News from CVG

March 24 will witness the release of Team 17's handheld Worms-a-thon Worms Open Warfare. Heading to PSP and Nintendo DS, it sees a return to the series' trademark 2D gameplay of old. If you've had your head stuck underground for the last ten years and have absolutely no idea what classic Worms is, well, it's all about two teams of Worms, armed with ridiculous weaponry, kicking the crap out of each other in a bunch of destructible environments. Check out the new Worms Open Warfare PSP screenshots we've uploaded and prep your exploding sheep, ready for imminent deployment.

Screens at the link above. ...

With the possibility that many Revolution titles will be controllable with one hand, comes hope from disabled gamers like Travis Taft. Taft, who suffered a spinal-cord injury while body surfing, retains strong use of his right hand, but he is unable to use a standard two-handed gamepad because of his left. Taft is confident that when the Revolution is introduced into the market (presumably later this year), he'll be able to resume his lifelong passion for gaming. ...

Nintendo has finally confirmed the existence of Tetris DS, a spruced-up version of the Russian-born puzzle game complete with a special Mario themed mode and touch-screen action. Have a peek at these screens and we think you'll agree it's looking pretty sharp.

The game borders on massively multiplayer, enabling up to 10 players to compete through the Tetris DS Download Play ability, where a single game card can transmit enough of the game to your friend's handheld to run a multiplayer match. Using the WiFi connection you can play two or four-player Tetris DS face-offs.

Tetris remains one of the best puzzle games ever, and so it's important to note that Nintendo isn't messing too much with the formula, and is focusing instead on jazzing up the game's appearance. Expect more details to drop in soon.

Tetris DS will be released for DS on 20 March

http://www.gamesradar.com/news/defau...sectionid=1588 ...

Gameradar posted a review of Me and My Katamari, heres some info of the game:



This PSP followup to 2004's most original title looks just like its PS2 counterpart -- that is, full 3D, lots of objects to pick up, a similar looking prince as the main character, a similar screen layout and even the same visual style. One day, the island of Paradise Commonwealth Island, where many different kinds of animals live together in peace, is struck with a giant tsunami and is left a mess. A single turtle, who'd been separated from the island due to the tsunami, washes ashore on the nearby Prince Island and speaks of his misery to the Prince. This Prince is the very prince that has caused much havoc in previous Katamari games. Katamari Damacy PSP features one big change from previous titles: dynamic levels. The levels change based on the time and season. Levels also feature changing paths which make the game different each time you play.

Heres an excerpt from the review:

Me and My Katamari: a title that shows just how connected people feel to the videogame generation's little Prince. Already a miniature hero, he's been squeezed even tinier in order to fit his gentle games of world-scouring and star-building into your pocket.

Except that, for this adventure, instead of shooting skyward to form new constellations, the Prince's clumps of bric-a-brac are allowed to fall to Earth, forming new island homes for scores of animals left homeless after a tsunami.

Despite this change, almost every other element of the previous two games is in place. Indeed, it feels closer to the first game, limiting its environments to the townscapes and interiors rather than flower gardens or gingerbread houses, and liberally raiding the original's soundtrack.

Even the process of learning the digital controls may remind you of your first, slightly clumsy attempts at the game. The twin-stick input has been directly translated on to the D-pad and face buttons, and the hour or two it takes your brain to rewire is time painfully but valuably spent.

The engine has also survived the miniaturisation process successfully: there is minimal pop-up on some of the busier levels, and the moments when your katamari expands are rather more intrusive, but on the whole it's smooth and competent.

In short, it's a game with its spirit, its satisfaction and its structure intact. It's no longer just the King of All Cosmos who can hold the Prince in the palm of his hand.

Overall: 7 / 10

Me and My Katamari is out now in Japan. ...

Source - Gamesradar

Midway is bringing its NBA action and lifestyle game to PSP with NBA Ballers: Rebound.

The action is one-on-one streetball as you attempt to guide your created-baller from obscurity to superstardom by taking on and beating the best players in the NBA.

There are over a hundred different ways you can customise your aspiring basketballer, then develop his skills against the best in the world. Then each time you defeat an NBA star you'll be rewarded with Ballers Credits which can be used to enhance your athlete's image with new clothes, cars and mansions.

The PSP version will feature two new luxury courts to play on, new DunkFest and King of Thieves modes and a WiFi one-on-one option.

NBA Ballers: Rebound will be released for PSP in April ...

