Category: gaming

So I’m currently in the market for an old Sega Saturn. Not too much of a problem. They go for under AU$100 and a guy from work is considering selling me his old Japanese Saturn with all the games and lightgun controllers. So I’m looking for good games. Apparently Radiant Silvergun is an amazing shoot’em up (or shmup as apparently the kids call ’em these days). I love shoot’em ups. So I’m looking around on Ebay for second-hand copies of the game. Bloody hell, starting bids of US$150 for that game!!! There’s a few copies in the UK starting off nice and cheap though. Perhaps I’ll keep an eye on those auctions. Or perhaps pursue other avenues.

Apparently other great shoot ’em ups for the Saturn are Soukyugurentai and Thunder Force V. And it looks like the pricing on those are a little more sane.

New Games supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Twin Eagle 2 [Olivier Galibert]
• Megaplay : Sonic the Hedgehog [Barry Rodewald, GreyRogue]
• Megaplay : Tecmo World Cup [Barry Rodewald, GreyRogue]
• Megaplay : Golden Axe 2 [Barry Rodewald, GreyRogue]
• Megaplay still has a few issues (continue without extra coins etc.)

New Clones supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Area 51 (R3000 Version)
• Ninja (clone of Sega Ninja)

New Non-Working games / clones supported

• Battle Balls (Asia)
• Super Pang

New Games supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Renju Kizoku
• Neratte Chu

New Non-Working games / clones supported:

• Mayjinsen
• Mayjinsen 2
• Super Eagle Shot
• Super Real Mahjong P5

New Games supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Brave Blade
• Ray Story
• Pirate Treasure

New Clones supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• NBA Maximum Hangtime v1.03
• Leprechaun (Pacific Polytechnical license)

New Non-Working games / clones supported

• MegaPlay: Tecmo World Cup
• MegaPlay emulation is still incomplete
• Vapor TRX
• San Francisco Rush: The Rock
• Hyperdrive

Last night I burnt up a CD-R with DreamSNES, a nice Super Nintendo Entertainment System emulator for the Dreamcast. Busted out some Super Mario World, R-Type III and Super Ghouls and Ghosts. Fun fun! I wasted a few blank CD-R’s in the process though. Must rememeber this forum topic over at DC Emulation for burning Dreamcast CD’s under linux.

I’m also currently got a Dreamcast VMU, Keyboard, Mouse and extra game controller on order. Now all I’ve got to find now is a Broadband Adapter and I’ll have a nice cheap web terminal for the TV room.

New Games supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Ghostlop
• Super Rider
• Groove On Fight
• Othello Shiyouyo
• Danchi de Hanafuoda

New Clones supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Driving Force (Galaxian hardware, bootleg)
• Snow Bros (set 4)

New Non-Working games / clones supported

• Lord of Gun
• Densya De Go (1, 1ex, 2, 2ex)
• Side by Side (1 & 2)
• Landing Gear

New Games supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Cool Boarders Arcade Jam

New Non-Working games / clones supported

• CPS-3 System
  this will never work (encryption etc.) driver does NOTHING, for reference only
  Street Fighter III etc

New Games supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Rival Schools [smf, R.Belmont]
• Shanghai Matekibuyuu [R.Belmont, smf]

New Non-Working games / clones supported

• Virtua Fighter
• Virtua Racing
• Star Wars Arcade
• Wing War
• Raiden DX
• Zero Team / New Zero Team

Over the weekend MAME 0.80 was released. Updates and new games since 0.79 (including changes made in the 0.79u1, 0.79u2, 0.79u3 & 0.79u4) are:

• Area 51 (Nov 15, 1995)
• Atari PSX
• Battle Garegga (Austria / Hong Kong) (Sat Feb 3 1996)
• Battle of the Solar System
• Bongo
• Botanic
• Bulls Eye Darts
• Cool Boarder Arcade Jam
• Double Cheese
• F-15 Strike Eagle
• F-X
• Galaga (Midway set 2)
• Galaga (Namco rev. B)
• Great Sluggers (Japan)
• Hunchback (Galaxian hardware)
• Kung-Fu Taikun (alt)
• Kusayakyuu
• Lethal Enforcers (Japan ver JAD)
• Lethal Enforcers (US ver UAE)
• Mad Alien
• Mahjong Electron Base (parts 2 & 3, alt., Japan)
• Mahjong Electron Base (parts 2 & 3, Japan)
• Mahjong Electron Base (parts 2 & 4, Japan)
• Mahjong Neruton Haikujirada (Japan)
• Martial Champion (US ver UAD)
• Psychic Force EX (?)
• Quadro Quiz II
• Quasar
• Quasar (Alternate)
• Quiz 365 (Japan)
• Radikal Bikers
• Samurai Shodown III / Samurai Spirits – Zankurou Musouken (set 2)
• Shanghai Matekibuyuu
• Sorcer Striker (World, alt)
• Soul Calibur (SOC14/VER.C)
• Space Fever (black and white set 2)
• Space Fever (color set 2)
• Space Launcher
• Speed Up
• Strikers 1945 (Alt)
• Super Slam (alt)
• Super Tank Attack (prototype?)
• Surf Planet
• Talbot
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (US 4 Players, set 2)
• Tetris (bootleg set 2)
• Time Pilot (Atari)
• Violence Fight (US)
• Wiggie Waggie
• Zintrick / Oshidashi Zentrix (hack / bootleg)
• Zoom 909

Also new and worth checking out on the MAME from is m.a.w.s., which is an online database of all MAME ROM information.

