all over and has sold 300,000 units in its first week. The publisher states that GH:OT is the company's best launch on the DS by a factor of eight; not only that, but it's also one of the top five best-selling launches "in the company's history."
Activision's Mike Griffith -- who's probably still high from his $1.5 million bonus -- is excited about GH:OT's "breakthrough peripheral" bringing the Guitar Hero experience to the potential 41 million DS owners in NA and Europe. All we know is we'll have entered a strange new world if we start seeing people playing this game on public transportation.
The first time we all saw big headed Mii's strolling around the plaza, we imagine we all had the same thought: Animal Crossing on the Wii is a lock. But here we are, a year-and-a-half after the system's release, and we still haven't gotten to use a Wiimote to rock with KK Slider. However, if we're reading a hint in UK's Official Nintendo Magazine right, the wait may nearly be over.
The magazine's latest issue features a still from the Animal Crossing-verse with the quote "It's been a while! It's time to revisit an old friend. How's your village doing these days?" Is that enough for us to bet on seeing a new Crossing game at E3? Yes. But it should also be known: We're addicted to gambling.
Ninja Gaiden 2 will receive Mission Mode as DLC on July 25, according to a post on NeoGAF. Mission Mode, if similar to the original iteration introduced in Ninja Gaiden Black, drops Ryu into an arena setting and lets him go on a flippin' awesome ninja killin' spree. There is currently no price attached to the new Mission Mode DLC.
The possibility of a Mission Mode should come as good news to NG II players who don't find dressing up Ryu like a Ken doll a worthwhile activity. But, let's be honest, if it's anything like the original Mission Mode, shouldn't it have been shipped with the game or, and we're hoping this is the case, at least be free?
Google's brand new Gtalk webapp for the iPhone is as crappy as I expected it would be. It has a nice design, and sending messages was easy, but at the end of the day it's still running in Safari—which means if you get a call you are signed out of chat. And unlike other web-based IM apps, Gtalk doesn't work in the background, so interruptions as simple as going to the home screen sign you out too. Also, there are no preference settings, so you are stuck looking at your whole contact list, online and off. Gtalk's AIM support is also curiously absent from this release. In short, this program sucks. If you're looking for a solid IM solution before the App store opens, I strongly recommend Agile Mobile's AM client recently released on Installer, which I've been playing around with.
Here's an interesting fact about Microsoft Points—the fake currency used in the Xbox 360 and Zune Marketplaces—that we just learned yesterday: points expire. If you've got promotional, contest, or giveaway points from Microsoft for doing something or other, you should check out their billing site. These actually expire after a given time. The good news is that points you buy normally don't expire, and would be completely ridiculous otherwise. Just keep an eye on your stuff.
Sony's latest PlayStation 3 firmware update 2.4 brought what the fanboys have been crying about since the console's inception—in-game access to the console's Cross Media Bar (XMB). But I'll tell you something, in-game XMB is fine and dandy, yes, but there were more pressing issues that Sony should have fixed first. In fact, I count 10 of 'em (because a list of nine would get me fired).
Smarter Firmware Updates
Let me agree to terms and conditions—a tiny 1K file transfer—before downloading the whole software update. Then once the update downloads it can roll into an install without me having to push some stupid buttons on the controller.
Automatic Downloaded-Game Installation
We're really still manually installing most game and demo downloads? Seriously? No, seriously?
Real Keyboard Support
The PS3 "supports" a mouse and keyboard. But keyboard support is still not functional or assignable in most games. Some middleware solutions would be nice here, Sony. I should be able to play anything on a mouse and keyboard by mapping SIXAXIS/DualShock3 buttons.
In-Game Web Browsing
OK, so here's an instance where we can access the XMB while in a game, but we can't really access it. Because you can't browse the web while in a game. I'd love the option to look up walkthroughs...err...hints and tips without going to the computer.
Controllers Don't Charge Without PS3 "On"
Why do I need to leave on my entire PS3 to charge one controller? A firmware update could program the USB portion of the console to stay powered on while charging like, say, the Xbox 360.
PS Home
Oh, I haven't forgotten. Though I'm becoming more bored by this once novel concept every day it doesn't appear.
Account Management
Let's just stick all those account management menus into the PlayStation Store. That way if I need to make changes to my account (something that would probably be prompted by a transaction at the PS Store), I don't need to revisit dead gray screen land.
Background Folding@Home
I'm as lazily, unconsciously altruistic as the next guy, so work with Stanford to make Folding @ Home even better. Let me use it as a background process for when I'm just hanging out on the dashboard, or browsing the PS Store. I know that playing some MP3s doesn't use all of the PlayStation 3's power, so let's use some of that extra number crunching to cure the world, or whatever.
