Vancouver hosted it’s inaugural edition of Fan Expo this weekend attracting thousands of fans from all genres.
If you’ve never been to an event like this, the easiest way to describe it is Halloween on steroids. I’m always impressed to see the lengths some people go to create amazing costumes that celebrate their favorite characters…and are always very open to posing for your camera.
I’ll let my photos do the talking but see if you can recognize any of these characters.
View my full set of photos from Fan Expo on Flickr or watch this slideshow:
After a day of people-in-costume watching, it was time to head over to the red carpet for the Canadian Videogame Awards show where a mix of celebrities and videogame rock stars paraded by. Red carpet media scrums are always a challenge for me since you usually only get a few seconds to get that great shot in not ideal lighting conditions…especially tricky with groups of people smiling in different directions to the wall of cameras. Nevertheless, here’s some of my favorites:
View my full set of photos from the red carpet on Flickr or watch this slideshow:
Such a great weekend of nerdy geekiness…can’t wait for next year!
It’s an add on module (aka a shield) for the Arduino hardware platform. It basically gives the Arduino the missing bits of electronics to be a self contained 8-bit videogame platform including VGA and sound ports to connect to your tv or computer monitor and speakers. Needless to say, it was wildly successful as a Kickstarter project and is now available from a bunch of distributors around the world.
I received my own Gameduino (each is individually numbered and tested) in short time after the Kickstarter closed and immediately had Space Invaders up and running on it:
I had this arcade style controller from the original Xbox days in my garage and thought it would make the perfect ‘host’ for the Gameduino since it has a joystick and a lot of buttons already mounted in a sturdy, wooden box.
Fortunately, it was very easy to remove the Xbox controller portion and wire in the Arduino/Gameduino:
I was even able to mount it inside using an Arduino holder that I printed with my 3D printer:
There is already a large community of people playing with the Gameduino libraries and some really cool games and remakes are coming out. Like Frogger which is the basis of one of the game design tutorials:
I haven’t had nearly as much time as I had hoped to mess around with the Gameduino but I’ve got some fun ideas to use it for beyond playing Frogger.
I’m a huge retro videogame fan…I play all the new games and consoles but always go back to my childhood games from the 80s. Every time I get a new gadget or computer, usually the first thing I do is see what emulators can run on it. This has also lead to me re-buying the same games over and over again as they become legitimately available for a new device.
This passion for retrogaming even led to me building my own arcade cabinet (on my Westend balcony) so that I could relive these games in all their glory, complete with dual joysticks, 12 pushbuttons and a working coin slot – yes, I made my friends pay to play. The cabinet contained a PC running MAME – the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. This is a cross platform emulator that can run over 5000 arcade classics from the 70s to just a few years ago.
Eventually, I had a living room full of arcade cabinets running pretty much everything. I’ve since scaled back to just one machine but am considering converting it to a mini-MAME cabinet.
I recently posted about a MAME emulator for jailbroken iPhones. It works quite well for emulating games. Unfortunately, the controls leave a lot to be desired. Touch interfaces just don’t work well with retro games that were played with a joystick, a paddle or a trackball. This is possibly one of the reasons why I really don’t do a lot of gaming on my iOS devices…I’m old school like that.
Then one day, I stumbled across the Caanoo handheld gaming device from Game Park Holdings in Korea. It came out last fall and is the followup to a number of previous devices from GPH that are considered open source alternatives to the Nintendo and Sony handheld gaming devices.
Here was a handheld device that was dedicated to emulating my favorite games and it also had a few other tricks from the modern era that made it a pretty compelling gadget that I ordered almost immediately. I did first check out how well MAME ran on it and there are tons of videos on Youtube demonstrating this.
