Not really hot news since it was revealed a few days ago in one of those 'investor relations' PDF documents from Cave's website, but worth mentioning nonetheless. After Mushihime-Tama gets released, Espgaluda 2 and Ibara 2 will follow as Cave's next arcade games.
It's one of those rare examples of (decent) quality games which are developed in Japan but only released in Western territories - until this Fall, that is. Marvelous Interactive is preparing a Japanese version of this obscure action RPG for the Game Boy Advance, according to Famitsu. Developed by the veteran Neverland Company (Chaos Seed, Estpolis Denki, Shining Force Neo), Cima: the Enemy will get the name of 'Frontier Stories' for the Japanese market and be released on October 27th.
You may have seen it by now, but sega's sequel to 'Feel the Magic' (aka kiminotamenarashineru - I would die for you) has been announced, and the title is akachanwadokokarakuruno? - where do babies come from? The site is here, though no screens are available yet. The game seems to use similar music, and a similarly gender-diverse team.
Castlevania Resurrection was to be the second 3D CV after the poorly-received N64 game. It was planned for the Dreamcast, developed in the US, and by most accounts, wasn't very good. Given that, it's quite interesting to read this interview with art director Greg Orduyan. Check out his website as well, to see what his ideas were for character design, keeping in mind that he finds current artist Ayami Kojima's work just 'okay.'
News: San Francisco NES club
July 28, 2005, 04:04 PM
by brandon, via a mysterious stranger - [permalink]
Can't be sure how legit this is, but walking around Haight St. on tuesday I came across a flier with the Konami Code across the top of it. It reads (typos removed): "The SF area's official 'old school Nintendo' fun club is here!! Be a member of an elite club dedicated to all good nintentions. Club activities will include, and absolutely not be limited to: regular meetings at local coffee shops where we will play our favorite NES games, monthly competitions to show off our NES skills and tricks, game trading, and memorabilia show and tell!! Membership fee is 80% showing up and 20% donation of your choice, and will include club t-shirt and ID card. Contact oldskulnes @ yahoo.com for more info, or call (removed), and remember 'now you're playing with power!'
So it looks interesting. If you're in the SF area, might want to drop this person a line. Not sure if they've actually thought it through past the fliering stage, but there it is anyway.
Edit: There's also a craigslist entry, where you can see why I bothered to edit the typos...
News: Zaimudaijin Ninatte Yosan o Tsukurou! ~ Yosan Sakusei Game ~
Japan is having a hard time with their national budget, as the country faces a debt of over 538,000 billion yen. The japanese ministry of finance chose an original media to inform the population about this issue (and to show them that each possible answer would bring its own share of new complications) with the early july launch of a free game on their webpage, Zaimudaijin Ninatte Yosan o Tsukurou! ~ Yosan Sakusei Game ~ (which roughly translates as "Let's pretend we're the minister of finance and work on the budget! ~ The budget making game ~"). The game, which is already the most popular section of their website, almost always ends up with a report telling you the national debt issue will go on for another generation. Saving Japan suddenly becomes slightly less sexy than in the days of Godzilla and Ultraman.
Koji Wada recently released another nice freeware based on his memories of old arcade games he liked as a child: HaneHane Paradise. It's a screen clearing action platformer in the same vein as Bubble Bobble, Snow Bros. and Saboten Bombers. The game is filled with numerous references to various famous titles of the eighties, both in gameplay and graphics. Koji wada is already responsible for two noticable efforts : the addictive bullet grazing game Skratch it! and the retrofantastic racer New Oldies GP.
As you might have heard earlier today, Korean company Gamepark presented the GPX2, which is indeed the successor to the illfated GP32. The GPX2 is yet another attempt at challenging the mainstream handheld market by providing a system filled with multimedia applications and a very open policy on homebrew development. One good news is that the system is supposed to be cheaper at launch than the actual GP32. Check the official website for technical specifications ; it looks like the device is still mostly focused on 2D.