Screengrabs
Any game, any time, I want to be able to perform a screengrab. I want to then be able to save the screengrab to my photo library or message it to a friend. This software technology has long been figured out, and it'd be nice to have for showing everyone how awesome I am all the time.
Lower Power Standby
The PS3's primary standby mode is super low energy. But if you want to access Remote Play (XMB, pictures, etc) through the PSP, it's suddenly sucking as much power as five refrigerators just sitting there. Surely there is a clever way that the PS3 can be activated through an SMS or email system that would make it more eco-friendly than just being on all the time. Remote Play is not something I'll use every day. And because of that, I've turned off the function completely—which is a shame because it's a pretty incredible idea.
It's not that the latest firmware update is bad; it's that the whole interface is so pleasurable to use and packing so much customization (for a console) that the rough spots can stand out even more. Come on, Sony, let's make the PS3 unbelievable.
Remember Viacom suing YouTube and Google for one BILLION dollars eons ago? That's still going on! And while a judge ruled yesterday that while Google doesn't have to reveal its secret search sauce to the multimedia giantface, he did grant Viacom's request for YouTube to turn over records of "every video watch by YouTube users," and that includes their username and IP address. Yeah that's right, Viacom will know every time you watch "Pork n Beans" or need to refuel your day with Powerthirst. (Or watch Viacom's The Daily Show, you bastard.) And like that, the illusion of YouTube privacy was gone.
Mazel tov, Mozilla, for claiming the Guinness world record for most downloaded software in a 24-hour period after 8 million of your minions snagged Firefox 3 on launch day. It's not that big of a feat considering you took the record from absolutely no one, but you sure set the bar pretty high for anyone planning on breaking it.
For those who don't like the floating steering wheel of Mario Kart Wii (because it lacks the realism of driving around a banana-spewing bulletmobile), this wheel mount by JTT isn't a bad solution. Using a suction cup to attach the wheel to any flat surface, the top tilts 120-degrees so you can compete old-lady or bus-driver-style. But for $28, we really wish it had the famous Chinese-girl-driving-wrong-on-one-way setting. Oh well. I guess good old fashioned psychotic "don't-cut-me-off"-mother****er-Caucasian will still serve me as well as it always has
If you want to get your iPhone App into the App Store in time for the July 11 launch, you'll have to submit it by July 7. That's next Monday. If you're one of those kids who always does their homework at the last second, we suspect there's going to be less BBQ and more "OMGWTFBBQ we're not done!" this weekend. And there's no copying off the smart kid now either, so we don't want to see Super Monkey Ball and Super Orangutan Ball turn up next Friday. Of course you don't absolutely have to be there at launch, but there's a much higher chance of more press coverage if you are. Don't forget to look at our App Contest as well.
I feel, as a culture, we've gotten really joyfully achievement-obsessed. We check our point scores as compulsively as we do our bank accounts, we demand to know what achievements will be available in games that aren't even out yet, and we have anticipated the launch of PS3 trophies with fervor. Fervor, I tell you.
A big part of this is so that we can show our play habits and our performance off to our buddies; seeing a My Gamercard on someone's website is like an instant badge of recognition. So it's unsurprising that a company called Playfire has rushed to be the first to create a Gamercard service for PS3 trophies (hopefully 2.4 squares away soon). It's currently in beta, and here it is!
The... trophycards? support themes, too letting you skin the cards with Killzone 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, LittleBigPlanet or SuperStardust HD.
Another retailer has shown that Microsoft is planning to drop the price of the Xbox 360 20GB model — formerly known as the "Pro" — to $299, as a Best Buy employee has forwarded us (obligatorily blurry) cell phone pics of an upcoming weekly ad. The model currently retails for a suggested price of $349 in the United States.
The ad, photographed off-screen from the Best Buy computer system, is said to run the week of July 13th. That matches up with previous price drop rumors from Kmart and an unnamed "major retailer."
Out with the old, in with the NEW. The weekly Media Create sales chart is packed with new Japanese releases, with Derby Stallion DS snatching first place from Tales of Symphonia. It's a big week for the Wii and Nintendo DS overseas, as a ton of new titles for Nintendo's hardware platforms sell and sell big.
This week's chart is potentially less good news for the PSP, as two of its big sellers — Super Robot Taisen A Portable and Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G — fall out of the top ten. Will this spell the end to PSP hardware dominance in Japan?
