A new version of Super Mario War has been released.

What's new/fixed:

* New interaction blocks, Breakable blocks, Note blocks, Powerup blocks, Flip blocks, Bounce blocks, Donut blocks
* Powerups, Star, Fireflower, 1up
* 17 new background images
* 280 tiles, Ice tiles, Death tiles (above only, below only or any side death)
* 7 New Game modes: Coin Limit, Yoshi's Eggs, Tag, Domination, Fire Frenzy, Bob-Omb, Survival
* Improved collision detection (fixed screen edge bugs)
* Chocobo sprites in Chicken Mode
* Down jumping through solid on top blocks
* Improved menu: Graphics, Map view, Player select (allows any player to be in any state: disabled, player, cpu), Help keys at bottom of screen
* Choice of spawn styles: Added door and swirl to help you find your player when spawning
* Pause game feature
* Improved game scoreboard - game leader wears crown
* Two layers on map (one for tiles and one for blocks)
* 10 new maps and updated old maps with new blocks and backgrounds
* Various eyecandy effects like dust and explosions
* Friction jumping through air is less than on ground
* Added classic Mario sound effects
* More vibrantly colored player sprites

http://72dpiarmy.com/ ...

Hideki Konno, who has worked on most mario kart games has given Nintendo of Europe an interview in which he reveals in teresting new pieces of info about Mario Kart DS.


Nintendo of Europe: Previous Mario Kart games have had a ‘gimmick’, like the dual characters in Double Dash!!. What’s the ‘gimmick’ going to be in Mario Kart DS?

Hideki Konno: “This time we’ve gone back to basics, so only one player rides on one kart. And we’re taking advantage of the wireless communication capabilities of the Nintendo DS, so this time up to eight players can simultaneously play against each other wirelessly.

“We wanted the multiplayer game to involve more people playing simultaneously than ever before, and it had to be simple and quick enough for people to set up.

“Another very important factor is that we are going to make Mario Kart DS Wi-Fi capable. In other words, if you own a Nintendo DS and Mario Kart DS you can play against strangers in any part of the world.”

NoE: How does the game make use of the special features of Nintendo DS?

HK: “We are incorporating many DS-original items but I’m afraid I cannot dwell on this point now. But one of the ideas that we haven’t openly disclosed yet is that we are taking advantage of the dual screen.

“For example, one item added to the Nintendo DS version is the squid character from Super Mario Sunshine. [Gooper Blooper]. Because it’s a squid, it can spit out ink and if you are the victim you cannot see the upper screen because it’s painted with ink for a certain amount of time. But because it’s a dual screen, on the lower screen you have the map so you know where you are and where others are.”

NoE: What can you tell us about the courses in the game? We heard there will be a mixture of classic and new tracks.

HK: “We identified 16 of the best courses that people really enjoyed playing in the past, so we are now compiling these courses into the Nintendo DS version. I believe that the players who used to play these courses are going to have a very nostalgic feeling.

“We have also added 16 new courses, and because Nintendo DS is a highly capable machine we are actually creating some kind of topography so that there are ups and downs in the courses, and some new tweaks.”

NoE: Can you tell us about some of these ‘tweaks’?

HK: “There’s a course where you are actually driving through a huge pinball table with bumpers and flippers. There are huge iron balls going through the course and you have to be very careful not to be hit by them.”

NoE: And can we look forward to anything special in the single player mode?

HK: “One of the original objectives of making Mario Kart DS was to intensify the one player mode. Before we had simply the Grand Prix racing and Time Trial modes but this time we have made some changes so that even in a versus match you can actually play by yourself, in other words the computer is going to become the opponent. And also in the Battle Mode the computer can be your opponent so that you can play by yourself.” ...

A quick update on what's been happening on the DoomDS front from Defect:


I've been workng heavily on the design document for DoomDS, there is a huge amount of documentation for this project on paper and I am transferring it to my PC. This is a long and tedious task, but it is giving me a chance to update it and include the new ideas and features we have been brainstorming lately.

The engine for DoomDS will be based on a heavily modified version of the source for the Doom64: Absolution project. This engine is fantastic and should port over to the DS without too much hassle. This engine supports .md2 models and lots of other nice visual effects, but we will be adding a lot of new features and visual effects once its up an running. Work on the engine will start once our flash cards arrive.

Removing all the useless network code and optimizing the engine for specific sound and video hardware should reap some nice speed gains. There are several key rendering techniques we are working on that should help greatly with the memory and polygon limitations of the DS.

The biggest advantage of this engine is that it allows us to do some quick and easy testing on PC, without having to transfer everything over to the DS. This should allow for faster development and better methods for
recording media.

There is a lot of progress on the art, with lots of new textures and models, but dont expect updates any time soon.We are keeping the art under wraps untill later in development.