<Brandon's note: The system uses a dual ARM9 processors, one for general processing, and a separate one for video, which should make this pretty decent for multimedia. The sound specs don't look much higher, but it should still make a semi-decent MP3 player.>
The GP32 was one of the most promising systems in the 2D-centric market and has one of the strongest homebrew software followings, so there's a good chance the GPX2 might benefit from the same. Alas, Sony's multimedia policy behind the PSP, as well as homebrew developers taking full advantage of the numerous security failures on both the DS and the PSP make GPX2's utility less flagrant than the GP32's in the calmer times of the GameBoy Advance's quiet dominance.
Edit: removed stupid error from brandon - the GP32 used SMC, not SD cards. Thanks Lawrence!
Rumors about SegaSammy putting a stop to the AtomisWave have been sprawling since last spring's Sega private AM show, and The Stinger Report has had a number of writings on the matter over the last few weeks. This arcade news website needs subscription to be consulted, but TSR's editor kindly provided a related news digest on MMC yesterday. It's recaps the origins of the AW's existence, the issues it faced with the competition of Taito's TypeX and Sega's own Naomi, and what solutions SegaSammy seems to be opting for in order to replace their ill-fated system.
Retrogaming is getting more and more mainstream. After the small buzz around their Flashback console, Atari intends to keep toying with young adults' nostalgia by producing, in cooperation with Fossil, a retrowatch line "featuring graphics from some of the games that catapulted the game-maker to fame in the mid-80's". More details here. Thanks to forum member Guardian Final for pointing this out.
Miami attorney Jack Thompson, out to make a buck, was one of the persons responsible for the GTA hot-coffee mod controversy. Not content to bring videogames down to the level of toys for tots, he's taken aim at EA's Sims 2, which through skins, can be made to have nudity (though he presumes it's in-game, which seems incredibly unlikely coming from EA). This gamespot article has quite a few interesting comments from the brilliant man. EA's Jeff Brown said: "If someone with an extreme amount of expertise and time were to remove the pixels, they would see that the Sims have no genitals. They appear like Ken and Barbie." To which our friend Thompson responded: "The sex and the nudity are in the game. That's the point. The blur is an admission that even the 'Ken and Barbie' features should not be displayed. The blur can be disarmed. This is no different than what is in San Andreas, although worse."
Let's read that again. It's no different - but it's worse. Clever.
There have been rumors of a Nanostray cancellation, and it has missed its ship date to Gamestop, and EB will not be carrying it. Should the game not actually turn up in normal retail channels, you can order it here. In related shooter releases, Mushihimesama is out, along with assorted limited goods. You can preorder Raiden III now, and Jump Superstars for DS, which already has 200k+ preorders in japan, rather shockingly. Lastly, the Minna Daisuki Katamari soundtrack is out. Good stuff, that. Naturally, don't forget the deal of the week - Gladiator: Road to Freedom asian version for $9.
<Brandon's notes:> First off, if you don't want to click - the general concept of 'moe' is the feeling of affinity for a cute (cute like a kitten is cute) young girl, with non-sexual implications. It's particularly relevant now, because the market for moe-related goods (posters, figures, anime, manga) in japan is increasing among adult males. Next, speaking of moe, Zepy has a the scoop on Kabudeikou, a humorous stock-trading book by the guys that made Moetan (see nov. 23). I'll copy his words here.
Basically, the 2D moe industry is going to collapse in 10 years and the guy has to become a top trader to become influential enough to save moe. Or everybody will become ugly american comic women. Also of note is the happy trading section of the site, where they talk about trading little sisters for money. (The kanji for stocks and little sister is similar)
Engaget points out a new edutainment system from Bandai, called the Bubble. The system uses a pad, simlar to, but more advanced than Sega's pico, and interacts wirelessly with any DVD player, which actually drives the software. Popular licenses such as Teletubbies and Thomas the Tank Engine will be the focus of this toddler-ranged product. Bandai admirably refuses to stop releasing obscure hardware into the world, and this is the fifth from the company, unless I'm counting wrong (ignoring the variants of the Wonderswan). The Bubble is closest to Bandai's Playdia console from 1994. Simple interface, wireless control, blue casing, all similarly themed. via ffwd
Vector reviewed a nice bity of freeware for Windows titled Colorful Notes, created by Maruchu. The game consists of joining colored tiles together by swapping them. There are a few intricacies due to the presence of specific tiles such as those that can't be moved, and others that are limited in their moves (the number of moves allowed is indicated on the tile). The game has been around since last year, and you can download the recent v1.20 updated version here. Colorful Notes' overall design is simple yet classy, and the game also features a fitting drum'n'bass score. Actually, Maruchu seems proud enough of his musical works to have a dedicated BGM download page as well as some remix tracks on Muzie.
