Holy shoot! PS1 emulation is here!

It was just a couple of days before that I ranted about how Sony's release of new PSP firmware 3.0 that everyone awaited due to included PS1 emulator managed to turn out to complete crap. The comments indicated that I am perhaps just a malcontent.

Still, I said then that there is someone working on homebrew PS1 emulator. Well, I was wrong. There is more then one PS1 emulator in the works and a new version has just surfaced (read this news on DC-Emu and this forum release thread)!

The great news is that it is very promising. See the movie below (unfortunately it's a little blurry) :

I tested Final Fantasy myself today and I have to say that for an alpha build speed is very good. The game looks just gorgeous on PSP screen, with additional blurring provided by scaling the image. Of course, as it can be observed at the beginning of the above movie, the battles are still quite choppy, but fast forward to around 3:12 and see how smooth the gameplay is while navigating through maps. And there's more to come - as I mentioned, it's just an alpha build. No sound either, but I really can't wait to see another build.

I promise to make a better movie myself, but my digital camera is in repair, so it will have to wait 'till the weekend. Still, I thought I'd share the news, because it is really something.

Sonic Rivals speeds up!

I recently had the opportunity to play original Sonic games, featured in Sega Collection for the PSP, for the first time. Somehow, the classic didn't appeal to me - maybe I just played too little to appreciate it.

Therefore, I didn't have high expectations when I inserted Sonic Rivals into my PSP. I thought I'd just give it a try just in case, since I already managed to put my hands on it.

And then ... surprise!

I was hooked. I am playing it ever since and love every second of it. The sense of speed is overwhelming. Graphical style is sweet and reminds me of the best of 16 bit era. Am I the only one who thinks that the first set of levels is reminiscent of the Lost Vikings? Sound is also nice and the music very dynamic.

Instead of boring screenshots, see Sonic in action.

Since good, old Amiga times it has happened very rarely that I would fail multiple times on the same level and still continue. The game can be punishing sometimes (or perhaps my reflexes are getting worse with age), but it doesn't prevent it from being enjoyable. You get your ass kicked and get back for more.

I can see some flaws in design (like the fact that you cannot see what comes next, the speed that sometimes prevent you from being able to even wink before you come crashing into enemy etc.), but they don't spoil the fun for me (yet?). Even annoying fact that your rival can catch up on you relatively easily is a double-edged sword : you can in most cases make up for your errors almost as smoothly as our opponent does.

So altogether Sonic Rivals is a ton of fun, which made me feel like if I were a kid once more and just discovered the colourful land of console games. I recommend it to all of you, including adult and serious ones. Or maybe especially to them.

Every Extend is a blast!

In my recent posts I was grumbling a lot about many things, so now for something completely different : a positive review.

Every Extend is a brilliant and refreshing game with original idea behind it. The game combines logical elements with quick action providing really innovative gameplay and tons of pure fun.

The rules of the game are simple The player has at their disposition a limited number of guided bombs which can be detonated. They are used to blow enemy ships flying across the screen. The goal is not to survive (obviously), but to cause as much havoc as possible while being limited both by running time and the amount of bombs at hand. The key to achieving this is detonating your bombs in key locations of the screen, so that the chain reactions resulting from exploding enemy ships propagate as far as possible. The enemies move in clusters, but their position is constantly changing and navigating your bomb to the best place at the very moment can be a demanding task. The result is calculated in points and the final score is the ultimate criteria of success.

Sounds simple? It really is. There are of course subtleties present in the game, such as point bonuses, time bonuses and (the most important) so-called "quicken" items, which increase the numbers of the enemy ships appearing, thus enabling more complicated chain explosions to be executed. It all adds to the gameplay and replayability, meaning that achieving mastery leading to gigantic scores will take considerable amount of time and effort. And since the position and movement of enemy ships is random, there are no two games will ever be the same. The blasting mayhem is accompanied by nice trance music and the graphics are very nice (static screens don't do justice).

