We've played that game before, right?
Re-imagining the classics for the new generation. This is RE-GEN.

With power comes evolution: shooters have gone from scrolling to full 3-D environments, from turkey galleries to smart, reactive enemies. Yet even the classics, with their scrolling and their shooting galleries, have virtues all to their own.

The Strike series from Electronic Arts is one of the most notable examples of the genre. A multi-directional, military-themed shooter, it became a hallmark franchise, particularly on the Sega Genesis. Even in that age of solid-state cartridges, Strike was known for its surprisingly challenging gameplay, and became known as the 16-bit "smart shooter."

After three successful 16-bit titles, and two CD follow-ons in the PSOne (as well as the Saturn and PC), Strike vanished; no more was heard. Perhaps it was a victim of its own success, having stuck too close to its core formula. Or perhaps EA lost interest (happened before, happened since). Pity: the series had quite the potential, even after five games. And especially today.

RE-GEN is all about second chances for the classic titles we loved. Can the power and capabilities offered by today's platforms, from the high-end PS3 and Xbox 360, to the innovative Wii, to the handheld wonders of the PSP and NDS, offer something new to resurrect the Strike series? This is the question we set out to answer today. Some things, after all, don't deserve to gather dust in the back of a shelf, when it has more to offer.

Cooking Mama? Shooting Madman Kilbaba! Learn about the Strike series, and speculate how the DS can transform a smart shooter classic after the jump. No, Apache choppers do not shoot styluses as their primary antitank weapon. They use the more powerful Wiimote instead. Or discover what the PS3/Xbox 360, the Wii, or the PSP has to offer a Strike title.

Double Fusion's European Managing Director Frank Sagmier recently revealed that their firm may be acquired by a larger company in the next year or two, proving that game advertising is a fast-growing segment of the electronic entertainment business.

He highlighted the status of his company's niche by saying "clearly this is a business that is so prone to growth that big companies - and you've seen it with Microsoft and Google - would be very happy to get their hands on such a growing segment."

Sagmier refereed to Microsoft and Google's recent moves to acquire and franchise similar firms. Game advertising waters are relatively uncharted to conventional ad industry people, but with the break-out of the industry in recent years, multinationals have found themselves taking a dip.

Nike and Gatorade have both been actively bannering their wares in sports titles. Pepsi even took it to a weird level with its Cool Spot game in the Sega Genesis days and Pepsi Man in the original Sony PlayStation heyday. Now that gaming has become a more cohesive part of popular culture, game ad companies find their value rising.

Sagmier, however, warns that the market can be tough for people who aren't quite experts in the niche. Starting can be a really hard step and that's where a lot of upstarts stumble. "Bigger companies do not want to spend the resources, time and effort in a niche market until it becomes bigger, and by then it's too late. Therefore they buy," he explains.

Prior to his stint with Double Fusion, Sagmier worked with Electronic arts running major franchises like The Sims, FIFA and Harry Potter.

RyanFB has once again updated his Sega Genesis homebrew emu for the DS called PicoDriveDS, this time bumping it up to v0.1.7.

This version fixes the bugs that were reported in the previous version so you can expect PicoDriveDS to run much much smoother now. That said, here's the full list of stuff that you can expect from this version...

Changelog:

• Updated for DKA r20 and latest libnds.
• Switched to libfat with DLDI support.
• Fixed bug where select key must be released quickly in order to go back to file selection menu.
• Appended ROM check now only happens if FAT is unable to init.
• Added untested Opera RAM expansion support, and RAM support for SCCF.
  

Download: [PicoDriveDS v0.1.7]

Here's yet another chance for all the PSP and DS coders out there to prove their worth by making an excellent homebrew game/application and win a few prizes at the same time! Zion from our forums has announced that his website, Zionmax, will be hosting a Coding Competition for PSP and DS coders this year starting today. The Zionmax coding competition is a little different to other competitions as the prizes are not brand new consoles but retro consoles in mint condition that cannot be purchased new in shops. Here's a rundown of the prizes:

1st Place

Sega Dreamcast Console with 18 Games + 2 Controllers + 2 Vmu Units. Games included: Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, Jet Set Radio, Virtua Tennis 2, Resident Evil Code Veronica, Virtua Fighter 3tb, Metropolis Street Racer, Silent Scope, Virtua Striker 2, NFL Blitz 2000, NBA Hoopz, Capcom vs SNK, Sega Smash Pack vol1, Ikaruga, Speed Devils, Crazy Taxi, Shenmue 2, Soul Calibur.

2nd Place

Nintendo64 Console With 2 Games + 1 Gamepad + 1 Memory Card + 1 Rumble pack, Expansion Pack. Games included: Legend of Zelda : Majora's Mask & Perfect Dark.

3rd Place

Sega Genesis/Mega Drive Console with Games + 1 Controller. Games Included: To be announced...

4th Place

Nintendo Gameboy with Games + Charger. Games included: To be announced...

The competition guidelines state that the homebrew applications must be new or updated releases, must not contain any copyrighted material and one user can have a maximum of 3 entries. Entries must be submitted to the ZionMax coding Competition submission forum before November 1st 2006, when the competition will end and judging will begin. For more information on the ZionMax coding competition and full terms and conditions visit the forum announcement thread.