First there was Gunroar. Then there was Gunroar with dual stick mode. Now Kenta Cho adds a Double Play mode where the player controls two boats simultaneously as a third cannon fires perpendicular to the line formed between the two boats at a strength relative to the boats' separation.
A new CD-i emulator is undergoing closed beta currently, and there will be a limited free demo in a matter of course. Unfortunately you need an extra cable, and a bit of work to get it going, which seems a bit prohibitive for a cost-related release, but still quite interesting to see a project such as this moving forward. Soon you too could be playing the CD-i mario beta!
Thanks to Jess Ragan for pointing out Batari Basic, a small development tool for making 2600 games on windows and DOS, with user guides and all. It significantly shortens the learning curve and development time, allowing Jess to create a game in one night (not the one pictured, which is presumably created by Batari himself).
I think for about 24 hours, insert credit had the most popular non-operational forums ever.
And if you haven't gotten an account confirmation e-mail and signed up using a gmail account, check your spam filter box.
FoxySofts has released Teenage Queen DS, a DS port of the cult strip poker game originally avaiable on the european computer trio of the late eighties; PC/Amiga/AtariST. Teenage Queen was created by Ere Informatique (which later went under the names Exxos and Cryo), mostly known for titles such as Crafton & Xunk, Le Passager du Temps and Captain Blood - before going bonkers and producing crappy prerendered 3D adventure games and educational software in the nineties. You might also remember FoxySofts from the Another World (a.k.a. Out of This World) port on the GBA which we mentioned earlier this year. There are a bunch of other impressive homebrew DS games coming from France - expect more news about those soon. <Brandon's note: And talented programmers are talented programmers, so try to ignore the furry connection.>
Of course we reviewed it - calm yourselves! I've received many the email about this particular title...and indeed there's no way we could ignore it, after all of the press we've given it. Tim did the honors, and you can read his thoughts here. Sorry for the delay - read up! Thanks to Eric-Jon for taking the time to put it into html form.
Some rumors, some truths at Comic Con this year. Alien Hominid is indeed coming to GBA in north america, and Zoo will be the ones bringing it to the territory. I played an early build, and it seems to be coming along nicely - not developed by the behemoth, but by Tuna Technologies, who seem to be doing a decent job. You should really buy things at the Alien Hominid store (figures, shirts, etc), so they don't starve to death.
The new Behemoth game is a 4-player hack and slash game, with magic, multiple weapons and levelups. It is largely River City Ransom inspired, in addition to some obscure game I'd never heard of that Dan Paladin mentioned - Dragon something. I think he made it up.
Backbone will be doing more with Death Junior. Can't say more than that. The game is coming along nicely, pretty much done, as I understand, and their comic is quite good!
Capcom, at a Comic Con panel, reportedly said that Street Fighter 4 is in the works. No further details, unfortunately.
Update! Totally forgot to mention this one - man-on-the-street Frank Cifaldi discovered that Acclaim's ill-fated Contra-like game based on The Red Star has gotten picked up by a new publisher. Can't say who at this time, but the game is, we are assured, coming out.
Our forums are coming back - we have the preliminary site set up, which does allow registration, but no posting yet. Everything should be in order tonight or tomorrow, and there will be a new post to reflect that. Remember that everyone is starting at a zero postcount, so let's all try to be nice to each other, yes?
This JapJac fellow mailed me a few days ago to let me know he's posted some impressions (towards the bottom) of Spica Adventure, Taito's new 2D arcade game, complete with a few pictures. Give it a look.
A four-page article explaining the game's story, mechanics and different modes has been published today at G-Para. It doesn't reveal the game's configuration options, so we can't be sure if the game includes a vertically oriented full screen display. Ultra Mode seems to run perfectly according to gameplay videos, though.
Gamasutra has a series of 'day in the life' diaries of various figures in game development. This one features Argentinian mobile game designer Bruno Valenti, and makes for an interesting read on a few levels. Take a look.