Thanks,
Defect. ...

Source - Joystiq

Since they’ve already begun public beta testing for SOCOM 3 for the PS2, it only makes sense that they’d get started on SOCOM for the PSP before too long. Last night (Monday the 19th), select members of Sony’s PlayStation Underground elite (i.e., the Gamer Advisory Panel) received e-mail invites to register for the first PSP online beta test. The game in question was SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo, and with a little over two months until its November 8 release date, the team at SCEA’s going to need all the help they can get if they want to really make waves with the much hoped for infrastructure multiplayer mode. (That’s playing online, people!) Registering fast enough to make it into any of the PSU’s beta tests is hard enough for games on the PS2, but there’s a special twist with this application: you’ve got to register using only your PSP browser, as there’s no other way to sign up. Of course, this means you’re required to have at least one of the 2.0 firmware updates installed in order to even apply (let along get into the beta itself). If, however, you’re ready with that and have your invitation handy (you did get one, right?), try pointing your PSP browser to http://pspbeta.us.playstation.com and hopefully get started.

I’m sure there are folks out there who’d love to get in on this, but where does that leave me, a guy who doesn’t even own a PSP (but just bought a DS)? It’s hard to say, as I received this e-mail invite despite having never registered a PSP with Sony nor ever indicating that I’d owned one. Not only that, there’s also this restriction: “You may only participate in this beta test with the address to which we sent this invitation,” so the invites are not very transferrable, and I wouldn’t feel right handing out my invitation for someone else to use. (Sorry!) Well, I guess I’ll have to leave the testing to dedicated PSP owners this time. Help make a good game, guys, and please let us know when all the tester spots fill up. ...

Source - Joystiq

Since they’ve already begun public beta testing for SOCOM 3 for the PS2, it only makes sense that they’d get started on SOCOM for the PSP before too long. Last night (Monday the 19th), select members of Sony’s PlayStation Underground elite (i.e., the Gamer Advisory Panel) received e-mail invites to register for the first PSP online beta test. The game in question was SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo, and with a little over two months until its November 8 release date, the team at SCEA’s going to need all the help they can get if they want to really make waves with the much hoped for infrastructure multiplayer mode. (That’s playing online, people!) Registering fast enough to make it into any of the PSU’s beta tests is hard enough for games on the PS2, but there’s a special twist with this application: you’ve got to register using only your PSP browser, as there’s no other way to sign up. Of course, this means you’re required to have at least one of the 2.0 firmware updates installed in order to even apply (let along get into the beta itself). If, however, you’re ready with that and have your invitation handy (you did get one, right?), try pointing your PSP browser to http://pspbeta.us.playstation.com and hopefully get started.

I’m sure there are folks out there who’d love to get in on this, but where does that leave me, a guy who doesn’t even own a PSP (but just bought a DS)? It’s hard to say, as I received this e-mail invite despite having never registered a PSP with Sony nor ever indicating that I’d owned one. Not only that, there’s also this restriction: “You may only participate in this beta test with the address to which we sent this invitation,” so the invites are not very transferrable, and I wouldn’t feel right handing out my invitation for someone else to use. (Sorry!) Well, I guess I’ll have to leave the testing to dedicated PSP owners this time. Help make a good game, guys, and please let us know when all the tester spots fill up. ...

Source - Joystiq

Since they’ve already begun public beta testing for SOCOM 3 for the PS2, it only makes sense that they’d get started on SOCOM for the PSP before too long. Last night (Monday the 19th), select members of Sony’s PlayStation Underground elite (i.e., the Gamer Advisory Panel) received e-mail invites to register for the first PSP online beta test. The game in question was SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo, and with a little over two months until its November 8 release date, the team at SCEA’s going to need all the help they can get if they want to really make waves with the much hoped for infrastructure multiplayer mode. (That’s playing online, people!) Registering fast enough to make it into any of the PSU’s beta tests is hard enough for games on the PS2, but there’s a special twist with this application: you’ve got to register using only your PSP browser, as there’s no other way to sign up. Of course, this means you’re required to have at least one of the 2.0 firmware updates installed in order to even apply (let along get into the beta itself). If, however, you’re ready with that and have your invitation handy (you did get one, right?), try pointing your PSP browser to http://pspbeta.us.playstation.com and hopefully get started.

I’m sure there are folks out there who’d love to get in on this, but where does that leave me, a guy who doesn’t even own a PSP (but just bought a DS)? It’s hard to say, as I received this e-mail invite despite having never registered a PSP with Sony nor ever indicating that I’d owned one. Not only that, there’s also this restriction: “You may only participate in this beta test with the address to which we sent this invitation,” so the invites are not very transferrable, and I wouldn’t feel right handing out my invitation for someone else to use. (Sorry!) Well, I guess I’ll have to leave the testing to dedicated PSP owners this time. Help make a good game, guys, and please let us know when all the tester spots fill up. ...

