STZ EvolveXMB wallpapers

September 1st, 2007, 00:07 Posted By: evolve

A Graphic Designer from my forum, Stylez, made these wallpapers for EvolveXMB. With his permission, I'm able to share these with all of you Here are a few... more at evolvexmb:







Be sure to leave him a comment at EvolveXMB
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Lair swoops into stores a day early

September 1st, 2007, 01:04 Posted By: Shrygue

via PS3 Fanboy


While there was some confusion about just when Lair was actually going to be shipped out, we have gotten confirmation from multiple sources that it's actually in the stores right now. That's right, you can go out and get your dragon on immediately. It's a little odd that it was released on a Thursday since almost all retail games go on sale on Tuesday, but why look a gift horse in the mouth?

If you do go out and pick up a copy of Lair today, why not come back here and leave your impressions in the comments section? The reviews have been pretty controversial so far, so it would be nice hearing what the fans themselves think.

How does one make a PlayStation game?

September 1st, 2007, 01:07 Posted By: Shrygue

via PS3 Fanboy


A good question and one that has been discussed over on the official PlayStation blog. Doling out remarkable insight, Shu Yoshida walks us through the creative steps taken in creating the games we love to play. Yoshida is the Senior VP of Product Development at SCEA, so if anyone knows what goes on in game creation, it's this guy. He starts off by telling us a little about Sony's policy on developers. They don't tell their developers "we need an action adventure game, so make one" rather, they take the ideas in and let the studios work on them until they show them off to Yoshida and Phil Harrison. At that point, they can red-light the project or let it continue, it is implied. That's good for keeping more quality games coming while filtering out the less-than-spectacular works, at least, for the internal studios.

After a concept is chosen, there's the whole budget deal. A Blu-ray project on the PS3 generally has costs from $2-5 million just for a prototype (which takes over a year to create). After the prototype is created, the game gets shown to people inside of Sony to let them see how it's progressed as well as to create some marketing segmentation: who's the audience, what's the competition, how can they get said audience interested, et cetera. They bring in their selected audience to preview the game in the next stage and get feedback before development gets too far along to change the more core bits of a game.

All in all, it's a really interesting read despite our attempts to shorten the explanation. Sometimes it's better to just check out the original article, since you can also see some early concept drawings of Calling All Cars! and leave your feedback and questions so Shu Yoshida can check them out.


More information at the official Playstation Blog

European PSN updates for August 31st

September 1st, 2007, 01:08 Posted By: Shrygue

via PS3 Fanboy


What's that? An update on a Friday? But we thought that updates only happen on Thursdays. Isn't that the reason we didn't get Warhawk on the 28th? Oh well, it's out now and theres no point moaning about the late release. Let's see what's up on the EU PSN today.

• DiRT demo (free)
• Jed Ashforth interview video (free)
• All the Kings Men Blu-ray trailer (free)

Haze is PS3 exclusive for the foreseeable future

September 1st, 2007, 01:10 Posted By: Shrygue

via PS3 Fanboy


According to German website eXp, and recently re-affirmed by Gamespot, an announcement was made regarding Haze at Leipzig that caught our attention. It seems that the title, initially scheduled as a PS3 exclusive for this year and slated for a 360 release early next year, has become a permanent exclusive feather in Sony's cap. If you're looking for a console version of Haze, you've only got the PS3 to choose from. Yep -- the 360 version has dropped off the map along with the PC build. We don't know why.

To keep this from becoming a "ha, ha, take that 360 bots!" comment thread, we'd like to discuss a few of the reasonings for this announcement -- all speculative, of course. First, Sony doled out a hefty sum of money to grab the game's exclusivity forever. To do that, they must be confident in the game's ability to sell well and is getting incredibly positive reactions from gamers and game journalists, which it really is. A second possible reason is the difficulty Haze developers are having moving all the stuff from the PS3 to the 360 -- utlizing Blu-ray and standard hard drive space may have spoiled them. It's not to say they couldn't actually make the game for 360, it's just that they felt the quality of the experience would be severely hampered and scrapped it. We'd sooner give the nod to our first assumption, but we'll leave it up to you guys to discuss this. Either way, we know the PS3 will be getting a fantastic game built with its strengths in mind.

Stranglehold delayed until late September for PS3

September 1st, 2007, 01:11 Posted By: Shrygue

via PS3 Fanboy


This is coming from a long line of "is it, is it not" scenarios for John Woo's action title Stranglehold. First it was held back, then region locked, then region free, then delayed for the PS3 indefinitely (but not really). So forgive us if another delay announcement doesn't exactly spark a very violent reaction with us -- we've run this course before. This time, though, both the PC and PS3 versions of the game get held back.

While the 360 gets their white dove action on September 5th (in Europe, 14th), the PS3 has to wait until the end of September, slated now for the 25th with a vague October listing for Europe. Still, we should be getting a demo of the title over the PS Store soon, right? With all these delays, it'd be silly not to have that demo up before the game hits. Otherwise, we just might lose interest. Probably not, though, since this game looks pretty slick.