Excerpt: All of this is somehow related to a fact I find particularly challenging: being an inexperienced, small team working on small projects, game design feels reachable to everybody.
News: Golf?
July 14, 2005, 06:29 PM
by chazumaru, via chronic logic / detective brand - [permalink]
Chronic Logic and Detective brand delivered a free beta of the newest multiplayer trend on the internet, Golf?, which as its name indicates might be something close to golf, although no one's quite sure. Obviously, internet fashion required the game to have its own fascinating graphics, esoteric gameplay and minimalist website. Golf? was formerly known as Detective Brand Golf and quite well-regarded at the Independant Game Festival 2005. Chronic Logic is already known for their hit game Gish which won several prizes at the very same same event. It's a small, independant world.
Cave Online is a new Cave subsidiary formed in large (90%) part by Cave, with 5% interest from Cave/Cave Online CEO Kenichi Takano, 2.5% interest from Atlus' former director, now Cave Online COO Hideyuki Yokoyama, and the remaining 2.5% coming from Korean game maker Windysoft's director Kim Jon Rai. The curious connection between the three companies is shooters. Atlus was long a publisher of Psikyo's 90s titles, such as Sengoku Blade, while Windysoft has been porting Psikyo games to mobile phones and PS2 in Korea, also publishing Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne in that territory. Cave Online's presumed first title will be the tentatively named 'online tank battle', developed in conjunction with Windysoft, maker of GetAmped, a simlar tank game already available in Korea. The next games on the plate are Shin Megami Tensei Online, particularly interesting because Hideyuki Yokoyama was the executive producer on the original game for the super famicom, and a mysterious game called Tamiya Super Online, based on Tamiya's line of models. The game boasts model customization, user cooperation, and collaborative world creation. Thanks to Game Science for pointing this out.
Forgot to mention - in my sleuthing, I discovered that Cave owns a subsidiary called Beads Mania. Rather odd...but something we know a bit about.
One can only imagine how long these would take to do on a PS2 - but this fellow has remade a number of famous characters from various media in the Grafitti Kingdom game. Check out Guts from Berzerk, the king from Katamari Damashii, Guyver, The Terminator's T-800 and plenty more. Thanks to the IC IRC channel via simoniker's blog.
Some posters at Korean game site Ruliweb have put together a set of photos depicting what River City Ransom might look like on the DS. Actually looks quite neat, shame it's not real. If anyone has a name credit for who mocked these up, I'd love to hear it. Thanks to IkariDC on the mmc board for pointing this out.
KOF kanzen dokuhon is an upcoming book about the entire series, and comes with a drama CD - one wonders what would be on a drama CD that accompany's a series history book, but there it is. It should be available this summer (not much time left for that!), according to SNKP's Yusa Diary. Thanks to Iggy for the news.
Doujin group Classic Shikoukairo recently released a demo version of their upcoming action/beat em up Crescent Pale Mist, and the game looks quite promising. Careful though: in order to run it smoothly, Classic Shikoukairo recommends some quite high specs for a doujin game. The webmaster seems a bit concerned by direct links, so just go here and click on the link with the word 'web' in it.
I did an interview with Astro Studios at E3 - they're the people responsible for the design of the Xbox 360. It's up now on Gamasutra, where the articles are now registration-free!
The always interesting and unfortunately japanese-only 9bit Impression weblog has a new entry on the recent release of Matsuda's manga Denshi Yuugi Mokushiroku (which translates as "Electronic Games' Book of Revelations" and is written with the most kanji-filled words possible - in the same vein as Genshiken). Denshi Yuugi Mokushiroku begins with the classic premise of a sexy demon girl and a nervous angel girl that crash in a shy schoolboy's home. However, this kid is a retrogaming fan that never accepted the polygonal invasion of videogames, and the pixies are videogame junkies that never accepted the public dismissal of the Megadrive and SuperGrafx in Japan. Denshi Yuugi Mokushiroku goes back to various events - such as the famed "megadrive Tetris" incident - that defined the culture of hardcore gamers who refused to follow the obvious industry leader (Nintendo, then Sony).
Keeping true to ABA Games tradition, Kenta Cho's recent Gunroar game gets a version 0.11 update. Among the options added are a turn speed variable, a rear firing toggle, and twin stick-style control.
