We have noticed a lot of you are interested in entering the homebrew area of DS applications, but some of you aren’t quite sure of how to get started. We put together this step-by-step guide on how to install and run basic homebrew software using the R4 Revolution for DS Slot-1 card. For those unfamiliar with the R4, it is a card that goes on the slot for DS games that allows you to run homebrew applications without altering your DS or DS Lite in any way. All you need is your system, the R4, and a MicroSD card of any size. We did our best to make this as clear as possible; follow instructions correctly and you should be fine. Continue reading for detailed instructions on how you can get the most out of your R4 hardware on the DS.
Sega has been completely dominating the PSP with tennis titles, which can only be a good thing for fans of the cheerful, arcade-inspired Virtua Tennis series. Virtua Tennis 3, the latest Sega offering, serves as a solid follow-up to the original Virtua Tennis which came out for the PSP two years ago. It doesn’t offer anything truly groundbreaking or new, but there are enough gameplay tweaks and added features here to make the game a worthy purchase for people looking to get their tennis fix on the go. Read on to find out why we think that Virtua Tennis 3 still reigns as world champion on the PSP.
Virtua Tennis 3 does a better job than its predecessor at capturing the important role of intimidation and psychology in the world of professional tennis. Occasionally after a match or a practice session, other characters will approach you and offer some terse words of advice (the first time that we were approached by Taylor Dent in the game we thought he was going to beat the crap out of us). Your virtual “coach” will dispense other useful advice and gossip about other players in the form of emails, which pop up on the world map frequently. Finally, your character will occasionally get the heeby-jeebies, exclaiming that he or she “doesn’t feel good about today”. On days like this it is best to rest up at home that face competition on the court. The game offers three types of rest, which will produce different effects on your virtual body, depending on how much time you are willing to expend.
Sony’s Liverpool studio made the megaton announcement this week that they are hard at work on a sequel to the massively popular Wipeout: Pure on PSP. The first Wipeout was one of the standout launch games for the PSP when it was released in North America just over two years ago, and many PSP owners (including ourselves) have fond memories of playing this game to death while waiting for the next must-own title to arrive. Well, the wait for quality PSP titles eventually ended, but that does not make Pulse any less eagerly anticipated. Wipeout: Pure had style galore, and from the first screenshots below, Pulse will follow in the same tradition. This game literally has us salivating in anticipation, and we promise to bring you more once we get our hands on additional details.
What? Precious little is known about Wipeout Pulse following the first official announcement this week that it is in development. However, Studio Liverpool has boasted that the game will feature a total of 24 tracks (plus downloadable material once the game goes gold). Gameplay will remain faithful to the Wipeout formula, however developers have added a new gameplay element called the “Mag Strip”. These portions of the track will lock the player into place, allowing for spectacular loops and stunts.
Perhaps the biggest bombshell in this week’s announcement is that Pulse will feature online multiplayer for the first time, allowing players to take on an undisclosed number of strangers over infrastructure, as well as the usual ad-hoc multiplayer modes.
When?Wipeout Pulse is already out in EU territories, but Studio Liverpool is taking their time with the North American release. We will get it on February 12, 2007.
Who? The game is being developed in-house by Sony Studio Liverpool. Interestingly, other than the Wipeout franchise, the only other notable titles to come out of this studio have been the Formula 1 games for PSP and Ps2. Our Liverpudlian friends certainly seem to know what they are doing when it comes to moving things around a track really fast.
[Update: This position has been filled. Thanks to all those who submitted their applications. New positions will be posted soon, so check back often.] Remember that scene in The Life Aquatic where Bill Murray snaps his fingers and wonders where his cappuccino is? Well, that could be you! No, not the recipient of the cappuccino, but the bright-eyed and eager provider of caffeinated sustenance. Basically, we are in need a lackey, and this job has your name written all over it. Just think of the career advancement opportunities here, folks. I mean, there is literally nowhere to go but up!
PVG is looking for a dedicated and creative person to pick up the slack as a Nintendo DS writer and reviewer. We simply don’t have enough time to keep up with the latest news and reviews on the DS (let alone play any games) so we need to expand our numbers. Since PVG is a small-time operation, we don’t yet have the cash to make this a paid position (hence the ‘intern’ part of the job description). However, there are loads of perks associated with being a writer for such an upstanding independent gaming blog. As an intern writer for PVG, you will benefit from the following:
The glory and prestige of seeing your name in print and reaching hundreds of readers per day.
Valuable experience in web publishing and video game journalism. Previous web journalism experience is not required for this position (those people already have real jobs). The purpose is to learn along the way and have some fun. Being able to write a coherent sentence or two is, of course, a requirement.
A seat fabricated from old car tires out back next to “Eddy” the homeless guy.
The very serious possibility of future paid employment with PVG if we ever relocate out of our parents’ basement.
Anyone with a passion for video games and a penchant for writing is encouraged to apply. Please include the following with your submission: 1) A short description of your interests, explaining why you want a job writing about video games. 2) A recent writing sample. 3) A sample preview of an upcoming DS or PSP game.
