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on Feb 12th, 2007 15:51:30.
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Pandora Homebrew is the the worlds premier Pandora Hacking, Development, Emulation and Homebrew News and Downloads Site.
Part of the DCEmu Homebrew & Gaming Network.
The World of homebrew spans every part of the world and whilst DCEmu is a part of that we are amongst many great sites, heres the premier list of good legal homebrew sites who uphold the real world of homebrew.
As you can see across the main homebrew scenes theres a ton of sites as well as dcemu and everyone of them uphold everything that homebrew is about, im sure i maybe have missed some good sites but these are the best of the best.
Apart from a few spikes the homebrew scene has been quieter of late especially in the once all mighty PSP Scene, heres my viewpoint on the scene as a whole with regards to homebrew.
PSP
As ive already stated the PSP scene has been much quieter over the last year, thankfully the likes of our very own zx81 has kept emulation of older consoles alive and also our very own Zack has had a dabble in Snes emulation, also great is the N64 emulator still being worked on. Im sure most people like myself are praying that the M33 Team and Dark Alex release a new Custom firmware. Hopefully the PSPGo will be cracked for homebrew soon, then i might actually buy one.
Nintendo DS
On the emulation side of things the DS has gotten stagnant but thankfully the Gaming side has been awesome, id say one of the biggest releases this year was the GBA Emulator that used the DSIplayer Flashcart, it does make the mouth water to see what else is doable with the DSIplayer.
Nintendo Wii
The Wii is still the king of the present gen consoles for homebrew and the credit must go to wiibrew for becoming a fantastic unbiased release source for coders, the recent release of the N64 emulator for Wii has to be a real crowning point for the wii scene, thanks to the guys at emulatemii for that.
PS3
Sadly still no major breakthrough for the PS3, im sure most are praying for a custom firmware that allows region free PS2 and PS1 gaming and full emulation, we can but dream.
Xbox360
The free60 project has brought some emulation to the Xbox360 but sadly that major breakthrough is yet to happen.
Iphone/Ipod touch
Whilst a great system for games from amateur coders the powerful machines are void of homebrew apart from zodttd, lets hope we see more emulators soon.
Dreamcast
Been a quiet few months but the console still soldiers on with the odd release, if you havent ever had a dreamcast your missing out on an awesome homebrew scene, trust me.
GP2X
Whilst theres no more gp2x consoles being made the homebrew scene is still very active, mainly due to the excellent forums over at gp32x, a great homebrew handheld if you can get one
GP2x Wiz
The Wiz is probably the 2nd most active console for homebrew releases and has lived up to expectations, personally id like to see a working N64 emulator on the handheld but maybe thats not possible, certainly a good future ahead
Dingoo A320
Probably the best homebrew device this year, Dingoo Linux has been the release of the year for this handheld and has brought many of the star coders to release their emulators and games on the dingoo. If you havent got one then your missing out bigtime.
GP32
The handheld may be considered dead but only a month or so ago Slaanesh released a new version of MAME for the GP32 that easily beats versions of most of the newer consoles, dust off that GP32 and get some arcade gaming going
Pandora
The most powerful handheld is coming, if the console does Dreamcast, N64 and PSX Emulation at a playable speed then you have a major player in the world of homebrew.
Do you agree with my thoughts or have your own, let us know via comments
I posted about the Pandora months before anyother site and its great to see finally the realisation of the most poweful homebrew console ever, heres the latest update from Openpandora:
We've got some good news! 103 out of the 105 boards did pass the test, this is slightly more than 98% success rate!
TI set up a unique testing environment, especially for the Pandora boards. With a special firmware, every hardware piece of the Pandora can be checked with as little human interaction as possible.
The first 105 m...
We also got some news from the moulds company. It looks they're finally nearing completion of the last mould which means we should see the final case moulds soon. There's not much time left until christmas - but you can be sure we'll do everything possible to assemble and ship it out just in time!
The latest OS image is also running pretty stable. I've been playing around with XFCE myself for the last hours and didn't encounter any crashes. I'm currently working on Pandora themes in various sizes.
Enough blog posting for me today, back to work on the Pandora OS
Today one of the biggest releases for the Homebrew Community, the release of ScummVM 1.0.0 "Shiny Logo", heres the full details of the release and about ScummVM itself
First some screens to whet your appetite:
What Is ScummVM?
ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their data files. The clever part about this: ScummVM just replaces the executables shipped with the games, allowing you to play them on systems for which they were never designed!
Some of the adventures ScummVM supports include Adventure Soft's Simon the Sorcerer 1 and 2; Revolution's Beneath A Steel Sky, Broken Sword 1 and Broken Sword 2; Flight of the Amazon Queen; Wyrmkeep's Inherit the Earth; Coktel Vision's Gobliiins; Westwood Studios' The Legend of Kyrandia and games based on LucasArts' SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) system such as Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max and more. You can find a thorough list with details on which games are supported and how well on the compatibility page. ScummVM is continually improving, so check back often.