Japanese PlayStation Store update is full of PSX love

September 1st, 2007, 01:14 Posted By: Shrygue

via PS3 Fanboy


While America has gotten a fantastic amount of new content in their PlayStation Store weekly update, Japan's update is no slouch either. Sporting fourteen new PlayStation titles that can be played on your PSP or PS3, they continue to get showered in retro love. Here's the full list of updates:


PlayStation titles:

• Ape Escape
• Athena –Awakening From The Ordinary Life-
• ECHO NIGHT
• Crash Bandicoot 2
• Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi S
• King's Field 2
• Major Wave Series : The Conveni 2
• Major Wave Series Arcade Hits: Sonic Wings Special
• Memorial * Series: Sunsoft Vol. 2: Route-16 Turbo & Atlantis no Nazo
• Ore no Ryouri
• Prismaticallization
• Sanyo Pachinko Paradise 5
• Shinsou Kaiten: Wanwan Umi Monogatari: Sanyo Pachinko Paradise DX
• WipEout

Studio Canal decides to support Blu-ray as well

September 1st, 2007, 01:15 Posted By: Shrygue

via PS3 Fanboy


The American audience may not be as familiar with Studio Canal as the European crowd and that's okay. Fact of the matter is, they were an HD DVD exclusive studio since the beginning of the format scuffle (calling it a war has become a bit disingenuous). Until now. They've listed for release a 3-disc Blu-ray box set of the "Les Bronzes" films. If you check out something that lists all the major motion picture rights and releases from Studio Canal, you'll see that this may just be the beginning of yet another extensive library of movies that Blu-ray consumers will have a choice to pick up.

Activision to distribute Scholastic Media games

September 1st, 2007, 01:34 Posted By: Shrygue

via Games Industry


Scholastic Media has announced an agreement that will see Activision Publishing distribute the company's DS games in North America.

Activision Publishing will distribute I Spy: Fun House and Animal Genius for the Nintendo DS, both with a suggested retail price of USD 29.99.

"We are pleased to have Activision represent and distribute Scholastic's video games at retail," said Alan Waldman, senior vice president and general manager of Scholastic's Interactive Products Group. "As one of the top video game publishers in the industry, Activision is in a great position to introduce I Spy: Fun House and Animal Genius to the world of handheld gamers on the Nintendo DS platform."

Virtual Worlds Forum taking shape

September 1st, 2007, 01:37 Posted By: Shrygue

via Games Industry


The Virtual Worlds Forum, part of this year's London Games Festival, has almost completed its line-up now, with only a few more speakers yet to be confirmed.

The event will feature keynotes from Lord Puttnam of Queensgate and IBM's Dr Colin Parris, as well as over 45 other speakers in additional keynotes and panel sessions.

It will run from October 24 – 25 in the Canvas Buildings, in the Kings Cross Freight Depot in London, and GamesIndustry.biz readers can claim a 10 per cent discount on booking by registering and entering the code VIPM015.

More information on the event is available from the VWF web site.

Vivendi Games earnings up 91.9 per cent

September 1st, 2007, 01:38 Posted By: Shrygue

via Games Industry


Vivendi has reported its earnings for the first half of fiscal 2007, showing a 10.6 per cent increase in earnings compared to the same period of the prior year.

Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes were 2,596 million Euros, with adjusted net income of 1,526 million Euros representing net income per share of 1.32 Euros.

“Vivendi demonstrated significant growth in revenues, EBITA, adjusted net income and cash flow generation in the first half of 2007," said Jean-Bernard Lévy, chairman of Vivendi’s management board.

"By the end of the year, we expect to exceed the record year we had in 2006 and we confirm our outlook for an adjusted net income above 2.7 billion Euros."

JVC announces first rewritable single-sided dual layer DVDs

September 1st, 2007, 01:40 Posted By: Shrygue

via Engadget


Inventing the dual layer DVD-RW standard may seem like an extreme example of too little too late in the days of 15GB+ HD DVD and 25GB+ Blu-ray, but JVC has gone ahead and done it anyway. Hitting up the same 8.5GB capacity as regular double layer DVD-RWs and dual layer DVD-RWs, the JVC discs come with a specially hardened coating which is apparently "150 times" more effective than the coating on plain old DVDs. Unfortunately, the new format requires entirely new burners, is only available at 2x write speeds, and no shipping dates or details are available. Sounds like JVC's got a winner on its hands ... yeah.

Battlejewels (Build 058)

September 1st, 2007, 03:21 Posted By: Kojote

via pdroms:

Battlejewels is simple to pick up -- just match coloured mana gems together to clear them -- and gives you a lot of meat to chew on as you play more. Delve into the game.. theres lots to fiddle with! There are dozens of gem-swapping games out there, but lets face it - you can play Bejewelled for hours on end, but why? Just to clear the level? Fine and good, they perfected the form. But in Battle Jewels you can clear the level, and smash the opponent too. Its as simple or as complex as you want .. play to clear, play to win, or play to level up.



