Jump to content
Have You Played Atari Today?
2600|5200|7800|Lynx|Jaguar|Forums|Store  

onmode-ky

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    880

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

Posts posted by onmode-ky

  1. Posted

    Only time I was able to hit it is if you flip the flipper, when the ball reaches the very end tip, when the ball is going down the inlane. From a trapped point, to end flipper, it doesn't make it.

     

    Ah, I see.. I will give that a shot later. :)

    I generally used the other method for advancing the planets, as it was much easier and safer (sometimes, the ball will head for the outlane after hitting that target, as I recall). When I had to hit that target, though, I think what I did was wait for a good upward bounce off the right flipper (when it's up, with the ball coming into it from the right lane) and then smack the ball with that flipper.

     

    It's been a while, though, so maybe what I'm describing is just my imagination.

     

    onmode-ky

  2. Posted

    Ultimate shooting collection - GARBAGE. and I put up with a lot from SHMUPS

    What didn't you like about Ultimate Shooting, specifically? I haven't played the boss-rush-only Chaos Field on it (I have the enhanced GameCube release of that), but I enjoyed Radirgy and Karous' systems, Radirgy's more so because the object collection was tied to a score multiplier rather than weapon upgrade, which seemed to unbalance your weaponry in Karous. Admittedly, the text seemed poorly translated in the US release.

     

    I note that I've only played/beaten Easy difficulty, as I was more interested in reaching the end rather than mastering the games.

     

    onmode-ky

  3. Posted

    I did e-mail Jakks Pacific; they never responded. As expected, really. It's a mass-produced product considered to be a cheap electronic toy. If it's not a child safety issue, a large toy company isn't going to consider fixing the problem. Would have been nice to at least get a "Hmm, that's interesting" response, though.

     

    onmode-ky

    Here's a brief update: Jakks Pacific never responded, but many months later, I sent that e-mail to the development studio who programmed this collection for them. One of the programmers wrote back and basically said, "Sorry, we'll look into it," and expressed interest in fixing it if Jakks ever makes a new Namco TV Game with Xevious in it.

     

    Also, a few months ago, I talked to the guy who programmed Xevious for the Jakks TV Games platform (back in 2003/2004, so not related to this recent model's new problem) and thanked him for making this port so faithful to the arcade original. It was programmed for the Sunplus u'nSP architecture in C via line-by-line conversion of reverse-engineered source.

     

    onmode-ky

  4. Posted

    I don't want to sound mean . . .

    Then don't.

    Well, it's good that I didn't say anything mean, then.

     

    I'm puzzled by the Woot thing though. Don't remember anything being on there other than the 2+'s. Unless the counterfeit 2's showed up in their deals sub site?

    I was surprised by the Woot allegation, too. I assumed that Gamasutra's source for that was Legacy, though (through Atari), so if it's not from you, then it could simply be an error arising out of what they assumed, based on Woot's association with Amazon.

     

    onmode-ky

    • Like 1

  5. Posted

    I was thinking the same thing. Mr. Vendel, are these companies that you guys can seek damages from, or are they Chinese fly-by-nighters?

    Out of curiousity, were the fake FB2's sold at chain stores or was it these off-shore websitea? Just trying to assess the damage. Thanks.

    I don't want to sound mean . . . but these questions were answered, in detail, in the Gamasutra news article linked in the original post. . . .

     

    The thing is, through the FTC and FBI, if a company brings product onto US soil, it can be seized and they lose their money, and inventory... plus if its a firm such a Tomo who also had deals with other companies, what happens is an alert goes out to the Consumer Electronics Association and those companies are blacklisted, and wont get business from Atari, EA, Disney, etc... so they are cut off from the US market completely...

    Curt, do you foresee Tommo actually getting blacklisted as a likely outcome? While they should certainly face consequences for their crime, their being blacklisted would be a fairly sizable hit on the video game industry, I think; aren't they a fairly large games distributor in the retail space? It might be pretty bad for some of the smaller publishers to lose Tommo distribution. Of course, blacklisting could be the least of their worries if the court case kills them outright.

