Sega Mega Drive Gopher Released - With an SD Slot for expansion

[lindquist]

I got one of the play-asia gophers a few days ago, since then I've been trying to find more information on the whole firecore thing... It has not been easy...

On the back of the manual, it says that firecore is a trademark of "Digital Media Cartridge Ltd", so I searched a bit and found this press release: http://www.ereleases.com/pr/20050513003.html

It sounds like this is what's inside the firecore units and I must admit it sounds kinda-sorta cool.

Has anyone here found out more about the gopher/firecore? any kind of information is very appreciated, of course, especially something leading to save-states

Regards

[winslp]

Hi. I have just bought 1 unit in Argentina. This is a great console! I'm very happy with it.
I have noticed the following:

1) It will accept games in .BIN format. In order to have the game names displayed correctly in

the screen of the Gopher, I have converted them all to UPPERCASE. I have used the program

Rename v1.2.0.2 in order to achieve this. This handheld uses standard SD cards. Mine is 2Gb.


2) Outrunners: You can do the trick for the VirtuaFormula, you hear the noise when you press

the keys to get the car, but the car is not there. Maybe the Outrunners cartidge has a special

chip inside it to make the VirtuaFormula appears?. For example the Virtua Racing cartridge has

the Sega Virtual Processor chip (SVP) inside it.


3) Ms. PacMan: This is a known issue. The game always steers Ms. PacMan character always to

the left even playing it in the original Sega Nomad handheld. To fix that, that handheld has

the Mode button, when powering on the unit, if you hold down that button to deactivate the

3 extra buttons, so the game will function just fine. That is the function of the Mode button,

plus change the handheld between 50hz/60hz mode to make compatible with more cartridges. There

are other games that function incorrectly with a 6 button pad, and they need a 3 button pad in

order to function properly, that's why the Mode button do that. Since the Ghopher has no Mode

button, it is not possible to deactivate the extra buttons (X, Y, Z) so MS. PacMan will steer

to the left due to the incompatibility of the game to function with 6 button controllers.


4) It is not possible to save games and about the Screenshots I have not found any info on how

to make them work. I have copied some screenshots in several formats matching tha names of the

game files but they won't appear at all. Still need more testing. Atgames website sucks. Want

to visit an useless web site? Then visit atgames.net


5) Games that I can not make them to work, maybe due to the 6 button issue:

Aladdin II won't work (maybe because it is a game hack?).

Another World loads but it won't Start the game (maybe not managing the polygons properly?)

Bomberman

Clay Fighter gets to the menu, then, no action is possible to start playing

Frogger leads to a red screen

Galaga, alien spaceships movement is not so soft but acceptable, game lacks music as when

played in emulators

Lion King II (hack?)

Lion King III (hack?)

Super Bubble Bobble (hack?)

Still need to test many others. But until now more than 95% of the games works fine!


* UPDATE 05/30/2010: Centurion Defender of Rome won't load

[Shrygue]

Nice review but please don't link to commercial roms though.

[winslp]

Ok sorry. Thanks.

[Rapenzie]

Hi guys! I'm here! I didn't buy the Gopher yet and I'm not thinking about buy it anymore. (i broke whit my girlfriend hahaha) As a Nintendo fan, I'm interested in the DS (for a long time and for my colection) :P

@nevarna:
I know that the atgame answered you, but i don't think they said the truth. They can't tell everyone how their product works. You asked about saves and as they know that the people know how to put roms in, they'll try to hide how save the games.

I don't really know if the bilt-in games can save (if someone can say right...), but if they can, is clear tha have a way to save. I don't find yet someone that have bought a MD Card Game. If someone could see inside it, this could help.

Anyway, good luck guys, and if I find something interesting, i'll post here.

[AW72]

$#@!NZIE, also the built-in games cant save.
this is the only real bad thing about this handheld - the missing ingame-saving-option.
when you a big nintendo-fan you really should have a look on the DINGOO-handheld, because there runs a snes9x-emulator which emulates the super-nes very good.

WINSLP - how you mean this: "That is the function of the Mode button, plus change the handheld between 50hz/60hz mode" ??? with the mode-button i can switch a sega-nomad from ntsc to pal, or what? but with a real megadrive this dont work, or?

an incompatibility to the 6button-stick could be the reason for games like MS PACMAN that they dont work correct. but for example, when i try this game with GENS-PLUS or KEGA-FUSION it also works normal with 6-button mode. but maybe it has different behaviour on real consoles.

[destinyking]

can i play nfs shift on it ?

[winslp]

WINSLP - how you mean this: "That is the function of the Mode button, plus change the handheld between 50hz/60hz mode" ??? with the mode-button i can switch a sega-nomad from ntsc to pal, or what? but with a real megadrive this dont work, or?

an incompatibility to the 6button-stick could be the reason for games like MS PACMAN that they dont work correct. but for example, when i try this game with GENS-PLUS or KEGA-FUSION it also works normal with 6-button mode. but maybe it has different behaviour on real consoles.

AW72: The Mode button in the Megadrive/Genesis joypads, is used to turn off the 3 extra buttons X,Y,Z but it won't change the Hz of the console. The behaviour of the emulators could be different.

[mrzilch]

i just bought one of these (the one with 6 buttons and an infra red thingie for second player) firecore gopher, in taiwan

pretty good stuff! The emulation is near-perfect, except for the sound

im still wondering if somehow the firmware is upgradeable? coz im really keen for a savegame or save-state fix

i hope more and more people buy this and start working on the savegame fix coz im pretty damn keen for it

anyone here a good programmer? hahaha

[juniorreid]

hey can an1 tell me whether i can put any region .bin files on the sd card to play on the gopher or is it region restricted

Thanks