Nine Over Ten 9/10

Bruce Wayne once had this to say about escaping from “being tied up in a straitjacket and then buried alive in a coffin”:

I’ve escaped from every conceivable deathtrap. Ten times. A dozen  times. I can slow my breathing and metabolism to control panic and conserve air. Straitjacket’s kindergarden. Locks too. Benchpressing a pine coffin lid through 600 pounds of loose soil that’s filling your mouth, crushing your lungs flat and shredding your dehydrated muscles.

That’s harder. But far from impossible.

The “not-to-be-taken-seriously” The Batman Handbook: The Ultimate Training Manual does describe some of  the techniques involved such as ontrolled breathing, conquering phobias and breaking free of bindings in several “How-to” chapters.

However cool it might sound, I don’t think getting buried alive and clawing your way out will be part of the upcoming Batman: Arkham Asylum video game for the Xbox 360 and Sony PS3. The game does look really good in the recent E3 videos. Check  out the following video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW2-IdfZxsA[/youtube]

Still on the subject of neoDS, a Neo Geo emulator for the Nintendo DS, here’s a video of Pulstar being played on it. A bit of background here, Pulstar was conceived for the Neo Geo as a Gradius clone, so much so that people actually thought the company responsible was staffed with ex-Gradius developers.

The game is seriously beautiful and despite being released back in 1995, it holds up pretty well on the small screen of the Nintendo DS. Textures and explosions have a certain photo-realistic quality to them and while there are slowdowns, the game is still pretty playable. Playing these games, I can’t help by wonder why people view emulation in disdane; without emulation, I think opportunities for current generation gamers to experience such games would be limited.

I certainly wouldn’t want to be grouped together with an bunch of elitist bastards thinking that the way to go would be to actually purchase these ancient titles off eBay, along with the consoles to play them with. That would certainly be too much.

Wokie Dokie. I hope some of you had some fun with my guide (click here) on running Neo Geo games on the Nintendo DS. Here are a couple of video that I shot to show that it works, featuring Metal Slug X and King of Fighters 2003. God bless the guys who made NeoDS. They do deserve a pat on the back:

I never had the opportunity to play on a Neo Geo arcade machine, but a couple of years back, I had the opportunity to watch a former colleague blaze through King of Fighters on one, in a single sitting, in an arcade right in the heart of Bangkok.

That to me was pretty cool. And the fact that there is a way to run Neo Geo arcade games on the Nintendo DS, its all the more exciting. All you need are some prerequisites. First up, you’ll obviously need a Nintendo DS and also  a flashkart capable of running homebrew software on the Nintendo DS.

You’ll need also to download the latest copy of NeoDS, a Neo Geo MVS/AES emulator for the Nintendo DS (get it here), several MAME ROMS and of course, a NeoGeo BIOS ROM.

Okie-dokie. Let’s get started.

Step 1: Uncompress the NeoDS folder that you downloaded and place the uncompressed folder somewhere convenient. For me, it’s my PC’s desktop. The file structure of the folder should be something like this:

Step 2: The thing about NeoDS is that any MAME ROMs that you wish to run with the emulator needs to be converted first. For this to happen, you’ll need the ROM (MAME naming conventions apply) and the BIOS ROM as well. Copy these two files into the NeoDSConvert folder.

Step 3: Once you have the ROM files within the NeoDSConvert folder, run NeoDSConvert.exe. Depending on the number of ROMS you dumped into the NeoDSConvert, you’ll see the same number of files with the .neo file extension created.

Step 4: Just one more step to go. Copy the .neo files and the NeoDS.nds (refer to screenshot 1) to your flashkart’s memory. Turn on your Nintendo DS and run NeoDS.nds. From here you can select which Neo Geo ROM to run. Enjoy!

D-Pad Hero is a really cool homebrew game for the NES and it’s pretty easy to see where the game draws its inspiration from, which is Guitar Hero and its ilk.

The game is freely available from the developer’s website in ROM form. While you can run the game on an emulator on a PC, check out the following videos whereby the game is played on the Nintendo DS with the help of a flashkart and nesDS, a NES emulator for the NDS:

It’s really scary playing the game on the DS, its as tough as nails. Some of you may have notice that the videos taken were during the game’s listen mode. I won’t be posting up a video of me playing the game; it’s too embarassing with my ineptness.

Click here to download the game.

I spent RM 160 on video games last night. I was at Mutiara Complex over at Jalan Ipoh where I purchased the first of two games. While there were a whole bunch of depressing (not to mention ancient) stores on the ground floor, there was a half decent video games shop on the lower ground floor that actually sold some current gen consoles.

The thing that these stores have in common  is that all of them sold pirated games. Being curious, I inquired on whether Red Alert 3 (for the PC) was on sale. The shopkeeper said he was selling each at game at RM 12 per DVD. RA3 comes in 3 DVDs, bringing the price tag to RM 36 (~USD 10).

He mentioned that the media used, “gold-coloured” DVDs, are more expensive than the blue-coloured DVDs normally used in the creation of pirated DVDs. He claimed that the use of gold-coloured DVDs eliminates the installation and disc readability issues normally associated with the latter media.