The main features that interested me were:
completely opensource – the device runs on a Linux variant and is apparently very hackable
true analog joystick and proper game buttons
robust developer community creating all kinds of software and games for it (there is even a true app/game store)
a touch screen that works with your fingers or the included stylus
stereo sound – although the speakers are located in a strange place
vibration – which has varying support in games and has an intensity control to dial it up or down
wifi support – not built in but available using a small & inexpensive dongle
G Sensor – their version of an accelerometer that can allow the handheld to be used to control the games (tilt for steering controls for example – works quite well even with MAME)
uses SD cards (up to 32gb) for storage
drag and drop app installs
decent battery life (rated for 7 hours, realworld seems to be about 5)
TV out support (via a proprietary cable that is not included)
a USB port for adding a second player using a USB joystick or gamepad
you can rotate the screen for some of the vertical games and the controls are laid out in such a way that it’s actually very playable vertically and comfortable to hold – I couldn’t imagine doing that with a GBA or DS
it’s also an open media player (music/movies/ebooks/etc – in just about any format) – not something I really care about or need thanks to my iPad but a nice bonus nonetheless
an empty, Caanoo branded 4gb SD card came in the box…despite no mention of it anywhere
It pretty much seems to be the perfect retro gaming handheld at the moment and it is about half the cost of the new Nintendo 3DS.
The back of the unit…note the curious location of the speakers (right were you place your hands):
The animated menu system is pretty basic and boots quickly to help you get to your games quickly:
The emulators – pretty much every console or computer I ever owned (including my beloved Vectrex) and a few I didn’t:
Atari 2600 running Keystone Kapers:
The MAME menu:
MAME running Gauntlet:
A video from the Caanoo’s maker, that highlights the features of the console:
A great starting point for all the emulators for the Caanoo is OpenHandhelds.org where you’ll find a ton of different console, computer and arcade game emulators to download. PDRoms is also another good spot to check out the Caanoo section.
For obvious reasons, you’ll have to look elsewhere for the rom files needed to run the emulators but chances are if you’re interested in retro gaming at all, you’ll know where to look.
A few things I didn’t like about the Caanoo:
touchscreen gets very smudgy…I’ve been spoiled by Apple’s protective coatings
the only way to charge the unit is using a proprietary USB cable – let’s hope I don’t lose it
the power light on the left side is pretty large and unnecessary
the app store and product registration requires Windows to work. No official Mac support but you can easily populate the SD card on a Mac with games, emulators and roms and just pop it into the Caanoo with no trouble
wifi not built in & requires a dongle that sticks out of the bottom of the unit – not a huge deal since I’d rarely use it but if a friend does pick up one of these, we could play head to head over wifi
Other than those few items, I really have no complaints about the Caanoo. It works better than I imagined at running pretty much every game I’ve thrown at it at near perfect speeds. I’m still impressed that hardware of this caliber and quality is available so inexpensively (~$150) and that the community is as big as it is. I also considered the Dingoo (really? who comes up with these names?) but it’s a bit older and has a little less power than the Caanoo (336mhz vs 533mhz) although it’s nearly half the price ($~80) so it may be an option if you want to check out these kinds of handhelds on the cheap.
I ordered my Caanoo from Think Geek but it’s available online from a number of places including eBay.
Today I had the chance to get a sneak peak at Sony’s new Move Motion control system for the Playstation 3.
Similar to the Nintendo Wii’s Wiimote, it’s a wireless controller that you use to control various types of videogames. Today, we got to play beach volleyball.
Unlike the Wii though, the Playstation controller also incorporates a camera that sits atop your tv that adds an additional level of accuracy to gameplay. This level of precision is what sets the Move control system apart from Nintendo’s offering, albeit a few years after the Wii system debuted.
Getting the chance to play with the Move system early is one thing, but getting to play beach volleyball against a professional volleyball player, Leah Allinger, who will be competing at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London is another. She completely killed me on the court but it was a lot of fun to try the game against someone like her, who seemed to really appreciate the simulation aspects of the game. The game experience was also a great workout…everyone that tried it worked up a sweat in no time.
We also played around with Start the Party which is a mini-game collection. What impressed me was the precision of the Move controller and combined with the camera, allowed for some pretty stunning augmented reality usage of the controller as you can see in this short clip:
Also unlike the Wiimote, the Move controller is completely cordless so you have more freedom to use the control that the cabled Nunchuk on the Wii.
I don’t own a Playstation 3 but I’d certainly consider the Move system if I did as it seems to add a level of gameplay not currently found on the Playstation 3. It, like many videogame accessories, will be interesting to see what third party developers create to take advantage of the system. This may be where Nintendo has the advantage (aside from being first in the motion control space) as the cost of the hardware is included in their console (albeit not as precise) but costs as much as $99 to add the camera and motion controller to a PS3. It will also be interesting to see how things play out with Microsoft’s upcoming Kinect camera control system that requires you to get off the couch as there is no handheld controller at all.