Author release notes:

All four classes have spells up through level 10 which ought to take awhile to get to; theres a pile of gear (some 100 items give or take) defined, across those levels as well and crafted for differing purposes so you can customize your avatar. The opponent scaler tries to match your gear a little so you don't overpower the AI purely on that basis. And heck, if your'e a gold farmer you can buy more skills and spells at the store to reward oyur time investment. Lots of tweaks to combat and so forth, and nabbed that crash bug I introduced back in 053..

So overall I think this should be pretty interesting to fiddle with, and hopefully stable. But I'm betting after a fw levels it could get unbalanced.. as with all these new spells and gear, we need playtesting to sort out what is over or underpowered. Please help.. play till your knuckles bleed and you've got carpal

Rose Camellia DS (Proof of Concept)

September 1st, 2007, 05:52 Posted By: Kojote

via insertcredit:

You've all heard of Rose Camellia by Nigoro no doubt, the Japan-originating flash game in which haughty girls slap each other in specific ways so as to be maximally rude. It was so ubiquitous at the time that I didn't bother to mention it here. You've also probably heard lots of people say it should be ported to DS - well, that's happening right now! A French homebrewer called Mia (of Everlasting Love fame) has made a small proof of concept for it, which is by no means complete. Unfortunately, Mia doesn't have time to finish the game, so he's asking serious/brave DS homebrew developers to contact him via his site ( http://beyondds.free.fr/ ) to talk about finishing it up. And so I'm making this post. Somebody help the man!

Trigger Heart Exelica coming to Japanese Xbox Live Arcade

September 1st, 2007, 08:34 Posted By: JKKDARK

The Naomi arcade game recently being ported to Dreamcast, will be released on the japanese XLA. There's not release date at the moment.



Trigger Heart Exelica website

ROTT DS v0.4 - A port of Rise of the Triad to Nintendo DS by Dopefish

September 1st, 2007, 12:57 Posted By: Sektor



Awesome release by Dopefish for the Nintendo DS

"This is a port of Rise of the Triad for the Nintendo DS.

This is currently a work in progress. Newest version is 0.4 (released Aug 31, 2007).

Many thanks to GPF for porting SDL to the DS. I've built upon his work: rewriting parts of the video code, fixing a bug in the keyboard handling, and adding a mouse driver for the touchscreen.

Recent Changes:

* The registered version is now supported. You must supply your own DARKWAR.WAD, DARKWAR.RTL, and DARKWAR.RTC files.
* Customize Keyboard screen now displays names of DS controls, for easier remapping.
* Note: I made a minor change to the default control mapping; delete your CONFIG.ROT file and the game will auto-generate a new one.

Limitations:

* Sound and Music do not currently work.
* No network support."

Original Command and Conquer released as freeware.

September 1st, 2007, 16:10 Posted By: wraggster

Today marks the 12th anniversary of this landmark RTS franchise. To kick the celebration off, today we have a special surprise which we are certain new and old Command & Conquer fans will enjoy. We are providing the original Command & Conquer Gold as a free download, compatible for Windows XP!

Download Here

CNN re-confirms iPhoneSIMfree's iPhone SIM unlock hack

September 1st, 2007, 16:13 Posted By: wraggster

via engadget

Independent verification of seemingly dubious claims makes the world go 'round, which is why we're a little thankful the iPhoneSIMfree crew has deigned CNN worthy of having the second shot at verifying their iPhone SIM unlock software. We know it won't quiet all the conspiracy theorists out there, but their news wire reads as follows:

Los Angeles software consultant Brett Schulte, who is not affiliated with the developers, demonstrated the software for CNN Friday evening. An iPhone that had the new software appeared to work on the T-Mobile system just seconds after Schulte replaced the AT&T SIM card with a T-Mobile SIM card.

We followed up with Brett, and he confirmed working with the iPhoneSIMfree guys on getting his iPhone unlocked -- we also really wanted to ask about getting in touch with Ted Turner for a summer internship, but we got the vibe that it'd be a no-go. Now, if only iPhoneSIMfree would release that product of theirs to the public -- perhaps that might land along side the CNN story they're gunning for?

More Info

PSP Slim Hands on at Gamestop

September 1st, 2007, 16:16 Posted By: wraggster

Heres an excerpt:

The new PSP is a slimmer, lighter version of the original, with a few new features. The system plays the exact same games, but now it has a video output port that lets you connect the PSP to an external display, such as an HDTV, for big-screen playback. The system also has a simplified UMD loading tray, 32MB more system memory, lower power consumption, a smaller battery, and can now charge via USB. The new PSP will replace the current system this September. Systems will be available in Piano Black, Ice Silver, and Ceramic White. They'll come in various retail packages with a variety of bundle options that include pack-in games, UMD movies, memory sticks, and, in the case of the white PSP, a Darth Vader silk-screened battery cover.




The Ice Silver PSP will ship with the Daxter PSP Entertainment Pack.

