Dolphin passed the 1000 revision milestone, with significant progress. Among the usual batch of graphic and emulation fixes to expect, Wiimore support has been improved by FireS.
The full list of changes is pretty long, and can be browsed here.
Dolphin passed the 1000 revision milestone, with significant progress. Among the usual batch of graphic and emulation fixes to expect, Wiimore support has been improved by FireS.
The full list of changes is pretty long, and can be browsed here.
Wii-Tac-Toe is a Tic-Tac-Toe game for the Nintendo Wii. It was programmed in C++ using devkitPro along with GRRLIB.
The game can be played alone vs the CPU or with a friend using one Wiimote. The game AI does not always do the same moves, so the fun never stop.
To win the game, you have to place three marks (O or X) in a horizontal, vertical or diagonal row. If the grid is filled completely and no one has won, well, it's a tie game. Start over and try to beat your opponent.
Pong2 is an open-source game based on the original game of Pong. Pong2 has improved features over the original. The paddle can be moved horizontally and vertically. 10 tracks of background music are available during game play. The first player to score 10 points in each level is the winner.
Special thanks to my family for there support during the development of this game.
31/10/2008 version 0.8
Add support for Wii Classic Controller
Add two bars on the gameboard (Game Level>2 and higher).
Add game level six
we have recently Rick Dangerous on the wii wich is a straight port from the 68k but with enhanced graphics, new musics, new starting sequence and an all new final. Some info here
Any way just wanted to let you know that you can count on it soon as i have my pandora in hand (ordered on the first batch) :-P for info the game is running on gp2x too but im not sure about releasing it (need to install back everything etc..) and my gp2x seems bricked (and i hate that stupid pad ...) :-/
We have also a couple of games that you can count on
Main programming & intro music: Miq01
Artwork: Zenzuke
USB device support: Puck2099
WHY A WINDOWS BUILD?
--------------------
It might be usefull to testdrive your own song- or theme packs.
BUILD NOTES
-----------
- USB device support (dancemat) is disabled in this build
- Some preprocessor directives were need to be set, so it was necessary to change the source at some points. Please see patchfiles at .\win32source subdirectory.
- The default keymap is:
L = q
R = w
Up = i = up arrow
Down = m = down arrow
Left = j = left arrow
Right = k = right arrow
Start = Return-Key
Select = RShift-Key
Vol + = Keypad 8
Vol - = Keypad 2
Use the arrow keys to navigate through the menu. To activate a menupoint, press one of the following keys: i,m,j or k.
Exit a playing songpack by pressing Start, Select, q and w together.
Please read the README file for more information about Beat2x.
PDF viewer based on MuPDF library, way faster than PDFView.
*-*-*-*-*
Changes in 1.0 RC 2:
- Reduced batteries consumption when being idle, because the application no longer does busy waiting for events.
- Slightly faster zooming, since I removed a redundant page reload that was only needed when changing pages.
- Zooming now recalls the position on text it was displaying, so it doesn't return to the upper left corner of the page after each zoom change.
*-*-*-*-*
I've only tested it with my GP2X F-100, and firmware
version 2.0.0, so tell me if it works or not with other
hardware/firmware.
You can leave me suggestions, criticism or any other useful or supportive kind of message either as a comment at the GP2X File Archive, or to my e-mail address (jmfo1982 At yahoo Dot es).
1) Download the archived file from 'http://archive.gp2x.de'
2) Extract the contents of this file to the '/game' directory located on your SD card. It should create a directory called 'sd/game/Captain Crusader GP2X' with all files inside.
Troubleshooting:
If the game stalls and only gives you a black screen at startup, you probably require the Allegro 0.3 package to be installed to your NAND first, so follow the directions given for the first package below (also second one if needed):
Then reboot the GP2X to ensure it's been properly installed.
Playing The Game
3) Run "CC_Shareware.gpe" from the game's directory, Enjoy!
NOTE(s) on Split-Screen games:
- Split-Screen games begin once you choose Custom Map from the Main Menu
- To quit a Multi-Player game, press and hold L, R, SELECT, HOME, and the ARROW buttons together
The Deathmatch Mode DEMO provided is only a taste of the new Split-Screen features the game is
Version 0.1.0 - 30 Oct 2008 " You gotta start somewhere"
Initial release of FSO Control.
Beside being rough here are some points and notes:
* I'd like to launch this with a POWER button press but I can not
figure out how to set the DISPLAY environment when launching a
GUI with a rule in oevents. You can try though. Put a rule in
/etc/freesmartphone/oevents/rules.yaml like this:
Expand your Xbox 360 experience with downloadable content, rip music, and play an array of original Xbox games. 20 GB and detachable, the hard drive allows gamers to store their games, music, downloaded trailers, levels, demos and community-created content from Xbox Live Marketplace and more.
We've seen a few accessories for augmenting the gaming experience on the iPhone which would give the device awesome functions similar to a game controller, such as the elusive and yet-to-materialize iControlPad and the totally fake JoyPod. Well, Marware's Game Grip is sort of like that -- silicone sleeves that your phone fits into -- except that it doesn't actually do anything beyond providing 'handles' for your phone while you game. Oh, and it exists. So let's refer to it as the 'enjoyment enabler' of your iPhone 3G or iPod touch 2G which can be used with headphones (just like normal), can be charged while gaming (just like normal), and has a 'cord management system' (kind of not normal). If that's not enough to convince you to reach for your wallet, the "lifetime guarantee" and ludicrously zany look of the thing will probably get you to bite... it's $49.99 and available for pre-order right now.
Microsoft's newest Zunes (along with the 3.0 software) have been out for well over a month now, which means you've had ample opportunity to really test one out and form some educated opinions. Now, it's time to open up and let loose. Are you still down with the design? Do you appreciate the extras that came with three point oh? What else could've been added to really spice things up? Do us a favor and tell the suits in Redmond what you would've done differently, and moreover, how things can be made better the next time it feels the itch to bust out a software update.
I think it is safe to say that design student Kyle Buckner is more than just an iPhone user—he is an iPhone worshiper. After all, the iPhone sits atop his elaborate wood-carved pedestal like a King on his throne. Is this the beginning of some sort of cult? Will there be robes and chanting? Truth be told, the sculpture was carved for a school project—but throw an actual dock in there and Buckner would be the envy of Apple superfans everywhere.
Despite the humiliated faces of these two dogs dressed as a Nintendo Wii and a Wiimote, this photo has had two effects in me. One, it made me chuckle. Two, it made me scramble all over the house looking for cardboard, white paint, black and blue markers, a dog mask, and fur coat (trust me, all these elements are somewhere in my closets). Sadly, I couldn't find them on time, so I'm going to have to wear again my rubber chicken outfit, which keeps sticking on all the wrong places.
What you are you seeing in these screenshots may seem like a real iPhone application, but it's not. It's a web page displayed in full screen, completely out of Safari, behaving and looking exactly as any native iPhone program would do. The best thing: It is not a new feature of the incoming iPhone OS 2.2 update: The secret feature is "hidden" in the current 2.1 version and only requires one thing: HTML code embedded in the web page itself. No iPhone modification is required. If you are browsing this from the iPhone, you can try it yourself very easily:
Tucked away in a newly released Nintendo software schedule PDF is the first confirmation that the "Play on Wii" series of GameCube Wiimakes is US-bound. Re-tooled versions of Pikmin and Mario Power Tennis are listed among other titles due in North America during 2009, although no specific dates accompany them.
'Play on Wii' Pikmin hits Japan on Dec. 5 for ¥3800 ($38). If Nintendo can bring it and other GCN ports Stateside for $29.99, will you bite?
One of the more touted features of the upcoming New Xbox Experience is the ability to install games onto your hard drive (watch how to do it). In an effort to quantify the benefit, MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo has created three videos comparing the load times of running DVD vs. hard drive using Grand Theft Auto IV, Fable 2 and Gears of War 2. The difference is between 9 to 15 seconds for the first load, and presumably more "now loading" seconds scraped off other sections of each game.
While the verdict is out on whether or not it's worth your time to install (judging by Totilo's install times and our own, it seems to be a steady 1.7GB per minute), it's worth noting that, with installation, the console is noticeably quieter and is less likely to give you the feeling that it's about to explode.
If you've yet to experience the joys of exploring Thailand's jungles, swinging across yawning chasms or savagely murdering exotic kitty cats, you probably failed to download the Xbox 360 demo of Tomb Raider: Underworld earlier this week. Don't worry, for we're about to give you a second chance by linking you to the PC demo of the game, hosted on the beefy servers of Big Download.
While you're playing, be sure to keep an eye on Lara's exquisite animation, as well as her inexplicable vendetta against ancient and undoubtedly priceless pots. Take that, primitive containers!
One of the most prominent words in game journalism and discussion today is "innovation" – how can companies innovate successfully, and how come there isn't more of it in the industry? Implicit in this conversation are three assumptions that don't generally get examined with the same thoroughness: that "innovation" is per se important for gaming, that all innovation is essentially the same in content and value, and that companies promote profitability over innovation. I'd like to talk about these unspoken assumptions in light of the banner few years that we've had as gamers.
I think most people would concede that innovation is important, whether to gaming or to consumer packaged goods. But why? At least in gaming, it's largely because our interest tends to dissipate along with challenge; if you're not being shown something interesting, why pay attention to it? Familiarity may not breed contempt, but it definitely doesn't breed excitement (nor sales) either.
But there are multiple types of innovation. Gamers, I think, tend to think of it one-dimensionally: to most of us, innovation generally implies significant jumps in game genre or style. As a result, we consider something like Spore to be innovative: it does something that no other game has tried. But why do we stop there? I've been spending a lot of time with Dead Space on my 360 recently, and although it's got beautiful graphics, the basic concept of survival horror – whether in Raccoon City or space – isn't exactly unique. In fact, many of the genre's basic conventions are cribbed either from the earliest games of its type, or even from typical horror movies. But Dead Space does something a little different in its dismemberment mechanic, and it builds a little bit on what came before it. Or take the example of, say, Super Mario World. It wasn't drastically different from Super Mario 3 in concept or execution, but it layered on new enemies, worlds, and mechanics in a way that made it distinct and entertaining. Even reverting to older game paradigms can be innovative: Mega Man 9 and its retro-chic packaging represented a step backwards in terms of graphics and gameplay, but it was drastically different from what the market currently offers. I'd argue that all of these games are innovative in a way that benefits gamers, even if that label isn't often applied to them.
"There are a lot of games that have tried to do something different ... and failed miserably."
By the same token, innovation isn't all good. Consider that different isn't always better. There are a lot of games that have tried to do something different ... and failed miserably. This is another myth of innovation: that being different is necessary and sufficient to creating innovative games. Sure, different is an important ingredient, but it's not nearly enough: a game must also be conceptually sound and successfully executed. I notice that this distinction is rarely identified by many people, but it's an important one. Being able to sort through ideas to note which ones have potential, being able to shepherd the ideas from basic conception to practical application, and being able to create a game based around them under a tight time frame and budget are all distinct, but related and critical, skill sets.
Finally, we tend to argue that many companies (especially big ones) don't care much about innovation. At the same time, the last few years have been the source of an incredible number of fun, successful games that have successfully innovated on a number of levels. Many of these games came from firms like EA, Activision, and Take-Two. So clearly, size may make it easier to develop innovative games, but it's not essential. Where's the disconnect?
Well, we're pretty happy with the things we like, whether or not they're new: witness the profusion of sequels and incremental improvements in gaming that are snapped up without hesitation. But we don't pay a lot of attention to trends that depart from the conventional wisdom – there's a reason it's the conventional wisdom. Big companies being slow-moving, profit-oriented dinosaurs; smaller ones being nimble, innovative, and adroit competitors ... it's a very old story, and one that makes a lot of intuitive sense, even if it's not always true in reality. As a result, there's an inherent bias in our judgments, even if it's unintentional. Gamers may also discount innovation that doesn't meet specific, defined standards (those games that aren't enormous leaps forward), so the incremental improvement that marks so many perfectly entertaining games are rarely considered the achievements they represent. I would suggest that a broader conception of innovation – and a recognition of the multifaceted talent it takes to put it into practice – goes a long way towards explaining some of the contradictions we see in our conversations about it.
Hands down, Nintendo Co., Ltd. has the best instruction manuals on this spinning blue orb we call Earth. The DSi manual is no exception. It politely advises things like don't drive and play DSi, don't stab the DSi with a screwdriver and don't throw the DSi away with burnable trash. Better take notes, this is all very, very important stuff.
It's 7:00am and there's only one guy in front of Yodobashi Camera in Osaka's Umeda. He tells me he's waiting for the DSi, points out that he's first in line and adds that he just got here. That's it? Only one guy waiting for the DSi?
No, not quite. Thing is, he probably won't get a DSi today. Signs around the corner state that pre-orders has finished. There's no Yodobashi staff to be seen, but later when I swing by, an employee tells me that only customers with pre-orders are able to purchase the DSi — explaining why no one was lined up last night!
* And by complete, we mean complete complete. Sony says — and you may already have heard this figure tossed around — that there's some 420 hours worth of play time in Resistance 2 required to unlock everything.
Thankfully, for at least my own review purposes, the single player campaign should take you about 9 to 11 hours to burn through. That's totally reasonable. But if you plan on dedicating the time to do everything, unlock every level, find every briefing, max out every class, you've got about 18 days of your life ahead of you just playing R2.
And if you do, you're a more dedicated man than me.
Is it me, or is gaming relying more and more on social media networks? Time was, gaming was this dirty, solitary habit you did in your mom’s basement or in a darkened corner of your dad’s study. You didn’t talk about it, you didn’t brag about it, and (even if you wanted to), you couldn’t show off your gaming accomplishments.
Nowadays, if you don’t have an Achievement score of at least 14000, you’re probably going to catch heat about it – in real life. Gamertags, friend codes and even guilds are increasingly important parts of your gaming experience, even if you’re not into competitive multiplayer games.
So, logically, Sony wants to step that up and incorporate even more stuff into your social gaming experience. But instead of just adding Trophies and an avatar system (in the mode of “me too!” one-upmanship we usually see between Xbox and PlayStation), they’ve made an entire virtual world that’s supposed to bring your gaming, your music, your movies and even your sense of style all together in one place. This is definitely a step up from the Mii Plaza.
So how well does it work? It’s too soon to weigh in on technical flaws, but the three years of development definitely shows in how smooth the test environment runs, how detailed the avatar design system is and in the sheer amount of stuff there is to do in Home.
Right, that's decided, then - Microsoft has fixed the price you will be paying for the Xbox 360 in the UK until the end of the economic downturn or until Microsoft need to start really shifting units again - whichever comes first.
After a series of UK price cuts - the most recent of which has left the Arcade model a shade cheaper than the Wii at £129.99 (approx $208 at current rates) - Microsoft UK's head of gaming and entertainment, Stephen McGill, says that the price will be fixed for some time to come.
"We're a great price now," said McGill, "I'm not dropping the price for many many years in the future I would suspect."
The guys at Dreamcast ES who im pleased that one or two look as old as me have posted a video of their upcoming celebration of the 10th year of the Dreamcast in Europe.
Hell Hibou has released a new version of his Homebrew Launcher for the WII:
Wii Homebrew Launcher is an interface similar to that of the Wii menu. It allows you to start homebrew stored on your SD card in the Wii front SD slot. Each program is represented by its own customizable "channel".
You can use Wii Homebrew Launcher for launch a ROM with a emulator. A patched version of RIN is include in the ZIP file. Copy the content of "SD" directory in the root of your SD card. Put yours GameBoy ROMS into /EMULATOR/RIN/ROMS/ directory. Optionnally you can create a .bmp or .png file with the same name of the rom file (just change the extension) of 132x95 pixels.
Here is an updated version of my loader. On the program, a loader chains Region Free and some corrections. Over the function back to loader is finally functional.