Remember that several will apply, and only the least noxious will be chosen, so rush those applications in soon… Now, where is my cappuccino, dammit!?
Right around the time that Atari hired its first on-staff psychic and employees began to organize naked rooftop jacuzzi parties – in other words, right when the company hit its apogee in terms of corporate indulgence — someone had the brilliant idea to introduce a portable version of the madly successful Atari home console. Call it coincidence, but we suspect that some of the insanity — and certainly some of the flagrant excess — which permeated the halls of Atari Headquarters in California circa 1987 found its way into Atari Lynx handheld. An iconoclastic device that was years ahead of its time, the Atari Lynx introduced many innovations that are still in use today, and it deserves to be remembered (besides marking the beginning of the end for Atari) as one of the most impressive handheld gaming platforms ever built and rarely played. As part of a series of articles on the history of handheld gaming, we bring you our tribute to the Atari Lynx (1988 - 1995).
When we heard that Sega was releasing an updated version of its arcade classic Alien Syndrome on PSP, we were excited, having spent so many fun hours playing the original game and its derivatives. The game is being developed by veteran studio Totally Games for Sega and will be released on both Wii and PSP this May. According to the developers, this new Alien Syndrome remains faithful to the top-down action based gameplay of the original (as can be seen in the video footage below) but the new version adds some original RPG twists such as character customization and equippable items. Players will be able to level up stats such as dexterity, strength and endurance, while also earning points that can be used toward learning new and useful skills. Similarly to other action-RPG games, enemies in Alien Syndrome will drop items, armor and weapons once they are killed. Totally Games promises “over 80 weapons and hundreds of pieces of armor” which will include both close-combat melee and ranged armaments like flamethrowers, rifles and grenade launchers. This title has been flying under the radar in recent months, but from the look of things it is shaping up to be a solid action game for both the Wii and PSP. We can’t wait to suit up and kill some bugs!
Planet Moon Studios is a third-party developer that has taken the Sony PSP seriously as a platform for original content. Rather than port over scaled-down versions of existing console titles (a strategy used by other developers which has met with with mixed success), Planet Moon has instead focused on developing original content that takes advantage of the PSP’s specific strengths. Zombie shooter Infected was their first break-out hit on the system, and it provided proof that their unique strategy could pay off, by combining a fun single-player arcade experience with some groundbreaking multiplayer connectivity features. Black Falcon follows much the same formula (minus the zombies, of course) in that it offers a straight-up arcade shooter with some additional frills piled on. Do not expect epic plotlines or the geopolitical intrigue of the Ace Combat series here, folks. This is a back-to-basics, quarter-crunching arcade retro-fest, designed with short bursts of gameplay in mind. Judged against its arcade-inspired peers, Black Falcon holds its own admirably. Ultimately, though, whether or not it is worth the 39$ price tag will depend on how much of a fan you are of arcade twitch shooters.
Black Falcon looks pretty, but does it have the personality to match?
Call him the God of portable gaming. Ben Heckendorn has hacked, sliced, diced and squashed all manner of home consoles into sleek, compact, do-it-yourself projects, and somehow found the time to write a book about it. His mind-blowing exploits have been featured all over the web, from Engadget to Wired Magazine. Many of us know Ben from his most recent internet fame as the man behind the awesome Wii laptop (pictured below). However, before Ben decided to take on the challenge of downsizing the Wii, he had already accomplished similar feats using the Xbox 360, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, and the original big daddy of home consoles, the Atari 2600. We were curious to find out what goes on inside the mind of the world’s preeminent builder of all things portable, so we contacted Ben for an interview. He was gracious enough to share some of his experiences with us, and we bring them to you here.
Ben began hacking apart Atari VCSp systems with a view to making them portable back in 2000. His job as a graphic designer in a sign-making shop gave him access to all of the tools necessary to fashion cases for his handheld marvels. The guts of the machines were salvaged (read: violently extracted) from consoles found laying around and picked up from Ebay. Ben estimates that he sacrificed 25 Atari consoles while working on his first portable model, and many other consoles of various kinds have fallen to Ben’s soldering iron since then. Ben has managed to transform his fledgling hobby into a full-time business, now regularly commanding over $5000 for one of his custom-built gaming systems!
This Wii laptop takes portable gaming to a whole new level. We asked Ben for a picture of himself playing - but sadly he told us that the one-of-a-kind system had already been shipped to its buyer.
Japanese studios seem to have developed a fondness for games that take liberties with European history (Trusty Bell for the 360 springs to mind here), and from the look of things, Jeanne of Arc appears to follow this trend. Instead of fighting to liberate France from the clutches of the English during the Hundred Years War, the PSP game pits Jeanne and her friends against “demonic armies attempting to enter the human world”. Whatev, we will take our anime RPG fix on PSP however we can get it. Already released to critical Acclaim in Japan, this tatical RPG for Sony’s handheld has captured the attention of rabid fans of the genre in Europe and North America. To help alleviate the rabid frothing that only fans of both JRPGs and anime are capable of producing, we bring you everything we know so far about this very promising title.