While it was nice to check out the new PSP's redesigned features at E3, what we really wanted to do was pull out a few games and test how the new portable handles load times with its extra built-in memory and fancy UMD-caching system. That agenda was first in our minds when we opened up the shipping box, but we got sidetracked when we noticed that the background display color on the new PSP was different from the color on our original PSPs. It turns out that our new PSP actually has more background-theme color options, 28 compared to the old PSP's 13 color options. We've asked Sony if the new colors are available only on the new PSP, or if they'll be included in the 3.60 firmware update, which is the version we had on the new PSP. Unfortunately, our Sony contacts haven't gotten back to us yet.




Sony has finally responded to consumer demand for more PSP background-color themes.

After solving the color mystery, we were distracted from memory testing once again. The new PSP feels like it offers better controls, and so we decided to examine the controller inputs to see if we could detect any physical reasons that would justify this feeling. We didn't have to look very hard. All we needed to do was turn the system flat to see that the buttons on the D pad are raised slightly higher on the new system, which makes game control so much better.




The directional pad buttons on the new PSP (left) stand higher for improved control.

Finally, we got to the memory-load testing. You'll find the new "UMD Cache" option in the System Settings Menu. According to the scrolling description, enabling the UMD Cache will "reduce the frequency at which the system reads from the UMD." We enabled the UMD-caching feature and tested a few games to see if it had any affect on load times. UMD caching requires an initial memory load, so we also tested how fast the games could load up levels after we first started and exited a game to preload the data into system memory. We had time to test out only three games, but early results indicate that the additional system memory and UMD caching really do help speed up initial game launches, as well as subsequent level reloads.

More info and screens

Datels PR Disaster or Not?

September 1st, 2007, 16:25 Posted By: wraggster



Datel have released some great gadgets over the years but last night it was discovered that Datel have released a new Tool Version battery which has features very close to team C+Ds Pandora release. Now as far as i know no one has verified if it has anything to do with the pandora release or indeed the person who leaked it in the first place.

As most PSP Scene fans will know the release of Pandora lets you downgrade and unbrick PSP Consoles.

Now if it wasnt made using the Pandora release then its really a great release for those who need to unbrick/downgrade their consoles.

At this time i say its time to find out facts before jumping the gun, although if its a rip off of pandora then Datel do need to donate towards team C+D. From an outsiders point of view into the PSP Scene you are getting a service mode battery and spare battery for 25$ (£12), which is decent.

More Details

DIGG THIS

Japanese hardware sales, Aug. 20 - Aug. 26

September 1st, 2007, 16:33 Posted By: wraggster

Heres this weeks sales figures for Jap Hardware:

- DS Lite: 100,430
- Wii: 46,283
- PSP: 26,089
- PS3: 16,393
- PS2: 15,139
- Xbox 360: 2,044 )
- Game Boy Micro: 423
- GBA SP: 163
- Gamecube: 116
- GBA: 65
- DS Phat: 30

Microsoft chatpad and Halo 3 accessories next week

September 1st, 2007, 16:34 Posted By: wraggster

via joystiq



Next week Microsoft kicks off their month of Halo by finally releasing the chatpad messenger kit (includes chatpad and headset) and the Halo 3 wireless controllers with art designed by Todd McFarlane. The messenger kit will retail for $30 and the Halo 3 controllers will be $60. Microsoft will also start selling the Halo 3 wireless headset for $60 as well.

Oh chatpad, you will bring joy to the thousands of people out there that just can't use their voice to send a message, because as we all know, typing is such a faster form of communication than a simple voicemail. Actually, it's a nice deal for someone who may be vocal cord impaired or has completely lost their mind trying to type a message with the analog stick -- or lost their mind insisting to only type messages with the analog stick. It serves a purpose in the grand scheme ... unlike those stupid Wiimote add-ons.

First Neo Geo titles confirmed for Wii VC, Sept in Japan

September 1st, 2007, 16:36 Posted By: wraggster

via joystiq

Meet Elta, the last of the magician lords. He's eager to get back to defusing the Gul-Agieze's doomsday plot, and, thanks to the teeny-tiny Neo Geo system stowed inside Nintendo's Wii, he can. Yes, the dormant powers of the most garish console of its time will be unlocked at last: Neo Geo emulated on Virtual Console! (We knew it was coming; now it's just a little closer...)

Nintendo has confirmed three Neo Geo titles for the Japanese VC, including the aforementioned Magician Lord (the console's original pack-in game), alleged "Street Fighter ripoff" World Heroes, and ever-rereleased Fatal Fury. (Both Fatal Fury and World Heroes are also available in separate PS2 anthologies this year.) Fatal Fury will launch first, on September 11th, followed by the magi and heroes later in the month. Each port will cost 900 Wii Points ($9).

Specific Neo Geo titles targeted for the North American and European VCs have yet to be revealed.

The Light Corridor

September 1st, 2007, 16:50 Posted By: wraggster

Nce posted this news/release:

Hi all,

First post on this forum, but I had the habit to come and see what's happening here.
So I finaly decided to put one small project online.