     

    onmode-ky

  6. Posted

    Based on a press release I discovered, it looks like this is being done by AtGames, the firm who has been putting out Sega SMS/GG/MD-based plug-n-plays for a few years. Their SMS/GG stuff ran on SMS-on-a-chip hardware, according to Curt, but their MD stuff ran in emulation on ARM-based hardware. So, their history is of little help in figuring out what route they took this time, other than indicating they're likely using the original binaries rather than ported-over versions of the games.

     

    onmode-ky

    • Like 1

  7. Posted

    Gawd I hope not, I tried working with SunPlus and they were total jerks to me. That was back when I was trying to get developing going on the HyperScan (a sunplus based console). Total fail on all fronts. I expect no less than total fail when working with sunplus. I might be wrong, but that's what I know of them.

    You tried working with Sunplus as a business interest going through their American representation company, or you tried working with them as a homebrewer contacting them directly? I've heard that Sunplus has very good support--but only if you've done all the stuff with money and signed NDAs. They're not going to want to talk to you otherwise, unfortunately, but that's hardly a policy singular to them. Companies don't like it when people outside their control poke around in stuff they sell; that's nothing new.

     

    onmode-ky

  9. Posted

    I must admit that I am a little confused, though (blame it on me being senile).... is Transfarring a method of moving the entire game from PS3 to Vita and back, or is it simply Cloud saving your game progress and having that save info available on either platform?

     

    Reason for my confusion is that the video didn't make clear to me if a game title, such as Ico, was playable on both formats or whether you needed a PS3 version and a Vita versions for "Transfarring" to work.

    No, it is not moving the entire game. I hesitate to even call it cloud-based saving, since, at least for the PS3-PSP implementation shown in the video for Peace Walker, the data transfer is merely between PS3 and PSP over USB cable; there is no client-server architecture involved, just a locking mechanism between two peers sharing a resource (which is the save data).

     

    In the case of the PSV, I think you're under the mistaken impression that it will be able to play PS3 games. That's not the case. The PSV will play [PS Store purchases of] PSP games. If you're thinking of the January demos of PS3 games like MGS4 running on the PSV, those were demonstrations of quick code conversions from PS3 to PSV, not demonstrations of PS3 code running natively on the PSV. Whether or not there will be special lower-priced bundles of PS3-PSV game combinations, that I don't know, but they would definitely be distinct products.

     

    Incidentally, I do think it pretty cool that the purchase of the MGS HD collection for the PS3 will include a free download voucher for the PSP version of Peace Walker, so you could immediately put that Transfarring to the test. Some of us already have the UMD, of course.

     

    onmode-ky

  12. Posted

    Hm... I don't get that sentence from the Wiki. It's quite obvious that *all* games in the package are emulated. If anything then the emulator code was ported from PS1 to PS2...

    Why do you think so? Most of the games in Vol. 1 have an additional 1998 copyright date on their main title screen (i.e., they could not be running the original arcade code). There are 6 which do not.

     

    Hm... it just didn't sound like a reasonable thing to do. Given the quality of the games, it means they must've reverse-engineered the original assembly code and translated it line by line into C++. Of course, if they still had the original source code that would have helped. But it'd still require an army of coders and thrice the beta testing. Coding 2-3 emulators for the arcade platforms involved just seems much more reasonable and accurate. Of course if the PS1 didn't have the horsepower for that, then it probably was the only way to go.

    A few of the retro models in Jakks Pacific's TV Games plug-n-play game line were in fact produced by the method you describe, line-by-line conversion of reverse-engineered source to C. At least one, the Mortal Kombat unit, was done by line-by-line conversion of the original source code. These were largely one-man jobs, too. So, it's not quite that infeasible, and you can get results with good fidelity, even with hardware much less powerful than the PS1.

     

    It might also be worth noting that the Capcom Generations series was made up of 5 separate PS1 releases, so there might have been more manpower/time allocated.

     

    onmode-ky

  13. Posted

     

    It's not a bootleg, but it's not a 2600-on-a-chip either as stated (since that was our tech). Most likely just an emulator as previously stated.

