Gaming on the Go: January 2008

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The solar powered Mario playing handheld

Behold the latest in quirky yet brilliant Chinese handheld consoles. Behold the Solar Powered MP4 Player 2GB - Mobile Power Station. It emulates the NES, the Game Boy and the Game Boy Color, comes complete with an e-book reader, sports 2 Gigas of memory, a built-in microphone, a proper SD-slot and rechargeable li-ion battery, and can easily play your mp3s while displaying your photos. Oh, and it's solar powered too. Lovely.

Find out more about this lovely little gadget here or order yourselves one (or more) here. It only costs 123$!

Friday, January 25, 2008

Game Boy Color HEART Pocket PC

Before you off buying your GP2X as I'm about to do, why not explore the untapped emulating potential of your Pocket PC? Try this Game Boy Color emulator for example. It's freeware, open source, sports a virtual pad and quite fast. Oh, yes, they call it the PocketGnuboy. Nice. Now, do find out a bit more about the Game Boy Color by clicking here.

Monday, January 14, 2008

God of War PSP trailer

Who writes this stuff? A warrior of legend must battle creatures of myth? I mean, really, how tackier can it get? And don't get me started on the quality of the voice-over... Still, Gods of War for the PSP looks shiny and gory enough to make a fun little diversion, though definitely not of the sophisticated kind.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

A belated Emmy for the Atari Lynx

Just a short post to let you know that a) I'm actually still working on the Atari Lynx feature I promised you lot ages ago and b) the Lynx won a bloody Emmy! Really. It's the 2007 one about Handheld Game Device Display Screen Innovation. For further info & links click yourselves to the Hunyak Blog.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Fully working DS emulator! OMG!!!

Now that I have your attention...it's true! Yup, I shit you not, I have indeed found a working DS emulator for the PC that plays a lot of commercial games at full speed! Sounds too good to be true? That's what I thought before trying it, but now I can assure you that it's true!

I didn't find a compatibility list, but so far I've tried New Zealand Story Revolution, Rub Rabbits, Elite Beat Agents (yeah!) and they all work like a charm! Even New Super Mario Bros and Super Mario 64 DS run at almost 100%, with only minor sound glitches and a framerate at about 80-90%, so for a work in progress this emulator is already made of WIN and GOD!

Even the lovely text adventures that gnome posted the other day work!

So, where can you find this incredible piece of software? Here's the official site but there you'll only find version 2.5, since 2.6 is exclusive for donators. Of course there are links on the interwebz for the latest version, but since we're trying to run a respectable blog here you'll have to google for it. Don't worry, it's easy enough to find, and if you're to lazy to search for it why don't just donate to the awesome guy that developed it? He sure deserves it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some ROMs waiting to be played...

Update: Already tried some more games and here are the results:

Jam Sessions - Fully playable
Goldeney: Rogue Agent - Playable, but the framerate sucks
Pac-Pix - Playbale, has sound glitches
Tetris DS - Fully playable
The Simpsons Game - Fully playable
Contra 4 (!) - Fully playable (fucking win!)
Orcs & Elves - Fully playable (oh yeah!)

Any suggestions about what I should try next? :P

Related posts: Starcraft DS, Arkanoid DS preview video, Famicom carts for the DS, PSPe: working PSP emulator

Outlook to PSP

Another non-gaming Sony PSP post, this time focusing on e-mail. And what better way to manage your mail on the PSP than the excellently freeware PSPoste mail client? None. To make it even better though you can use the aptly named Outlook to PSPoste Contacts Importer easily available from this place. Gadget freaks should love these kinds of things.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Dozens of classic (free) adventures for your DS

If it weren't for guttertalk, the master of the Nintendo DS homebrew, I would never have discovered Papafuji's DS game development page and I would probably be sad. Obviously, I wouldn't be writing this post either and you would have lost your chance for a few hundred hours of classic adventure gaming. For free, that is. Oh, and I'd rather call the activity text adventure or even interactive fiction gaming if I were to be precise.

Anyway. All you have to do, right after clicking here, is download the game(s) of your choice, transfer it to your DS and get some proper puzzle-based brain training complete with some excellent stories. You'll be playing (among other stuff) Infocom, Magnetic Scrolls, Level 9, Sierra, Scott Addams and Brian Howarth adventures using your stylus in no time. Oh, and don't get me started on the interface. It's a work of art with some excellent character recognition, nice design and graphics support. No, really:

Games you must absolutely try are Fish!, Wonderland, Bureaucracy, The Jewels of Darkness, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Softporn, Zork and The Lurking Horror.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

The PSP Skype Headset pics

Kevtris: the freeware Pocket PC Tetris

In case you have managed to keep your Pocket PC Tetris free, let me humbly point out the folly of your choice and point you to the pretty impressive Kevtris. It's a pretty brilliant remake of the Pajitnov classic with great graphics, interesting options, decent sound and some new gameplay modes. Oh, and the online high-score table is an excellent touch too.

Go! Explore turns your PSP into a GPS receiver

Starting sometime during the early bits of Spring 2008 (when Go! Explore should be released) your trusty PSP will also be able to turn itself into your trusty, portable, personal, sleek and most probably well-earned GPS receiver. Getting lost in the city while watching those ultra-popular UMD movies will, thus, no longer be an option. Yes!

Anyway. The complete Go!Explore will consists of an attachable GPS receiver and a UMD disc of the user’s chosen maps, though each bit of it should be available for purchase on its own too. According to the most interesting bits of Sony's press release:

On foot, you’ll be able to plot your way through cities in 3D thanks to the fully modelled city maps contained on the UMD discs. Simply load the UDM disc, select your destination, and watch as the city’s landmarks and points of interest appear on-screen in 3D. You can download new maps and upgrades from PLAYSTATION®Network (PSN) – a resource that guarantees you’ll find those special locations – wherever you’re travelling.

When you’re in the car, you’ll benefit from different display modes for day and night, meaning that you’ll always get the clearest view of where you’re going. And don’t worry about your battery life or where to put your PSP while driving – we’ve got Car Adaptor and Car Mount accessories on the way too – bundled together in one package.

Monday, January 07, 2008

StarLite bringing Starcraft to the DS

No, really. Here's the direct download and here's the game's page. See? StarLite is very real, very homebrew and thankfully very freeware too. If only it were past its obviously early 0.02 version. Still, the promise is there, Blizzard is bound to take notice and if the gods of gaming feel like being nice, we should be playing a pretty proper version of StarCraft on our Nintendo DS consoles sometime during 2008.

Now, who's to start working on a Diablo port?

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Video Game Vault - Super Mario Land

I know I promised to review this game, but until then here's a nice little vid about it.

I have fond memories of this game. It was the first game I've played on a Gameboy, back when I was 6 or 7 or something, and also the first Mario game I played.

Today it's still an awesome game. Beat it for the first time not so long ago using an emulator and it's still so much fun. Try it out if you haven't already!

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