UPDATE: See below for information about the temporary official release of iMAME on the App Store
This makes me so happy…a really solid build of MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) has been released for all iDevices (iPad/iPhone/Touch) via the Cydia store (so you’ll need a jailbroken iDevice to use this). MAME has long been a favorite app of mine, emulating 1000s of arcade games on just about any hardware.
There has been previous attempts at MAME on the iPhone but none work as well as this one. To get it, you’ll need to grab it from Cydia by searching for iMAME4all. You’ll also need to have game roms (don’t ask me for them – Google is your friend) which you’ll need to SSH to your device once it’s installed (instructions are within the app and on Cydia when you download it).
I installed it and threw a few of my favorites onto my iPhone to see how it runs…and it runs really well. It will just take a little time to get used to the touch controls.
Pro Tip: When you are prompted with an “OK to continue” prompt, press left then right on the Dpad
You can even configure some of the screen effects like scanlines by hitting the R2 button and choosing options.
This build of iMAME4all supports approximately 2000 game roms…although not all work perfectly….but most do, the trick is just to find a complete rom set for each game as a number of games I tried didn’t work as they were missing files…which can be fixed by repacking the zip file that contains the rom.
So what’s your favorite retro videogame that isn’t currently on the App Store that you can’t wait to run with this?
UPDATE (December 21, 2011): Looks like iMAME just popped up on the App Store legitimately. Get it before it gets pulled!
TouchArcade has details on how to side load roms as well.
UPDATE #2: Apple pulled iMAME on December 23rd…hope you grabbed it!
This past weekend, I had a chance to attend the 2009 Penny Arcade Expo (aka PAX) in Seattle, Washington. I’ve always wanted to attend but it’s usually been on the same weekend as my anniversary so it just didn’t work out before now. PAX is pretty much SXSW for the videogame set….including conference sessions, a massive tradeshow floor and tons of nerds.
The exhibit halls were filled with computers and videogame consoles showing the latest games – many not yet available. People would line up for HOURS in order to get a few minutes playing a new game before the rest of the world gets to. Nearly every booth also had some kind of game themed swag they were giving away. I think I was handed seven different free t-shirts in the span of about 20 minutes.
The exhibit halls were massive…so many games to see and try….not to mention the overstimulation of so many booths and displays…including a new take on the mechanical bull ride complete with fog machine:
It was a lot of fun…next year I hope to go again…although will definitely have to make better arrangements that don’t involve leaving home way too early to get down to Seattle first thing in the morning.
I recently traded in my Nintendo DS Lite and some old games for a (basically free) Nintendo DSi so I’ve been playing around with it a fair bit lately (especially the cameras it has). I stumbled upon a Twitter client for it called DSTwitter that is actually pretty cool:
Of course, something like the iPhone is a much better experience for Twitter apps but not everyone has one plus the DS is sometimes more convenient to quickly check up on Twitter or play a quick game while your iPhone is charging.
The lack of a real keyboard is also kind of a pain on the DS but it’s no worse than fat-finger typing on the iPhone screen:
It’s still very much beta and it crashes a fair bit (or won’t even load any tweets) but that may have been due to other factors like a flaky wifi hotspot. It seems to be regularly updated by the developer so it can only get better with more features added.
It does require a flash cart or hacked firmware for your DS (or DSi) to use homebrew software like this but it’s worth checking out if you’re able to.
File this under ‘news any real guitar player already knows’ but thought I’d make a quick post to save you some cash if you have a bunch of plastic guitars piled up in the corner from RockBand and Guitar Hero.
Don’t buy the crappy stands from the videogame/big box electronics stores, go to a real music store. I went to a local Long & McQuade store and had a choice of proper guitar stands starting as low as $11…I opted for the $14.50 model since it had black foam instead of the orange that the cheaper model had. These can be had online for even cheaper if you shop around but you’ll probably pay shipping so it’s your call which is easier.
As you can see from my photo, it easily holds two guitars..possibly three.
Beats paying $20+ for one at Future Shop or Best Buy. Don’t buy their USB cables either….hit a dollar store instead.