MAME 0.79 was released 31th January. Of note is the changes to the memory management:

Another big memory change. [Aaron Giles]

The biggest change is the way address maps are declared in the drivers. Rather than having separate read and write address maps, there is now support for a single, merged map. In order to minimize the amount of code churn, there is currently still support for two separate address maps per address space, but they are combined into one internally early on in the memory initialization and setup.

Other changes to it are as follows:

New Games supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Scramble Spirits
• Triv Four (1985 Status)
• Super Triv III (1986 Status)
• Winning Spike
• Whizz
• More More Plus
• Pairs Love

New Clones supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Perestrokia Girls (without Fuuki license)
• Changes (EME license)
• VS. Tennis (Japan)
• Dual Assault

New Non-Working games / clones supported:

• Varia Metal
• Denjin Makai (protected)
• Super Hang On Limited Edition
• Plasma Sword (parent to Star Gladiator 2)

Looks like XMAME slipped out the other day. Changes in this version are:

• Everything from MAME 0.78 and MESS 0.78.You can now “make tools” without first having to “make osdepend”. Fixed a couple of minor problems with src/unix/Makefile and src/unix/unix.mak. (Adam Di Carlo)
• Rearranged a bit of code to allow the MESS tools to build.
• Added JOY_SDL to the makefile so that the SDL joystick plugin can be enabled for non-SDL targets. The SDL target still enables the plugin without requiring JOY_SDL to be set.
• The ALSA module now builds against ALSA 1.0. Fixes Bugzilla bug 501.
• Changed the abbreviation of “-pause_brightness” to “-pbrt” to prevent a conflict with “-playback”.
• Added double buffering, enabled via “-doublebuf”, to the SDL target. (Thomas Jarosch)
• Deprecated the SDL target’s “-modenumber” in favor of “-vidmode_w” and “-vidmode_h”. (Thomas Jarosch)
• Updated the included zlib library to 1.2.1, which should be faster than 1.1.4.
• Fixed an infrequent spurious error reported by zlib 1.2.1. (Mark Adler)
• OpenVMS support should be close now. (Robert Alan Byer)
• Changed the man path to $(PREFIX)/man/man6, which is more FHS-compliant according to Andre Majorel.

The source is available over here. Its looks like there is no RPM packages from FreshRPMs yet though. For the list of newly supported games, refer to my previous post on the release of MAME 0.78,

This week the Weapons of Mass Distraction exhibition starts. The opening night is actually tonight. Things kick off at 6pm apparently. Details (again) are:

Weapons of Mass Distraction
50+ machines from the 1970s/80s and assorted gaming parapharnalia
opens January 8th – February 4th, 2004
location Spacejunk Industries, 30 Pittwater Rd, Manly. NSW. Australia
marktronics@hotmail.com for more info

I love introducing people to MAME. Its like introducing someone to crack.

Yesterday, just in time for Christmas, MAME 0.78 was released. Changes to the games are as follows:

New Games supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• 7jigen no Youseitachi
• Aquarush
• Ashita no Joe
• Biofreaks (Prototype)
• Bonanza Bros
• Borderline (bootleg)
• California Speed
• Cross Pang
• Crypt Killer
• Dynamic Country Club
• Ehrgeiz
• Fighting Layer
• Funny Bubble
• Mahjong Angels
• Mahjong Campus Hunting
• Mahjong Yarunara
• Mr Driller
• Quiz Rouka Ni Tattenasai
• Quiz TV Gassyuukoku
• Super Tank
• Tekken 3

New Clones supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Chinese Hero (older)
• Delta Race (omega Race bootleg)
• Fighting Hawk (World)
• Lode Runner III – The Golden Labyrinth
• Pairs V1.2
• Premier Soccer (EAB)
• Vs. Atari R.B.I. Baseball (set 2) [Pierpaolo Prazzoli]

New Non-Working games / clones supported:

• Ace Driver
• Battle Arena Toshinden 2 (USA)
• Beastorizer
• Brave Blade
• Champion Baseball Japan set 2
• Crackdown
• Gain Ground
• Gallop Racer 2 (USA)
• Judge Dredd (Rev C)
• Judge Dredd (Rev B)
• Mr Driller 2
• NBA Jam Extreme
• Primal Rage 2
• Quiz Syukudai wo Wasuremashita
• Scramble Spirits
• Star Gladiator
• Strider 2 (ASIA)
• Strider 2 (USA)
• Super Masters Golf
• Target Balls

I haven’t had a good look through the Linux MAME Cab HowTo yet, but it looks like it has potentional. Nice one.

I haven’t seen mamedb.org for a while. Does anyone out there know where’s its gone to?

Some other alternative suggestions appear to be MAME Fans, MAME Reactor, CAESAR and myMAMEdb