Changelog:
Fixed a bug in the translation of names to
Compatibility with homebrew has been improving
The function of returning to work correctly loader
Some internal changes
Adding a loader string 'Region free (without using code Nintendo). It may be that this channel does not appear if the security patch is installed IOS56
Using the language of the Wii for messages (English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch), it is still possible to use the file for translation LANG.INI
The search for homebrew on DVD is no longer made to boot, but when a 'Refersh' (by pressing (1) or (Z)). This allows for faster boot loader
Compiling with the latest version of libogc, it contains a patch for use maps SDHD but has not been tested.
Hillbilly has released his long awaited especially for the users of the Palib forums Iphone Clone app for the DS, heres the release info:
DPhone V. Flare (Public Release V. 1.0)
[iPhone clone for the DS]
-----> README.txt <-----
The contents of the .rar should be extracted so that your card looks like so :
|+-ROOT
| +-DPhone
| +-Movies, settings.ini, iconXY.ini, etc.
| +-DPhone.NDS
To play movies: Open up the ini file from the "Spinal's movie converter" folder and change the name
of the input file (.flv, .wmv, etc...) to your file inside that directory. Run "Convert.exe" and it will
compile your movie. Place the compiled movie (.smf) inside the directory of your choice. Then, using the
file-browser navigate to the folder of the desired movie file and press "A" to play.
Music Files: Currently only pre-formatted MP3's work in DPhone. There are to ways to open, from the
home screen and from the file browser. Either will play the same way.
Picture Files: Currently only 256x192 images are supported but this implementation takes use of
multi-touch (My MLlib) for zooming in, and rotating pictures. One touch does panning, two for zoom, and 3
or more for rotation. To zoom in, tap and hold with two fingers and slide the fingers from the top of the
screen, down. To zoom out, tap and hold with two fingers, but this time, go from the bottom of the screen
to the top. (bottom and top taken as if the DS were not rotated).
Map Viewer: Supports any *.BMP image as long as it follows the screen's size ratio. (e.g. 256x192,
512x384...) Pretty simple at the moment, and needs little describing. Simple enough that you should be
able to figure it out easily.
File-Browser: The file browser is meant for quick and convienient access to files of various
formats. The supported formats are as follows:
+*.SMF
+*.TXT
+*.BMP (has to follow the ratio...)
+*.MP3
+*.NDS (bootable NDS binary files)
It will detect more but will not play them. To boot an NDS file, just browse for it in the file-browser
and press "A". I don't think that it patches the file for you, although I'm unsure.
Text Editor: Not much has changed since BETA. This is still a very early demo of what this
implementation will be like when finished.
Settings: In, but still so buggy that I took it out for this public release.
Phone: Yet to be implemented, although the author of SvSIP has contacted me.
Calendar: Prett simple but you can't do any planning for dates yet and the current date is in
yellow text which makes it hard to read. Use the D-Pad to scroll through the days, "L" and "R" to scroll
the months, and "Y" and "X" to scroll the years.
Favorites: Pretty buggy but shows proof of concept. It will freeze if there's more than 5
favorites in the directory.
Valryon launches its first demo "Shmup", a shoot'em up with original graphics entirely under MSPAINT.
Quote:
Controls:
- B, D or L: draw
- X: Improve his weapon to one notch (cheat code)
- AY: adjust the speed of his ship (for now useless, I do not know if I would do something)
Program:
- A level, is totally under MSPAINT (power).
- Three weapons each with three levels for upgrades
- Almost fifty enemies and a boss
Known bugs:
- The animations of the vessel as enemies do not work well or not! This part of the code is to completely revise (like others, including the loading of data graphs)
- The boss comes a bit too early and the screen is not "erased" (it remains the firing and other on the screen but they are no longer used)
- The enemies do not move to the right or left, must j'implémente a pattern to be a little smarter (especially the boss)
- Collisions are not precise, easily avoided. But it wanted! Show SOFTENERS constant in the code.
- The third weapon (missiles) do not make missiles: / she draws a slow and red laser in place. But who makes the same damage.
- The weapon of the player does not sound palette
Coming up:
- A HUD
- Two or three more levels Smiley
- The sounds (and I looking for a good tutorial for that, I understand the examples PAlib)
- The entertainment magazines
- An improved IA
- More shots, more enemies, perhaps more weapons
Feel free to post comments, found bugs or ideas Smiley
In the archive is also the source of homebrew, but it should quickly changed!
After some minor corrections in my code (Yes, as usual, was the brothel), I decided to deliver a first version "playable" my Snake-Like-Enguarde DS!
30/10/08 v0.1b:
_ Sprite of swordfish completely redone ... not yet final
_ Adding ring (animation) and the awnings (They also animations, with the annals always on the screen at the top and bottom bananas
_ Adding the "Pause" by pressing Start
I already launched in a future version, or I hope there will be the menu, the score and more!
While her before the vac's ... I will at least try
Lazy1 posted a little update of his progress of bringing Wolf3d to the DS:
Another long delay, I tried to get the other sound effects working through the OPL emulator but it ended up sounding like a dying giraffe and figuring it out would take way too long.
Like earlier versions the sounds are raw pcm data so you still get (most) of those sfx like ammo pickup, treasure, ect...
PM Me if you are interested in trying the latest build out to help locate bugs before I release anything.
I began to develop an IGS client to play Go online. Rather than to begin a new program I decided to port an existing open source software. ViZigo is an IGS client written in C++ with FLTK library. It works fine under Windows and Linux.
Actually i've implemented the board (with adding stone) and the connection to IGS but i've some problemes to receive data from server. The sources (up to date on SVN), screenshot and demo are available on Berlios project.
This is our second released GBA Game and it is by far our most advanced (sprite-wise anyway). We started work on this Pong Implementation around Christmas as a test for our now complete Sprite Library it is very memory efficient and flexible! This is a simple silly Pong game we coded for everyone to have fun with until our next release hope you enjoy it!
Six new creatures are available for downloading in Spectrobes: Beyond The Portals for the Nintendo DS, Disney Interactive Studios announced today.
Once players achieve the ability to use the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection in their Spectrobes: Beyond The Portals game, they can access the Wi-Fi Download feature.
Content made available this week includes six creatures:
Windalo
Windino
Shasharp
Grispit
Samuspire
Sestar
Also Available is a special Nanairo Sword for Rallen.
Players can accrue 10 points per week when they access the Nintendo Wi-Fi feature in Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals. Each of the available seven content items available this week costs one point.
More downloadable content will be made available in the future.
Published by Disney Interactive Studios and developed by Jupiter Corp., Spectrobes: Beyond The Portals is now available.
We weren't particularly keen on messing around with internet connections and figuring out how to convert our audio files from MP3 into something DSi-compatible, so after opening up our new DSi systems and stroking their soothing matte shells for a few hours, our first experience with the system ended up being through the new camera.
When first selected, the DSi Camera program starts users off with a tutorial taking you through the basics. There's quite a bit to the experience, too. As detailed in our previous writeups, the DSi offers both internal and external cameras, with a wide range of effects. The following eleven effects are included: similarity camera, face synthesis camera, warp camera, expression camera, doodle/scribble camera, normal camera, mirror camera, joke/tease camera, frame camera, color add camera, and color change camera. These names, as you might have guessed, are rough translations on our part.
The effects are all viewable in real time as you take your picture, with the final picture ending up in higher quality after a moment of processing. You can also apply many of the effects to pictures after they've been taken and saved to internal memory or SD.
Playing with the various effects, especially the doodle/scribble and joke/tease cameras, should prove to be a blast, especially since you can use the external camera to apply the effects to unsuspecting friends. It should be noted, though, that you probably can't use the camera on unsuspecting strangers, as the shutter makes a sound even if you turn the system's audio all the way down.
Outside of taking pictures, you can also view pictures in a variety of ways. Shots can be tagged with one of three seals for easy sorting. You can also access a calendar to view pictures from any given date, and even leave a visual memo for each date.
Also included is a Slide Show feature, which displays the pictures with movement set to one of four background music tracks. The slide show can display pictures across both screens, which does admittedly look a bit odd due to the big partition between the screens.
In our initial tests, we've found the picture quality to be similar to what you might expect from a cell phone. Pictures, which are taken at 640x480 resolution, turn out grainy, with the finer areas becoming a complete mess of blocky pixels.
Of course, you only seem to notice this when viewing the pictures in full resolution on your PC. Viewed directly on the DS, the pics don't look as dirty, although you can still see grains if you look closely. Keep this in mind when viewing the pictures that we've uploaded to our gallery below.
Getting the pics over to the PC isn't too difficult. You simply have to transfer the SD card from your DS to PC. Pics that we took ended up being stored in a 101NIN02 folder under a DCIM folder that had already existed on the card. The DSi also created a "private" directory in the SD card's root. This had a mysterious "pit.bin" file buried a few directories deep. This is presumably the "management file" that the DSi says it's accessing whenever you select to read pics from SD rather than internal memory.
From what we can tell, the DSi Camera does not accept pictures that it itself didn't take. It wouldn't recognize other picture directories, nor would it even read files that we attempted to sneak into the 101NIN02 directory. We even tried to be sneaky by renaming all our files in line with the images the DSi had taken, and shrinking them down to 640x480 size. Here, the DSi registered images only after we'd manually deleted that pit.bin file, but even then it wouldn't actually open the images up. This is an area that will require a bit of experimentation.
Even without transfering pics between your PC and DSi, though, the system's camera looks like it's going to be a blast -- maybe as fun as PictoChat was way back when the DS first launched.
Sony Computer Entertainment America has filed a new U.S. patent describing a controller that employs "hybrid video capture and ultrasonic tracking" technology.
The patent states that the system senses the movement of "one or more" controllers in a 3D space.
From the patent's abstract: "The captured video information is used to identify a horizontal and vertical position for each controller within a capture area. The ultrasonic tracking system analyzes sound communications to determine the distances between the game system and each controller and to determine the distances among the controllers. The distances are then analyzed by the game interface to calculate the depths within the capture area for each controller."
There's no doubt that Microsoft's Xbox 360 will have the price advantage this holiday season, and if you were hoping to see a bona fide price cut following Sony's introduction of the $399.99 80GB PlayStation 3, you'll probably be waiting 'til late 2009. Speaking at the Gamer 3.0 conference in London this week, Sony's own Ray Maguire was quoted as saying that the pressure for a price drop from consumers was always there, but given that it "has a business to run" and shareholders to please, it probably won't be decreasing the PS3's price before the end of 2008.
Another homebrew from the RRS dev team, this is our first application we made.
Build on the PSPRevolution Engine, this application learns you to play various riffs on guitar.
The program displays the tab and plays the song to play along.
This is a demo and contains 5 riffs:
ZZ Top - La Grange
AC/DC - Back in Black
Van Halen - Aint talking about love
Joe Satriani - The Extremist
Metallica - Seek and Destroy
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 60MHz
(Sony has changed the clock speed functions such that only certain combinations of speeds work correctly. Simply trying to underclock to arbitary values will result in the CPU simply running at the stock speed. I have verified that Hold+ successfully underclocks to 60MHz.)
* 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.
* Allows complete operation of the PSP controls with the display turned off.
* Turns off LEDs in hold mode. LEDs are flashed once in 30 seconds so that the PSP is not mistaken to be powered off.
* While in hold mode, allows the use of Left, Right, LTrigger, RTrigger, Volume and Start buttons, if you hold the Select button first. Useful to skip songs, pause etc.
Usage:
Turn on the Hold switch to automatically disable the display and underclock the CPU. Turn off the Hold switch to return the CPU to normal speed and enable the display.
If you push the ANALOG UP button when turning on the Hold switch, it will only lock the keypad like normal hold mode. The display and CPU speed will not be changed, so that you can watch videos etc. with the keypad locked.
If you push the ANALOG UP button when turning off the Hold switch, the display will remain switched off and the CPU will remain underclocked, but you can operate the PSP. To return to normal, push the power switch to the suspend position, or just press the Screen button.
While the PSP is in hold mode, if you first hold down the Select button, you can use the following buttons: Left, Right, LTrigger, RTrigger, Vol+, Vol-, Start.
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 Stick. For this you can use FreePlay's "NewBTCFNedit" and enable it for VSH mode in the all the PSPBT?NF.bin files. Add it before vshmain.prx.
Advanced:
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 v3.2 are
0xD98 - CPU
0xD9C - Bus (Should be half the CPU speed or less)
The values should be entered in hexadecimal. The default value for CPU 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 and Bus speed work.
Credits:
Thanks to adrahil for helping with preventing the suspend mode.
Thanks to Booster for the SysCon Hook sample, based on which Hold+ v3.0 was updated.
Thanks to Total_Noob; As his plugin MusicHold was not compatible with Hold+, with his permission I've implemented the same features in Hold+ v3.0 for people who wanted some buttons to be usable in hold mode.
Spoiler for Changelog:
Changelog v3.2
----------------------------------
Fixed a bug where after you exit a Photo or the Browser, the battery icon would keep disappearing and reappearing.
Fixed a bug where each time you exit a Photo or the Browser, the first time you turn on Hold after that it would only go to Normal Hold mode.
Changelog v3.1
----------------------------------
Reduced CPU usage by delaying longer in main loop. Since v3.0 the main loop doesn't do much so it needn't run as fast as before. This *should* alleviate problems with the battery icon.
Now its not possible to accidently press 'other' buttons in hold mode while holding Select button. Ex: If you are holding Select + VolUp to increase volume, and you accidently press X, the X button will not have effect.
Changelog v3.0
----------------------------------
Completely overhauled the plugin to work using only the SysCon functions based on Booster's example.
The prevention of accidental suspend was changed to Booster's method as that is more efficient.
In Display Off mode, pressing the Screen button to return to normal no longer causes the firmware's internal brightness variable to become one step higher than the original screen brightness.
Added the ability to use some of the buttons while in hold mode, by holding the Select button first.
Nick Swardh has released a new version of his Video Converter for the PSP, heres whats new:
This release includes a few fixed bugs that was introduced in v3.0
Fixed a bug causing the converted audiofile to be corrupt
Fixed a custom server-script bug
Fixed a screenshot bug
Fixed a Join-files bug
Fixed a PSPVC Server issue on the server side
Download PSPVC v3.10 here.
This is a motion capture & depiction software for PSP that shows Real Time 2d representation of motion (as reported by Motion Kit).
Features Smooth recognition with ability to toggle the Motion Sensitivity, colors, pointing/drawing mode, screenshot functionality(currently broken).
It is so well written that you can even draw PAINTINGS/figures by only by using motion.
I wrote this software long back (back when I was sponsored the motion kit) but decided I would release this only when I fix the screenshot functionality (so that you all can share you creations).
The eXtensible Visualization Platform TM (XVP) is a powerful, extensible and easy to use game development platform targeting a wide array of modern environments including Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, and Linux, as well as console gaming systems from Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.
XVP allows designers, artists, engineers and producers to collaborate like never before. Throughout the entire product's development cycle, XVP's Workflow Communications enhance productivity while simplifying complex dependencies between members of the team.
It took no time at all but the New Xbox Experience has been leaked onto the internet. According to tipsters, someone who was invited to the NXE has made the update available in downloadable form online which -- like all other Xbox 360 dashboard updates -- has the ability to update any console with a USB thumb drive.
If you're thinking of grabbing the update, think again. According to Platform Nation using the leaked update disables Xbox Live on a console until November 19, the actual release of NXE. With Gears of War 2 just around the corner, you wouldn't want to take your console off the grid would you? While no reported bans have been handed down since the leak showed up it isn't hard to imagine Microsoft could take you offline for good. You've been warned.