What? A tactical RPG in which battles take place on the world map, via grid overlay. The official website boasts that the game features tactical elements that make use of “unique team-based strategy” in attack and defense, and that players may control armies of up to seven characters at a time. Original anime cutscenes move the fantastical story along between battles.
When? According to a recent press release, Jeanne d’Arc is headed to America this August. It has been out in Japan since November, and received a very solid score of 10 / 8 / 8 / 7 - (33/40) from Famitsu Magazine.
Who? Jeanne d’Arc was developed in Japan by Level 5, the same studio responsible for the upcoming and highly anticipated White Knight for the Ps3, as well as the impressive Ps2 RPG Rogue Galaxy. The sheer quality of titiles produced by this developer and their evident passion for role-playing games leads us to believe that they can put together a solid experience on the PSP.
We have noticed a lot of you are interested in entering the homebrew area of DS applications, but some of you aren’t quite sure of how to get started. We put together this step-by-step guide on how to install and run basic homebrew software using the R4 Revolution for DS Slot-1 card. For those unfamiliar with the R4, it is a card that goes on the slot for DS games that allows you to run homebrew applications without altering your DS or DS Lite in any way. All you need is your system, the R4, and a MicroSD card of any size. We did our best to make this as clear as possible; follow instructions correctly and you should be fine. Continue reading for detailed instructions on how you can get the most out of your R4 hardware on the DS. 
Sega has been completely dominating the PSP with 
Maybe you know it as Tetris Attack, or perhaps you know it as Pokémon Puzzle League or Pokémon Puzzle Challenge. You might even know it as Puzzle League. No matter; the game has many names but only one great concept, which will soon be available in a DS game called Planet Puzzle League. Don’t make the mistake of confusing this with yet another Tetris clone; Planet Puzzle League offers a completely different experience than the popular line-clearing puzzle game. Instead of having pieces fall on your playfield, you start with a set amount of colored blocks, and more lines of blocks come from below at a regular rate. Your objective is to swap adjacent blocks, only horizontally, to join three or more of the same color together to make them disappear. That’s the core of the game; moving your cursor around to swap pairs of blocks. For more advanced players, the ability to create combos and chains is available, and required for mastery of the game’s higher difficulty levels. The game takes advantage of the touch screen by giving players the ability to swap blocks quickly and efficiently. The game is played using the ‘book style’ DS orientation, where the system is held sideways.
Sony’s Liverpool studio made the megaton announcement this week that they are hard at work on a sequel to the massively popular Wipeout: Pure on PSP. The first Wipeout was one of the standout launch games for the PSP when it was released in North America just over two years ago, and many PSP owners (including ourselves) have fond memories of playing this game to death while waiting for the next must-own title to arrive. Well, the wait for quality PSP titles eventually ended, but that does not make Pulse any less eagerly anticipated. Wipeout: Pure had style galore, and from the first screenshots below, Pulse will follow in the same tradition. This game literally has us salivating in anticipation, and we promise to bring you more once we get our hands on additional details.
[Update: This position has been filled. Thanks to all those who submitted their applications. New positions will be posted soon, so check back often.] Remember that scene in The Life Aquatic where Bill Murray snaps his fingers and wonders where his cappuccino is? Well, that could be you! No, not the recipient of the cappuccino, but the bright-eyed and eager provider of caffeinated sustenance. Basically, we are in need a lackey, and this job has your name written all over it. Just think of the career advancement opportunities here, folks. I mean, there is literally nowhere to go but up! 
Right around the time that Atari hired its first on-staff psychic and employees began to organize 
Planet Moon Studios is a third-party developer that has taken the Sony PSP seriously as a platform for original content. Rather than port over scaled-down versions of existing console titles (a strategy used by other developers which has met with with mixed success), Planet Moon has instead focused on developing original content that takes advantage of the PSP’s specific strengths. Zombie shooter Infected was their first break-out hit on the system, and it provided proof that their unique strategy could pay off, by combining a fun single-player arcade experience with some groundbreaking multiplayer connectivity features. Black Falcon follows much the same formula (minus the zombies, of course) in that it offers a straight-up arcade shooter with some additional frills piled on. Do not expect epic plotlines or the geopolitical intrigue of the Ace Combat series here, folks. This is a back-to-basics, quarter-crunching arcade retro-fest, designed with short bursts of gameplay in mind. Judged against its arcade-inspired peers, Black Falcon holds its own admirably. Ultimately, though, whether or not it is worth the 39$ price tag will depend on how much of a fan you are of arcade twitch shooters. 
Japanese studios seem to have developed a fondness for games that take liberties with European history (Trusty Bell for the 360 springs to mind here), and from the look of things, Jeanne of Arc appears to follow this trend. Instead of fighting to liberate France from the clutches of the English during the Hundred Years War, the PSP game pits Jeanne and her friends against “demonic armies attempting to enter the human world”. Whatev, we will take our anime RPG fix on PSP however we can get it. Already released to critical Acclaim in Japan, this tatical RPG for Sony’s handheld has captured the attention of rabid fans of the genre in Europe and North America. To help alleviate the rabid frothing that only fans of both JRPGs and anime are capable of producing, we bring you everything we know so far about this very promising title.