01. Derby Stallion DS (DS) - 148,000 / NEW
02. Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk (Wii) - 137,000 / NEW
03. Daigasso! Band Brothers DX (DS) - 120,000 / NEW
04. Hisshou Pachinko * Pachi-Slot Kouryaku Series DS Vol. 12: CR Neon Genesis Evangelion - Shito, Futatabi (PS2) - 55,000 / NEW
05. Higurashi no Nakukoru ni Kizuna: Dai-Ichi-Kan - Tatari (DS) - 42,000 / NEW
06. Wii Fit (Wii) - 34,000 / 2,292,000
07. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3) - 34,000 / 566,000
08. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) - 31,000 / 1,508,000
09. Mario Super Sluggers (Wii) - 31,000 / 89,000
10. Mobile Suit Gundam: Operation: Troy (Xbox 360) - 28,000 / NEW
11. Ken to Mahou to Gakuen Mono (PSP)
12. Sengoku Basara X (PS2)
13. Super Robot Taisen A Portable (PSP)
14. Bleach: The 3rd Phantom (DS)
15. The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match (PS2)
16. DS Bimoji Training (DS)
17. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (PSP)
18. Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball Portable 3 (PSP)
19. Battlefield: Bad Company (Xbox 360)
20. Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (DS)
21. Ookami to Koushinryou: Boku to Horo no Ichinen (DS)
22. Bokura no Telebi Game Kentei (DS)
23. Wii Sports (Wii)
24. Aria the Origination: Aoi Wakusei no El Cielo (PS2)
25. World Neverland Olerud Okoku Monogatari & Pluto Kyouwakoku Monogatari 2 in 1 Portable (PSP)
26. The Tower DS (DS)
27. Taiko Drum Master DS: Seven Island Adventure (DS)
28. Pro Yakyuu Team o Tsukurou! (DS)
29. Wii Play (Wii)
30. DS Yamamura Misa Suspense: Maiko Kogiku - Kisha Katherine - Sougiya Isa Akashi - Koto ni Maru Hana Sanrin: Kyoto Satujin Jinken File (DS)
What are you playing this weekend? On a Thursday? Sorry, but we got some independence to celebrate. That's what we'll be doing all day tomorrow instead of hunting for game cakes, posting crazy wild speculation and bringing you the freshest of Tifa hentai. We'll be shootin' guns, lighting M-80s and stuffing our fat faces with saturated fats and washing it all down with a frosty cold... well, you know. We might even find some time to do a few posts. In fact, I'm pretty sure of it.
We might even play some games! Playing through Too Human has given me a loot gathering itch that only Diablo II and/or Phantasy Star Online can scratch. Say, that reminds me. This weekend is a free Day of Defeat: Source weekend, meaning you can game on Valve's dime should you have a Steam account. Have a good one, America!
This is a simple plugin I made a long time ago for my personal use. I just found the source code while going through some old stuff on my computer, so I thought I'd clean up the code a bit and release the plugin.
I realize that there are other plugins that feature similar functionality but I wrote my own because I wanted to be sure its coded optimally, as there are a few careless ways in which these functions can be improperly used (the point of this after all is to conserve battery life).
It does the following when the Hold switch is enabled:
* Switches off the LCD backlight.
* Switches off the actual LCD screen.
(This is important because the backlight and actual screen are two different things. You can have an image being displayed on the screen while the backlight is switched off, such that you can see the image if you use a flashlight. You can also have the screen switched off while the backlight still illuminates the powered off screen.)
* Underclocks the CPU to 61MHz
(Sony has changed the clock speed functions such that only certain combinations of speeds work correctly. Simply trying to underclock to arbitrary values will result in the CPU simply running at the stock speed. I have verified that Hold+ successfully underclocks to 61MHz.)
* The original screen brightness and clock speed are restored when the Hold switch is released.
* Prevents the PSP from going into suspend mode if you accidently push the power switch too far when turning off Hold mode.
Installation:
You can install it in the seplugins folder, and make an entry in VSH.txt. Thus it will be active in the XMB. Its also possible to use it in games by adding it to GAME.txt, but some games may crash etc., if the CPU is underclocked to such a low value.
Optionally, its also possible to install it in your PSP's flash0 so that it will work without a memory card. For this you can use FreePlay's "NewBTCFNedit" and enable it for VSH mode in the all the PSPBT?NF.bin files. Add it after vshmain.prx.
Credits:
Thanks to adrahil for helping with preventing the suspend mode.
Changelog v2.1
----------------------------------
Fixed a bug where if the Hold switch was turned off and quickly turned on again, the PSP would not suspend after being left idle for a few minutes (the idle timeout didn't work).