Deciding that it was not really worth it (especially when it was just a survey on my part), I told the shopkeeper that it was too expensive and I started to walk away. He then offered RM 10 per DVD, effectively bringing down the price of the game to RM 30.

Interesting. I went with the offer; the pirated copy of RA3 will tide me over until I get the original copy next month, preferably used and with a big discount compared to retail (so don’t bring out the knives..yet). Typing the initial draft of this experience made me realize that hey, this is basically how the pirated video games industry works in Malaysia.

A couple of years back, it was not uncommon to see foreign tourists (Americans and Europeans in particular) buying piles of pirated video games/software and movies from one of the premier I.T centres right smack in the middle of KL (national capital of Malaysia).  But the pirated software vendors are on the wane now in such I.T centres, with government enforcement gaining from strength to strength every year.

However, these vendors are thriving in fringe shopping malls, like the one I’ve been to last night. This is probably because these are not tourist attractions and the government doesn’t see them as an embarassment to international watchdogs like the Business Software Alliance.

So, did I spend RM 160 on pirated games last night? No, the second game I bought was Burnout Paradise (for the PS3) at the Gardens’ Sony Centre for RM 129. Quite a bargain I would say. This brings the total amount of original games purchased this month to FOUR: Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3), Soul Calibur (PS3), Burnout Paradise (PS3) and New International Track & Field (NDS).

If you are trying to run the new fan-translated Mother 3 ROM on an EZFlash 3-in-1 Expansion Pak, do note that you’ll need to run it in NOR mode due to the larger file size. Otherwise you can actually run it on your PC with noGBA installed.

The ROM package that I downloaded came with contained a whole lot of stuff, the fan-translation patch, the original Japanese Mother 3 ROM, a copy of noGBA, and a patched copy of Mother 3. It’s pretty accommodating, and suits anyone wanting to run the game, regardless whether you have a GameBoy Advance or a Nintendo DS with the EZFlash 3-in-1 expansion pack.

In my case however, the GameBoy Micro is the way to go . I know of several morons who have been talking negatively about the game despite not playing it previously (it was in Japanese after all), but hey, go play the first two games and then check out the fan-translated Mother 3. I bet you can’t find any other RPG like it.

Despite what looks to be a boom in fan translation projects for Japanese games on the Nintendo DS, I can’t help but feel not sanguine about them. It’s simply because the games are not the ones that I would play. Soma Bringer? Bleh.

But if there’s one fan translation project that I would really love to see succeed, that would be the one for the GBA game, Mother 3. I have the original copy of Mother 3 on my shelf but it’s really a pain to play with a translation guide in hand.

This is confounded by the fact that having played Earthbound and Mother via emulators on the DS, the urge to play Mother 3 is just so strong. But the good news is that the fan translation project is almost done and a patch will be released any time now.

Yay! Link.

A friend of mine sent a NDS ROM file to me this afternoon, saying that I would like it for sure. It turned out to be the English version of Jump Ultimate Stars! Wait a minute, did you just say the English version of Jump Ultimate Stars?

Due to licensing issues for different Jump characters over at the States, an official English language version of Jump Ultimate Stars will not see the light of the day. What I have loaded in my R4 is a fan-lead translation project and while some stuff remain untranslated, it is much more enjoyable than having a game guide lying around for reference.

I for one should know as I have the original game sitting pretty on my shelf. I balked after the first 10 minutes because referring to a guide was quite a chore.

Here’s a video of unofficial English translation of Jump Ultimate Stars!

I tip my hat at the person who embarked on this mission to translate Jump Ultimate Stars. Thanks! Now.. if only Nintendo were to release Mother 3 in English. I can has Mother 3 in English? Danke..

The first time the R4DS came out, I was like, “Wau… there isn’t a Slot-1 flashkart at the first place?” and promptly bought 1 from the first batch. If I remember correctly, it was only RM 60 (USD 17), sans the microSD card.

Nevermind the fact that I own a lot of original DS games (50 over the last time I counted), the R4 was, and still is a pretty useful device. But now, with its status as the elder statesman of Slot-1 flashkarts and a whole slew of better karts out there in the market (with among other things, SDHC support, real-time save, etc), it’s probably time for me to start looking for a replacement.

Here’s a rundown on my options, and while you are reading, you will encounter the word “apparently” often. This is because I’ve no first hand experience with the below mentioned products.

• CycloDS: Apparently the best out there and supports Wii-DS Download Play, it is also the most expensive. While it was selling on a local auction site for RM 140 last month, expect to pay north of that now.
• EDGE: Apparently a clone of the CycloDS. It’s cheaper, at around RM 100.
• AceKard: Now this is really hardcore. It comes with both NAND memory and microSD-HC support, and has a USB port built in, making it a USB MicroSD card reader! Construction looks a little suspect though, and apparently it suffers from an ugly user interface.

So to go for the gung-ho do all AceKard or the CycloDS with its cheaper alternative EDGE. Recommendations people?