The city attorney's office of Los Angeles has filed a lawsuit against Rockstar Games and parent company Take-Two Interactive over the controversial Hot Coffee mod in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

The lawsuit, which is apparently part of an ongoing investigation into the marketing of videogames, was introduced by attorney Rocky Delgadillo. He claims that Rockstar and Take-Two deliberately misled the Entertainment Software Ratings Board by not disclosing the hidden content, stating that the firms "engaged in unfair business practices by hiding pornographic material in a game which received an M rating."

The Hot Coffee mod allowed gamers to access a hidden mini-game in Rockstar's GTA: San Andreas, and view scenes of a sexual nature which would have been deemed inappropriate for the Mature rating that the game initially received. Rockstar initially maintained that the game was the solely the result of a third party modification, until the ESRB traced the same hidden code in all formats of the game and changed the game's rating to Adults Only.

Delgadillo's lawsuit acknowledges the fact that the content can only be accessed using a fan modification or console cheat-code system, but insists that Rockstar marketed the game "in a fashion that encourages the creation and use of mods." The attorney is seeking a combined fine for the two firms of USD 5000, that the firms relinquish all profits gained from sales of the title in California, and that Take-Two cover all court costs and associated charges as a result of the city office filing the lawsuit.

"Businesses have an obligation to truthfully disclose the content of their products - whether in the food we eat or the entertainment we consume," Delgadillo told the Associated Press. ...

Snaff has updated the release of Vice2X the emulator which supports Commodore computers including the c64, c128, Plus 4, PET, CBM-11 and the VIC20 .

New features in this release:

* TV-out support
* Battery light now shows disk activity when true drive emulation is on
* More cartridge attach options for the Vic20
* Memory expansion options for the Vic20
* More display preferences for the Vic20

Thanks to Vic20Ian for the keyboard updates and fixes.



Download here --> http://gp2x-emulation.dcemu.co.uk/vice2x.shtml ...

Zelurker has updated the original version by Yoyofr of the NeoGeo CD Emulator for the PSP, heres whats new:

- Fixed speed of animations (waterfall in blue's journey...)
- fixed voices too fast in art of fighting (and maybe some others)
- Fixed red and blue inverted when clearing the screen in hardware mode
(it was producing a red sky in crossed swords, and a few bad colors in
some other games).
- Some files were really intended not to be loaded in the neocd, such as
these weird samples in aof, and another in neo turf master. Now they
are correctly ignored.
- The rasterline interrupt is now emulated which enables playing art
of fighting 2 at 115 or 130% (button B when starting a game)
The raster effects are not yet emulated, the background in super
sidekicks2 is now all green !
- A new gui from Radius !
- Added support for the fonts of the SDL_gfx project, and added a font
selector to the new gui
- Fixed the crash in neogeo cd special
- Added more options than what anybody will ever need for the osd :
you can now choose if you want to see or not mp3 tracks, mp3 errors,
if you want a black or transparent background and I added a profiler
display that you can choose from the "Show FPS" option. This profiler
is mainly usefull to me to see where the emulation looses time, but you
can try it if you are curious !
All this is now in the "OSD..." menu.
- Acceleration : a basic optimization for the 68k handlers and I won about
15 fps on the art of fighting main menu, and a trick on the raster
counter helped me to win about 30 fps in ninja commando, and the hall
of fame in magician lord (now maybe you don't have enough time to input
your name in magician lord, oh well...)

Downloads from our Comprehensive NeoGeo CD Emu page here --> http://psp-news.dcemu.co.uk/neocdpsp.shtml and discussion via the comments. ...

Over at Llamma`s Site they have posted possible the best looking mod for the PSP ive ever seen:



Heres the info:

"We had a positive chi evening, two mods we had been stuck on are now working! Sometimes things go right and sometimes things go wrong in modding. Last night two things got figured out so we are pretty pleased. We have a PSP that has LED's that turn on and off based on the existing power indicator LED and also a 360 wireless controller with working blue LED's. The PSP was a learning curve thing, how do you switch on and off some LED's without adding a mini switch? I think "relay" but there is just no room for one in a PSP, we found that basically the solid state equivalent of a relay is a transistor.

In the words of Ali G, Boo-ya-kasha! We finally got it working! Now we have our lighted triggers, lighted D-pad and another light by the buttons for good measure! All thanks to a little device called a transistor. It took more than a bit of research and discovery, but now when the PSP green LED is on so are our 4 surface mount 0603 LED's. This has been the most time consuming lighting mod we have performed so far. Stick with us as we go through the steps and break it down step by step over the next few days!"

Opinions ?, any have a better PSP Mod or seen one elsewhere ? ...