Note:
I never made any previous hold plugins, those are not by me.
If you want to change the clock speed to your own values, you can use a hex editor to change them. The offsets in the file for v2.1 are
0x278, 0x284 - CPU,GPU (Both should be same)
0x27C - Bus (Should be half the CPU speed or less)
The values should be entered in hexadecimal. The default value for CPU/GPU is 3C (60 MHz in decimal) and the default value for bus is 1E (30 MHz in decimal).
Note that simply using any arbitrary value will not work. You will have to test and see which values for CPU/GPU and Bus speed work.
Fuzzy's project had now hit a milestone, by releasing a demo. Super Smash brothers Rumble, The 21th Smash brother clone in my map
Is another SSB clone. Very impressive and functional, but just a warning though, dont spruce your expectations too much again.
Seems like some folks could use some help getting the J2ME games installed and a startup file written. I whipped up this script to make it easier. Use Termula2X or a console to install a new game.
In a surprising move the team behind the R4 Nintendo DS entertainment, development and backup unit are planning on bricking your Nintendo DS or Nintendo DS Lite - that is if you're using a cloned product. Knowingly or not the R4 Team plans on releasing a firmware that will wipe your Nintendo DS's on-board BIOS to smithereens.
In a move to fight other factories from replicating their flashcart without permission the R4 Team will release a new firmware to combat the situation. Cloning happens a lot in the scene as factories either steal the design or the unit is reproduced using cheap parts. Most cloning is done by a few companies including Divineo and in that companies instance the clones are promoted on sites Divineo owns such as **********.com.
quote
Important point:
1. After 15 September, Team R4 will do something for the fake card, original program(firmware) with Fake R4 may damage your DS machine (brick), original R4 will have no problem with this program.
2. Make sure you have buy a original R4 (see photo below), if you brick your DS with fake R4, please go ask the selling shop and Team R4 will not admitted this liability.
From their point of view they are probably thinking they are doing a good thing, but what will little Johnny think when he installs a new firmware and his Nintendo DS suddenly stops working? Not much other then the R4 Team's comments on the situation are known. No word on when the firmware will be released, but the R4 Team states they won't provide any type of warranty or solution to fixing your Nintendo DS and sites all the blame on the reseller of the cloned R4 unit.
I believe this is a bad move on their part as it will give Nintendo another reason to dislike flash carts as having one out there that ruins your Nintendo DS will taint the entire market just as Darkfader's virus did. Hopefully people with flashme installed will be able to recover, but that is only speculation at this point in time. What do you think about this move? Please tell (or vote in the right column) ...
Personally i see this as a very bad move by the R4 People, What are your verdicts on this ?
Dragonminded of DS Fame has released a new Media Player for the Nintendo Wii, heres the release details:
DragonMedia Player will pick up files anywhere on your SD card, and plays sequentially once a file has started. Simply install into the HBC by copying the dmp folder in the zip file to /apps/ and run the program. Do not rename the folder as DragonMedia Player expects things to be in the correct order to function.
Supported Formats
Currently, this list is limited, as I have tried to set up the application framework before porting codecs. I am working on getting common formats such as flac and ogg integrated, and I am interested in supporting as many strange formats such as spc, sid, nsf, etc, so look forward to more support.
it
mod
mp1
mp2/mpa
mp3
s3m
wav (8/16/24/32 mono/stereo)
xm
Supported File Sources
Again, this list is very limited, nothing from DVD, USB, or Internet supported yet.
Front SD
Future Plans
Things I would like to add when I get the time.
Random play
Playlists
File source from Internet (and DVD/USB if documentation comes out)
More interactive theme support
Icons on file browser
Video (?)
T4ils has again updated his Portal game for the DS:
StillAliveDS is a puzzle game inspired by Portal: The Flash Version which is a 2D renewal of Portal, developed by Valve Corporation.
Portal consists primarily of a series of puzzles that must be solved by teleporting the character and other simple objects by using a Portal Gun. The unusual physics allowed by the portal gun are the emphasis of Portal.
Hello everybody
The wait is over once again, as the 1.15 version is now available in the download section
Here is what's new :
[Level Editor]
+ 5 new elements (see below).
+ Grid (press select to hide/show).
+ You can save your map when you want
+ You now have to upload your maps through the level editor. Only possible if the map was finished.
+ New clear button which deletes everything on screen.
+ The "Build" feature is automatically called when you save/upload a map.
[Game]
+ red energy wall : you can shoot portals through them but can't pass.
+ razor wheels : These will kill you if you touch them.