Various bits of arcade news emerged this weekend. Game Watch has a report on the recent Sega Private Show and new images from The House of the Dead 4 (running on a new mysterious arcade board called "Lindbergh"), Guilty Gear XX Slash (featuring ABA and Holy Order Sol), The King Of Fighters XI, The Quest of D 2.0 and the gorgeous MJ3. That last one is the long awaited sequel to MJ2 (from Sega's famed studio AM2), the only serious competitor to Konami's Mahjong Fight Club series in the "multiplayer online arcade mahjong game" business. <Brandon's note: There's also Usagi, which is quite good, and has an online version for the Type X.> Another piece of trivia that might hint at something: these three games presented by Sega (THOTD4, MJ3 and The Quest of D 2.0) are sequels to games that all ran on Chihiro, Sega arcade board based on the first Xbox.
Meanwhile, KTallguy also went to the latest loketest of Samurai Spirits Tenkaichi Kenkyakuden and gave his impressions on MMC.
[7/12 update] Also, Kobayan revealed last week that Konami is releasing a Paintball game, and the loketest's poster shows the cabinet, which is reminiscent of the one for Keisatsukan Shinjuku 24ji. The flyer also suggests that you "compete with other players all over Japan", and Kobayan confirms the game is oriented towards online multiplayer competition.
Gravity announced today that they will be introducing a new 'transcendent class' update for Ragnarok Online, which will allow for players that are currently at the maxed-out level 99 to restart at level one. These new level one players will have the ability to learn new abilities not available to others. This idea has been around since the early days of MUDs, and was then known as 'remorting'. This is one of the first instances of this in the traditional MMO, which is essentially the cousin of MUDs in the first place.
A couple of new game T-shirt groups have popped up, though one of them has been linked before. First up we have Combo Clothing, which is a fledgling gamer-fashion store, and currently sports three T-shirts, with varying degrees of nerdiness (the danger/kiken shirt, particularly). Next, Brian Flanagan is re-issuing his No Refuge shirts, with preorders this time, which end on the 17th of july.
Matt linked to an interesting discussion on SMSPower about a Floppy Disk reader for the master System presented at an early CES, but which was never released. The picture was found on an (apparently offline) japanese website which scanned it from one of the earliest issues of Famitsu (then still fully titled Famicom Tsushin).
Alpha Station arcade center's website has published the initial flyers of these three games that are scheduled for the fall. Thanks to them, we gather that Sammy doesn't seem to want its logo in their coin-op games anymore, so Sega is assuming the publishing labor for SNK Playmore's The King of Fighters XI and Arc System Works' Guilty Gear XX / (which seems to once again be supported by the NAOMI GD-ROM system, since there's no mention of Atomiswave on the flyer, either). The fliers also teach us the final name of Sega's new system: Lindbergh, which will support The House of the Dead 4 and, presumably, Virtua Fighter 5.
There's a new english financial report up from Taito, outlining the company's profitability. Generally, sales were up a shallow 1.9%, but profit was down a staggering 51%. The consumer/console market showed slow growth, but still operated at a general loss. Arcade/medal game operation was more profitable though, but the opening of several new event locations led to the overall negative fiscal term, ending march 31st. The Type-X was mentioned as profitable, alongside a renewed announcement of Half-Life 2 arcade plans, as was the redesigned Karaoke rental system. The company also has plans to move into the movie and online gaming spaces. A close look at the major stockholders list reveals more interesting information - a 32% share is held by phone manufacturer Kyocera, and two (presumably related) individuals hold a large amount of Taito stock, while neither appears on the upper levels of the company masthead.
<Edit: changed the horribly wrong figures. To reemphasize, the term was not positive for taito.>
Media: Handheld emulators
July 07, 2005, 05:13 AM
by chazumaru, via mysterious frenchmen - [permalink]
I just spent my lunchbreak taking a bunch of captures showing a few recent handheld emulation projects in action. Unfortunately the overall quality is positively crappy, but I couldn't do much better with what was at hand (i.e. the worst picture/movie-taking cellphone ever). So until I can get myself a real camera, and for what it's worth, here is some new media for the curious minds amongst you. Videos are in ".3gp" format, which Quicktime and Media Player Classic should be able to read with the appropriate codecs. Absolutely no direct links please. Use the newspost's permalink instead.
