via cvg

EA has released five new screens for the PS2 and PSP versions of the upcoming racer, Burnout: Dominator.

Due in March on Sony platforms only, Dominator looks like being Criterion's last chance to milk a little more cash out of PS2.

The PSP version will come packed with downloadable options and there are new party-type modes for the PS2 version.

Screens Via Comments ...

Despite growing speculation (and belief) that Driver: Parallel Lines is currently in devlopment for Wii, Ubisoft remains defyant in our plees to confirm its existence.

Rumours of the Wii port surfaced when it appeared in what internet reports claimed to be a leaked Ubisoft release list.

The then unheard of Cosmic Family, which also appeared on the same list, was officially announced yesterday, lending weight to the list's accuracy.

CVG contacted a Ubisoft correspondent today regarding the matter, and although they declined to confirm the rumour, they did say we can "expect Ubisoft to make announcements later this month."

With EA's Godfather confirmed to be Wii-bound, it seems there'll be no lack of urban gangster games on Nintendo's new console.

via cvg ...

via cvg

Citing an anonymous source, website Rumour Reporter has claimed that development on a "high profile title for the PlayStation 3" has "stalled completely", and could change from a full-fledged retail release to a chopped-up download on the PS3's online store.

The title in question is widely assumed to be Incognito's PS3 update of Warhawk, which has seemingly gone AWOL since it was shown in hands-on form at last year's E3.

Responding to the rumours David 'God of War drunkard' Jaffe - who was recently at the studio working on Calling All Cars! - said, "So just because some disgruntled ex-worker- who thought the game should have been made HIS way- is now getting his 15 minutes by spouting off to some news source, does not mean he is bringing any meat to the table in terms of valid information. It may be TRUE information in terms of a game having been down a tough road, but again- that is par for the course."

A Sony spokesperson told CVG that they were "not aware of any problems" with Warhawk's development, but we'll report back once we get any futher updates. ...

via cvg

After not being able to buy a PlayStation 3 at or around the US launch (unless you headed to eBay), over half of a group of retail stores surveyed in the US had PS3s in stock, while you couldn't find a Wii for love nor money.

An analyst has jumped to the conclusion that demand for the market leader's new console may be soft because you're now able to walk right in and buy one.

American Technology Research analyst Paul-Jon McNealy said, "Our channel checks yesterday of 52 retail stores, from boutiques to big-box retailers, showed that 28 of the 52 stores had PS3 consoles in stock, while none had Wii consoles in stock."

Sony is currently airlifting over 100,000 PS3 units to the US every week and the firm's US spokesman Dave Karraker said of the search results that, "It isn't because demand has weakened, it is because we have kept the supply pipeline moving." ...

via cvg

a small number of gamers playing the latest of Link's epic adventures, Twilight Princess on Wii, have encountered a glitch that permanently blocks their way forward, essentially forcing them to start again.

According to one forum post, it would appear that saving your progress at a specific point in the game (look away if you're avoiding spoilers) - right after thawing out the frozen Zora's domain - activates the glitch which prevents a subsequent cutscene, in which a new path is opened, from being triggered.

This prevents the player from being able to reach their next objective, and because this glitch occurs after saving your progress, your save file is essentially rendered useless. Those without an alternative save file are forced to start again.

If you've come across this, or any other glitch in Zelda, let us know in the Comments section below. ...

via cvg

KDND 107.9, The US radio station whose 'Hold your wee for a Wii' contest led to the death of a mother of three, has fired 10 staff involved - including five on-air personalities - after reports suggest that they made jokes after listeners expressed concerns over water intoxication on air.

According to The Sacramento Bee, one listener had phoned it to point out the danger only to be told that the station was "aware" of it, while another host joked that contestants had signed a release, "so we're not responsible".

"We got a guy who's just about to die," a reporter with the contestents said. "Make sure he signs the release," the radio host replied.

Of course the banter eventually took a bitter irony as 28-year-old Jenifer Strange complained of a headache and was later found dead in her home in Sacramento California - the cause of death found to be water intoxication.

But despite the distasteful nature of the contest local sheriffs said that there are no grounds for a criminal investigation: "It's not as if she was somehow in their custody and they had a role to care for her. Rather, it was an invitation to a contest that was clearly ill- advised. She was exercising her free will," Sacramento County Sheriff John McGinness told the Bee. "If there's anything to suggest a criminal act by anyone involved in this, we'd pick it up and run with it."

the word idiots comes to mind, my heart goes out to the husband and children of the poor women involved ...

the february issue of EDGE magazine features a [small] but well-deserved article on the events concerning the PSP around christmas... most notably POPstation. -
ive posted a photo from my phone above. if you can read it, then enjoy

Bigger Screenshot Via Comments ...