LiraNuna let us know his work in progress for the Genesis emulator on the NDS. This is a Sega Genesis emulator being made by scratch and shows some impressive progress. These are some screenshots of it running Zero Wing.

You can check out his website and help the cause with a donation [here].

 

The popular Sega Genesis emulator for your Nintendo DS has been updated once again. We can see that homebrew developer RyanFB is getting really busy as he's changed a lot of stuff since the previous version. Here's the change log:

• Added support for appended ROMs. This should allow users with carts not supported by gba_nds_fat to use PicoDriveDS. Simply append a ROM to the PicoDriveDS binary, and it will run it (on *nix systems this can be done with “cat romname.ext >> picodriveds.ext”, on Windows with “copy /b picodriveds.ext+romname.ext picodriveds-withrom.ext”, substituting the appropriate filenames of course). You can only append one ROM at a time. In this mode, Genesis SRAM will be saved to GBA SRAM. Some patchers may work correctly with this and save the SRAM to your removable media, I have only been able to test with the EZ4 Lite software.
• Fixed M3 reset code, added M3SD Mini insertion detection code (untested, may not work)
• Massive code restructure and cleanup (though some cleanup is still in progress)
• Added save state support, accessed via the X button. Due to the current size of the save states, this is only supported for FAT devices and is disabled in appended ROM mode. Currently there is only one save state per ROM (saved to romname.pds). This is still a very experimental feature and save states may not be compatible with future versions of PicoDriveDS.

The speed has increased greatly, and we're glad that the M3 reset code was fixed. A lot of people are asking though what he specifically means when he says, "M3SD Mini insertion detection code" in the change log. Simply put, he's been able to get M3 SD Mini cards detected. Well. Supposedly. He states, after all, that the code isn't tested, and just as he predicted, it doesn' work. So, any of you readers might want to take a shot at testing this.

Thanks to badam for the tip-off!

Download: [PicoDriveDS v0.1.5]

The Mega Drive, or the Sega Genesis as it is known in North America, is 16-bit video game console that was released in Japan in 1988 and in Europe in 1990. Kotomi, pays homage to this classic by making his Nintendo DS a mini replica of the Genesis.

The whole console was painted black except for the square under the logo, which is in a gold-ish tint and buttons - blue for power, start and select, while red for A,B,X and Y. Just like any artist, he feels that his job isn't quite done yet. He welcomes more ideas and suggestions to add to his work of art.

RyanFB has updated his homebrew emulator - PicoDriveDS - to v0.1.3. If you could recall, he just released the v0.1.2 a few days ago (8 days to be exact), and now he has updated it to enhance its future users' gaming experience. Thank heavens for hardworking developers like him.

In case you have no clue what in the world this does, this project is a Sega Genesis emulator ported to the Nintendo DS. The children of the 80's and the early 90's will greatly appreciate this since most likely the Sega Genesis has become an inportant component of their lives.

So just what is new in this version? With that let's go to the changelog:
    * Added long filename support
    * Added support for going up a directory by pressing B
    * Added support for skipping ahead/back 5 files at a time with R/L
    * Added automatic save/load SRAM support
     *The SRAM feature is not the same thing as savestates. Basically it emulates a Genesis cart's internal Save RAM, and whenever the SRAM is written to it writes out (romname).srm. When you load a game, it looks to see if that SRAM file is there and loads it if so.

Download:[PicoDrive.nds v0.1.3]
Download:[PicoDriveds.nds.gba v0.1.3]
Download:[PicoDriveds-cf.nds v0.1.3]
Download:[PicoDriveds-cf.nds.gba v0.1.3]

PicoDriveDS developer RyanFB has released the latest update his homebrew Sega Genesis emulator. PicoDriveDS v0.1.4, according to the author, is mostly minor bugfixes and enhancements while he perfects the new renderer.

The v0.1.4 Changelog:

• Fixed bug where R could scroll past end of file list
• Switched to unified builds, now one build should work for all SD/CF carts (all thanks to WinterMute' help)
• Added NeoFlash MK2/MK3 support (again, thanks WinterMute)
• Changed it so that pressing Select again without choosing a file will resume emulation

By this time you should know what PicoDriveDS is all about. But you can always find more info onpreviousversions of PicoDriveDS right here.

Download: [PicoDriveDS v0.1.4]

The Sega Genesis debuted in North America in 9 January 1989 and is considered one of the most successful 16-bit video game console. Even though the 16-bit era has come and gone, it's still nice playing with some of the games produced at that time. Ryan FB's PicoDriveDS gave those people nostalgic for and curious about the 16-bit era some hope. This project is a Sega Genesis emulator ported to the Nintendo DS.

This emulator, which was released three days ago, now comes with an update. PicoDriveDS v0.1.2 includes the following changes:

• Switched from Cyclone 0.0080 to Reesy's Cyclone 0.0084
• Switched from software scaling to hardware scaling
• Added three scale modes: Stretch, Aspect, and 1:1
• Cycle through scale modes with L
• Position the window in 1:1 mode by holding R and using the D-Pad
• Added soft reset (press select, takes you back to the ROM list)
• Added NDS banner information (shows up in WMB)

PicoDriveDS has two versions. One was based on SaTa's modified FAT libraries from REIN for SD users. The other one for CF cards was built against chishm's FAT libraries.

Download: [PicoDriveDS v0.1.2 SD]
Download: [PicoDriveDS v0.1.2 CF]