+ moving platforms : Jump on them to move in the map. They kill you if you're stuck. You can put portals on them.
+ acid pool : Don't try to swim in it.
+ reflecting wall (which is also a slippery floor) : Shoot a portal on it and it will be reflected. Up to 5 bounces are possible.
+ If multiple red plasma switches are set, you have to deactivate all of them to clear the green energy field.
[Menu]
+ language selection
+ customizable controls : just click on a control to change the associated action.
[Other]
- Backgrounds are now loaded from the flashcart
- Updated EFS lib to V2.0 finale, maybe G6 and M3 will load the game now ...
Please report me any bug since this version was hard as hell to finish, I had some weird punctual glitches like the upload system that just stopped working one time ...
Anyhoo, onto the new release. Version 0.34 is now available. Full changelog:
- Fixes:
- All gadgets have protected copy constructors.
- Added destructor to DimmedScreen class.
- Replaced SuperBitmap::drawLine() with a function that works correctly.
- Fixed crash in SuperBitmap::floodFill() when pixel stack overflowed the DS' stack.
- Fixed bug in SuperBitmap::floodFill() that prevented rows above the initial click point being filled and occasionally froze the DS.
- Fixed path null pointer crash in FileRequester constructor.
- SuperBitmap::drawHorizLine() no longer tries to DMA_Force() if the width of the line is 1.
- Fixed size of data stored in SuperBitmap floodFill's stack.
- Removed bitshifts from Screen:rag() that would prevent resizing the screen on alternative platforms.
- Windows can no longer be dragged vertically out of non-permeable screens that are themselves dragged down.
- Fixed crash when dragging screen in SDL build.
- Added John's fix to limit SDL screen dragging to bottom screen.
- Gadget::lowerGadgetToBottom() does not try to move decorations.
- Gadget::raiseGadgetToTop() only invalidates the rect cache of any gadgets it collides with.
- AmigaWindow controls how it moves to the top of the parent gadget stack
rather than the Screen gadget.
- New Features:
- FileRequester tidied up and flags parameter added to constructor.
- Added FileRequester demo to examples directory.
- Added DimmedScreen demo to examples directory.
- Fixes to example makefiles.
- Added DimmedScreen readme file.
- Added WPaint to examples directory.
- Gadgets get drawn automatically when added to their parents.
- Added EVENT_MOVE_FORWARD and EVENT_MOVE_BACKWARD events
Thanks to all of you who responded to the Commodore message; I’ve tried to read responses on this weblog, as well as those at dcemu. My original question was regarding the C64 and VIC-20 systems, but it seems like most of you would rather see an Amiga emulator than a C64/VIC-20 emulator.
I’ve also noticed interest in the Spectrum series (ZX-81 certainly hasn’t missed any opportunities to remind me of the need for such an emulator ), so I’ll keep both of these in mind.
I am interested in finding out why those of you interested in these systems don’t use PSPUAE and PSPectrum, however.
Rockstar Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. today announced a new release date for the fourth installment of its critically-acclaimed and genre-defining Midnight Club franchise, Midnight Club: Los Angeles. Set for release on October 7th in North America and October 10th in Europe and developed by series creator Rockstar San Diego, Midnight Club: Los Angeles will give gamers the unprecedented freedom to race through a hyper-realistic LA.
Rockstar San Diego has created a beautiful rendition of Los Angeles to race through at break neck speeds and explore at your own pace. With no tracks and no load times, Midnight Club: Los Angeles offers the ultimate freedom to play however you choose.
Also scheduled for release simultaneously, Midnight Club: LA Remix for the PSP system will provide another incredible portable racing experience. Developed by Rockstar London, the game will take full advantage of the hardware to deliver the unrivaled sense of speed and style that the best-selling Midnight Club series is known for.
Famitsu publisher Enterbrain shared a report today on the first half of the year in games over in Japan. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who keeps up on Japanese sales trends, but the PSP was the star of the show.
Sony sold 1.96 million PSP units over the first six months of 2008. This put it atop the hardware heap -- the first time the system has managed this feat for sales taken over a half year period. Perhaps more notable is that the system doubled its sales over the same period one year ago.
Nintendo's two platforms took a close second and third place. Wii was the second best selling platform for the period with 1.72 million units, placing it close to its performance last year. The DS sold 1.59 million units. This may not seem to shabby, except when you compare it to last year's performance of 3.71 million units over the same period.
The PlayStation 3 saw a Metal Gear Solid surge towards the end of the period to reach 540,000 units. This was a bit above last year's half million performance.
There are 
in this amazing kirby game!