You know it, you love it, Tell Us Dammit. No, rather TELL US DAMMIT. Yep! Time to learn about each other. How it works: We ask a question, you answer it. Simple and no strings attached! This isn't some marketing survey or whatever. It's an emotional investment in you. Yes, we're interesting in knowing you, Kotaku reader person. You probably know ****tons about us — more than you even want to, we're sure. But, hey, we'd like to know about you. That way you won't be some faceless blob — and we might feel a tinge of guilt when we ban your ass. Or not, because really we're incapable of human emotion. Sadness.
Question What is the longest you have gone without gaming?
For those who haven't seen previous version Hu-Go is a famous emulator of NEC PC Engine
console, running on many system such as Linux and Windows.
(see http://www.zeograd.com/ for details)
PSPHugo is a port on PSP of one latest version of Hu-Go.
What's new then in this version :
- Finally fix issue with "Home -> Exit" !
- Digital pad is now usable in file requester
even when danzeff keyboard is displayed
- Fix inconsistency between zip rom file names and save game name.
- Tested on new FW 5x-M33
This version doesn't fix any compatibility issue, so all games that didn't work with earlier
versions still won't run.
How to use it ? Everything is in the README.txt file.
Sources are included, and this package is under the GNU public licence v2, read COPYING.txt
file for more information about it.
This should be a final version only if major bugs are found. Most of all incompatibility issues are
already presents in original windows / Linux Hu-go version so i don't plan to fix them
(too much work, it would be easier to port another PC Engine emulator ...)
Got any questions that you think would be great for DCEmu Interviews then please reply to this thread with them and the best will be asked to the whole DCEmu Network.
A feature i did a few years ago and one im going to repeat now is the DCEmu Interview, a unique idea in which questions are asked by me to the Whole DCEmu Community its a way to learn more about each others and find out what our interests are and much more
Todays Question is What Was The First Game You Beat?
Give your Answer via Comments.
We want your DCEmu Interview Questions, Post any good questions Here
Remember to check out our DCEmu Interview Site to catch up on previous DCEmu Interview Questions
Got a Console we havent reviewed or want to do a better review then please reply to this and post your reviews, any reviews accepted will be shown through the entire DCEmu Network, reply via Comments with your reviews and we will do the rest
Nintendo always seem to have some controversy with their consoles and sometimes have failed miserably - Virtual Boy - and sometimes changed the face of gaming - Wiimote.
The DSi seems to have some major pluses not only for commercial but for Homebrew in the long run and some obvious minuses.
The loss of the GBA Slot is a killer for GBA Homebrew and emulators made for the GBA which theres hundreds of great games released.
The stopping of it seems all present DS Flashcarts is a major triumph for commercial game fans but disasterous for Homebrew and moreso for piracy.
Another minus is that the new console only at the moment ships with Japanese language only where the DS Lite and DS Phat you could change your language, another downturn.
Pluses are of course the SD Slot, could this lead to a homebrew scene without the need for flash carts, it sure makes you wonder, i do see at first a need for some type of passme type device to allow access to the sd slot.
The SD Slot may also be the start of a virtual console system for the DS, judging by what we know is possible already via the homebrew scene, it shouldnt be too much of a dream to have Snes, Genesis, Master System, Nes, Gameboy games via a DS Virtual Console.
Continuing our network wide feature for just about every console thats emulated and that we own, in time it can be used as a reference point for people to look at what games are the very best on each system
Firstly heres a look at each system and a description to remind you of the history of the console.
Neo Geo
SNK (Shin Nihon Kikaku, translated as "New Japanese Project"), a small third party software developer for the Nintendo NES, decided to try their hand in the arcade market in 1989, it seemed like a bad business decision since gamers no longer flocked to arcades thanks to home consoles. Nonetheless SNK released the MVS (Multi-Video System). The MVS allows the arcade operator to house many different video games in one cabinet. The MVS's strengths lay in the design of its hardware. Its brain was composed of a 16-bit microprocessor (68000) and an 8-bit microprocessor (Z80). They were plentiful, cheap, and quite powerful for the time. Using them kept production costs down and made coding much easier, as both the 68000 and the Z80 were in common use at the time (Sega's Genesis had the same CPU combination, for example). The real magic of the MVS lay in its custom graphics chipset and its ability to hold up to four games at once, switching between them at will. While this multi-game concept had been tried before (one example being Nintendo's Playchoice system), SNK's hardware was far superior to any of the multi-game systems currently available, and its vast ROM storage capacity (up to 330 megabits, or 41.25 megabytes) allowed lush, detailed graphics. SNK took another gamble and created a home version of the MVS in 1990. When the NEO GEO was released at a high cost of $650 with either NAM-1975 or Baseball Stars Professional, and games soon followed at $200 apiece. The Special cartridges played the exact same software as it's MVS counterpart, but were quite expensive due to the game' high megabit count. At first SNK marketed the Neo Geo falsely calling it a "24-Bit System" (due to its combination of a 16-bit and 8-bit processor). After the initial advertising campaign, SNK decided not to advertise their home system anymore, since games could be seen in nearly every arcade.
SNK's gamble paid off. In 1992 an arcade game called Street Fighter 2 brought gamers back to the arcades. SNK took advantage of this by releasing similar arcade versions such as Fatal Fury, and Art of Fighting. The games were quite successful, and many more were spawned. Third Party developers such as Data East began also producing titles for the Neo Geo / MVS. SNK also created an innovating accessory that would become quite popular later. The Neo Geo 'memory card' could hold 19-27 save game positions, and worked on both the home and arcade. So a gamer could save their place in the arcade and take it home, and vice versa. The Neo Geo was a phenominal machine, but the high price tag catered to the hardcore arcade lovers only. Nonetheless it was an amazing machine that stood the test of time. The MVS alone managed to last over eight years in the demanding arcade environment, and its hardware has out-lived every other 16-bit arcade hardware. Walk into any arcade, and you're bound to see a Neo Geo MVS.
FACT: "330 Meg Pro-Gear Spec" always seemed to appear in Neo Geo game intros, and was the ROM addressing technology of the Neo Geo. Truth is that the machine has no such limit. Back in 1990, SNK had to give a certain Megabit count as their maximum, and so 330 was used. However current Neo Geo titles have surpassed this 330 megabit standard. For example the game "King of Fighters 2001" was 892 megabits in size.
Here a new (final?) version of PSPCAP32 the CPC Emulator for PSP.
For those who haven't seen previous versions, Caprice32 is one
of the best emulator of the Amstrad CPC home computer series running
on Windows and Unix, written by Ulrich Doewich.
This emulator faithfully imitates the CPC464, CPC664, and CPC6128 models
(see http://sourceforge.net/projects/caprice32)
What's new in version 1.4.4 :
- Cheat support !
- Text editor to modify the global cheat.txt file
- Memory monitoring engine to find your own cheat code !
- Text editor to write your own comments on games
- Display first comment line while browsing game files
- Finally fix issue with "Home -> Exit" !
- Add option to disable auto fire in settings menu
- Improve global emulation speed
- Improve file requester with virtual keyboard to choose
sequentially rom files beginning with a given letter
- Zip rom files are now decompressed in memory (much faster !)
- Tested on FW-5.0-m33
How to use it ? Everything is in the README.txt file.
Sources are included, and this package is under the GNU public license,
read COPYING.txt file for more information about it.
We're sure that following whatever events that may have transpired last night, your avarice for zombie-related media is at an all-time high. After all, Halloween is arguably the official holiday of the undead, next to Zombie Abraham Lincoln Day, which is only observed in certain parts of Illinois. To slake your thirst for those shambling brain-eaters, we've posted the opening cinematic for Valve's upcoming co-op survival sim, Left 4 Dead, after the jump.
We should warn you, it may increase your anticipation for the title to a level that causes you to begin feverishly working on a time machine with which to jump to the game's November 18 release. If you don't have the funding or free time for such an ambitious project, you'd be wise to skip ahead.
It's touted as "a visual programming language for kids" in a Seattle Times blog post. Really, Boku is a game, the 360 controller is its input, and you can bet this Microsoft project seeks to tap the enormous enthusiasm for user-generated content seen in games like LittleBigPlanet. No release date has been set for Boku yet, but at Microsoft's Professional Developer's Conference this week, project lead Matthew MacLaurin indicated we'll get the chance to play it early next year. Whether that's a beta or full release was not specified.
With the release of Fallout 3 on the Xbox 360, Pc and Ps3 this week, there has been controversy over the Playstation 3 version containing game stopping glitches. With the Xbox360 and the PC versions running fine, it has raised the question of why so many Playstation 3 releases are broken on release date relying on a patch.
First Socom suffered then it was Little Big Planet, and now one of the year’s most anticipated games has suffered the same fate. But the reason why this one hits so hard is because it is multiplatform and the game runs flawlessly on the 360 and Pc. How does it look for Sony when their competition can run these games without a hiccup whilst even Sony’s first party games are being released broken.
The issue here seems to be that while the developers have no problem creating Xbox 360 games along with the Pc versions due to the architectures being so similar, they cannot seem to fully get to grips with the Playstation’s architecture to the point they can avoid these glitches. We have to keep in mind that developers have a time line to work towards, so if it is easier for them to create the Playstation 3 versions the best they can then fix it with a patch post release, this is the course of action they will take. This is no issue for them, Sony unfortunately have to suffer the criticism as millions of their customers are left not receiving the same satisfaction as the competitions base.
Even those who own all systems will buy all 3rd party releases for the Xbox 360 without a second thought due to the fact they already know they can get the best experience from buying this version. It is extremely sad to see this from the eyes of a Playstation 3 owner as myself. However I feel it is up to Sony to make this trend change, as the developers will do what they are payed to do and they are not payed to make the Playstation experience a better one. Let’s hope Sony can offer more support with their Dev kits in the future so all multiplatform titles can be identical and the first party exclusives can be that much more appealing.
(For some items such as Modchips, Flashcarts etc you will need to be logged in at Mr Modchips to view them, they are only viewable by members, all other products are viewable to everyone)
A brand new original replacement lens for PlayStation 3 (model KES-410ACA)
(For some items such as Modchips, Flashcarts etc you will need to be logged in at Mr Modchips to view them, they are only viewable by members, all other products are viewable to everyone)
A brand new replacement small motor for PS3 , compatible with KES-400AAA laser only
(For some items such as Modchips, Flashcarts etc you will need to be logged in at Mr Modchips to view them, they are only viewable by members, all other products are viewable to everyone)
A brand new original replacement memory card socket board for PS3
(For some items such as Modchips, Flashcarts etc you will need to be logged in at Mr Modchips to view them, they are only viewable by members, all other products are viewable to everyone)
Brand new original replacement full optical block for PS3, compatible with 40GB console only
(For some items such as Modchips, Flashcarts etc you will need to be logged in at Mr Modchips to view them, they are only viewable by members, all other products are viewable to everyone)
A replacement drive board (Including BD7956FS) for PS3
(For some items such as Modchips, Flashcarts etc you will need to be logged in at Mr Modchips to view them, they are only viewable by members, all other products are viewable to everyone)
A great low price battery pack for the official Xbox 360 wireless controller
Not only does it features high power time with 12 hours of gameplay, but it also charge in only 3 hours.
Specifications :
- Fully compatible with all official Xbox 360 wireless controllers
- Mega power can supply continuously power to your controller for 12 hours!
- Quick charge function: full charge in 3 hours
- 168 hours stand by mode
A replacement audio visual lead for the XBOX 360 which allows connection to VGA supported devices and now with an optical out port for stunning audio to match your hi-definition display
- Supports VGA signal
- Supports D2/D3/D4 (up 1080i*1080P) technology
- Supports Audio stereo sound output function
- Supports Dolby Prologic system
- Supports CRT, LCD, HD TV system or monitor
- Supports surround receiver, integrated amplifier or all audio components
- High speed and efficient for signal transmit
- High quality 24K golden electroplate plug
- Supports high definition displayer system
Compatible with both PSP and PSP Slim and Lite, this quick charger will reload your battery efficiently and with any adaptor.
Specifications
- Quick charge function
- Auto-detect full charge function
- Built-in full charge LED indicator
- 8 hours full charge with PSP (regular) battery
- 6 hours full charge with PSP Slim and Lite battery
- Built-in 'electric protect circuit' to prevent battery and console from burn out
- Compatible with PSP/PSP Slim and Lite original or 3rd party battery pack
- Compatible with original PSP/PSP Slim and lite or 3rd party AC adapter, car
lighter adapter or USB power charge cable
- sold without battery
Whether you've stripped out some screws or your so-called friend dropped one during an install, fear no more! Your PSP can be whole again and just as sturdy as before.
There are 19 pieces in total making a complete set
The Cooling fan is easy to install and simply attaches onto the XBox 360. Discrete in appearance and offering quiet and safe operation, ideal for prolonged gaming sessions. Helps to reduce the temperature within the Xbox360 console Contains 2 cooling fans No need to add external power No modification to console required Connects using USB Port On/Off Switch
Core Cooler V2 is a high end version of XCM popular Core Cooler. Now compatible with all Xbox 360 and also coming with Twin Fans for double cooling power, it still features great lightning to add a custom look to your console.
Specifications :
XCM core cooler v2 can be used combine with XCM High Speed air cooler (more efficiency and cooling power) or independently. Unlike other brands of external fan, external Xbox 360 fan can only cool the temperature of the Xbox 360's outer surface but does not cool the temperature of the CPU/GPU, therefore making them useless to combat CPU/GPU overheating. XCM 360 core cooler directly cools down the temperature from the core (CPU and GPU) of 360 console.
The Whisper Max - with the new nitro switch, has more cooling options and tuning options than any xbox cooler available! The ultimate Xbox 360 cooling fan.
Specifications :
The new Whisper Max is a deluxe version of the standard original Whisper fan with additional features:
1) COOLING: Nitro switch allows you to change between 12v and 5v power, more than doubling your air output with the press of a single button! Suitable for use with "game mode" and "movie mode"
2) LIGHTING: One product, 3 colours. When you install your whisper, you can choose between Blue, Green, or Red lights, or not install any at all. You can even change colours later.
3) QUALITY: Ball bearing construction is higher quality, lasts longer.
Your PSP battery can give you up to ten hours of use per charge, but is this enough? When you have fought your way to the last level and are about to face the end of game boss, the last thing you want is to have to wait for the battery to recharge before delivering the killer blow. That's where MAX Power comes in.
The MAX Power Slimline is a lithium battery for the PSP designed in a slimmer package to fit the new Slimeline PSP. Keep it charged and you always have a back-up in case your main battery is drained at a crucial moment.
Features
Special slimmer 1200mAh version of the MAX Power
Up to eight hours of use per charge.
Always have a spare battery handy.
Replacement UMD cases for your Sony PSP. Includes 3 UMD cases and a polishing cloth.
Specifications :
Replacement UMD cases. Don't be left without a playable game because of a broken piece of plastic. And, you can raise the value of your used games too. Includes 3 UMD cases and a polishing cloth so that you can refurbish your games as needed.
NDS SMS SPEC:
◇ USB Plug and Play, driver FREE
◇ 2in1 intelligent design, AUTO detect chip type
◇ Support all original NDS Cart and R6
◇ Support nds game save EEPROM backup/restore
◇ Support R6 firmware update
◇ Build in 2 color LED indication
Hi! I've recently started to work on this project. It's a 2d platform game with RPG elements. Idea of this game is preety old, but earlier I couldn't write it on DS. In this game you are a boy who was changed into spider. In the beginning of the game you can just jump, but later you will learn more abilities, such as wall climbing or web swinging, etc. I've already write a few lines and I want you to play this and tell me what you like and don't like in this game.
You jump with A button. You can stick to the wall with B button and use web parachute with X button. I hope you'll enjoy this!
Ok, this is a really simple tool.
Enter your hex color up the top, hit convert, and it'll tell you the appropriate RGB color in both 0-255 and 0-31 format, ASWELL as the value in PA_RGB format.
I hope to add buttons and stuff to convert from any of these formats to any of the other formats.
