atarianer

One of the Dreamcast’s most unique features was its Visual Memory Unit (VMU). The VMU plugged into the Dreamcast controller to serve as a memory card, but it also had a tiny monochrome display that was used as a second screen in some games. Though he didn’t use a VMU, modder Fibbef was able to modify a Dreamcast controller to give it a primary screen right where the memory card should be.

Fibbef placed a 3.5″ LCD display and two small speakers in one of the controller’s VMU slots. He made a breakout box to send video and audio from the Dreamcast to the display and speakers via USB. The breakout box also connects the console to a TV, and Fibbef can disconnect the controller from the box and use it as a normal gamepad.

Fibbef sent his mod in a Bacman forums contest, which has other cool entries such as a Wii laptop and the Raspberry Pi clone Game Boy Advance SP mod we saw a few days ago. Check out Fibbef’s build logs on BitFix Gaming and Bacman forums for more on his mod.

[via Hack A Day]

 

Note: Really been struggling. I'll be back full blast tomorrow, promise. This is an infographic comparing an internet minute in 2013 versus one in 2014. I learned a lot. Mostly that it would make a lot more sense to have the numbers right next to each other. Thanks to David, who made the chart or at least had something to do with it and probably doesn't appreciate my constructive criticism.

It's funny to see people still overreact to the new Star Wars lightsaber design. Russian YouTuber Mr. TV Cow and his clip is no different and he goes way beyond the usual reactions and edits with his clip.

Read more...

It's amazing that the most moving game I played last year wasn't one of the big-budget first-party titles on a current-gen system, but an obscure SNES RPG Kotaku readers first alerted me to called Terranigma. I've already covered the first three chapters of the game, but it's the final chapter that had me contemplating mortality, age, and what it means to come to terms with death. Heavy stuff for a game designed for kids.

Read more...

Google hat der Übersetzer-App für Android und iOS eine neue Funktion spendiert: Statt bislang mühsam erst einen Text abzufotografieren und per "Word Lens" übersetzen zu lassen, kann die App nun den Kamera-Feed in Echtzeit übersetzen. Einfach mit der ...

Für viele sind Fox Mulder und Dana Scully immer noch das Dreamteam der amerikanischen Mysteryserienproduktion. Und da Fox gerade so gute Erfahrungen mit der Rückkehr von 24 gemacht hat, sind sie natürlich von Kopf bis Fuss auf Reboots eingestellt, se...

Well, this certainly isn't something you see every day. The unholy trinity of known as the Zelda CD-i games is rarely mentioned around these parts and most of the Zelda fandom except in passing, youtube poop, or as an overused meme. Today one fan went above and beyond, imagining what would happen if these games suddenly got Hyrule Warriors related DLC. He crafted 4 screenshots and a fake press release to go along with it. I have to say, after seeing these for myself, I actually want this to be a real thing...

The team behind Fire Emblem Awakening is making a new game for 3DS, Nintendo just announced. Though this game will be developed by Intelligent Systems, Nintendo says it'll play differently than the last one, including challenges "the likes of which have never be seen in the series up until now."

Read more...

The latest from the video game trivia masters at Did You Know Gaming? tackles Sega's ill-fated but fondly remembered Dreamcast—from inception to downfall.

Read more...

Consoles are expensive to produce, and most companies will go through with them after sinking the cash into developing them – after all, they want to recoup some of their investment even if the idea is obviously bad. However, these six machines failed to make it to manufacturing, and one even outright killed its parent company…

Here we see data representing the global sales through to consumers and change in sales performance of the four home consoles and four handhelds over comparable periods for 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.  Also shown is the market share for each of the consoles over the same periods.

Year to Date Sales Comparison (Same Periods Covered)

Market Share – 7th Generation (Same Periods Covered)

Market Share – 8th Generation (Same Periods Covered)

2011 – (Week beginning January 2 to December 31)

2012 – (Week beginning January 1 to December 29)

2013 – (Week beginning December 30 to December 28)

2014 – (Week beginning December 29 to December 27)

Total Sales and Market Share for Each Year – 7th Generation

Total Sales and Market Share for Each Year – 8th Generation

 

"Year to date" sales for 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 sales are shown in series at the top of the table and then just below a comparison of 2014 versus 2013 and 2014 versus 2012 is displayed.  This provides an easy-to-view summary of all the data.

Microsoft

Xbox 360 - Down Year-on-Year 108,999, Year to Date -56.6%

Xbox One – Up Year-on-Year 237,166, Year to Date 167.4%

Sony

PlayStation 3 – Down Year-on-Year 149,915, Year to Date -54.4%

PlayStation Vita – Down Year-on-year 109,219, Year to Date -24.6%

PlayStation 4 – Up Year-on-year 286,000, Year to Date 94.8%

Nintendo

Nintendo Wii - Down Year-on-Year 56,372, Year to Date -72.1%

Nintendo 3DS – Down Year-on-Year 4,214, Year to Date -28.6%

Nintendo Wii U – Up Year-on-Year 65,452, Year to Date 21.4%

________________________________________________________________________________________

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. Outside, in the real world, he has a passion for the outdoors which includes everything from hiking to having received his B.A. in Environmental Studies. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.