Electronic Arts today announced its launch onto Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade with Boom Boom Rocket. The game is a hypno tic rhythm music game conceived by EA’s Pogo casual games design team and developed by Bizarre Creations (Project Gotham Racing 3 and XBLA hit, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved) to Xbox Live Arcade. The game is scheduled to go live Spring 2007 and is EA’s first title on Xbox Live Arcade.

In Boom Boom Rocket, players trigger rockets to the beat of the music while travelling through a 3D cityscape. The better the player times the explosions, the more spectacular the fireworks effects. The fireworks are choreographed to 10 original tracks created by Ian Livingstone. Players can play in single player mode or go head-to-head against a friend on the same console.

The game features three modes of gameplay: Normal, Speed and multiplayer head-to-head. Each song is choreographed into three skill levels to ensure that everyone can join in the fun. Successfully chain fireworks to fill the bonus meter and activate the psychedelic bonus mode for extra points.

Players can unlock new firework designs by mastering each music track. You can also utilise the connected online element and see how their scores compare with other players on the Boom Boom Rocket leaderboard.

Upadate: A new screenshot

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I've spent a bit of my spare time over the last few months porting NJ's ROM converters to OS X. Anyway, what with all of the different OS X versions and the different PowerPC and Intel macs, I do not know how many setups this will work under, but I've thoroughly tested it on a PowerPC running 10.3.9. Feedback on how this works on other people's Macs would be very much appreciated (although I don't pretend that I'll be able to do anything about problems arising from setups that I can't duplicate/anticipate).

It should go without saying, but this is only for use with games that you legally own. Accordingly, I have only tested it with a few games (and even then, I've only checked that they initially work, I haven't had the chance to extensively test-play any yet). If you find that this doesn't work with any of your games, please post which one(s) they are and I will see if there isn't anything I can do to fix it.

The usage should be self explanatory, but complete instructions are included in the readme file.

Much thanks to NJ and the original MAME team for making this possible.

Note About The GUIs
In a seperate thread, Paladinja pointed out that if you choose the "Generate compressed cache files" under the CPS2 section, and then later try to unzip and use those files, that they WON'T work. When I first read that, I thought "of course", but then I recently launched the GUI and saw that displayed text message does say that it WILL work. I appologize for this, but the cache system has undergone many changes since I started porting this tool, and originally the zipped cache files WERE the same as the unzipped files. I can't remember when the change occured, but the data contained in each file type is now indeed different. So, rather than releasing a GUI update just to fix that one sentance, I'm letting you know here.

Update: 3/14/2007

These are the backend command line tools for converting roms for compatibility with the 2.0.6 versions of both emulators. As before, I haven't tested much, and if you like graphical interfaces, then you'll need to add these to one of the appropriate packages from below.

Due to the fact that NJ made some major changes to the source code, I think that these will run on Intels, but I don't know for sure.

If these don't work on Intels, cheer up, because NJ's raw source is now super-easy to compile on macs, so just go ahead and grab the sources and compile yourself some converters.

These steps were all it took to compile the converters from NJ's virgin source on my mac:

• Change all instances of "zopen(" to something else (I use "z_open("). This doesn't even take 10 seconds using a text editor that can recursively search-and-replace. TextWrangler (freeware) does this beautifully.
• Remove all <malloc.h> headers. I only found one in common.h and unzip.c each.
• cd into the romcnv source directory and compile! (make -f makefile.mvs UNIX=1)
• I always ran into a problem at this point that required me to run: ranlib ./obj_mvs/zlib.a
• Run make one more time

Of course, I had to tweak the code to make them compatible with the GUI front end, so raw compiles from NJ's source won't work with my GUI. -- Just in case anyone was interested.

Update: 2/18/2007

Finished porting the converters for the 2.0 versions of both emulators. I've tested these even less then the previous versions, but the tests I have done have gone well. Please let me know if you have any problems.

These are just the command line tools, so if you prefer to use a graphical interface, you'll also need one of the GUI versions from below.

Update: 1/20/2007

There have been reports that the GUI below doesn't recognize zip files for some people. The details of the reports have been somewhat vague so I can't say for sure, but I think this is a 10.4+ specific problem. In any case, if this is a problem that you've had, either use the raw CLI backends or try this alternate GUI which has been confirmed to address this specific issue. This package does not contain any of the nessecary CLI backends, so you will have to use use the ones from the 2.0 update above, or the original release below. See this post for instructions on where to put the CLI backends.

Original GUI+Converters Release: 1/17/2007

This is the original release package which contains both the GUI and the CLI backends for romcnv_mvs for MVSPSP 1.63 and romcnv_cps2 for CPS2PSP 1.66. Source is included in this package. There are English and Japanese versions of the program and all materials, and I can always package more if anyone out there is willing to do translations for other languages. ...