It's based on the old The Light Corridor. I played this one on Amiga loooong time ago

It's been developped to test some stuff on the ds before starting again on a 'bigger' project. So this one don't have any sound and still has some minor bug, but well it's playable

Have a try and tell me if you succeeded to see the end of the corridor ( yes don't be suspicious there is a end ! )

Sega releases new NiGHTS trailer

September 1st, 2007, 17:39 Posted By: JKKDARK

via Nintendo Players

Sega today released some new footage of NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, the Wii sequel to the Sega Saturn classic. Classic Sega fans are desperately awaiting this game, including our own Adam Flugel, who has threatened to kill for the chance to play this game. We applaud Sega for keeping him out of prison.

PCSX2 - Online Network Support!

September 1st, 2007, 22:43 Posted By: wraggster

The PS2 Emulator for windows, PCSX2 has seen a new update with Online Network SUpport being the biggest feature:

Digg This



Heres the rest of the news:

GiGaHeRz did it!! *hic* *wobble*...erm, oh I'd best explain I suppose!

DEV9 is a section of the PS2 which handles a variety of things; HDD, USB and ethernet. GiGaHeRz has been working on one aspect of DEV9, ethernet!

PCSX2 now supports PS2 ethernet, so what does that mean? ONLINE PLAY BABY. On August 30th 2007 GiGaHeRz successfully logged on to the official Capcom Monster Hunter servers and entered a town, briefly after his success I to logged in and joined him!

Subsequently most of the betatesting and development team have logged onto Monster Hunter, interacted with people playing on their real PS2's and even gone questing with each other; including other Monster Hunter players.

This is a significant moment for PCSX2, as we are perhaps one of the first emulation projects to ever let the emulator user connect to a real live official server and play their game online. The only other project we are aware of; that has even come close to this feat would be nullDC (a Dreamcast emulator for Windows).

Testing is ongoing with a variety of online games, and the lack of USB keyboard and mouse support (hopefully to be resolved soon), means PAD typing messages is the only way to communicate online.

This advance towards emulating some of the more "unique" features of the PS2 has once again put into sharp focus the need for you to dump your own BIOS. The specifics I won't detail here, however those of you downloading your BIOS will suffer the consequences.

We shall let you know of further progress with any games we get to go online, but Monster Hunter is a fantastic example of how well PS2 emulation can work, average framerates of 50-70 FPS, with lows of 35 in intense moments. Monster Hunter is utterly stable, I myself have been playing it for some time only noticing minor visual issues on rare occasions.

So here for your pleasure is a video of us just saying hello, and 80 (both general and online) screenshots!...now if you don't mind, we've got alcohol to consume *hic*

Check out the Video

CycloDS Evolution v1.2 BETA #3

September 1st, 2007, 22:53 Posted By: wraggster

Team Cyclops have released a new version of their firmware /software for their DS Flash carts:

CycloDS Evolution v1.2 BETA #3 (the third BETA) has been released and is available for download. We had not originally planned on releasing any further BETA firmware builds before v1.2 final is ready, however due to some recent (and highly anticipated) game releases which are not compatible with earlier firmware versions we felt it would be better to do an interim release fixing compatibility issues with these games rather than making our customers wait. We've thrown in a few new features and other fixes as well

Changes for this release include:

* Game compatibility fixes (Worms Open Warfare 2 etc)
* Updated DLDI driver, will now allow 3rd party loaders such as DSOrganise and DSChannels to load .NDS files
* Time shown in ingame menu
* Folders starting with '.' are now hidden
* Date and time are now set properly for .sav files
* Fixed problem where skin name would always be shown as "Default" on reboot
* Fixed cheat core bug

We plan to release v1.2 final sometime next week. If any bugs are found in this BETA then please let us know so fixes can be incorporated into the final release.

Dodgin' Diamond II for UIQ 3

September 1st, 2007, 22:58 Posted By: wraggster

Dodgin' Diamond II is a Deluxe Galaga style shot'em up arcade game for one or two players. It's an 'old school' arcade game with top-down scroll action, energy based gameplay and different weapons with several levels of power. The UIQ 3 version has been ported by AnotherGuest from a PC/Linux game written by Juan J. Martinez.

More Info

Mame for iPhone WIP News:

September 1st, 2007, 23:05 Posted By: wraggster

kaisersoze has posted some great news and screenshots of his port of MAME to the Iphone:

CURRENT STATUS: Can definitely be made playable by choosing a suitably old version of MAME. Tested with version 0.29 since the code was simple enough back then to slap together something quickly to test performance. I am going to arbitrarily target whatever version runs the Galaga ROM I have on my arcade machine. I suppose I should start thinking about how I want to do the configurable control system. In addition to the straightforward "this area of the screen is this button/joystick/trackball/dial" controls, I'd like to support gesture based inputs as well. Imagine playing Tempest by making an actual circular motion on the touch-screen, or tapping anywhere to fire, or gesturing left-right up-down to move the joystick. You could play Pacman without any screen real estate wasted by displaying controls. I should be able to actually put some time into this over the weekend while I'm on vacation.