     

    So they used your idea's and cheapened them, that would make me upset. :thumbsdown:

    If I'm understanding everything all correctly, it's more like someone else cheapened them and asked Atari if it was okay to slap the Atari name on the box. Atari's response was "Sure, whatever!"

     

    I don't know if Atari realizes that this reflects much worse on them than the typical licensed product (I mean in terms of the build and packaging looking as atrocious as they do). The "Flashback" name previously applied to actual Atari product; with this licensed product using it, too, it makes both the Flashback series and Atari itself look bad thanks to consumer confusion. It would be like allowing a third party to call something "Atari Puma" or "Atari 10400."

     

    onmode-ky

  14. Posted

    For me, it's the Playstation that seems backwards because of pressing the O button (where "B" usually is) to accept, and X button (where "A" normally is) to cancel. Just seems unnatural to me.

     

    Yeah apparently the guy who invented the controller thought the X and O were obvious. Maybe in Japan X means yes?

    You (both) have it backwards. In Western territories, the PlayStation uses X to accept and O to cancel. In Japan, O means accept, and X is cancel, which is as the guy who designed the controller intended. Japan's PlayStation layout matches the Nintendo positioning, since X is where B is and O is where A is.

     

    onmode-ky

    • Like 1

  15. Posted

    Wikipedia notes, "Volume 1 of Capcom Classics Collection contains all sixteen games from [the PS1/Saturn anthology series] Capcom Generations (converted from these ports rather than the arcade originals) and six added emulated titles, while Volume 2 features all titles not included in the Capcom Generations series." I think that because Volume 1 was primarily converted from the earlier ports rather than running an emulation engine, the developers couldn't insert features like save states.

     

    Hm... I don't get that sentence from the Wiki. It's quite obvious that *all* games in the package are emulated. If anything then the emulator code was ported from PS1 to PS2...

    Why do you think so? Most of the games in Vol. 1 have an additional 1998 copyright date on their main title screen (i.e., they could not be running the original arcade code). There are 6 which do not. Easier way to tell if it's an emulated game or not: the emulated ones are the only games that start immediately after you press the Start button once loading is done, and that press of the Start button is accompanied by a Capcom chime. On all the other games, there is first a Capcom logo that fades in and out before the game starts, and among them, only the Street Fighter II titles have the Capcom chime when you push the Start button.

     

    Regarding Vulgus, I'm still 25K away from the 100K target, but at least I did get the music unlocked tonight.

    You're clearly much better at that game that I am. The best I could do was 52,900. Only unlocked the artwork.

     

    onmode-ky

  16. Posted

    So Sega is selling the games that they included in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection, but for a *lot* more money, and not on physical media. Then Sony sees this and concludes that we need an entire month filled up with nothing but these?

    cimerians did not copy and paste the entire post from the PS Blog. There's plenty of other stuff in the program coming up (though none of the June stuff interests me, unfortunately). See the original post for the details. You can click on the "playstation plus" post tag on the right side of that page to check out the older offers in the program, including what's currently still on offer from prior updates.

     

    The discounts are what interest me more than the free games, but that's because I don't intend to continue with the program. Discounts are things you can keep once you leave the program. Speaking of which, all the Neo Geo games, for both PSP and PS3, have PS+ discounts still.

     

    onmode-ky

  17. Posted

    For game recommendations, check out this recent thread.

     

    There is no region lock on games, though for content downloaded from the PS Store, I haven't determined yet whether there is any limitation on account-switching on a single PSP--unlike the PS3, the PSP only supports one PSN account at a time. You can deactivate the current account and switch to another one (e.g., your PSN account for a different region), but I need to find out if you can only do that some X many times. I'd like to be able to download and play my Welcome Back PSP allocation from my Asia-region account.

     

    Regarding the matter of having to get lots of Memory Sticks, you don't really have to. The PSP can connect to a PC via USB, and you can shuffle games back and forth between your PC hard drive and a Memory Stick (this management is much easier if you use the Media Go application (free download), since you won't be stuck looking at directories named by game identification numbers rather than actual titles). Media Go is also good for managing backup of save files. I should note that there is no Mac version of it. Anyway, unless you're adamant about having all your downloaded content with you on the go or don't have a PC with sufficient hard disk space, you don't need to worry about hoarding Memory Sticks.