Since the game is freeware, just stop reading this and go download it here :

Every Extend download

On a side note, it is worth noting that Q Entertainment, a company that brought the PSP Lumines, took interest and made a PSP version of the game, called Every Extend Extra. The result was not too great. The concept of "skins" (combination of level art style and music) didn't work out well, since many skins were really bizarre. Relatively small PSP screen together made it hard to see clusters of small objects, the controls would make it difficult to precisely navigate the bombs and some gameplay changes (especially losing all "quickens" whenever player collides with enemy) would just spoil the balance of the original. If you think I am being to harsh on EEE, you can download the PC demo of the PSP game (strange, I know) and compare it with its predecessor.

Still, Every Extend is definitely worth trying.

Riviera PSP impresisons

I actually almost bought a GBA, drooling at Riviera trailers and gampelay videos. You can imagine my joy when I learned that there will be a PSP version. I managed to put my hands on a Japanese version - here are the impressions.

Generally (although I seem to abuse this word, I'll take a risk once again) - disappointment.

Basic gameplay is annoying with lots of repetitive battles and strange interface for moving/exploring. Most of sprites are upscaled from GBA version, which often results in nasty pixelisation. What passes on GBA as top notch, does not necessarily look good on PSP. The development of story is painfully slow, which made me think about how much time I would need to sacrifice to finish the game... I shuddered and left the game to others - I assume its audience will be composed of professional game reviewers and hardcore Japanese RPG fans.

If I were to say something nice about the game, there are three positive things that I found about it :
- game art direction is really nice and stylish;
- there is full voice-over in PSP version;
- the cat character is absolutely lovable (see below);


All in all, it is not a bad game, but just not for me.

PSP firmware 3.0 and PS1 emulation.

As reported by Kotaku and PSPUpdates, this night the newest Sony firmware hit the web. And although I have been impatiently waiting for it for quite some time, I must say that it is yet another disappointment (did you notice how often I recently use this word?...). You can see it in action here :

Video courtesy of SkatterTech.

The feature that we all have been impatiently waiting for, namely the PS1 emulator, is indeed there, but implemented in a crippled and annoying way:

- you have to actually own a PS3 to be able to download games from Sony Online Store (!). You can't use either your PC or download them directly using PSP.

- the official list of emulated titles is very short and the only all-time favourites that are there is Resident Evil (Bio Hazard) Director's Cut and Tekken 2. Yes, no Final Fantasy whatsoever.

- and finally there isn't any game available in the Sony Online Store yet (!). In Polish there exists a nice expression "the last nail to one's coffin" - it fits perfectly this case.

So the emulator is there (or is it, really? I mean how can we be sure, if... nah, just forget it), but we cannot use it. Great. What else?

There are some other things, like music visualisations, but they are not something I would upgrade for - especially since it would deprive me of my homebrew. On top of that there are homebrew visualisers, not much worse in my opinion. You can watch them in this YouTube video :

Visualisations compared head to head.

There is support for PSP camera (is it even out yet or is this another feature that we cannot test for now?), there is an option to turn off UMD auto-loading (took them some time to add this one, huh?), there are three different speeds for fast forward and fast reverse in MP3 playback (terribly innovative, I know), online instruction manual (why only online?), and some PS3 connectivity gimmicks. Blah.

All in all, another major disappointment. I really am wondering what kind of strategy it takes to do as many bad moves as Sony did recently.

Still, there is a ray of hope. Recently Yoshihiro has released new version of his homebrew PS1 emulator for PSP. See the video below :

Yoshihiro's PSXP running Crash Bandicoot

If he manages to get it up to some playable framerate, we might then collectively say "No, thank you" to Sony's new firmwares. And that's about the only positive thing today.

Games music remixed

Recently I was toying with the idea of writing something about game music. I thought I would be original if I wrote about game music remixes that I like. As it often happens, someone had the same idea and wrote about it a bit earlier - namely John Bardinelli, a freelance writer, whose blog I happen to follow (you can read the article here).