It seems like the PSPs best Snes emulator will get much better soon, heres what Laxer3a posted at the Official Forums

Hi everybody,

Laxer3A here.

I met Y (the author of the other snes emu) today and we had a long discussion.

Most likely we will do an update about it on our web site.
But for the moment, I will just write on the boards here.

1/ Y is interested to join our project while maintaining his own emu.

Which is good, his emu beeing using a different base, some games will work better on his emu that ours.
Diversity is always good, whatever the eco-system is.

2/ Y seems to never had so much interest into modifying the core of Snes9x. Which is the opposite of our philosophy.

So his skill and our skills are a perfect match.

3/ How, when, what is not decided... I promised him that he could have the source code and have a look, that's it.

4/ I take the opportunity to say that we all have a social life, all have a job (the youngest of us is 28 if I am correct and I am the oldest actually) and a social life.

We will probably continue to work hard for a while until it reach a "correct" level that satisfies us (yes, we are not satisfied yet) and then probably work on it only once in a while. It will be more open and we will leave to other people to maintain it and help it to grow better.

I don't think we can keep the pace that we had for the last 5 weeks. And I think yoyofr need some sleep :-P.

Actually we were thinking that 0.2 would be released a month after 0.1 and it was released only 18 or 19 days after the first release.

Most likely the 0.3 will follow the same pace.
But 0.4 may be slowed down...

We are investigating the following areas right now :
- Mode7 optimized second version.
- Mode7 hardware accelerated for SOME case only.
- Netplay.
- Sound over ME.

...

It seems like the PSPs best Snes emulator will get much better soon, heres what Laxer3a posted at the Official Forums

Hi everybody,

Laxer3A here.

I met Y (the author of the other snes emu) today and we had a long discussion.

Most likely we will do an update about it on our web site.
But for the moment, I will just write on the boards here.

1/ Y is interested to join our project while maintaining his own emu.

Which is good, his emu beeing using a different base, some games will work better on his emu that ours.
Diversity is always good, whatever the eco-system is.

2/ Y seems to never had so much interest into modifying the core of Snes9x. Which is the opposite of our philosophy.

So his skill and our skills are a perfect match.

3/ How, when, what is not decided... I promised him that he could have the source code and have a look, that's it.

4/ I take the opportunity to say that we all have a social life, all have a job (the youngest of us is 28 if I am correct and I am the oldest actually) and a social life.

We will probably continue to work hard for a while until it reach a "correct" level that satisfies us (yes, we are not satisfied yet) and then probably work on it only once in a while. It will be more open and we will leave to other people to maintain it and help it to grow better.

I don't think we can keep the pace that we had for the last 5 weeks. And I think yoyofr need some sleep :-P.

Actually we were thinking that 0.2 would be released a month after 0.1 and it was released only 18 or 19 days after the first release.

Most likely the 0.3 will follow the same pace.
But 0.4 may be slowed down...

We are investigating the following areas right now :
- Mode7 optimized second version.
- Mode7 hardware accelerated for SOME case only.
- Netplay.
- Sound over ME.

...

It seems like the PSPs best Snes emulator will get much better soon, heres what Laxer3a posted at the Official Forums

Hi everybody,

Laxer3A here.

I met Y (the author of the other snes emu) today and we had a long discussion.

Most likely we will do an update about it on our web site.
But for the moment, I will just write on the boards here.

1/ Y is interested to join our project while maintaining his own emu.

Which is good, his emu beeing using a different base, some games will work better on his emu that ours.
Diversity is always good, whatever the eco-system is.

2/ Y seems to never had so much interest into modifying the core of Snes9x. Which is the opposite of our philosophy.

So his skill and our skills are a perfect match.

3/ How, when, what is not decided... I promised him that he could have the source code and have a look, that's it.

4/ I take the opportunity to say that we all have a social life, all have a job (the youngest of us is 28 if I am correct and I am the oldest actually) and a social life.

We will probably continue to work hard for a while until it reach a "correct" level that satisfies us (yes, we are not satisfied yet) and then probably work on it only once in a while. It will be more open and we will leave to other people to maintain it and help it to grow better.

I don't think we can keep the pace that we had for the last 5 weeks. And I think yoyofr need some sleep :-P.

Actually we were thinking that 0.2 would be released a month after 0.1 and it was released only 18 or 19 days after the first release.

Most likely the 0.3 will follow the same pace.
But 0.4 may be slowed down...

We are investigating the following areas right now :
- Mode7 optimized second version.
- Mode7 hardware accelerated for SOME case only.
- Netplay.
- Sound over ME.

...