PLib is a creation of my own. It is based off of the PALib Wiki platform tutorials and my own code. It has some amazing features:
Character creation
Object Creation
Character Movement
Object Scrolling
Character and object collision
A level drawing function
And more to come...
It was created to help give DS Homebrew Development a jump start, as I feel that there should be more platforming games out there for hand held systems. Currently there is no release, but there is a video demonstrating PLibs abilities as of 11/1/08!
Here is the code for the game. that way you can see how easy it is to make it using PLib:
Code:
// Includes
#include <PA9.h> // Include for PA_Lib
#include <stdio.h>
// PAGfxConverter Include
#include "gfx/all_gfx.c"
#include "gfx/all_gfx.h"
// Include for PLib
#include "../PLib.h"
void initmain(void);
int main()
{
initmain();
return 0;
}
void initmain(void)
{
PA_Init(); // Initializes PA_Lib
PA_InitVBL(); // Initializes a standard VBL
GEM_Init_Backs(); //Initialize the background slots
GEM_Init_PLib(); //Initialize PLib
//Set Mario's score to 0
u8 marioscore = 0;
// Some Random text
PA_InitText(1, 2);
PA_OutputSimpleText(1, 1, 2, "Mario Says: Hey, Stop Playing!!!");
//Draw the level
GEM_Draw_Level(mario_world, hills, back); //GEM_Draw_Level(Background 1, Background 2, Background 3) Backgrounds must be converted with PAGfx
//Create the Main Character
MCharacter mario(0, 60, 128-32, //MCharacter name(Sprite Number, Sprite X Position, Sprity Y Position,
colmapcoin_Map, 128, true); //Collisionmap name + _Map, level length (Must be divisble by 8), whether to scroll or not in True or False)
//Create a new object
NewObject coin; //NewObject name
//Draw the Main Character
mario.draw(0, 1, //name.draw(Starting frame for movement, Ending frame for movement,
2, 0, (void*)mario_Texture, 32, 32, TEX_16BITS); // Jumping frame, Standing Frame, (void*) + name + _Texture, Sprite X Size, Sprite Y Size, Texture Conversion Type)
//Draw the object
coin.DrawObjectXY(1, 20, 90, (void*)coin_Texture, //name.DrawObjectXY(Sprite Number, Sprite X Position, Sprite Y Position, (void*) + name + _Texture
8, 8, TEX_16BITS); //Sprite X Size, Sprite Y Size, Texture Conversion Type)
// Infinite loop to keep the program running
while (1)
{
//Move the Character
mario.moveCharacter(mario.spriteNumber, Pad.Held.Right, Pad.Newpress.Right, //name.moveCharacter(name.spriteNumber, Pad.Held.Button, Pad.Newpress.Button,
Pad.Held.Left, Pad.Newpress.Left, Pad.Held.A, Pad.Newpress.A); //Pad.Held.Button, Pad.Newpress.Button, Pad.Held.Button, Pad.Newpress.Button)
//Scroll the object
coin.ScrollObject(coin, mario.scrollx, mario.scrolly); //name.ScrollObject(Sprite Number, main character + .scrollx, main character + .scrolly)
//Collision between the Character and an Object
if(GEM_MAINC_OBJ_COL(mario, coin)==1) //GEM_MAINC_OBJ_COL(character name, object name)
{
coin.DeleteObject(1);
marioscore += 1;
}
//Write the current score
PA_OutputText(1, 1, 4, "Score: %d", marioscore);
//Standard PALib function
PA_WaitForVBL();
//Proccess the 3D Sprites
PA_3DProcess();
}
}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am currently working on: SSBDS or Super Smash Bros. DS
"When someone pulls you on a string, there are two things you can do; cut it, or play tug of war."
WARNING!
This person cannot do graphics to save their life.
The winners of the annual indie developer-friendly contest Dream-Build-Play were recently announced. After scouring the 350 titles that were submitted (including, we imagine, a great deal of groundbreaking Pong clones), Microsoft awarded the $40,000 grand prize to Singapore's Team Gambit, for their XNA Game Studio-borne entry, CarnyVale: Showtime (pictured above), an "acrobatic puzzle game" which includes a built-in level editor. In addition to the cash prize, Team Gambit will apparently have the opportunity to publish their title on Xbox Live Arcade.
Other submissions garnered cash prizes and XBLA invitations for their creators, including a side-scrolling action game titled Weapon of Choice, a martial arts sim named HurricaneX, and the self-explanatory, infinitely intriguing Battle Tennis. These finalists, as well as many other submissions for the contest, will be available on the Xbox Live Community Games Channel when the NXE is released on November 19.
Michael Abbott of the Brainy Gamer has a nice reminder of why we play RPGs (well, those of us who play RPGs), based on some of his undergraduates' writings on their experiences in Fallout 1 and 2. Michael notes that the exercise — writing autobiographies of their characters — is often used in theatre, but it never occurred to him that it would be useful for his students in his RPG seminar, until "we began discussing the characters they had created .... The sense of ownership they clearly felt, and their remarkably vivid descriptions of their experiences in the games, made the assignment a no-brainer." Which goes to one of the reasons why people make the investment in RPGs:
What we're really talking about is pretending. Make-believe. "Role-playing" may bless the activity with a marginally more acceptable moniker, but when we play RPGs we summon our most primitive urges - the ones we've had since we were children - and we tap into something about the human psyche that inclines toward empathy.
We love pretending because we possess an innate desire to understand (to know and to feel) what it would be like to be *this* man or *that* woman. To mold a character through our own choices and to walk in his shoes, with as many in-world consequences and as few real-world consequences as possible, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
We know all this, and we've known it for a long time...but sometimes it pays to stop and take a another look. Sometimes we're jolted into knowing something in a better way than we knew it before.
It's an interesting look at (a) an interesting pedagogical tool (I am so hoping I can teach seminars on RPGs one day) and (b) a reminder of why (some of us) love RPGs.
Goatstore Publishing have posted a letter to the Dreamcast scene, heres the full detals:
The Sega Dreamcast. It was, and is, an amazing system. To this day, a lot of people still declare that it was the last true "hardcore" system. I personally think that this has to do with the fact that the Dreamcast was the last system to be made by an arcade manufacturer who ported many of their arcade games to the system with spectacular results.
Since the initial release of the Dreamcast, the arcade scene worldwide has given way to new styles of gaming. Consoles like the Xbox 360 allow you to play 'arcade' games in the comfort of your living room and consoles like the Wii allow gamers to interact with games in a way that is new and unique. The Dreamcast really stood at an interesting turning point in gaming and what we were able to accomplish could have only happened like it did with the Dreamcast.
Everything done in recent years for the Dreamcast would not have been possible without the efforts of a small group of people known as Cryptic Allusion. Shortly after the release of the system, when the Dreamcast was still viable, it was reverse engineered to see what could be done with it; everything on the Dreamcast was borne out of an intense curiosity about the system and how it functioned. This group of people then set to work developing their own game demos for the system to see what it could do. Nowadays, between today's legal climate and the complexity added to today's consoles, it would be nearly impossible for the same thing to happen again.
The GOAT Store, LLC was lucky enough to be put into contact with these developers in a complete chance happening. At the 2002 Midwest [Gaming] Classic, a group of people came to show underground Dreamcast development. I took my disc home from the event and put it on a shelf, never intending to play it until I got a call from a friend who told me that the games on the disc were amazing and easily as good as some of the released games. I plugged the disc into my Dreamcast and was blown away...
These game demos weren't "homebrew" game demos like I expected; these games were fully realized 2D and 3D worlds with unique gameplay ideas that were unlike what we had seen elsewhere. We set about contacting these developers to try to bring their dreams into the real world as games, and had great success.
In 2003, the first GOAT Store Publishing title, Feet of Fury created by Cryptic Allusion, was released. Following this release, and after a huge series of legal wranglings, GOAT Store Publishing released three more titles in 2005: Inhabitants, Maqiupai and Cool Herders.
All of these games were developed and released with strict guidelines in place and the quality of the games speak to what these developers were able to accomplish with limited resources. This success was noticed by a multitude of people both fans of the Dreamcast and beyond. Some developers were contacted by large companies and offered projects from them to consider for mainstream systems. The International Game Developers Association asked me to write an article detailing the games and how they were made, and invited me to do guest speaking at some of their meetings discussing what we did, why we did it, and what the plans were for the future.
The future side of the equation was perhaps the most interesting. In 2006, we announced 12 titles that were in development which we hoped to release within the year. However, despite our optimistic view, the work done by our independent developers is not like a large firm where developers clock in and out for the workday; our independent developers are just that and work, usually at their home, on their own schedule. We do not have any way to ensure that a game is completed or released and external factors in many cases shifted the attention of the developers away from what they had planned.
In other cases, occasionally developers would bring us games that had fatal flaws -- the gameplay was'nt developed well, the game didn't feel 'complete', the controls didn't work -- whatever it was, we decided with our first release that if we didn't have 100% faith in the games we were releasing, we wouldn't publish games just to dupe the public into purchasing a game that wasn't exceptional. Even though this has limited releases, we genuinely believe all of our releases have all been held to a high standard of design and gameplay.
Speaking to the future, we will continue to uphold our high standards of level of design and gameplay ensuring each release is truly fun and enjoyable. With that in mind, I can't sit here and promise that we will have ten, twelve, five or even one more game ever come out. However, we do have a number of projects which are still in development by top notch developers right now and it is our hope the developers will be able to finish the games so they can be released. Going forward, we have learned that until games are ready to go to the presses not to talk too much about them. I only hope we will have the opportunity to tell you all about the wonderful things these developers were able to accomplish on this unique console.
We thank you for supporting the Sega Dreamcast and GOAT Store Publishing. We hope you continue to play your Dreamcast well into the future enjoying all of your favorite games. The Dreamcast truly is an exceptional system and perhaps it really is the last true 'hardcore' system. We are honored, and humbled, to have been able to add something to its legacy.
Dan Loosen
As always this network will help in any way we can, keeping the Dream and in that the Dreamcast Alive is what we want.
Lino has released a new version of his Nintendo DS Emulator for Windows:
Beta version for my emu, here's the changelog :
Fixed a bug in POLYGON_ATTR. experimental
Fixed bugs in VRAMCNT_F and VRAMCNT_G.
Fixed a bug in MemoryView Control.
Added Guitar Grip Key Config.
A new beta release of Dolphin the Gamecube and Nintendo Wii Emulator for Windows has been released.
Dolphin is a Gamecube emulator. It also has preliminary support for Wii and basic Triforce emulation (this is pending a commit, and does not run games yet).
Gamecube compatibility is about the same (or worse, due to various core changes and lack of subsequent compatibility work) as previous releases.
Wii compatibility is very low. Some games show their intro movies, that's it. There is preliminary Wiimote emulation but it does not work yet.
Heres whats new:
fixed an off by one error I created in the texture copy function in
bpstructs.cpp. SSBM no longer has black on ground. sorry about that ;p
noticed the real HW doesn't clip some things it should. modified the projection
matrix to account for this.
changed normal loader to better handle 1 or 3 index NBT data which fixed an
underrun.
added missing z component in biasing section of indirect texturing.
Download Here and Leave Feedback and Compatability reports Via Comments
A new beta release of Dolphin the Gamecube and Nintendo Wii Emulator for Windows has been released.
Dolphin is a Gamecube emulator. It also has preliminary support for Wii and basic Triforce emulation (this is pending a commit, and does not run games yet).
Gamecube compatibility is about the same (or worse, due to various core changes and lack of subsequent compatibility work) as previous releases.
Wii compatibility is very low. Some games show their intro movies, that's it. There is preliminary Wiimote emulation but it does not work yet.
Heres whats new:
fixed an off by one error I created in the texture copy function in
bpstructs.cpp. SSBM no longer has black on ground. sorry about that ;p
noticed the real HW doesn't clip some things it should. modified the projection
matrix to account for this.
changed normal loader to better handle 1 or 3 index NBT data which fixed an
underrun.
added missing z component in biasing section of indirect texturing.
Download Here and Leave Feedback and Compatability reports Via Comments
For those who haven't seen previous versions, fMSX is a famous emulator of the MSX, MSX2, and MSX2+ 8bit home computers.
It runs MSX/MSX2/MSX2+ software on many different platforms including Windows and Unix.
See http://fms.komkon.org/fMSX/ for further informations.
It has been first written by Marat Fayzullin, and later Vincent van Dam ported it on SDL.
What's new in version 1.4.1 :
- Finally fix issue with "Home -> Exit" !
- Text editor to write your own comments on games
- Display first comment line while browsing game files
- Digital pad is now usable in file requester
even when danzeff keyboard is displayed
- Fix inconsistency between zip rom file names and save game name.
- Improve cheat menu & memory monitoring engine
- Text editor to modify the global cheat.txt file
- Tested on new FW 5x-M33
- Bug fix in unzip function (if you tried to unzip
more than 10 files, it wasn't able to open any
other files, and you had to restart the emulator)
- Add option to disable auto fire in settings menu
How to use it ? Everything is in the README.txt file.
Sources are included, and are distributed under Marat Fayzullin's license for the original MSX part, and under GNU license for all the PSP part.
This should be the last release, (before the next one as always)
Here we go again folks! More news on the mandatory install of the upcoming Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm that is set to release in a couple of days! As we go hands-on with the retail build of Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, a mandatory install popped up having you wait for at least 15-20 minutes to install the 3.9GB Data of the game.
Now that takes almost 4GB space in my 18GB free space that I have…
One of the major updates the DSi brings to the DS platform is full network connectivity. While featured only minimally in the original DS and DSLite, download content and firmware updates are at the core of the DSi experience.
You'll figure this out as soon as you first power up the system. Click on the DSi Shop icon from the main menu, and you're immediately prompted to run a firmware update.
The process for doing firmware updates is pretty much the same as it is on the Wii. For the non-Wii owners out there, that means pretty much hands-off, although a bit on the slow side.
As with the firmware updates, the DSi shopping experience is quite similar to that of the Wii, right down to the interface. After you select the DSi Shop icon from the menu screen, you're taken to a greeting screen which will presumably be used to list promotions, notices, and latest content in the future. From here, you can select to go to the main shopping interface, which currently includes a single category for DSi Ware software (no Virtual Console category yet!).
The main shopping interface also lets you add DSi Points, read the DSi shop manual, and access a settings menu. Aside from the manual, these other two areas are pretty useless at this point. The settings menu lets you record your Club Nintendo ID and check up on purchase history, things that will probably become more relevant once the store has actual content. The option for adding DSi Points currently takes you to a screen with a message noting that you won't be able to add points until actual paid content is available (some time in December).
The only piece of content available under the DSi Ware option at the moment is the free Opera browser. The download takes 85 blocks of your 1,024 block space. While not listed in the system's official specs, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said during a recent investor briefing that the internal memory consists of 256 megabytes, which is half that of the Wii.
The buying experience is similar to that of the Wii Shopping Channel, with the shop making it clear how many points and blocks you have remaining both before and after the purchase. The big change is what comes once you've made your purchase. The DSi's download screen replaces the 8-bit Mario sprite from the Wii Shopping Channel interface with the 16-bit Mario family, including Mario, Peach, Luigi, and Toad. The four run around tossing blue balls into a box which, once full, turns into a present. When you head back to the main menu, this present is waiting to be open, and reveals itself to be... the browser that you just bought. The present thing will likely be a lot neater once Nintendo builds up the download library and lets other people buy games for you.
Aside from the lack of content, the big problem with the DSi Shopping interface is speed. Regardless of our internet connection, it took us around 30 seconds to get into the store from the main DSi interface. Pauses of between five and ten seconds accompany almost any action you take in the store. It feels pretty sluggish. This is hopefully something Nintendo can improve with future firmware updates.