I felt a little discouraged by that, but nevertheless didn't want to give up on the idea, especially since my favourite game music remixes are completely different.

So without further ado, I present to you my list :

1. Wolfchild level 1 by Paul Blackford - This is my all time favourite. Not only is Wolfchild the Amiga game that made the strongest impression on me when I was a kid (as you can read in this post), but also this is an excellent electronic theme on its own. I simply loved Wolfchild music when I was a kid - I would listen to it from a tape recorder, since I didn't have Amiga (you can download it from here).

On a side note, I used to listen to this remix all the time when I was in Japan (from my PSP), so now it makes me visualis both of Wolfchild and Japan. This combination of happy memories probably makes me a little biased, but music is a subjective matter after all.

2. The Wolfchild Rebirth Project by Lomaxx - This is the remix of the same Wolfchild tune, level one background music to be precise. I wonder if anyone will ever take on the other music from this game - the second level (forest) had great score as well, not to mention the main title. Still, this remix is very faithful to the original - almost the same, but as if better instruments were used.

3. The Sin War by Daknit, Bard of Tarot - Unfortunately, this song has mysteriously disappeared from the internet. I have downloaded it from OC Remix some time ago, but it is not there anymore. Anyways, even though some might not like the music itself, the grave male voice accounting the tale of the Sin War from Diablo game makes this piece extremely climatic. It's a pity it is not easily found nowadays.

4. Here I would place ex equo two remixes of Final Fantasy VI theme : Terra Black Crystal by Kaijin and Terra in Black by Ailsean - I just can't decide which one I like better. They both make an attempt of remixing the main theme of the game, which is a memorable score by itself, composed by Nobuo Uematsu, and they both do it well. When I listen to them, I see three gargantuan machines marching slowly through the snow fields towards cozy lights of sleeping city of Narshe. Mining town lays dormant ahead, not knowing yet what havoc will be released on it when the approaching soldiers arrive. A green-haired girl sits on the top of leading walker, snowflakes melting on the slave crown on her head...

5. Nazi Requiem by Mazedude - This is an exception amongst these remixes, as I actually don't remember the original Wolfenstein 3D music that got remixed here (because at the time I didn't have a sound card yet and played on PC speaker only). Still, the heavy and sad ambiance of this piece together with a distant voice of Adolf Hitler (a bold idea to use his speeches in the background) is not to be underestimated. There is also a little anecdote : my German friend Andreas saw the title in one of my folders, played it and then I had to explain that I actually am not a Nazi... A bit of misunderstanding there, but we sorted it out.

As a bonus, I would like to encourage you to visit Mark McWane's homepage and listen to the music there. I didn't include it on the list, because music in question does not necessarily qualify under remixes. It is a faithful rendition of soundtracks from Duke Nukem 3D and Blood, with a little bonus of Shadow Warrior main theme. Since I was always a fan of Blood, I obviously prefer its climatic music. I am a little disappointed that Mr McWane didn't finish the orchestral arrangement of Blood soundtrack, because it sounded even better than the real thing.

I hope you liked the choice presented here. This has given me the idea to write about some free game music that is available out there next time. Check this page sometimes for updates and if you want to share a comment, don't hesitate to do so.

...and business is good.

I thought I'd share with you a trailer that I find really hilarious :

It looks like the game has indeed some potential. There seems to be more and more serious titles for XBox 360 with mature themes and incredible execution. Playstation 3 is going to have a hard time beating XBox 360 anywhere else but in Japan.

Personally, I am very interested in seeing these titles in action at some point in future :

Kane & Lynch : Dead Men

Alan Wake

Gears of War

Lost Planet : Extreme Condition

...and the aforementioned Army of Two.

Guess I'll have no choice but to buy XBox 360 some time...