Full Article - http://www.vgchartz.com/article/252704/2014-year-on-year-sales-and-market-share-update-to-december-27/

Atari’s Jaguar is one of the most misunderstood and under-utilised consoles in history. In many ways it’s comparable to Sega’s Dreamcast: both had a short lifespan, have their own dedicated conventions, were the last consoles produced by their respective companies, and both continue to live on through thriving independent development communities.
Despite being championed as an American machine, Jaguar was actually conceived by British minds in Cambridge, Britain becoming a key supporter of Atari’s ill-fated beast. The planned VR headset, launch title Cybermorph, and critically acclaimed classics Tempest 2000 and Alien Vs Predator were all developed by Brits (though AVP had American assistance).

Martin Brennan and John Mathieson, who had left Sinclair Research after Amstrad took over, formed a Cambridge-based company in 1986 called Flare. It’s reported they took with them, or were at least influenced by, the designs of the aborted Loki computer project being developed at Sinclair. Regardless of Loki’s alleged influence, the pair began work on their own multiprocessor games machine, which eventually became the Jaguar. Alien Vs Predator lead programmer Andrew Whittaker has said on record that apparently some of the Loki technology also ended up in the SAM Coupé and as a result it “shared many interesting features with the Jaguar in terms of its video chip.”

Brennan and Mathieson wanted to enhance their system’s performance, so contacted Atari. Despite working on the eventually abandoned Panther console (which documents show had several similarities to Jaguar), Atari liked what it saw at Flare. Another studio, Flare 2, was formed to complete development of the new 64-bit system. Jaguar progressed quickly and in 1991 Atari cancelled the Panther, despite having said it was ready for production. Jaguar’s launch (which some call hasty) was in December 1993, but Europe was severely undersupplied. It was even released in Japan, though wasn’t popular (less than 5000 were reportedly sold), and in March 2006 Famitsu produced a satirical video on it. Strangely, Jaguar even officially made its way to Korea! Daryl Still, of Atari UK, spoke openly. “I was Marketing Manager, PR Manager, and Co-Managed the European Studios (producing titles like Attack Of The Mutant Penguins and Fever Pitch Soccer). There were only a dozen or so of us left, so we all multi-tasked!” Mr Still elaborated on initial UK reactions. “The press and retail reaction to the hardware itself was immensely positive. More importantly the public demand was huge. Some of the titles were revolutionary. Alien Vs Predator was probably the first FPS that focussed on tension and fear instead of non-stop shooting. As a result, Edge misunderstood it entirely and gave it 4/10 and got completely lambasted by the public. The issue we faced was availability. Europe was promised 250K units for the first Christmas, but received only 25K in early December, with a further 25K on Dec 23rd.”

Despite initially outselling the nearly triply priced 3DO, Jaguar didn’t succeed. Many blame Atari for rushing; higher quality titles were delayed for several months. I asked Daryl Still about any negativity in the UK. “To be honest, we didn’t detect any negativity regarding the machine. Some of the software titles were average, but we always had more demand than we could supply for hardware. Coping with consumer demand and frustrations at Christmas was probably the hardest thing. There is nothing worse than a mother who cannot get what her child wants for Christmas, and we had them camping out in our reception in Slough.” According to Mr Still, criticisms were raised not at the system, but their handling of it. “It was frustrating, because there was 12-15 of us TOTAL, doing a Europe-wide launch of a major electronic commodity with absolutely zero budget, getting pages upon pages of press coverage and building an enormous demand. And we were hearing that we were rubbish at marketing, from journalists who knew absolutely nothing about the reality of the situation. You felt like screaming at them ‘C’mon then, you come and see if you could do any better with our finances.’ But of course we couldn’t say a word. We just had to keep on going.”

The American side of things was markedly different according to Steven Kent, in his Ultimate History book. The Tramiels’ reputation and previous tactics alienated many; some retailers refused to stock Jaguar. Only a few of the supposed 200 developers that pledged to make games delivered. Of these, several were lazy 16-bit ports which didn’t take advantage of the hardware. With more powerful systems from Sony, Sega and Nintendo on the horizon, public apathy set in. People also disliked the controllers. While having 12 numerical keys which you can customise with game-specific overlays was brilliant in theory, most found them cumbersome, arguing they were inferior to SNES pads. Atari tried to remedy this with the Pro Controller, but few games utilised it.

In 1995, after two years of Atari haemorrhaging cash, Sam Tramiel had a heart attack. A year later Atari was ‘reverse merged’ with Hard Drive manufacturer JTS. Stock plummeted to record lows, the company went bankrupt, Jaguar ceased, and the Atari division was sold to Hasbro Interactive, later bought by Infogrames. Countless other publications have covered these events, but at Retro Gamer we tracked down, stalked, and like the proverbial Jaguar, pounced on those who were once there in the vortex.