While the actual store interface may be slow, once you get download content onto your DSi, managing it is pretty smooth (or at least it seems to be smooth for our single piece of content). The main settings menu, accessible off the main menu interface, has a "software management" option This lets you view available memory and switch off quickly between applications stored internally and on SD. You can also select to delete software and copy between SD and internal memory. As with the Wii, the copy process feels just a bit too long.
Despite the speed issues, the shopping interface will likely be an invaluable part of the DS experience once download titles hit (and if WiiWare is any indication, there will be a lot of games). The same can't be said about the web browser at present, though.
Surfing on the Wii isn't the fastest experience. On the DS, it's pure torture. In addition to slow download speeds, with sites like Yahoo News taking over a minute to load up, the browser has difficulty rendering pages. You have to scroll extremely slowly, or you'll end up with blank areas as the page redraws itself.
Forget the slow rendering, though. Most pages we tried wouldn't even load completely. IGN is one example. Facebook didn't load either.
If you're looking to check your mail, you may be out of luck. Gmail loaded up to the login screen, but once we actually logged in, the browser attempted to load for a minute or so, then gave up after complaining about the page taking up too much memory. Hotmail let us log in, but the formatting was screwed up, and we couldn't actually click on anything.
Yahoo Mail did load, and we were able to send out mail. Not with attachments, though, as the attachment file selector wouldn't let us peer into the system's internal memory, or onto the SD card.
For those expecting multimedia content like YouTube, a warning screen prior to downloading the browser confirms no compatibility with movie files, music files, or flash.
On the bright side, going from the main menu into the browser is pretty quick. It takes about ten seconds to get to a screen where you can select to input a URL, conduct a search, open favorites, open history, and check settings. The fast speed for startup suggests that there could still be some use for the browser if someone would make a DS-friendly page, proportioned to fit the DS screen exactly, and completely devoid of high memory images and other flashy features.
With a DS-oriented sites, perhaps the browser could live up to the promise, posted in the browser's description text at the DSi shop, of offering a new "free style" of internet, where users can check news from their favorite sites while in bed, and update their blogs while viewing television.
For those who are already planning their DSi browsing sessions, settings available off the browser greeting screen include options to use Google or Yahoo as your base search engine, turn images on and off, toggle word-wrap on and off, toggle smart frames (a method through which the browser merges frames in framed pages together), delete cookie information and set a proxy. Turning images off does improve download speed although it doesn't seem to fix the page rendering issues.
While the browser will probably remain a secondary experience, the "I" in the DSi suggests that download content via the shopping channel is going to be one of the primary merits of Nintendo's third generation portable. The shopping experience isn't as smooth as we'd like right now, but regardless of that, a potential wealth of content, as indicated by the recent surge in Japanese WiiWare announcements, will make visiting the shopping channel a worthwhile evil.
Xart has finally released his rubiks cube game for the PSP, heres the details:
Here is a early alpha version release that I have quickly tested my self by scrambling and solving the cube.
Controls are simple.
Analog Stick : selecting a point on the cube to rotate "front or right side only"
Cross Held : use the Analog Stick to select a direction
Cross Released : makes the move
Digital Pad : rotate the hole cube forwards, backwards, left or right
We treat them like a rare species, but really, women who game are not that uncommon. Recent polls have put the figure between 35 and 40 percent of women, a minority but not a scarcity. Negative Gamer's Chelsea — aka Nintendoll — spotted something elsewhere that set her teeth on edge, and she wants to set the record straight about the reasons women and girls game. Because in her view the experience risks getting cliquey and catty, like high school.
Female gamers separate into two groups, Chelsea says, that are pretty easy to understand. "Girl gamers" do it for the attention — "a feeling of security and control from her social circle" — while "female gamers" just want to have friends who share an interest in games. "Since these “gamer girls” get their self-esteem from the praise and adoration of men who play video games, they become dependent on video games as something far more than entertainment."
How does it get to that point?
Well, it’s a problem that many people suffer from that is completely unrelated to gaming: low self-esteem. These girls want to be part of what they see as an exclusive boy’s club. It is true that women are currently a minority in the gaming industry, which is why gaming men find girls who play video games more desirable. Girls who feel the need to be loved try to sneak their way into this “boy’s club” using video games as a pretense to say that they’re a “tomboy” or “just one of the guys.” But the reality is that it is not really for the “equality” that they constantly complain is absent, but for the feeling of superiority over other girls coupled with the adoration of the male gaming community.
And that's where it gets catty.
“Gamer girls” hate on each other because they feel threatened by each other. Another female in this “boy’s club” diffuses the overall attention that a girl will get. Therefore a “gamer girl” will rip into another female gamer to protect her status as the most important girl in this male-dominated social circle. This is not unique to the video game industry, I’ve seen it happen in other predominantly male territories such as tech schools and the local rock climbing gym I used to frequent.
How can dudes help? She doesn't say, and I don't want to get all womyn's-studies on you here. But I'd say that treating everyone who picks up a controller, male or female, like a gamer first is a good start.
Patronizing, condescending or leering behavior would definitely discourages an interest in gaming as a fun activity, and if they continue it'll be for the other reasons Chelsea described — attention seeking, social superiority, etc.
I know I foment a lot of the "OMG hot girls who game" stuff, but when you look at them — Jo Garcia and Grace Kim are demonstrably serious about what they do, and the cosplayers are definitely informed about the games they like. To me, that's even hotter, and you see it when you game with them seriously.
Pong2 is an open-source game based on the original game of Pong. Pong2 has improved features over the original. The paddle can be moved horizontally and vertically. 10 tracks of background music are available during game play. The first player to score 10 points in each level is the winner.
Special thanks to my family for there support during the development of this game.
02/11/2008 version 0.9
Add new welcome screens
Improve game images
Add help screen (Minus button)
Created new homebrew game logo
Im sure many of you have searched using the normal forum search built into Vbulletin forums and to be Honest the search doesnt give decent results and so i end up using google which is why i stuck google search through the entire network.
Last night after watching twister i had a bottle of fruit cider (jacques) and was browsing the mods for VB and spotted a Google Custom Search Mod and well a bit of work and its working perfect and it searches not only the forums but the whole DCEmu Network so its bloody awesome
Any other webmasters using Vbulletin will love this mod.
Hello everyone, Right we were going to mention this somewhere so it may as well go here.
The price of batch two will be $339. That will be converted in to pounds/euros when we are ready to take orders for the second batch.
So there you go, price fixed, in dollars, to $339 (ex taxes) which includes the upgraded RAM and NAND.
This is real bleeding edge tech for a very low price when compared to similar machines, we have done everything we can to get the price as low as we can - but one thing we won't drop is quality - we won't use chinese factories, cheap parts etc. almost everything (inc the pcb) is made in north America.
What does that mean for you? It means if anything goes wrong it's all guaranteed and it meets safety standards. It also means high quality not Chinese PMP style quality.
We have learnt that the reason Chinese stuff is cheap is because it IS cheap and nasty - So we could all save $80 but get a device which is made to the lowest standards or pay a little more and get something high quality.
6 months from now you will be happy we did that I hope and the extra cost will have been worth it.
I just don't want to deal with a GP2X First edition fiasco again. So we won't be running to the cheapest factory any time soon.
Lets hope the dollar rate comes down soon, sterling is crap against the dollar at the moment
WiiTCPLoader 0.03 is a simple utility, If you have Homebrew Channel or TCP Loader on your Wii console, with this tool you can send executable files (elf/dol or other) over tcp/ip protocol, and execute them. Windows/Linux Pascal source code included. WiiTCPLoad GUI is coded in QT4, and since just about every OS can or does run QT.
WiiTCPLoad Changelog
====================
Version 0.03:
- GUI fixes in main/about window. (GUI looks correct on MacOSX/Windows)
- Make install now working.
- Integration with common desktop environments. (KDE3/4, GNOME)
- Integration with konqueror, dolphin. ("Send to Homebrew/TCPLoader" action added)
- Fixed TCPLoader protocol, now application wait for accept connection.
- Improved windows version.
- Various bug fixes in source code.
- MacOSX build is now a Universal Binary.
Version 0.02a:
- GUI fixes in main/about window. (GUI looks correct on Windows)
- Windows version should work now.
Version 0.02:
- Support for threads.
- Various bug fixes in source code.
Version 0.01:
- Support for Homebrew Channel
- Support for TCPLoader Channel
Hi Guys,
Here's the second release of Audio Mechanica since the rewrite with Go!Cam support.
This is the first series that can record direct to file, and is able to do so with either
the Socom microphone headset, DIY mic, or Chotto cam (Go!Cam) microphone
Screenshots:
Updates for V7b:
There may still be updates to come for this program.
Cheers, Art.
The Readme is in the archive, but what is not explained in the readme is that player skins are seriously messed up still at this point (they just don't show up right) and the bot skins are the same for both teams (another bug that will hopefully be worked out soon)
Enjoy!
Heres the full news article
Just like any other Quake PSP download, throw the contents of your Quake ID1 folder into the ID1 folder in the Team Fortress folder in the archive. Enjoy!
Note: Not ALL of the maps included work, and in adhoc play, other players' skins do not show up at all, which is something I am trying to work on. Bot skins are all one color, instead of there being a red and blue team skin set. Again, something I'm trying to work on.
Enjoy, world!!
EDIT: Before anyone says anything, I am well aware that it says Team Fortress 1.2 on the zip file, while it really is 1.3, but hey, does that REALLY matter when you're minutes away from Team Fortress on your PSP?
Also, one last note, the readme may refer to some download links that do not exist on the readme, like a second control configuration (already included) because I copied that section from the development thread.
You know you've made it when your little-laptops-that-could sit atop a market-share big enough to support third-party device-hackery like this. It's "easy," it's "fun," it's a solder-less DIY touch-screen kit made specifically for the Acer Aspire One and Eee PC 900/901 netbooks. The 4-wire, resistive panel display with Mac, Linux, and Windows drivers sure looks easy enough to install. But we'll wait for the reviews to see just how well the $96 panel (a cool 25% of the netbook's price) performs under day-to-day use, thankyouverymuch. We've got our Windows 7 pre-beta ready just in case.
Come on folks, say it in unison with us: "Finally!" At long last, a company with a little clout has stood up and questioned the necessity of those ridiculous hard plastic containers that hold minuscule flash cards and the like (along with plastic twist-ties), and better still, it's already doing something about it. Beginning today, consumers who are tired of borrowing the fire department's Jaws of Life to rescue their new USB drive can opt for products in Amazon's "Frustration-Free Packaging," which utilizes streamlined packaging that often includes recyclable cardboard. 19 products from the likes of Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and Transcend are currently available in the new containers, and the firm's CEO has a vision of offering its "entire catalog of products in Frustration-Free Packaging" within a few years. Hey, everyone else in the gadget world -- care to hop on a meaningful bandwagon for once?
FastMac has unveiled their second generation iV battery pack for the iPhone 3G, and it promises to deliver up to 24 hours of talk time, 750 hours (31 days) of standby, 20+ hours of video and almost 72 hours of audio playback time. Depending on your settings, we are talking triple or even quadruple the available power here. It looks a little bulkier than Mophie's Juice Pack, but the extra battery life and added touches like a built-in LED flash/flashlight and a second USB port to charge additional gadgets definitely makes it the more attractive option on paper (a hands-on will be coming up shortly to put this to the test). Plus, it is priced less than the Juice Pack at $80.
You know what sounds really good right now? An artificially flavored fruit soda. But since we don't have one, we'll settle for the Sony and Universal joint venture called PoP. It's an "entertainment vending machine" that uses a touchscreen interface to sell and dispense Blu-rays, PS3 Games, DVDs, CDs, and movie/music downloads for the various PMPs. Arriving in your favorite public spaces soon, the systems promise to launch with 150 movie titles and even run occasional sales. So who knows, they could actually be worth using. Hit up the link for a video of the interface.
Space Harrier (Sega Master System, 1 player, 500 Wii Points) is one of the last of a dying breed: Beloved classic action franchises that haven't been given a completely unnecessary modern remake (and no, we're not counting Planet Harriers). But the closest you're going to come, a Virtual Console release, will be available at noon EST today.
Buy it, not just because it's fun, but because when that unnecessary remake does come, you'll be able to say it's inferior to the original like a champ.
Finding a way to combine pinball and H.R. Giger, Alien Crush Returns (Hudson Entertainment, 1-4 players, 800 Wii Points) is now available on WiiWare. The remake to 1988's Alien Crush has you facing off against insectoid monsters from outer space, using only your flippers and a large metallic sphere. Sonic Spinball would be proud.
For the more faint of heart, this week also introduces to WiiWare Home Sweet Home (Big Blue Bubble Inc., 1 player, 1000 Wii Points), based on the casual PC title. It's all about bringing out the aspiring interior designer inside you, for when you want to live vicariously through the TV instead of getting off the couch to redecorate your actual living room.
Microsoft has been relentless in their pursuit of exclusivity rights for the downloadable content for some of the biggest games of the year -- Grand Theft Auto IV, of course, being chief among them. Other than a vague comment from SCEE president David Reeves, who hinted in May that extra content for GTA IV would "probably" be coming to the PS3, we've not heard much contention from Sony's higher-ups over Microsoft's stranglehold on the DLC of these third-party blockbusters.
This silence was recently broken by Sony UK managing director Ray Maguire, who, in an interview with VideoGamer.com, stated, "nothing is ever exclusive." Maguire explained that while the competition had spent "a large amount of money" to purchase exclusive DLC rights for "a period of time", Sony had chosen to funnel their money into research and development, as well as the production of titles such as LittleBigPlanet.
His statements certainly seem to hint at the possibility of 360-exclusive DLC eventually finding its way onto the PS3 -- though considering the kind of green Microsoft dishes out to secure said DLC, we'd be surprised if it happened anytime soon.
Had to happen. A version of the venerable PC classic Dope Wars has come to the iPhone. Except this "homage" has the even less acceptable moniker of Drug Lords, and takes advantage of the phone's location-tracking to keep your drug prices fresh no matter where your shivering, aimless shambling takes you. Don't expect this in the App Store any time soon.
Cast your minds back a little under a year ago, and you may recall Microsoft having a little trouble with Xbox Live. Namely, it wasn't working. Which was strange, and strange for two reasons. Firstly, it's normally always working. And secondly, it didn't just stop working, it stopped working for weeks. Think it was down for weeks because Microsoft just didn't care? Well, we can tell you, somebody cared. Two people, in fact. One of them was Robbie Bach. And the other? Steve Ballmer.
Someone walking through the parking lot of my apartment complex and seeing a shattered DualShock laying on the ground probably thought someone had a little temper tantrum mixed in with his Bioshock last night. Actually, that's only half right. I wasn't mad at a game, but I was mad at the controller (of course, I'm not to blame). I'd spilled Dr. Pepper all over myself and some got in the left thumbstick. Suddenly I could not move to the right anymore. That's kind of important in a game like MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. It's kind of important in any game, actually. I tested it against my other controller, restarted the machine, let it dry out, nothing. So, $60 got me barely a day's worth of use of this controller. I said why not, heaved it over a row of apartments here and into the adjacent parking lot.
The weekday guys forgot to do a TUD and I know everyone likes weighing in, so I'll ask you here: What's the worst thing you've ever done to a piece of hardware, and why? Bonus points for details like people harmed/frightened by the act. Tell us everything about your rage! Tell us, dammit!
Fresh off getting Sega to be the publisher for its Wii FPS, The Conduit, High Voltage apparently is looking to deliver titles with a more traditional appeal to gamers.
In an interview with WiiRInControl, High Voltage's Eric Nofsinger hints that the next title might be an RPG for the Wii. “That really is another area [RPGs] that can use a shot in the arm I feel," he said. "Keep your eyes peeled because in the near future we’ll be announcing some other titles that we’ve already got underway in development."