PSP Wave Changer 1.2

September 1st, 2007, 23:16 Posted By: wraggster

News/release from Akez

I created this homebrew app so i could flash my own waves to my psp.
I dont know whether there are other applications like this but i would still much rather use my own as i know there is nothing which harms my psp.
It is fairly easy to use and it shouldnt brick your psp unless the file you select to copy is not a system_plugin_bg.rco file.

PSP Wave Changer 1.2

I have added my own themes to this download. If you dont want them then just delete them.

If anyone does use this then use it at your own risk and make sure you know how to change the system_plugin_bg.rco file in flash0 using the recovery menu.
It is wise to only use this application with Custom Firmware as there is a way to restore any corrupt files using the recovery menu where-as 1.5 fw does not allow you to do this causing your PSP to become bricked.

Update. v1.2. Allows unlimited amount of files to be loaded instead of the limited 20 which was in previous versions. Link has been updated to newest version.

VCS Tool Pack v0.002

September 1st, 2007, 23:20 Posted By: wraggster

Durka Durka Mahn posted this news/release:

Hey everyone, just updated my VCS Tool Pack for VCS Cheat Device with some new features!

Change log:
+Added Portal Maker
Makes a two-way portal that teleports your from one place to another by stepping into the circle!
+Added Car Spawner
Allows you to spawn cars by putting in the car ID, coordinates, and rotation.
+Added Car Spawn ID text document
A list of all the car spawn IDs in a .txt document for use with the Car Spawner. Credit to Matt11504 for this list.
+Added a ReadMe.txt for instructions on use, and special thanks to people who contributed.

*Note - The program can only be ran once per export, I will try to fix this in a later release.

As said before, I plan to make actual GUI later on (when I learn how) and make a PSP version.

Space For Everything v1.9

September 1st, 2007, 23:30 Posted By: wraggster

News from pdroms

Space For Everything by PirataNervo is a collection of various helpful tools/routines in one program. It includes backup and freeing space functions.


New features:
- Fixed bug when replacing chinese, korean and japanese fonts with smaller fonts.
- RSS Remover
- Network Update Remover
- Restore RSS.
- Restore Network Update.
- added ICON0
- added PIC1

Download http://www.mediafire.com/?bm2myybr13y

PDRoms Coding Competition 3.667 - Sixteen days left!

September 1st, 2007, 23:31 Posted By: wraggster

News from PDroms

PDRoms Coding Competition (short: PDRC) #3.667 has sixteen days left for the deadline.

Topic: "Backport"/"Convert"/"Redo"/"Recode" a Nintendo DS homebrew game to Gameboy Advance!

Rules: [*]You must own all RIGHTS to your submission, this includes sound, graphics, code, simply everything! The use of copyrighted names and characteres should be avoided, unless you have an official permission, which should be forwarded along with your entry. We reserve the right to refuse or disqualify entries, which break any rule(s)!!! [*]In case of VERY OLD GAMES (+10y), which do not seem to have a copyright holder anymore and which are not distributed commercially anymore, we can make an exception, but you must be still able to proofe that you tried to get in touch with the responsible copyrightholders. [*]Keep in mind you OWN ALL RIGHTS to your production, this means you are also fully reliable for it. By submitting your production you declare that you did not break any copyright.

Prizes: [*]Prizes can not be paid out in cash [*]In case of entries having the same jury-end-score, the entry which has been submitted earlier will be the winner. [*]In case of teamwork, the team-leader has to make sure the prizes are split proper within the team itself. [*]The special prize is given to the person with the most "ports". If there should be a person with equal amount of ports, the one who was sending in things fastest, will win this special prize. - The amount for qualifying is minimum five ports/conversions!!!

#1 - One GBA Micro (new, unused) + One GBADEV.org 2004 Compo Cartridge (new, unused) + One real-cartridge with your winner entry!
#2 - One Qwak GBA Cartridge (new, unused) + 1 x GBAccelerometer (new, unused) + One HAMLib license
#3 - One HAMLib license + One GBAccelerometer (new, unused)

Special Prize:
One GBA Micro (new, unused) + One GBADEV.org 2004 Compo Cartridge (new, unused) + One GBAccelerometer (new, unused) + One HAMlib license
The special prize is given to the person with the most "ports". If there should be a person with equal amount of ports, the one who was sending in things fastest, will win this special prize (The amount for qualifying is minimum five ports/conversions!!!)