Most of you have likely seen this already, but Façade is now available for free download or mail order purchase. It's a truly interactive oneiact story, in which the characters respond (with voice) to text that you input directly.
KTallguy of the MMCafe forums has been to the Neo Geo Battle Coliseum location test in Shinjuku, and has posted two days worth of impressions. Check out his thoughts here.
It seems that the recent agreement between Sega and Treasure to release a GBA sequel to Gunstar Heroes (which even has the 'Treasure cross Sega' slogan on its pre-site) also involved some other titles which are starting to be revealed. Thanks to some Japanese blogs we know that Famitsu's latest issue announces a forthcoming 'Gunstar Heroes Treasure Box (Gunstar Heroes, Alien Soldier, Dynamite Headdy)'. It supposedly will be part of 3D Ages' Sega Ages 2500 Series, since it's mentioned along with Panzer Dragoon, Last Bronx, Dynamite Deka [Die Hard Arcade], Advanced Daisenryaku and Sega Memorial, all for the PS2. Let's remember that those games in the Treasure Box were developed for Sega itself, unlike Radiant Silvergun. So nope, we don't yet think that the Saturn shooting masterpiece is coming along for the ride. Not yet sure if these will be straight ports, or somehow upgraded. (hopefully not!)
IGN has a report of the House of the Dead 4 arcade location test, complete with a couple of images. In spite of the usual few factual errors (there was indeed a playable Japanese-developed next-gen game at E3; Dead Rising), still a good slice of info.
Alien Hominid is indeed coming to Europe, as we mentioned in may. The announcement is made via the official UK website, with a 'coming soon' in the GBA category.
In their first site update in half a year, Hirameki have formally announced plans to release English versions of six new adventure games. Two will be compatible with DVD players, in the fashion of the company's previous game releases, and four will be for Windows PCs, a first for the company. The DVD player compatible titles announced are Exodus Guilty, a fantasy/sci-fi game written by Hiroyuki Kanno (EVE Burst Error, Desire, YU-NO), and Dragonia, a fantasy adventure. Two of the PC releases are by the prolific KID company: Ai Yori Aoshi, a game based on the anime and manga, and Ever 17, a very detailed and intricate sci-fi/suspense game that was a huge hit on Japanese PCs and consoles. Hirameki have trial versions (fully in English) of both of these up for download. The remaining PC releases are Animamundi: Dark Alchemist, a gothic horror-themed game, and Piece of Wonder, which is set in a high school and features strategy battles along with adventure-style sections. Only Ai Yori Aoshi (summer 05) and Ever 17 (winter 05) have definite release dates; Dragonia and Exodus Guilty have conflicting dates listed and the other two titles have no release dates listed.
The GameBoy Advance is far from dead in Japan; another example popped up last week when the GBA SP exceptionally outsold the PSP in Japan thanks to the release of a game based on Sega's popular MushiKing license. Bandai knows this and targeted the GBA as its platform for the next big license crossover after Namco X Capcom: Haro Ichiza: Haro no Puyo Puyo. As one can guess from the title, it mixes the universe of Yoshiyuki Tomino's Gundam with Compile's Puyo Puyo. More accurately, the game focuses on the very first Gundam series from 1979 (starring Amuro Ray, Bright Noah and Char Aznable). An understandable choice as Gundam's mascot Haro, popular enough to have a dedicated computer, makes a nice graphic alternative to puyos. Haro Ichiza: Haro no Puyo Puyo (which everyone is already shrinking to "Haropuyo") will come out on the 21st of july in Japan.
The most interesting aspect of the PSP/DS clash might be how the homebrew scene embraced both consoles, up to the point that not a week goes without a major step forward on one of these systems. Whereas the DS benefits from the already large GBA homebrew scene and receives enough attention to get some pretty interesting amateur games, the PSP is "helped" by its USB compatibility, a strong support from the Linux community and serious security issues that forced Sony to upgrade the console's firmware a few times already. Although most of the progress made on the PSP over the weekend concerns shady manipulations of very illegal nature, everyone should be glad to hear that emulation of older systems is taking giant leaps every hour.
