Has anyone else noticed that the NeoGeo Pocket Color patents are all due to expire next year in September?

http://www.google.com/patents/download/D...output=pdf

http://emu-docs.org/NeoGeo%20Pocket/Desi...4522-1.tif
http://emu-docs.org/NeoGeo%20Pocket/Desi...4522-2.tif
http://emu-docs.org/NeoGeo%20Pocket/Desi...4522-3.tif

There is not a huge significance to this, but just an interesting fact about the age of the NGPC. Might be cool to release some homebrew or something on the same day the patent expires.

Here's a bit of fun with two French guys playing Sega MegaDrive / Genesis, and getting shocked whenever they fail. Check out the video at the top [you can turn on English subtitles]. Below is a detailed explanation of this elaborate modification, along with code, the debug ROM and schematics. All in French, though.

- > GENEZAP

I know, it's not very good, i did it hurry for a class work.
I had many errors
http://www.subeimagenes.com/img/imagen041-311497.jpg

http://www.gamekult.com/actu/magician-lo...04756.html

Sorry for not posting more often, but I don't have much time in my personal life...
I thought I would share this with you, as some french vg site managed to get a Magician Lord cart for NGPC.
Indeed, I spoke once with one of the journalist that told me he tried the game as one of his friends used to work for ADK. This was a few years ago and thought that I would never see the game.
But today they released this article, with screenshots and videos.

Being in French most of you won't understandd the article, but the truth is that it does not contain much. Lots of speculation. What is interesting:
-Game modes are: Start, Time Attack and Item Get. Only Start is working.
-This is an early alpha/beta. It has no music, no bosses and no savepoints.
-It is very short, it takes 10 minutes to go through all the screens.

If anyone who visits these boards has a PS3, maybe they know an answer to my question. Back in 2008, Sony announced a firmware update [2.5], which was supposed to add a "in-game screenshot" functionality. According to the info released at the time:

"This tool will allow everyone to capture, share and in other words, immortalize their favorite gameplay moments. This will be supported on a game by game basis. Please check back to find out which games will support this feature."

I've been playing Wipeout HD recently, and its built-in screenshot capture feature reminded me of that firmware addition. The problem is, I wasn't able to find anything about it. Since it was to be supported on a game to game basis, I figured I'd try a couple of titles and see if a screenshot feature appears once I bring up the system menu during gameplay. No dice. I'm told it works for Tekken 6, but I have the Xbox version.

Has anyone heard about this? Which games support it? I did some quick searching and all I came up with was someone mentioning that with Tekken 6 you get a "capture screenshot" in the "photo" tab of the system menu, if you bring it up in-game.

So, I just essentially finished the game. Beat the final boss, beat the extra arena after beating the final boss, defeated all of the elemental bosses, and built each arm at least once. I'm missing an item in the backpack department, but I'm not one to go dungeoneering at this stage.

Anyway, I wanted to know your thoughts on the game from the perspective of when it was released (not comparing it to newer games). I felt that, compared to other handheld RPGs at the time, it played fairly well. There were quite a few arms to develop, but I felt that it was a little disappointing that once you got the two 30 EP cost arms, nothing else really compared as one was dark (strong against other elements) and one was light (strong against dark).

The leveling was interesting as your stats were nearly all from equipment (which was the point of the game) and not pure leveling, which was nice to see.

I felt that the game should have forced a save when attempting to develop an arm as I found myself saving and attempting to develop, reloading if the develop failed. It's cheap, but I tend to exploit cheapness in games when I find it, which is why I'm happy when I can't find anything to exploit.

As for the plot, well... there wasn't much of one. Compared to some amazing RPGs from 1999 and earlier, I felt that more story and character development could have been made... but, well, I suppose for a handheld it was okay. It just didn't do it for me since I'm used to grand home console RPGs like Chrono Trigger, Suikoden, etc. Considering that Biomotor Unitron is only eight megabits in size, I think there was definitely room to expand in terms of dialog and exploration.

Overall, I enjoyed it as a time waster for pockets of time this past week, but it had one of those empty conclusions where you get nearly everything and... there's nothing left to do. Like Pokemon if you collect them all except Biomotor Unitron encounters this problem much, much earlier since it had a lot less to offer as a clone.

Your thoughts?

So, I've been trying out the games I got for the Neo Geo Pocket Color ON the actual system since I like the feel of using it. Unfortunately, my Neo Geo Pocket Color seems to be malfunctioning from what I can see. After using it for under three minutes, it turns off.

As I've received warnings about the CR 2032 battery, I don't think it's that. Also, the batteries I've been using are fairly new (set to expire in 2017) and I used one pair of them for roughly 30 hours before the system turned off. I just assumed they were lower quality batteries... but, now I think the system may be struggling.

Since I've only used it briefly, I've never noticed if there was an indicator of low battery life. I know that the red light flashes if the CR 2032 battery is not in the unit, but is it supposed to do that if the AA batteries are low on the handheld? If so, this is definitely another problem since I've yet to see that happen. Pretty frustrating since this was a very clean system.

Oh, and for the record, I've been using the Flashmasta to play Faselei (I'm not paying $80+ for it when I've bought nearly every other NTSC/EU game). This didn't happen until I switched from playing normal games to using the Flashmasta, but I doubt it would cause a problem, right?

Just wanted to get an opinion from you guys. If you know of particular hardware components in the Neo Geo Pocket that might need replacing, let me know and I'll give that a shot. If you think I need to try more batteries, I guess I can order more. I need to find my battery tester.

It's that time of year again. NEO Compo 2012 is [or rather was] here, with tons of games and programs for a variety of platforms. Unfortunately, nothing for the Neo Geo Pocket this time around, but I've seen some really cool stuff for the DS [like A Cup of Tea - Super Yeti Edition, and the FPS maker] and a port of Yeti3D Pro for the Nintendo 64, by ChillyWilly. Check it out here:

- > GAMES
- > APPS

It's not often that you see homebrew stuff for the WS (actually, this might be the first proper demo?), but here's one from the group Titan: http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=59699

Well, it looks like Krikzz has a flash device for PC-Engine / TurboGrafx 16 in the works. He just posted a video showing it in action. He did mention that he was interested in making one in the Assembler forums. I guess complaints about the Neo product and its stability issues [which were finally resolved once it turned out the software client was at fault] increased the demand for a better device.



At the end of the video you'll see it uses MicroSD, like his other designs. So far, he's made flash devices for GG, SNES, MD/Genesis [two], N64 and SMS. If he's doing it all by himself, I'm impressed. Maybe once he covers all the other platforms, he'll change his mind about WonderSwan?