Entries: [*]Submit as many entries as you like and have an extra chance to win the "special prize" [*]No Splash-Screen required, you keep all your rights - even no need to mention PDRoms. [*]The "ported" homebrew NDS game should be "brandnew" for GBA, already existing ports which were available for the public before 2nd August 2007 are not allowed, unless they are heavily major updated! [*]You are not allowed to spread your GBA entry to the public before the official results! [*]You grant PDRoms and its staff members the right to spread your entry freely (we won't make money with it). We have connections to other important scene pages, so we'll make sure you get proper attention for your production [*]Entry should run on a REAL GBA [*]Write a README with information about your game, this text will be used to present your entry, also add a screenshot! [*]Please state out, which NDS game you were porting and send the NDS binary along (will not be published)! [*]Package each submission in ONE compressed file archive and send it to shahzad.sahaib(at)web.de AND kojote(at)pdroms.de (just to be on the save side, due to agressive spam-filters - each entry will be CONFIRMED after max. 2 days) [*]Entries can be updated by sending an updated archive ANYTIME before the deadline.

PS: If you feel left out: Release a NDS game first and then "backport"/"redo"/"convert" it to GBA and release it with this compo

See also: http://www.pdroms.de/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=341

EA offering Command and Conquer free!

September 2nd, 2007, 05:15 Posted By: Cap'n 1time

Via the official C&C website




To celebrate C&C's 12th anniversary, EA has decided to let you download and play the original game for free (both GDI and Nod CD's).

In order to give back to the fans for over 12 years of devotion we are putting together a 12th Anniversary celebration during the month of September. However, as any Command & Conquer fan knows, the true party starts today, August 31st, which marks 12 years since Command & Conquer Gold launched way back in 1995.

To kick the celebration off, today we have a special surprise which we are certain new and old Command & Conquer fans will enjoy. We are providing the original Command & Conquer Gold as a free download, compatible for Windows XP! This is the same version included with the collectors pack Command & Conquer: The First Decade, and is now available for you to download for free!

Google Earth Flight Simulator

September 2nd, 2007, 10:29 Posted By: wraggster

via /.

Blogger Marco has recently discovered that the newest version of Google Earth includes a flight simulator. Though simple in comparison to full-blown simulators, Google Earth's is fun and addictive. To get started, press Ctrl+Alt+A for the initial dialog (on OS X, Command+Option+A). Then choose your plane (F16 or SR22) and initial airport. Joysticks are supported; it has even been reported that force feedback works. The game's controls are sensitive so it takes some getting used to. Here are all the available controls.

http://earth.google.com/intl/en/user...sim/index.html

Hands-on with GamePark's GP2X F-200

September 2nd, 2007, 10:37 Posted By: wraggster

via engadget



Confessions up front: we're pretty hot for any device that sports some sort of console emulator, so when faced with GamePark Holding's GP2X, which currently boasts of SNES, NES, Genesis, MAME and quite a few other gems, it's a little difficult to rein in the enthusiasm. That said, the new F-200 could use just a little bit of slimming -- you have to really mean it if you're going to carry this thing around instead of your PSP or DS. Otherwise we found the unit to be quite comfortable to hold and use, responsive enough in the OS department, and completely packed to the gills with features. Video playback is sluggish, but games loaded and performed quite well. We weren't able to test the F-200's new touchscreen, which is the only upgrade of the device over the existing F-100, but apparently it will be implemented as a mouse controller for developers to do whatever they want with the Linux device. And trust us, they will.

Shash DeSmuMe WIP - DS Emu for Windows

September 2nd, 2007, 10:42 Posted By: wraggster

Shash has posted more WIP news on his DS Emulator for Windows:

Speeding up

After abandoning desmume development for a few months, I've been working on it quite a lot lately. Of course, not as much as when I started working on the project, as motivation to develop desmume is rare this days (just check the official desmume CVS, and you'll see what I'm talking about). But anyway, I've done some improvements on a very specific side of the project that I've avoided working on for the last 6 months: speed.

I've to be clear: desmume current way of handling most of the interrupts sucks. For example, timers, dmas and other, are checked PER opcode emulated. In an ideal world, you'd run a batch of instructions (the exact ammount would be determined by some heuristics or whatever), and then you'd do the processing needed by the pending interrupt / timer handling, then again back to running a batch of instructions. Of course, that'd be a less exact than current implementation, but it'd be WAY faster. I did something similar on my Gameboy emulator, and it gave good results, we'll see how it works on desmume, whenever I find time to implement it.

Anyway, I'll start with two screenshots, one before the speed ups I implemented the past 3 days (left), and another one with them (right):





As you can see, it's a practical 33% speed up on this particular case. I must say that it affects every game that I've tested on a considerable ammount, being the minimum a 14% (I'll explain later why). Just as a real world example, tested "Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow" and it's 30% faster now... So let's talk about the speed ups.

First, desmume used/s GDI to draw the DS screens onto the main window. GDI setup is as easy as it can get, but seems that it's not as fast as I would wish (more keeping in mind that it's only task is to take an image and draw it on the screen). I considered a few options, namely DDraw, openGL or GDI+. I excluded openGL at the beggining, because it would be quite a lot of work to make the current 3D core work correctly with it. So after some discussing it with some friends (more exactly, hearing some DDraw bashing and why I should stop using DirectX7 features), I started working on a GDI+ blitter. In the end it was easier than I expected. Reading the documentation, implementing the blitter and a bit of adjusting was done in an hour. In fact, searching through the documentation was what took longer. The good part, is that it gave a free 14% perfomance gain.