Release News
It was just 3.5 months ago when we started to prepare for this release, and now finally the day has come.
Ladies and gentlemen, please greet the one and only ScummVM 1.0.0 "Shiny Logo!" The long awaited, the most anticipated, the best... whatever.
We worked very hard on stability in this release, and in addition to all that goodness available since our 1.0.0rc1, we added a new set of ports for Motorola Linux-based phones (those on MotoEZX and MotoMAGX platforms) and fixed just a few hundred bugs.
Heres whats new:
1.0.0 (2009-11-15)
New Ports:
- Added MotoEZX and MotoMAGX ports.
General:
- Fixed several bugs in GUI.
- Updated the project logo and icons.
- Clarified licenses for several PS2 port files.
AGI:
- Fixed crash on game exit.
- Fixed crash at detection of some games.
AGOS:
- Fixed load/save code for PC version of Waxworks.
- Fixed undo in Puzzle Pack games.
Broken Sword 1:
- Fixed missing background sound effects in some rooms.
CinE:
- Fixed crashes with Future Wars and Operation Stealth demos.
Cruise:
- Fix freeze on game pause.
Gob:
- Fixed gfx glitch in Lost in Time.
- Fixed hotspot-related regressions in Gob2.
- Fixed several regressions in Gob3.
- Fixed crash in Bargon Attack intro.
- Fixed animations in Win3.1 version of Gob3.
Groovie:
- Fixed video performance on PSP.
- Fixed menu blanking in some instances.
Kyra:
- Fix possible corruption of restart game save in Kyrandia 1.
- Fix GFX glitch at the broken bridge.
- Fix for brandon tunring invisible in some situations in Kyrandia 1.
MADE:
- Fixed performance on NDS.
- Fixed several crashes in Return to Zork demo.
Parallaction:
- Fixed several regressions in Nippon Safes.
- Fixed music in sushi bar in Nippon Safes.
SCUMM:
- Fixed crash on Macintosh versions of Putt-Putt Joins the Parade and Fatty
Bear's Birthday Surprise.
- Fixed game save in Macintosh versions of HE games.
- Fixed default save game path in later HE games.
- Fixed palette in NES version of Maniac Mansion.
- Fixed palette in Amiga version of Secret of Monkey Island.
- Fixed cutscenes not stopping music after pressing ESC in DIG.
- Fixed lip-sync in Fatty Bear.
- Fixed crash in FT when entering inventory.
Tinsel:
- Fixed crash in palace.
- Fixed crash when talking to the old lady.
- Fixed partially off-screen text in DW1.
NDS port:
- Added mouse pad undeneath onscreen keyboard
- Added ability to scroll when cursor reaches edge of screen (in mouse pad mode)
- Made cd audio read from track01.wav as well as track1.wav
- Fixed bug with switching modes with keyboard active
PSP port:
- Fixed video flickering and stretching is some situations.
- Improved suspend/resume support.
WinCE port:
- Improved compatibility with VGA devices.
The second of my reviews is regarding the Gameboy Advance SP 2GB i brought a few weeks ago.
This was a console i spotted on IShopVideoGame and was eager to try it.
The GBA SP is fitted with a 2GB Flash Drive which you cant see unless you open the console.
Upon booting the console i was a tad astonished to find a mass of games already loaded onto the console, infact a total of 118 games, of which all played and saved perfectly.
The Console has a USB Lead with it and when connecting to a PC/laptop it shows up as a removeable drive and its not hard to work out how to add additional games to the console, so adding homebrew and emulators for the GBA is really easy.
Now the price is a rather decent $54.95 and like my other review shipping from ishopvideogame was very resonable.
I must point out that the GBASP plays games like any normal GBA but obviously the benefit of a 2gb hard drive makes the console a great selling point, you could stick hundreds of GBA Homebrew and Emulators for GBA on the hard drive too.
all in all a great buy and i highly recommend this to any GBA fans.
Thanks again to IShopVideoGame for a great console and quick shipping.
The first is of a Refurbished DSLite Console i brought from IShopvideoGame
Ishopvideogame sell a range of Refurbished DSLite Consoles including some special edition consoles such as the Zelda, Dragon Ball, Naruto and Pokemon and all the usual colours.
The price of the consoles ranges from 94 Dollars up to 106 Dollars and the shipping is a very decent 10 dollars or less depending on where you live.
Ishopvideogame also will mark the package as sample or with no value to beat nasty customs charges and thats a big thumbs up from me.
Ok the console, the box it shipped it wasnt a brand new box but if buying for a present would be passable, the console itself was in perfect condition, in fact i looked all over it and to be honest it looked brand new, even better it came with a 100-240v charger so no messing around.
My wife has had it for weeks now and its working great, battery life is as expected and absolutely in perfect working order.
Am i happy with my buy, yes for sure, the fact you can get special edition DSLite Consoles for a cheap price and consoles as good as new for 50 dollars cheaper than the usual price makes this a great buy.