     

    The PSP-3000's retail price was recently dropped to $130. Sony might drop it again when Vita releases, but I don't think they would have such a short interval between price drops. Would mean it was $130 for less than a year, I think.

     

    onmode-ky

  18. Posted

    In VOL 2 you can, My bother and I kept having to load a save over a over so we had enough time to enter our initials at the high score screen for Block Block (breakout like game). Must of took 10 tries at least until we both did it in time.

     

    My copy of the first one (PS2) just arrived, but unfortunately it doesn't offer state saving. It has lots of other goodies though, like auto-fire and improved music. I started playing Vulgus and it's definitely a lot more fun with those two features enabled. I got the first unlockable extra pretty fast, next I need to score 100.000 points :)

    Wikipedia notes, "Volume 1 of Capcom Classics Collection contains all sixteen games from [the PS1/Saturn anthology series] Capcom Generations (converted from these ports rather than the arcade originals) and six added emulated titles, while Volume 2 features all titles not included in the Capcom Generations series." I think that because Volume 1 was primarily converted from the earlier ports rather than running an emulation engine, the developers couldn't insert features like save states. With Volume 2, they had that flexibility.

     

    I'm just speculating, though.

     

    Save states would have helped me in my quest to beat 1942 in Volume 1. Sure, the game lets you continue infinitely, but I got tired after several hours. . . . In Volume 2, I used save states to do well enough in Last Duel to unlock something or other.

     

    onmode-ky

  20. Posted

    I've never really been clear in what way china is communist(aside from the re-education camps).

    It's run by a political organization calling itself "Communist Party," and that's about it. :) Like every other communist revolution in history, the actual process of transforming into a true communist society stopped at the "all power becomes controlled by a single group" intermediate stage and never progressed to the "every citizen is equal and is part of the government" final stage. In other words, it's an oligarchy, and it maintains power by outlawing all other political organizations. In the case of mainland China, though, they went so far as to backpedal the economic system and turn it more or less capitalist. You could say it's an even more failed attempt at communism than usual.

     

    There may be a lot of rich people, but it's all about proportions. The proportion in correlation with the population means that there is a mind-blowingly large number of poor people.

    Indeed, there are lots of poor people, but the lot of rich people (and almost-rich people) is sufficient to provide a subpopulation large enough to support something like the i-Dong.

     

    It never occurred to me that the copious apartments are targeted at foreigners because that woman said that the plan was to move the dirt-poor people into the apartments next to the tiny shacks that they were going to bulldoze in order to build even more apartments that nobody can afford. And if they are for foreigners, nobody's biting. It's all about China's GDP.

    Yeah, that was a stupid thing for her to say. But again, it's not that nobody can afford them; it's that there are not enough who can afford them to theoretically fill more than some fraction of the vacancies, and among those who can, there are really very few who want to move in. After all, if you're rich, why move out of one of the existing major cities, where all your rich buddies are, into what's currently a ghost town?

     

    11 million WoW players? And how many people are in prison over there again? And how many of them are mining gold in said prisons? Who knows? It's China. They're insane.

    Er, I assume you're being facetious with this paragraph. I've read about the prison WoW operations, too, but surely you don't mean to imply that the game is only a prison task for every Chinese player and not your typical WoW addiction.

     

    I've never talked to a worker for The Great People's Republic of China's PR machine before. This is interesting.

    Ha, never in a million years would I have thought I would find myself trying to improve someone's perception of one of the most disgraceful incarnations of China in history. It should be obvious from things I've written earlier in this thread that I'm not exactly a fan. But then, I never thought I'd run across someone with such an unusual view of the country. That aside, you don't have to be a fan of a country to understand that it's not filled with starving people.

     

    Anyway, I hope you recognize that it's not a wasteland of poverty now (wasteland of politics and corruption, that's a different matter). We should let the thread get back on topic.