The rest was a matter of fixing some tidbits of how memory is accesed, avoiding a lot of conversions from floating point to integer (which is way more expensive that you'd guess), changing the way the texture cache works, and more stuff I can't remember. I won't be any more concise about this stuff, as it would take quite a few pages, which I'm not willing to write now. Maybe I'll go back to them in a future post.

Just as an ending, it seems that my obsession about fixing all regression bugs that I see is giving good results, as most games that I test have perfect 3D. Here's some proof, Hotel Dusk running perfectly, even with the motion blur effect (I rotated the image with an image editor, because I don't have screen rotation implemented):

Homepage Portal v3.2

September 2nd, 2007, 10:52 Posted By: wraggster

Jesus Lover has released a new portal for the PSP, heres the details

The Homepage Portal is designed to get you to where you need to go, quickly, and in an attractive manor. The homepage portal V3.2 is filled with helpful applications, fun games, useful links, a working multi-engine search bar, and some other pleasant surprises too, all under a 2MB download! Nothing comes close to The Homepage Portal's seamlessness, usefulness, size, and quickness.

CSP Development Studio 3.0

September 2nd, 2007, 10:55 Posted By: wraggster

News/release from ManiacX:

Hello,

Well, here it is; the final version of CSP...Version 3.0.

So this concludes my last major project for the PSP Development Scene.

I too am now going to abandon the PSP Scene. As for the reasons:

A) School
B) New 360 -- Going to 360 Development (Possibly)
C) Getting bored of it (been here since FW Version 2.0)
D) Many noobs now joining (exploits = downgrades = new people)
E) PSP Slim (the whole thing, all over again)
F) Fanjita left
G) Ungratefulness (Biggest Reason); People are getting very ungrateful of people doing this for them. As though they have bought a service for their PSP that isn't meeting their expectations.

Blade Hunter is going to take over development of CSP. He may not make a release for a while as he is still analyzing the code.

Now, back to CSP:

I am not going to submit an official changelog, you'll just have to try it out and see for yourself. One thing I am going to say is that it includes an integrated version of Cygwin. That means you can use Cygwin from inside CSP (includes support for libraries).

Download:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8t0j98 (131,606 KB)
Status: Ready to download!
A Clean install is necessary (uninstall all previous versions).

Minimum System Requirements:

500MB Free Disk Space
512 MB RAM

Well, Good luck, and Thank you all.

Piano Station Portable 2.0

September 2nd, 2007, 10:59 Posted By: wraggster

Eculewatt has posted a new version of his Piano app for the PSP:

Yes another version of the Piano Station Portable has been released. I couldn't come to the full demand of requests because i had alot of problems in the making of it.
I do have a request though. If anyone could tell me how i can be able make it so when a key is pressed, the screen clears, there is new text, different background picture, and the buttons have different functions, please PM me. I currently just use OSlib library but if their is a way to do it, please PM me.

New Features:
*XMB sound added
*New interface
*red/pink text color
*when a key is pressed, the screen quickly flashes what key on the piano you're pressing in blue.
*3 Drum sounds added on Down, Left, and Right

sorry it's not a lot cooler but thats because i don't know how to clear the screen and change everything as i mentioned above.
Also if anyone wants to suggest a feature, go right ahead.
(optional) if you have a feature and an example/code for it, PM it to me.

Xmbe V1

September 2nd, 2007, 11:02 Posted By: wraggster

Auraomega posted this news/release:

This is a project I've been working on as a relief from my other couple of projects, I've decided to release it now incase anyone else would like to use it.

XMBE is an extention to the XMB (hence the E), what it will hopefully do is allow a lot more customization of the XMB through external plugins I'm making, this version only has a couple of features as I've not really spent much time on it... the features that are in this release include:

New clock, with the time in hour:minute:second:micros econd:AM/PM.
Full length date, currently this is in the English format, I may convert to USA format for the next version.
Remaining battery life
Glow or Flash effect on the lettering

Also included is my first extention, which is a basic screensaver, it turns on after roughly 30 seconds of inactivity in the XMB. It appears to only work when launched from XMBE, and theres no option to disable it other than removing the plugin from the XMBE folder (XMBE-S.prx is the screensaver).

The only major issue I have is that I've used a lot of libraries, so the plugin is quite large, I hope to shrink this eventually.

Chain Reaction

September 2nd, 2007, 11:05 Posted By: wraggster

VirtuaPeanut has released what looks to be a puzzle game for the DS



Download and Give Feedback Via Comments

JDS v1.27 Final release!

September 2nd, 2007, 11:12 Posted By: wraggster

Project JDS the Japanese learning app has been updated, heres whats new:

Learn from one alphabet to the other and back. Learn how to write the character and how it's pronounced.

Hiragana
Katakana
Romanji
Nigori
Maru
Writing
Speech option
Repeat option
Selectable sets

v1.27 - Changed drawing wi