He then goes back to the Wii-needs-better-games-and-we're-the-answer line, which has been part of the High Voltage company story for some time.
We feel that there are a number of genres that are poorly represented on the Wii for core gamers. We want to do games that are high quality. You know, that’s what we are. I think it’s a shame for what is our personal favorite system to be so underrepresented when it comes to core gamers.
Seikatsu Rhythm Meter for NDS Lite is a walking trainer that includes a wireless pedometer and uses Miis. It can record walking data and generate all kinds of stats for four participants, which it does at the end of the day.
- Official licensed product
- Protect your Nintendo DSi screen from scratches and damage
- Easy to attach and remove
- Contains 2 sheets for top and bottom screen
The Gears of War Action Figure Box Set comes with four action figures and their weapons. Twelve joints are installed into each of the figures so you can form all sorts of postures with them.
With two heroes, the leader of Delta Squad Marcus Fenix and Private Augustus Cole and two Locusts, Drone and Sniper, you can recreate a large number of memorable battle scenes in this critically acclaimed first person shooter.
After taking a brief stint away from Nintendo consoles to make Spider Man Friend or Foe for the Xbox 360, Next Level Games went back to the Wii. They haven’t announced their next project yet, but the OFLC spilled the beans by rating Jungle Speed and listing Next Level Games as the developer.
At a first glance Jungle Speed the name looks like a racing game, possibly one that could star a certain hairy Nintendo mascot. I’m betting this is going to be a card game though. Jungle Speed is also the name of a revised 3,000 year old card game based on an Aboulou Tribe ritual. The goal of Jungle Speed is to match and get rid of all your nearly identical cards by grabbing the totem in the center when you think you spot a match. The faster player gives up his cards to the less agile one, but you have to be cautious since grabbing the totem when you think you have a match means you have to pick up all of the cards on the table. Jungle Speed sounds like a game of mental and physical reflexes. It also sounds like it could work on the Wii with cards automatically flipping on the screen and the Wii remote acting as a makeshift totem. Hmm… could Jungle Speed be a future WiiWare game?
Most studios, even Sony Pictures, have given up on releasing UMD movies. This already makes Resident Evil Degeneration unique because Sony will release a slightly cheaper UMD version in Japan on December 17. Resident Evil Degeneration on UMD goes for 3,990 yen ($40) while the collector’s edition DVD runs for 4,980 yen ($51).
You know what else Resident Evil Degeneration has? Two language tracks: English and Japanese. Even in Japan Resident Evil games usually have English voice acting so if you want to hear Leon speak Japanese here you go. Collectors might also want to look out for the limited edition Blu-ray box set with the figure above. It’s limited to 5,000 pieces and usually goes for 12,800 yen ($129). Since the Americas and Japan are in the same Blu-ray region the Japanese release will play on a US PlayStation 3 without any fussing around.
Most studios, even Sony Pictures, have given up on releasing UMD movies. This already makes Resident Evil Degeneration unique because Sony will release a slightly cheaper UMD version in Japan on December 17. Resident Evil Degeneration on UMD goes for 3,990 yen ($40) while the collector’s edition DVD runs for 4,980 yen ($51).
You know what else Resident Evil Degeneration has? Two language tracks: English and Japanese. Even in Japan Resident Evil games usually have English voice acting so if you want to hear Leon speak Japanese here you go. Collectors might also want to look out for the limited edition Blu-ray box set with the figure above. It’s limited to 5,000 pieces and usually goes for 12,800 yen ($129). Since the Americas and Japan are in the same Blu-ray region the Japanese release will play on a US PlayStation 3 without any fussing around.
(SuccessHK ship worldwide all games and consoles - use airmail and ask to ship as sample to avoid customs feed )
Vault 101 ?Jewel of the Wastes. For 200 years, Vault 101 has faithfully served the surviving residents of Washington DC and its environs, now known as the Capital Wasteland. Though the global atomic war of 2077 left the US all but destroyed, the residents of Vault 101 enjoy a life free from the constant stress of the outside world. Giant Insects, Raiders, Slavers, and yes, even Super Mutants are all no match for superior Vault-Tec?engineering. Yet one fateful morning, you awake to find that your father has defied the Overseer and left the comfort and security afforded by Vault 101 for reasons unknown. Leaving the only home you’ve ever known, you emerge from the Vault into the harsh Wasteland sun to search for your father, and the truth.
(SuccessHK ship worldwide all games and consoles - use airmail and ask to ship as sample to avoid customs fees )
Disney Sing It is a new video-based karaoke game that features a mix of popular fan-faves and the hottest new Disney talents. Available this holiday, the first game in this rockin?new franchise features songs and videos from Hollywood Records artists, Disney Channel Original Series and Disney Channel Original Movies. Players can belt out some of today’s chart topping tunes and have a blast along with their friends and Disney stars!
(SuccessHK ship worldwide all games and consoles - use airmail and ask to ship as sample to avoid customs fees )
The twisted fairytale humor of Shrek meets the fun of the renaissance midway as you play 28 hilarious carnival mini-games. Play as your favorite Shrek characters and compete to become the King or Queen of the carnival!
(SuccessHK ship worldwide all games and consoles - use airmail and ask to ship as sample to avoid customs fees )
Create a musical masterpiece with up to four players. Anyone can play the huge selection of instruments in Wii Music with simple motions-like strumming and drumming.
(SuccessHK ship worldwide all games and consoles - use airmail and ask to ship as sample to avoid customs fees )
SpongeBob SquarePants: Nicktoons Globs of Doom is an action-packed adventure featuring 10 playable characters from some of the most popular Nickelodeon TV shows as well as numerous iconic locations such as Retroville Amity Park and Bikini Bottom. Players will play cooperatively as both heroes and villains while utilizing special gadgets in order to defeat the Morphoids.
(SuccessHK ship worldwide all games and consoles - use airmail and ask to ship as sample to avoid customs fees )
Nintendo is at it again. Their wildly popular DS handheld system has been redesigned once again, and their latest version is the most innovative yet! The Nintendo DSi is a thinner, lighter version of their best-selling handheld, except with a bunch of new interactive functions added in. The DSi comes with two 0.3 megapixel digital cameras, one on the exterior and one on the interior of the console. As usual, the DSi comes with wi-fi connectivity, but the addition of a built-in web browser makes surfing the Internet a snap. Also, the screen has been enlarged to 3.25 inches from the DS's original 3 inch screen. Finally, the DSi features a slot for an external SD memory card up to 2GB. Launching at the same time as the DSi is the DSi Shop, an online store featuring a wealth of downloadable applications and games exclusively for their new handheld.
(make sure you understand japanese though, console is stuck to one language)
features
A new chapter to the MySims Kingdom story – Help King Roland defend evil in a far-flung corner of the Kingdom
Nine new mini-games – Players must conquer mini-games in order to persuade the King that their island is the ultimate royal destination. Mini-games include – kayaking, ski jumping, populating the zoo, and many others!
description
A new chapter in the saga challenges you to help King Roland thwart off evil brewing in the distant corner of the Kingdom! Persuade the king to believe your island is the most ideal royal destination.
features
Epic Storyline – Players must join forces with our other MySims to restore King Roland's kingdom to its former glory
New faces and familiar friends – Meet new MySims – like King Roland – And catch up with old friends like Ginny and Buddy who have both made delightful career changes!
Travel to New Lands – Traverse the vast and varied lands of the kingdom – each with its own unique theme – to discover all the unique things to do in each area, while you help the local citizens there
New building options – In addition to houses and furniture you can now build many more contraptions that will help you finish your epic quest for the King!
description
Set out on a story-telling journey of discovery and exploration to help King Roland and his subjects revitalize the Kingdom. Hear stories from old and new friends alike, discover fascinating new lands, and build to the limit of your imagination throughout this epic quest.
Theresia is an adventure horror title exclusively for Nintendo DS. In this game developed by WorkJam, players will take on the roles of two different characters trying to understand out their past, present, and intertwined destiny. Will you be able to discover the true meaning of theresia? Players will lose themselves in theresias haunting music and twisted atmosphere. Hone your survival skills by carefully exploring the corridors of your captors while uncovering clues that bring you closer to a shocking revelation. Collect countless items and combine them in order to survive and uncover the depths of the maze.
features
Built-in online tournament capability: First ever online hunting community that will provide players with constantly updated worldwide club and tournament opportunities
True-to-life animal behaviour: Animals see, smell, hear and even fight
Amazing special features: Bullet time, thermal scopes and ragdoll physics. Scout the area before hunting to set up blinds and tree stands
High quality art: Art and shaders show realistic looking animals and actions
Improved mechanics: Hunters sense, adrenaline mode and stealth to sight in and shoot elk, moose, red stag, mule, deer, cape buffalo, caribou, cougar, wild boar, kudu and grizzly bear
Master hunting strategies: Hunters can use glassing, stalking, tracking, long range shooting, baiting, stands and blinds
In depth tutorials: With nine in-depth tutorials, hunters can train to master hunting strategies
Dangerous game: Hunters will need to beware of dangerous game that will threaten and stalk the player until a final encounter where the player must use hunting skill to bring the game down
description
Enter into the most intense virtual hunting experience ever created! Communicate, trade and compete online – with the first-ever hunting game that includes in-game tournaments!
Deer Hunter, the biggest hunting game franchise of all time, returns with a bang in Deer Hunter Tournament. By providing players with constantly updated worldwide club and built-in tournament opportunities, Deer Hunter Tournament is designed to create a massive network of Deer Hunter players who will regularly compete and communicate with fellow hunters.
Gamers and hunting fans alike will venture to most of the world's most prestigious hunting locations in pursuit of the most exotic and sought after big-game trophy animals. Virtual hunters can now enter different modes, such as stealth or adrenaline, or employ an array of master hunting strategies, including building stands and blinds, to track and shoot their targets.
Deer Hunter Tournament provides numerous levels of gameplay, allowing hunters to embark on scouting missions designed to explore maps and equipment while studying animal habits. Hunters can also take part in hunting tutorials, compete in open hunting sessions and participate in either solo gameplay or the intense multi-player tournaments.
features
Unique Wii Experience — Enjoying soccer action on Wii is now easier with refined gestures, point-and-play controls with on-screen pass indicators and one-button actions that create instant shots on goal and greater success connecting on headers and volleys.
New 8 vs 8 Footii Match Mini-Game — Play 8 vs. 8 in a completely unique mode where you can play an arcade version of soccer with the focus on fun.
Boot It— Play with your Mii, Ronaldinho, Rooney or other stars in a simultaneous shooting frenzy. Play as the goalie or the shooter.
Table Soccer—Play Classic Mode using a variety of new rules or with a new twist — multiple balls at the same time, including a power ball that moves like a rocket or a stealth ball that turns invisible at any time.
EA SPORTS All-Play —A simplified control system using just the Wii Remote enables novice players to focus on having fun while the console does the rest.
Advanced Controls — More experienced gamers can still access all the in-depth controls, now using a precision passing system with point-and-play control. You can even use a Classic controller or Nintendo GameCube controller for a more traditional EA SPORTS FIFA Soccer game experience.
Online Play — Pick your favorite team and go online to challenge a rival squad one-on-one.
EA SPORTS Interactive Leagues: – Represent your club online against your rivals throughout the season in the Barclays Premier League, German Bundesliga, Italian League, French League or Mexican 1st Division.
Manager Mode – Featuring a Wii specific interface, club finances and sponsors, visual sims and dynamic board expectations that change depending on your successes … or failures.
Complete Authenticity — Featuring over 500 licensed teams all accurately represented with correct kits and crests.
description
Step onto the pitch and play a unique soccer experience exclusively for the Wii™. Enjoy FIFA Soccer 09 All-Play one of two ways—a Wii-specific take on the classic ‘11 vs. 11’ simulation or over-the-top arcade action with Wii versions of your favorite soccer superstars.
GET IN THE PARK — SIX FLAGS FUN PARK!
With 40 mini-games, Six Flags Fun Park is the perfect party game for all ages. Enjoy classic games such Skee-Ball, Strongman and many more! This colossal park environment is sure to keep gamers challenged. Along the way, players will be able to explore the park, customize their characters and play against friends and family. Enter the fun park and experience all that Six Flags has to offer within your own home!
features
Enables data transfer from PC USB2.0 to PSP™
Also allows connection between PSP™ and PS3™.
Suitable for all PSP™ models (PSP-100x to PSP-300x)
Officially licensed item
Big news comes out of Japan even on holidays! As all of Japan celebrated Culture Day on Monday, Capcom gathered fans for a big fighting event in Tokyo's Shinagawa area. There, the company made a huge announcement regarding the return of Viewitful Joe!
The classic GameCube hero will be returning to action on the Wii as a playable character in Tatsunoko VS Capcom, Capcom announced during a special stage event for the title. This announcement was greeted with cheers from the fighting fanatics in attendance at the event, Japan's Dengeki Online game site reports.
Capcom also announced two other newcomers for the Wii version. Joining Joe will be Saki from Quiz Nanairo Dreams (also appeared as a support character in Marvel VS Capcom), and Ippatsuman. The latter is from the Tatsunoko Productions side of the collaboration.
Microsoft has gunned down gossip suggesting an Xbox handheld is in the works, crushing gamers’ dreams everywhere in the process.
UK Xbox boss, Stephen McGill, who denied the juicy rumour certainly had his work cut out having earlier denied a brand new Xbox console was in the offing.
The latest crushing blow was delivered in typically, er crushing style. “No, we’re not looking to do a handheld gaming device.” He said. Can’t get any more empathic than that.
But with the Sony PSP 3000 and Nintendo DSi taking all the portable plaudits is Microsoft missing out? Especially since Microsoft’s the only major console maker without a handheld. Probed further on this thread, McGill simply said, “No thank you, we’ve got plenty going on with the 360. We don’t want to get distracted by going into the handheld market.”
Shame, so with Microsoft already involved with gaming on Windows Mobile’s it looks like we’ll no longer be expecting an Xbox style handheld after all. Sniff.
I love these amusing articles posted by tech sites, heres another to read and amuse yourself at:
It's still early days in the life of the PSP-3000, which was released approximately 3 weeks ago, but Sony will be happy to hear that hackers have so far failed to exploit the latest hardware revision.
So far hackers have only been able to swap its CPU with that of a PSP Slim, but haven't been able to exploit the hardware in the same way as previous models.
Dark Alex, one of the most popular PSP sites for the hacking and homebrew community, has been unable to find a work around to hack the hand-held and the community as a whole appear to be stumped as to whether it will even be possible.
If it can't be hacked then Sony will have finally won its long battle against piracy and the homebrew community. Throughout the life cycle of the PSP, Sony has tried to thwart hackers by releasing firmware updates to improve security, but every time it's still managed to be hacked. PSP hackers have in the past been vocal about the fact that they're not actually interested in hacking the PSP to take advantage of copied games, but believe they should have the right to do whatever they want to the hardware.
Fanjita, a member of the hacker group "N00bz!", stated,
"Everyone has the right to do what they want with their own hardware. Piracy does upset me, and because what we are doing opens the way to piracy it's harder to justify it morally. But our stance on piracy is clear, and we hope to be role models. Sony have never been in touch with me, so I am confident that what we are doing is legal."
However. some people believe that by stopping hackers from exploiting the hardware, Sony is actually doing itself no favours.
Phillip Torrone from Make Magazine recently stated:
"I think the really smart companies should release their products to the alpha geeks for six months and let the alpha geeks play around with them. It seems to me they'd save a lot of money on R&D, and they'd come out with much more solid products."
The PSP 3000 is obviously going to be tough nut to crack, but there lies the challenge - something that the hacking community will relish.
Nintendo has confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz that the company shipped almost 200,000 DSi units for the Japanese launch of the console on November 1.
The new handheld went on sale last Saturday, priced JPY 18,900 (USD 179 / EUR 129 / GBP 101) in the region.