     

    onmode-ky

  21. Posted

    That video does not support your apparent view that there is insufficient population who can afford a $250 piece of electronics in the country. Are there poor people in China? Yes. Is the government running a large number of infrastructure and construction projects without corresponding demand? Yes. Neither of those facts preclude China's population from including a sizable number of people living well above the poverty line. Did you think that those luxury apartments were entirely targeted at millions of foreigners?

     

    This is a country with 11 million World of Warcraft players (that number being a few years old, but anyway). This is a country with so many students studying abroad in other countries' grad schools that The Simpsons made a joke out of it. This is a country whose tourists positively clogged the sightseeing destinations in Taipei when I visited it recently. "Communist" China suffers from income inequality; that is, there are both very poor people and very rich people, much like the United States.

     

    I am puzzled why you seem to think it's like a Third World nation. You are honestly the first person I have ever encountered with that view; most people would probably not even be aware of the large poor population in China.

     

    onmode-ky

  22. Posted · Edited by onmode-ky

    Okay, I think I should step in here and explain why it's called the i-Dong. This name was not chosen in order to be a joke in the West, though it certainly accomplished that. The "i" part was an Apple reference, sure, but that's as far as the Western influence goes. "i-Dong" is just how they've chosen to write 愛動 (I'm using traditional Chinese here, but as a mainland company, they actually write it in horrifically ugly simplified Chinese), which means "love to move." It's a name fitting for a motion gaming system, no? Normally, this phrase would be romanized in pinyin as "ai dong," and no, "dong" is not pronounced the same way as most Westerners would pronounce "dong." While you're most likely reading it similarly to "dah-ng," this is pronounced more like "doh-ng."

     

    As a name used in a Mandarin-speaking country, "i-Dong" is harmless, if silly (like "Wii"). But, yes, if they should decide to *ahem* penetrate the Western market, they really would need to release it under a different name. "Lovemove" would suck, too.

     

    this is China.

     

    How is anybody going to afford it?

     

    Uh, what? You think everyone in China is living in poverty? Sure, maybe a humongous portion of the population is poor, but perhaps you should consider the fact that this supposedly communist country has a very sizable population of middle-class and rich folks, too. In fact, even if half of the 1.3 billion people there are below the poverty line, that still leaves way more than the US total population to be above it.

     

    onmode-ky

     

    P.S. For reference's sake, the two Chinese characters would be read in Japanese as "ai dou."

    • Like 1

  23. Posted

    Don't forget that the region-free nature (for games only, not UMD video) of the PSP opens up the library to lots of releases not available in your own region. Some highlights from my own PSP library:

     

    - Salamander Portable, Twinbee Portable, and Parodius Portable (scrolling shooter collections, a spinoff series from Gradius Collection (Gradius Portable in Japan) that never left Asia)

    - Soldier Collection (four PC Engine Star Soldier-series titles collected together)

    - Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA (well executed music game based on the Vocaloid mascot and "her" music)

    - DariusBurst (first new Darius-series game since 1997's G-Darius)

     

    I also have a number of visual novels, which, of course, are nearly nonexistent as a genre in the West.

     

    onmode-ky

  25. Posted

    (Sorry ... I watched "Star Trek V" again this past weekend, so it's still fresh in my memory.) :)

    It's still fresh in my memory even though the last time I saw it was probably around a decade ago. :)

     

    "I know this ship like the back of my hand." *CLANK*

     

    "What is Emergency Landing Plan B?" "B, as in 'barricade.'"

     

    "He is my half brother." "I need to sit down."

     

    "I need to shower." "Yes."

     

    What a sad, sad fate for Pioneer 10.

     

    Oh, and there are nowhere near that many decks on the Enterprise-A, geez. And who numbers starship decks bottom to top?

     

    onmode-ky

     

    P.S. I apologize for continuing to keep this thread off the original topic. Thanks for the BSR's Intellivision III and IV links, though; they were interesting reads.

AtariAge
Forums
Store
General
Follow AtariAge

Copyright ©1998-2021 AtariAge

×
×
  • Create New...