PS3, Japan and Chinese drones

Although I myself never went out to buy something on the very release date (except for some books), there are quite a lot of people that try, as evidenced in this very interesting article on Kotaku :

The Dark Side of Japanese PS3 Launch

I have spent quite some time in Japan (working in NTT research laboratory) and personally found it to be a great place to live. I had hard time believing that this events would happen there. I am used to this sort of unethical speculation in Poland and would expect it to happen here, but in Japan? Unthinkable. I am a little shocked by it, since I perceived the Japanese to be very kind, polite and friendly, but I guess in a coutry with population over 128 million people there can be a few exceptions.

The question is what will happen on European PS3 launch?

'Cause I'm a loser

We all make mistakes. This obvious truism will be the motto of this post, as I will write a few words about how I managed to make an arrogant fool out of me.

As you probably have already noticed, I am an avid fan of retro games. I have always liked their atmosphere and (in their time) freshness of ideas. I still recall some of the worlds I visited as a child thanks to them. The system that had made the biggest impression on me in the old days was Amiga. Consoles were not really popular back then in Poland (price, availability), so for me it was Amiga that opened the door to the realm of colourful digital entertainment. I actually never had Amiga (my parents could not afford it), but played a lot at my friends' places.

Now that I have grown older, I still enjoy occasional trip down the nostalgy lane. Recently PSP has become my gaming system of choice, with one of the reasons for me to buy it being the possibility to write my own programs and running homebrew applications on it. The Polish article on Amiga emulation on PSP made me shiver lustfully and finally I spent my hard earned yens on a brand new Japanese PSP.

How does that relate to me behaving like a total bastard? Read on.

Well, one of the first things I did on my PSP was to run PSPUAE, the Amiga emulator. I think it was more or less version 0.41. Anyhow, I was quite disappointed. Barely playable framerate, problems with compatibility, and very long loading times. Briefly, I abandoned it waiting for a next release.

This PSPUAE screen is here just to distract your eyes from the tons of writing in this post...

Which in fact never came. Its author (Christophe Thibault) got either bored with it or overhelmed by the task of optimising the code for the PSP, the project was apparently dead.

After more than half a year the things got better though. Some people, namely Ric, FOL and Hungry Horace (if I missed anyone out contact me via mail or comments) started all over again. Partially based on the 0.41 version, they have continued developing the PSPUAE.

I was in fact overjoyed. I downloaded the first release (0.51), tested it and wrote my thoughts in comment on PSPUpdates. I indicated that speed should be the priority (as if they didn't know...) and that maybe Zx-81 (a coder famous in the PSP homebrew community for releasing many good emulators) might help.

Since I didn't get any reply back then, I wrote them again in comments when 0.55 was released (you can read it here). And that is where I made my first major mistake. I did not check the answers later, because actually the guys took time to reply to me.

Therefore, more and more annoyed I continued to rant in a more and more nasty way on release 0.60 and on release 0.61.

I am ashamed to admit that I didn't go back checking for replies more than two or three times. Hence the tone of my rant got more and more offensive, there is no denying it. Until...

Until one day I came back on the last release, saw angry reply of FOL, learned that in fact they asked Zx-81 to cooperate with PSPUAE team and he refused, went back to my previous comments and realised that FOL and Hungry Horace have replied to me at least a couple of times (starting with rather kind explanations).

I have to state that at that moment I felt like a complete and utter ass.

What makes this even more silly is the fact that I was recently reviewing PSPUAE and even though I pointed out the framerate issues and loading times, I wrote that I found it better then the previous versions and generally liked the direction in which it was going (see it here).

The excuses that I love Amiga games, that I want to be able to play them on my PSP, that I in fact was pleased with the progress of the emulator (as stated in this post) don't change the fact that not only have I made a fool of me, but an arrogant bastard too.

Optimising code, refactoring, increasing the efficiency of a program are never easy tasks, especially in an environment that has numerous constraints and you can't reply to your customer "buy more RAM and a faster processor". Doing that without any gratification in what might have been one's free time is even more demanding. And hearing in return : "this sucks, make it better" is definitely not rewarding.