Ports of PC emulators are all the rage right now, and some examples of emulators running on the PSP concern, among many other examples, the Megadrive (a.k.a. Genesis), the Neo Geo Pocket Color, the Super Famicom or the Neo Geo CD. These are still in early stages with several sound, frameskip or compatibility issues depending on the system.
More convincing are the NES, PC Engine (a.k.a. TurboGrafx) and MSX emulators. The NES emulator runs smoothly, with very few compability issues. The PC Engine emulator already covers Super CD-ROM² titles (as proven by this video acquired here), although a large capacity Memory stick would be needed. The MSX one is the most impressive. Based on fMSX, it includes a virtual keyboard that can be displayed simultaneously with the game in its original resolution, thanks to the jawdropping screen of the PSP. Most MSX1 games are accepted, as well as a bunch of MSX2/MSX2+ titles. All these emulators feature the usual options: scaling, sprite smoothing, savestates, button mapping et al.
...no. Actually not. But Illusion, the maker of hentai games such as Sexy Beach (banned in China!) has put up a PSP compatible demo movie (not work safe!) of Battle Raper II for download. Can the otaku's dream of an Illusion-developed Nintendo DS game be far behind? Yes...yes it can.
In related NEC news, Adol has his game collection online. He's probably the biggest PCE collector in france, and one of the biggest in the world, but there's other stuff in there too. Of particular note is his caravan collection - these are hucards that were only released for tournaments, or special events. If you want to see what some of the system cards mentioned in the article below look like, you can check them out here.
This is about a month old, but hey - can't be cutting edge all the time, right? The delightful PCengineFX site has got a nice NEC console compatibility guide, that shows what games are playable on what system combinations. It's mostly complete (for the legal hardware anyway), with the only complaint being that it skims over regional differences a bit.
Not really hot news since it was revealed a few days ago in one of those 'investor relations' PDF documents from Cave's 
It's one of those rare examples of (decent) quality games which are developed in Japan but only released in Western territories - until this Fall, that is. Marvelous Interactive is preparing a Japanese version of this obscure action RPG for the Game Boy Advance, according to 
Castlevania Resurrection was to be the second 3D CV after the poorly-received N64 game. It was planned for the Dreamcast, developed in the US, and by most accounts, wasn't very good. Given that, it's quite interesting to read 
Japan is having a hard time with their national budget, as the country faces a debt of over 538,000 billion yen. The 
As you might have heard 
Rumors about 
Retrogaming is getting more and more mainstream. After the small buzz around their 
A little bit of cruising around the 
Speaking of 
A new 
Thanks to 
Some rumors, some truths at Comic Con this year. Alien Hominid is indeed coming to GBA in north america, and Zoo will be the ones bringing it to the territory. I played an early build, and it seems to be coming along nicely - not developed by the behemoth, but by 
This JapJac fellow mailed me a few days ago to let me know he's posted some 
A 
Forget PangYa! Play 
One can only imagine how long these would take to do on a PS2 - but 
Some posters at Korean game site Ruliweb have put together a 
Doujin group 
The always interesting and unfortunately japanese-only 
Various bits of arcade news emerged this weekend. Game Watch has a 
A couple of new game T-shirt groups have popped up, though one of them has been linked before. First up we have 
Alpha Station arcade center's 
I just spent my lunchbreak taking a bunch of captures showing a few recent 
Most of you have likely seen this already, but 
It seems that the recent agreement between Sega and Treasure to release a GBA sequel to Gunstar Heroes (which even has the 'Treasure cross Sega' slogan on its 
In their first site update in half a year, 
The GameBoy Advance is far from dead in Japan; another example popped up last week when the GBA SP exceptionally outsold the PSP in Japan thanks to the release of a game based on Sega's popular 
The most interesting aspect of the PSP/DS clash might be how the homebrew scene embraced both consoles, up to the point that not a week goes without a major step forward on one of these systems. Whereas the DS benefits from the already large GBA homebrew scene and receives enough attention to get 
...no. Actually not. But Illusion, the maker of hentai games such as Sexy Beach (banned in China!) has put up a PSP compatible 
This is about a month old, but hey - can't be cutting edge all the time, right? The delightful 