It boasts a built-in web browser allowing users to access the DSi Shop, a camera and improved audio functions, a slot for SD memory cards and a slightly larger screen.
Although sales figures for the new hardware are not yet known, Nintendo also confirmed it is shipping a further 100,000 units this week.
Sales of the DS in Japan have declined during October, from over 40,000 units at the beginning of the month, to just under 23,000 copies last week.
A release for the console in the US and Europe is not expected until summer 2009 at the earliest.
UK retailer GAME is one of the official launch partners for Gears of War 2, due to go on sale November 7.
The company's Kingston upon Thames store in London is one of 20,000 retailers worldwide opening for the midnight launch of the Xbox 360 game, and will feature an appearance by comic book artist Liam Sharp and other Microsoft Game Studios staff giving away Gears 2 merchandise.
GameStop's launch event on Universal Studios Boulevard in Los Angles boasts a stronger development presence, with signings by Cliff Blezinski and voice actors John DiMaggio, Lester Speight and Carlos Ferro from the game, as well as Microsoft's Larry Hryb.
Best Buy's New York and Bellevue stores will also host events with Epic's Rod Fergusson and Gears 2 co-writer Joshua Ortega.
2K Games has said that the downloadable Challenge Rooms for BioShock PS3 will cost GBP 6.29.
There are three of these rooms, remember, but they will arrive as a single pack on 20th November on the PlayStation Store.
The Challenge Rooms, exclusive to PS3, offer plenty of unseen content and tasks to accomplish. They add up to well over an hour of gameplay on the first run-through, and are built to be replayable.
Tasks are tough and based on using limited resources to achieve a goal, such as rescuing a Little Sister on a Ferris Wheel, taking down a Big Daddy, or besting a staggered arena-style onslaught of Rapture baddies.
Check back tomorrow for our hands-on impressions of the Challenge Rooms.
A demonstration of Heavy Rain, that caused such a stir earlier this year, was possibly one of the most impressive we've ever seen. Describing it was tough - you really had to see it. And now you can.
As posters Gamekyo reminds us, the entire demo is playable - after the initial intro cutscene - and even when the camera is taking a cinematic, cutscene-style angle, there are playable aspects to it.
It's in French, but don't let you put you off. Make sure you read our impressions to find out exactly what was going on too.
Atari has taken the calendar by the horns and dated the remainder of games due out this side of Christmas.
Which means a 14th November date for Alone in the Dark: Inferno on PS3. The "Inferno" part of the title was added recently to reflect the additional content and bug fixes developer Eden has been working on since the launch of Alone in the Dark on Xbox 360 back in May.
But will that make any difference to the original 7/10 score? Sadly, our hands-on impressions of the PS3 build suggest not.
A week later, on 21st November, we'll be treated to Legendary on PC and Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion pack Storm of Zehir.
We'll skip over the former, because of dismal review scores, but the latter adds a significant amount of content to the ageing D&D role-playing game. Of most interest will be the party system, but there are also new classes, a minty fresh campaign and plenty of other bits to go round.
I knew LittleBigPlanet was versatile, but I didn't realize it was this versatile. Japanese PSN member RRR30000 has managed to recreate classic shoot-em up gameplay within the game, using a spaceship sticker and massive amounts of free time. It's truly an amazing accomplishment, recreating the entire first level from Gradius, complete with a boss fight at the end should you make it that far. The level name is Libidius.jp, and it's available for play as we speak. Go rate the hell out of this guy, he really deserves it.
The announcement that the DSi would have built in music playback support no doubt perked interest in the new hardware. Given that it has an SD slot, and that you're carrying it around anyway, the new system seemed like it could make for a great primary music player, or possibly a backup for when your main music player runs out of batteries.
Of course, Nintendo killed all hopes for either of these by also announcing that the player would not support MP3. So does this make the free DSi Music program a completely worthless addition to the system? This is one of the first things we attempted to find out after getting our hands on our import DSi units.
The DSi Music program is actually split into two modes: voice recording and music playback. Both offer plenty of entertainment value thanks to the tools and gimmicks Nintendo has included.
The recording mode lets you record at most 18 clips of maximum 10 seconds length. Once you've recorded a clip, you can play around with it in various ways. You can make the clip play backwards or forwards, isolate small sections using A-B repeat, and modify the speed and tone by dragging a pointer around on a 2D graph.
You can also apply twelve effects to the clip: parakeet, fan, low harmonica, trumpet, robot, tunnel, high harmonica, whistle, helium, transceiver, three-person harmonica, and buzzer. These effects do a great job on transforming the sound, and we imagine people playing around in this mode just to see what their modified voice sounds like.
If you want to hear what your voice sounds like as a parakeet, you won't need to even enter into the recording mode. The main menu for DSi Music features a parakeet mascot who, as you'd expect from a parakeet, likes to repeat what you say. This little feature has proven to be quite addictive. The parakeet does a good job of repeating lengthy phrases in high-pitched parakeet talk, although you need to make sure and speak slowly. This diversion will likely draw lots of attention especially when introducing the DSi to your non-gamer friends.
The music playback mode is also full of fun play options. Once you have a song loaded up (more on that in a bit), you can change the speed and tone just like with the recording mode. You can also overlay the recordings that you made in the recording mode to songs at any point. Nintendo has also provided a set of sound effects which can be selected quickly by using the stylus, then inserted freely using R and L. Effects include percussion instruments, record scratches, and even Mario coin and jump sounds!
This mode also has four pre-set filters: radio, echo, 8-bit, and karaoke. The radio and echo work fine, but we've found the the 8-bit and karaoke filters to be pretty much useless. The karaoke filter promises to remove vocals from songs, but we haven't found one case of it working effectively yet. The 8-bit effect promises to make your library sound like 8-bit music. Most songs that we tried ended up sounding like a complete mess. Even the original Super Mario Bros. Level 1-1 theme didn't hold up well under the filter (see the videos we uploaded today for some samples).
One of the coolest features of the music playback is the visualization schemes that are shown on the top screen along side information about the current track. Some of these are loosely interactive. There's a Super Mario Bros. visualization where Lakuta (the cloud dude) goes about setting coins against a scrolling Level 1-1 backdrop, with the height of the coin placement affected by the music. Mario runs about and picks up the coins on the ground automatically, but you can tap the L and R buttons to make him jump up to reach higher-up coins. The visualizer keeps track of your coin count, making this into somewhat of a game.
With all these fun tools, DSi Music looks like it will have the same relevance as DSi Camera. With DSi Camera, you probably won't use it as a real camera (and certainly not as a method of keeping track of your child's growth, as Nintendo's Japanese pamphlets suggest you do). However, those who want to take some pics and play around with them using graffiti and other effects, will have lots of fun with the program. The same holds true for DSi Music. For playing with sounds and music files, DSi Music is packed with features, and could likely be updated with future downloads.
Those who are interested in using this as a serious music player will find some good points. First up is improved sound volume over the DS Lite. The DSi doesn't lets you go as loud as your typical MP3 player, but we found the sound output through headphones to be adequate, even in a noisy cafe setting.
Unlike the DSi Camera program, which wouldn't read any files that weren't generated by the DSi itself, DSi Music doesn't appear to be too picky when it comes to files and directory structure. We were able to drop in a bunch of files stored in a multi-level directory structure into the root directory of our SD card, and the DSi parsed through them instantly and displayed all the internal directories for quick access.
To navigate through your library, you spin through the folders with the stylus, as if you were rotating a record. Sadly, the system doesn't offer too much in the way of organization. Aside from the folder-based view, you can view a list of all tracks on your SD card. You can also flag up to 10 songs as favorites for quick playback.
During playback, you have access to A-B repeat and volume controls. A slider lets you forward and rewind through the song, although the system goes silent while you're forwarding. If you want a more interactive seek feature, you can use the speed changer tool.
Nintendo presumably envisioned DSi Music as being a substitute for a real music player, as the music keeps on playing even when you close the system's lid, allowing you to stick the whole thing away in your pocket or bag. Unfortunately, there's no way to skip tracks without opening up the system again, meaning you'd better like the order of your music library.
Despite all the good points, the real problem with the DSi's music playback is that lack of MP3 support. The player only supports the AAC format, which will likely make it useless for most people.
We should point out that converting MP3 to AAC is an easy process. Even iTunes lets you select to convert via a quick menu selection. Having two versions of your music library would probably be a pain, though.
Almost as bad as the lack of MP3 support, though, is the difficulty you might have interfacing the DSi with your PC. There's no USB port on the system, so in order to transfer music and podcasts over, you'll need to remove the SD Card and plug it directly into your PC. Unlike the main DS cartridge slot, which lets you pop carts out easily, the SD card slot has a cover that takes a bit of fiddling to remove. It's not something you'll want to do too often.
Nintendo could probably fix a few of the problems with the music player by adding MP3 support and making a few interface changes, but it's doubtful that the DSi would ever serve as anything close to a replacement for a real music player. As with the camera tool, however, there's quite a bit of fun to be had if you don't take things too seriously. We wouldn't suggest buying a DSi for it, but as a free bonus, we think you'll get a kick out of DSi Music.
At its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles this week, Microsoft Research unveiled its project Boku, a PC and Xbox 360-based icon-driven tool designed to let users create their own games and using only an Xbox 360 controller.
The tool, which was itself created using XNA, appears to bridge the gulf between Microsoft's more complex XNA Game Studio language and the user-created content of games like Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet for PlayStation 3, which is governed by the game's stricter parameters.
Boku has been created to be compatible with both Xbox 360 and PC. Though it's not yet been announced when or how the project will be delivered to users, Gamasutra's sources have indicated that it's planned for an Xbox 360 release of some kind in 2009. (Coincidentally, Microsoft is about to open the Xbox Live Community Games download portal, which will showcase XNA-created titles of all kinds.)
Microsoft Research's page for the project says, "It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone." The programming language is completely icon-driven, with programs saved as logical lists of instructions -- in a manner that is vaguely reminiscent of Final Fantasy XII's Gambit system, which allowed for simple character A.I. programming.
However, Boku's rules will govern entire, original games, as it allows for more complex sets of rules -- for example, Boku has icons which cover concepts such as character movement and collision, item pick up, and control pad input.
An American Football cheerleader has said playing Wii balance board game All Star Cheerleader "felt like I was directing traffic or something".
Natalie, a dancer for the New York Jets, was invited by the New York Daily News to offer her professional opinion on the THQ title, which launches here on 14th November at the budget price of GBP 14.99.
The unsurprising idea of the game is to match the pompom swishing on screen, using a mixture of arm movements and leg arrangements. But despite her lifelong dedication to the sport, poor old Natalie found this rather hard going.
"I'm prepared in that I know some of these movements. But I've been taking dance since I was two and you can see I'm not perfect," said the unblemished blonde.
"I teach cheerleading," she added. "And I think my little girls would really like this."
All Star Cheerleader uses over 300 moves created by choreographer Tony Gonzalez, who thought up dances for Jessica Simpson, Alicia Keys and Paula Abdul. He also did the moves for the "Bring It On" films, where cheerleading squads go head-to-head to be crowned the best.
There's a video of Natalie putting All Star Cheerleader through its paces on the NY Daily News site. We'll probably just get Ellie to review the game.
New Battlefield: BC maps are available today for PS3 and tomorrow for Xbox 360.
The downloadable 'Community Choice Map Pack' features four brand new conquest multiplayer maps, "gameplay enhancements" and PlayStation 3 Trophy support.
Fans of the game will probably know that players previously had the chance to vote on which two single-player levels they wanted to see as multiplayer maps.
Par for the Course and Acta Non Verba received the most community votes, while the game's development team chose Ghost Town and Crossing Over, coinciding with the community's third and fourth choices.
The game's been out since June so new maps are definitely a welcome addition. Get downloading now if you're lucky enough not to be at work.
Yet more signs of life from NCsoft's sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa: the game has a revamped camera system in the works, including an FPS-style view and a number of other first-person modes.
Last week's Feedback Friday update on the official Tabula Rasa site revealed that the sought-after FPS mode was under development. Click the link to see it working in a couple of screenshots.
Scope views are also being added to the game's sniper rifles, rocket launchers and the like, and are once again shown in screens. The post also promises a cockpit view for the game's mechs, and a more zoomed-out third-person camera to help out support classes.
These features bring Tabula Rasa a little closer to being the shooter-influenced MMO that was promised at launch. They follow last week's news that the next major update, Deployment 15, would bring players a new campaign set on Earth.
Nintendo followed up on yesterday's financial report with an operational briefing from president Satoru Iwata recapping the company's performance and offering a peek at some upcoming games, including the first downloadable titles specifically created for the recently revealed DSi system.
Iwata revealed that Nintendo is prepping a slate of WarioWare titles for release as downloadable DSiWare games. A variety of minigames from the Game Boy Advance and DS installments of WarioWare will be sold as DSiWare titles, and some original games making use of the system's camera functionality will be packaged together as WarioWare: Photograph.
Iwata said that for WarioWare: Photograph, players will place the DSi on a table and then step back so their silhouette appears onscreen (thanks to the camera implanted in the system's hinges). Simply moving their bodies will allow players to complete simple activities. One nose-picking minigame shown called for players to line up their extended fingers with a pair of floating nostrils. WarioWare: Photograph is scheduled for release in late December, around the time the DSiWare store goes live.
For WarioWare fans with legacy DS hardware, Iwata announced WarioWare Myself. The standard DS game will let players create their own minigames for the series and then share them with other players. Nintendo is also working on a WiiWare counterpart version of the game that will let players try out the created games on their home consoles, but it will lack the minigame creation tool.
WarioWare games weren't the only new products Iwata talked about. In addition to a series of six DSiWare ArtStyle puzzle games, Nintendo is contemplating releasing downloadable utilities for the system, like a clock and a calculator featuring the publisher's popular characters, or public transit route maps.
VideoGamer.com today published an excerpt from an interview with Stephen McGill, Microsoft's head of gaming and entertainment in the U.K. When asked about any price cuts for the Xbox 360, he indicated that the price will not be reduced beyond the recent cuts for the foreseeable future.
"We're [at] a great price now. I'm not dropping the price for many many years in the future I would suspect," commented McGill. "It's great value. And I think the value not only comes from the price of the console but the content. With NXE launching and obviously that's free for everyone, and the portfolio. There isn't a better range of games and entertainment, basically fun, on any other platform, and we're incredibly affordable."
"I'm not going to speculate where it might go (the price of the Xbox 360) in five or ten years time, whatever. But we've obviously just reduced the price and that's because we can pass the costs reductions we have straight on to consumers," he continued. "That's the right thing to do, obviously from a business point of view it helps it sell even more. I think a lot of people have been waiting for it to become even more affordable and they're now seeing that benefit and buying it in their droves and we can now hopefully continue it through Christmas and beyond."
Sony recently confirmed that there will be no price cut for the PS3 for the Holiday 2008 season.
With its stock plummeting 17 per cent on the back of its poor financial results, The Wall Street Journal is predicting that EA’s falling value could make it a target for acquisition – and it has fingered Disney as a possible suitor.
EA is current worth around $7.3 billion – down from the $19 billion value it commanded a few years ago
WSJ writes: “Any entertainment company could be interested in EA given continued growth in video game sales, the potential for cross-fertilisation with TV and film storylines, and advertisers' interest in buying space in games.
“Disney makes the most sense. EA's biggest assets include its sports games, such as Madden NFL, which would fit with Disney's ESPN cable network. Disney also could save at least part of the roughly $200 million it spends annually developing its own games.
“Disney could afford it. At June 30, its net debt was $11 billion, roughly 1.2 times Pali Research's estimate of 2008 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization. Also, Disney's stock has massively outperformed EA's this year. At a 40% premium, EA would cost $7.7 billion excluding the cash.
“Disney would be gutsy to step up during the current economic uncertainty. But it might be better than waiting for better times and paying top dollar.”