From the tone of replies I could see that they were not only annoyed, but seriously offended and touched by the tone of my comments. Definitely, it was unfair of me. People put their effort in bringing something up and all they get in return is ingratitude (that is a little bit of an understatement).

So what could I do about it?

I decided that full apologies and an explanation of why I behaved like that are the only way for me to save face. Therefore I registered at pspuae.com forum and I posted a big sorry to folks over there (which you can read in this thread). I won't be quoting all of it in this place, but I tried real hard to explain that I generally am not a malicious person, didn't mean to be that nasty and that I do hold their hard work in esteem.

In the end everything finished more or less all right. My apologies were accepted and although I got a few bitter comments (rightly so, they were deserved), Horace and FOL seemed to appreciate the fact that I admitted being wrong and apologised. I certainly do hope they feel a little better after that.

If you have read through this story (trurly heart-breaking, I know), you can go to pspuae.com and send them a little word of encouragment so that they see there is some positive reaction to what they do.

PS. And the positive result of all this fuss are is that I have a new release of PSPUAE on my Memory Stick, as well as some other emulators (CaSTaway, among other things) in order to provide some better in-depth comparison. Expect it as soon as I finish the Dungeon Siege : Throne of Agony review.

Disappointed with Lumines II

Yes, you've heard that right. I am not pleased with Lumines II.

From the first time I have heard about music videos getting incorporated in the game, I was sceptical about it. I reckoned you would neither get to watch the video since you concentrate on the gameplay nor be able to focus on clearing levels with the background flashing with animations. I hoped that Mizuguchi-san would somehow make it work, but was uneasy about the whole concept.


Unfortunately, I was right.

Generally, the skins with video playing in the background are too flashy and it's hard to see what is happening at times. They also lack slightly trancey and deliriously addictive feel to it that the original Lumines had. Some of the music doesn't fit the mood at all and it creates strange sense of mismatch and maladjustment. I was in fact just waiting for those levels to end while playing through the challenge mode.

The characters on the bricks are moving, the bricks are moving, the characters in the background are moving... ARGH!

There is also a lot of recycling of the music and skins from original Lumines - granted, they are changed and have more futuristic look to them (or not - "Take the dog out to walk"), but generally the effect is very annoying (at least for me). In some cases I stumbled upon the skins I already played through a thousand times and didn't like ("no! not again!"), in some cases I noticed that some of my favourite skins have been altered in a way I don't like ("what have you done with my beloved skin?").

Sure, there is a lot of skins, there is a new mode, generally there is more of Lumines in Lumines. But the delicate balance of the original that made it so good, its magic, its eerie feel - it is gone. Instead of being a unique experience, it is now just a solid puzzle game.

I will give it a second chance before I write a definite review, but for now I am simply disappointed.

PS. I was able to beat the Vs mode on my first attempt and I haven't played original Lumines for at least two months or so, therefore it means it is also a whole lot easier.

Still alive

Just a brief message to reassure all the three people actually reading this blog that I am still alive (as if you cared anyways). I am working on a bunch of reviews for a website (I will surely let you know if they get published), which means that I am gaming in my every single available moment. There has been a flood of good PSP titles recently and one of them got me incredibly hooked - Dungeon Siege : Throne of Agony. Before the actual review shows up, here's a couple of screens for you.

Dungeon Siege : Throne of Agony

I also was experimenting with some other manner of presenting the game screenshots in this blog. Thanks to Mr John Bardinelli, a freelaance writer with much more experience than me, I got the invitation to SlideShare (be sure to thank him by visiting his blog - just click on his name). The page aims to be a sort of service similar to YouTube but for presentations. It should be noticed that not only Microsoft Office, but also OpenOffice format is supported as well - that is definitively a good thing. As you can see, the presentations don't necessarily have to be boring. For the time being the access to the service is invitation only, but if anyone wants an invitation let me know (I have a couple of them).

So expect more goodies to come soon and if you really get bored, drop me a message in the comments to accelerate the process.