LittleBigPlanet will be getting another tool to make its user-created stages even more customizable, reports PS3 Attitude. Alex Evans, co-founder of Media Molecule, commented at GameCity in Nottingham recently that an image importing tool was pulled from the game due to time constraints, but it will be patched into the game by Christmas.
Crafty players have found ways around the lack of an image importer by using the PlayStation Eye, but true image importing should help players use higher-res pictures in their created stages. PS3 Fanboy speculates it will involve memory and USB sticks, along with a possible size limitation to keep stages from getting too large with photographs. We'll be waiting for word on when exactly this patch will come, along with the promised online creation patch announced before the launch of the game. If you haven't picked up the game yet, check out our positive review, in which a chin-stroking Nick Suttner refers to its "infectious joy, infectious creativity, and an infectiously excited community."
Electronic Arts has explained that forum moderators will not be able to ban people from playing EA games.
"Players who have been banned from EA Forums are not automatically banned from online access to their other EA games. Posting in EA Forums is enabled by an EA Nucleus account - but access to the forums and access to the games are separate," reads a publisher statement on GameCyte.
"Players can be banned if they breach the Terms of Service or Code of Conduct in a forum, game, or service. Each forum, game, and service is managed independently by customer support representatives responsible for that specific forum, game or service."
The publisher was responding to an EA moderator - supposedly community manager Aaron Kaufman - who told Red Alert 3 fans that game and forum accounts were linked, and that a ban for one meant a ban for the other.
Furthermore, this Master EA Account was said to be linked to all of the publisher's games requiring an online sign-in, resulting in an EA-wide ban for misbehaving on a forum.
The fate of the misguided EA forum moderator is undisclosed. Perhaps he is among the 600 losing jobs as EA cuts costs to combat diminishing retail demand.
The goal of this project is to port the well-known community distribution Gentoo to Openmoko phones. It will act as a place to focus different efforts on porting Gentoo and provide both a natively- and cross-compilable overlay.
Carphone Warehouse looks set to give away free smartphones running Windows Mobile 7 with copies of the upcoming Windows 7 PC operating system, Register Hardware has learned. A phone manufacturer source familiar with the phone retailer's plans told us that the Windows Mobile 7 phone and Windows 7 bundle boxes will be released on the same day that the new desktop OS is launched in the UK, which he said could come during September or October 2009."
Yes, you've seen the unboxing and all other manner of granular coverage for Nintendo's new DSi handheld, but now you can see the thing in action via the magic of YouTube. Embedded below is the requisite unboxing, a helpful browser speed test and a hopeless attempt at sticking in the R4 cart for a bit of homebrew. The good news is that the Japanese DSi fires up an English DS game just fine, so those slightly-confusing region lock concerns can be put to rest -- certain DSi-specific games won't work for everybody else, but the DSi fires up regular DS games from wherever with no problem. Import away!
The iPhone OS 2.2 is taking shape at a good rhythm. The user interface is being refined and development of new features keeps going on steady. While I'm sure most of us can only think "copy and paste! copy and paste! copy and paste!" and increased speed and reliability, there are a few new things that we would definitely like to have as soon as possible
So it's true - there really is a link between violence and video games. In an otherwise run of the mill article on how the next US President will have to deal with the issue of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the New York Times printed this little nugget:
One detainee is said to have been schooled in making detonators out of SEGA game cartridges.
Nobody at Kotaku (especially those who frequently travel overseas) has any idea if that is even possible, or why SEGA specifically, but the story seems to originate from the case of Hassan Bin Attash - a seventeen year old (at time of capture) detainee that several human rights organisations claim was tortured in Jordan before being held in Gitmo. Possibly, after a few months of waterboarding a weaponized copy of Toe Jam & Earl: Panic on Funkotron might seem more credible.
See it’s not just us. Apparently everyone is into their iPhone for games, well at 25 percent of iPhone owners have downloaded a game for the device. Sure that’s really not even close to everyone, but it sure as heck beats out cellphones which, according to a recent survey, can only say that six percent of owners have downloaded a game.
Game developers have created nearly 1,700 games for the iPhone since its release, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times today. That’s more than twice the number available in the App Store’s second biggest category.
It's been a while since we've had a really good "video games make our children violent" study, and I was beginning to fear we've given up on the idea, but then the story "Violent video games linked to child aggression" showed up on CNN.com this morning and my fears were completely assuaged. The story is about a study conducted by Dr. Craig A. Anderson, Ph.D., of Iowa State University, who studied three groups of children in both the United States and Japan to gage their violence levels three to six months after playing violent video games, versus children who did not play violent video games. The results may not surprise you at all.
The study found that children who played violent video games were more aggressive than those that did not, even taking into account children who were aggressive in the first place. The odd thing is the results were determined not so much through observation, though comments from parents and teachers were taken into account, but rather by asking the children about their own aggression levels.
The latest title in Atlus' big-in-Japan high-school demon-slaying RPG series must be getting closer to release in the West because the company's just released the first full trailer for the game.
The PS2 title stormed the Japanese chart back in mid-July and it's out in the US in December, but there's still no UK release date on the horizon. Still, don't let that stop you checking out the video, here.
Since the launch of the Nintendo Channel for the Wii earlier this year, Nintendo has been providing a DS Download Service with demos of released and upcoming DS games. Wii owners can boot up the DS Download Service through the Nintendo Channel and download various playable demos directly to their Nintendo DS, using the Download Play option. It works in the same way as the in-store download stations. The third-party games get updated every week and we've got info on this week's batch to let you know a little more about what you're getting.
The week of November 3
Dragonball: Origins
The next Dragonball adventures hitting the Nintendo DS this month, and in preparation Atari is giving DS owners the ability to play through the tutorial to see just how impressive the touch-screen controlled game has turned out. There's some cool stuff to see in this demo: 3D environments that span both screens, and stylus-exclusive control that gives players the ability to take control of Goku and his crazy moves.
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
The big holiday push for the sequel to Madagascar's theatrical release is happening right now, and a downloadable demo based on the Activision DS game has just hit the Nintendo Channel. In this demo, you play a mini-challenge that features the four penguins from the flick, in a Lost Vikings "work together" design to get through the structures.
Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals
Disney's Pokemon-like RPG has been given the demo treatment, but the only taste test you're going to get here is in the "excavation" process. Use your stylus to hack away at rock, or solidify lava with water, or melt ice with heat in order to get down to the fossil hidden below. You won't get a chance to see which creatures are tucked away inside, it's just a challenge to see how many fossils you can pull out as unscathed as possible.
Ninjatown
Ninjatown is Southpeak's upcoming real-time strategy game based upon the Shawnimals franchise of cute plush Ninja critters. The downloadable demo is surprisingly robust with four different levels to get your Ninja on: the task is to manage resources and build up your Ninja army to protect the village from the invading demons.
Crosswords DS - Anagrams
Anagrams returns in its own demo. The demo features three levels of the Anagram minigame. Players take six letters and try to form them into words of three or more letters using the touch screen. As players find words, the other screen displays them, along with the progress and time. There are a few different letter assortments, so players should be able to play the demo a good three or four times.
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Nintendo also keeps a selection of first party titles up for download. They're not cycled out as often and most of them have been there since the Nintendo Channel launched.
Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir
The demo offers one of the levels for the hide and seek portion of the game. Players are given five minutes to find eight items in the level. Upon completion, players can start again, and find eight different items. We played it three times without having to repeat items.
Brain Age 2
The Brain Age 2 demo features three quick play modes. There's the Brain Age Test that will give the player an approximate brain age based on a verbal match of rock, paper, scissors. There's also a quick play training mode that shows off the rotating letters minigame, complete with touch screen letter recognition. Finally the Quick play sudoku lets players enjoy a quick sudoku puzzle in one of the better presentations for the system.
Brain Age
The older sibling of the Brain Age 2 demo. It's the same kind of deal. There's a Brain Age Test minigame that has players shout colors into the DS microphone. The training game is a simple math problem test that uses the touch screen to write. Sudoku is in this one too, which means you've got two free sudoku puzzles you can play if you get both demos.
Flash Focus
Flash Focus is a game designed to improve focus and hand-eye coordination. It features a simplified Eye Age test where players remember the direction letters are facing as they flash by on the screen. The training game is more hands on. It's a baseball minigame where players have to tap the ball to hit it. The pitches get harder each time the player connects with the ball and the game ranks you at the end.
Crosswords DS
For the non-Sudoku inclined, Crosswords DS features the classic crossword puzzles that have been gracing newspapers long before number puzzles. The demo features the classic Crosswords mode, one of three gameplay modes in the final version. Players can select the difficulty of the puzzle, as well as the option to turn on an assist mode that lets the player know if the answer is right or wrong. The whole demo uses the touch screen so players can see how well the letter recognition system works.
One of the main arguments for the Wii is its simplicity. Point at the screen and you’re off to the races. But what happens when even those controls become too much for people? While most can handle one-handed operation, when you throw the Nunchuck in the mix, the confusion level rises.
I recently had a friend visiting my house who hasn’t really played video games since the Atari 2600 (save internet flash games). While he was able to pick up and play titles like Tiger Woods 09 and Wii Sports with no problem, MySims Kingdom and even Super Mario Galaxy posed some issues. He was just as confused, if not moreso, with the dual Wii Remote / Nunchuck combo than using an Xbox 360 or PS3 controller. To make it fair, he also played some LittleBigPlanet on the PS3 and Braid on the Xbox 360, both of which, in his words, seemed “natural” with the controller and their respective schemes.
Two major issues are what arose with the Wii Remote / Nunchuck combination. The first is the two-handed controls and the various inputs needed. Pointing at the screen while using buttons and analog sticks at the same time caused some frustration in this first-timer. There are 6 buttons between the two controllers, which isn’t much less than the competition’s 8 buttons. This leads to the second issue, which is the button placement on the Wii Remote itself. With most other controllers, you don’t have to physically move your hand to get from one set of buttons to another. With the Wii Remote, the new gamer had trouble moving back and forth from the A/B buttons and the 1/2 buttons towards the bottom of the controller.
Now, mind you, these are not issues for core and semi-regular gamers. Most people who have been playing games for a while can grasp the controller concepts without any problems, but the Wii’s target market is new and non-gamers. These are the people who haven’t touched a video game system in many years, if ever, just like my friend. While he enjoyed games that only used the Wii Remote, he got frustrated quickly when the Nunchuck came into play and said it would cause him to skip games that used it.
Has Nintendo, in an effort to simplify, actually gone the opposite direction? Have you encountered anyone have issues when using the Wii? Maybe you, yourself have been confused and haven’t admitted it yet. Let us know in the comments.
Wiibreaker is a simple brickbreaker game I made because my artist for Wii Shooting Gallery, Azza123 said there were no brickbreaker games out for Wii homebrew. Thus, I have created Wiibreaker. In total, this first release took about two weekends to write. Work is further postponed on this game until the completion of Wii Shooting Gallery.
Once the ball falls below the screen 3 times, you lose.
0.2 - - All Collision Detection Problems Fixed - Highscoring - Nunchuk Support - Classic Controller Support - Only rumbles when expansion controllers are not plugged in - HBC 9 Support
Wii Shooting Gallery is a shoot the targets type game. It is best played with the Wii Zapper. After you miss three times you will return to the menu (GUI). It consists of 8 modes:
Still Targets
Horizontal Moving Targets
Vertical Moving Targets
Crazy Targets
Crisscross Targets
Teleporting Targets
Hogans New Alley
Wii Shoot In Space
1.8 - Highscoring System - Basic Enemies for Wii Shoot In Space - Hogans New Alley Difficulty Modified - Compatible With HBC 9
What it says on the tin. This program automatically generates the XML file needed to add a homebrew app to the HBC. An eager-to-please Swing window pops up and asks you to type in all of the parameters required by the HBC. Then, click the big blue button to save a generated XML output somewhere. On Windows and Mac machines, the default OS text editor will pop up proudly displaying the XML file in all of it's raw glory.
Lately I've been making some changes to the code pocketsnes. I have incorporated some corrections of the newer snes9x (the super g'n'g is now fully playable) and some optimizations in the code of painted tiles, PPU, and so on. The fact is that I have tried some games and everything seems to work well and earn some frames
The point is that before publishing a new version'm going to climb a beta so you can see the probéis for if you have a problem with any game that worked well before. At present only upload version fast, so that games that did not work before with this not because probéis remain without work. Only you have to replace the file in the directory of the emulator.
I forgot, another of the changes is that I have added an option from the menu to be able to toggle at the volume limitation on the F200 (for people with firmware 4.1.1).
Update 31/10/2008:
New version that fixes the sprites cut in some games
kriogeN updates CGDplayer which therefore version 0.9.
Background:
CDGPlayer as to become a true MP3 player - karaoke.
Use:
To use this drive, you need two per song files with the same base name: a music file. Mp3 and a configuration file. Cdg. Example: tataYOYO.mp3 and tataYOYO.cdg.
Both files are placed in the mp3g.
Navigation:
The cross multidirectional can move in the menu and B button launches the selected song.
The Home button during the song allows selective return to the menu of songs, otherwise you sort of homebrew.
This revision has addresses several reported issues, and moves the beta motion from an earlier motion into a more finished form.
* Several reported load issues are fixed; *please* report if this breaks any roms working in prior releases.
* Major fix for scanning/detection (could require further tweaks, let us know your experiences)
* Motion now active - Y to switch mode (analog/digital), active mode described in menu title bar
* Various other minor compatibility fixes, like SIM2
* Update the R6 CHEAT CODE database to 2008-11-1 version
Just so it's clear and the purpose of the app isn't in question (as I think it might be) this is intended to be a developers helper in designing/modifying sprites, particularly for use with PALib, but since there is a binary export now I'm gathering they could be used with any dev platform (not like there are many others...).
This is NOT meant to be a stand-alone a program where you make neat-o animations.
Welcome to the v0.93.1a release of Pixelman. No longer the first to introduce the Sprite Testing Arena I've been working on for the last few months, but that new feature still bears mentioning.
I'm really really hoping to have as many people as possible to check this new feature out. All instructions are in the Readme included.
*Added Hflip and Vflip Tools.
*Note on Gridshift - Shifting past one edge of the grid will wrap around. This was fixed in this release from v93.0c
*Note on Rotation - Rectangular sprites really won't rotate correctly at 90 degrees so instead, they'll rotate a full 180. This was fixed in this release from v.93.0c
*Note on Zoom - Currently all other tools are disabled while zoomed. Use D-Pad to move around the viewing box. Stylus still draws but as I'm typing this I realize you'll not be able to switch colors. That will be remedied shortly. New in this release.
What's it?
It's a simple tool for Windows XP/Vista that allows you to edit CF Recovery Menù and VSHMenù colorous!
Features
v4.0
-Added the possibility to change colours of CF 5.00M33 Recovery Menu (CF 5.00M33 VSHMenu will come with next release!)
-Added a function of PREVIEW of your CF 5.00M33 Recovery Menu!
Now you can see the preview of how the new recovery will appear in your PSP directly from this program!
-Added an explanation of the fixed "B" values functionality.
-Added an image near the PRX mode choosen (internal or external) to mark what mode is selected.
-Changed the Credits window.
Please read the rest of the readme.txt attached to find all info and explanations about this program before to use it.
Note: i have already the CF 5.00M33 VSHMenu offsets, so i will release a new version (but not very soon :P) with the possibility to change colours to VSHMenu too
ROFLFlasher is a homebrew app I made to trick your friends into thinking that their PSP is Bricked. ROFLFlasher is disguised as Ultra Flasher a CFW flasher that supposedly gives your PSP new features. It is designed to look like other CFW Flashers. ROFLFlasher comes with a few funny surprises so it is fun for all.
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).
There are 
have posted a video of their upcoming celebration of the 10th year of the Dreamcast in Europe.
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