One of the problems was publicly proving Jaguar’s strength, something not helped by confusion over 64-bit architecture. US magazines contested its power. Developers, those best to comment, saw things differently. Prolific assistant to 3D Stooges, Kevin Manne spoke on media attitudes. “It’s always been an ‘us against them’ feeling, trying to squelch common misconceptions. EGM once said the Jag was only 64-bit if you added up the ‘bitness’ of multiple processors, when in fact [it] does have fully 64-bit components. Once a system gets a bad reputation, it’s hard to gain mass acceptance.”

Doug Engel of ScatoLOGIC, who co-developed Battlesphere, and also ScatBOX hardware, responded fervently. “Jaguar was truly a ‘64-bit system’. Some people equate bitness with power on a linear scale. It’s like equating the number of cylinders in a car engine with horsepower. Most people think a V8 has a huge advantage over a 4 cylinder, but [early 20th Century V8s had less power compared to modern 4 cylinder engines]. A 64-bit processor from 12 years ago is easily bested by a 32-bit processor made today. There were lots of arguments saying the Jag wasn’t 64-bit. Speaking as a developer, I can say it was!”

Even without the confusion of how much “bit muscle” its Tom and Jerry chips pushed, many labelled the M68000 processor as not only weaker than up-and-coming systems, but barely superior to past consoles. Engel contests this and elaborates. “The Jaguar was most definitely not underpowered compared to systems like the SNES and Genesis. It was difficult to program for because the development tools were in an unfinished state and the hardware had crippling bugs. There was no knowledge base to consult and nobody had experience. Ten years later, there’s a lot of sample code and many with experience, so though we still have to use buggy development tools, it’s much easier to make games today than when it came out.”

At the time no one harnessed the system’s true power, only recently have developers really seen what’s capable. Skilled programmer Steven Scavone, key member of 3D Stooges which released Gorf, still develops for Jaguar. Comparing it to systems he’s worked on, Scavone elaborated on tech-specs, also explaining in laymen’s terms. “It should be coded in as much assembler as possible. This machine flies when fuelled by assembler. The RISCs in proper concert with the 68k will do some absolutely amazing graphics. The Jaguar could [utterly] crush any 2D system. It’s a lot easier to program 2D for than the PSX or N64. You can thank the Tramiels for it being ‘underpowered’. The chips were not complete and had bugs. The designers, who weren’t experts in silicon design, missed fundamentals. Just one more register and [it could have run without stalling all the time]! If they [had fixed this], the Jag would have blown away the PSX. Later 3D titles like Battlesphere proved that systems at the time were no match for it.”

Quite a revelation! I questioned Scavone further about the PlayStation comparison. “The textures are cleaner. PSX is faster but much uglier and unfixable [since it’s built into the] hardware. Jaguar is more flexible and can [remove texture] ugliness. Then there’s the VLM in the CD player, which blows PSX away in disc access speed, [which] was awful with load times. Jaguar was surprisingly fast.”

High profile coder Scott LeGrand, who co-developed Battlesphere alongside Engel, gave his own comparisons. “The Jaguar was anything but underpowered. It had more computational firepower than anything else of that era, including the original PlayStation. [Jaguar] was actually easier to code for than the Saturn. However, PlayStation had hardware 3D acceleration, was a dream to code, and had Sony’s marketing muscle behind it. Atari didn’t stand a chance.” PlayStation had built-in hardware acceleration; everything had to be done manually with Jaguar. LeGrand explains more, “BattleSphere might have looked better on the PSX [in terms of raw polygon count], but its gameplay would have suffered. The Jaguar’s multiple CPUs let me do things with physics and AI that were a good five years ahead of the rest of the industry. It wasn’t until Halo that I finally felt utterly outgunned.”

It had untapped potential, so I challenged the developers on its failure. LeGrand laments “Destiny, pure destiny. But not for the reasons everyone thinks. The Jaguar was a dream to code compared to the PS2. The real reason is that the Tramiels didn’t have the resources to put together an adequate developer relations program, nor did they spend money to [license] titles like Mortal Kombat 2 (would have been the smartest $1M ever spent). Sony had money, big money.”

LeGrand’s colleague Engel complains there’s too much to cover, adding, “Can’t you write a book on this instead of just an article? Most of the problems relate to the fact that Atari was too small to compete with the giants. Jaguar was rushed because Atari didn’t have the resources to [finish it on time]. Atari lacked the money to properly market it, and they made some poor choices when it came to [licensing] titles.” Atari needed a plan and it needed one fast…

Four Great Atari Jaguar Games

Tempest 2000

Alien Vs Predator

Missile Command 3D

Rayman

It’s easy to dimiss Atari’s Jaguar, but it has a number of genuinely fantastic games available for it. Arguably its most popular is Jeff Minter’s superb tribute to Atari’s Tempest, which many gamers still consider to be the best game on the system. Here, Jeff tells us about its origins and how he was able to make one of the console’s greatest games.

Jeff Minter grins across the table at us, wiping Guiness froth from his top lip. “I can remember the moment when I first saw Tempest exactly. It was the early Eighties and I was in London with my mum and dad. They went off shopping and I was wandering around Piccadilly Circus. It started to rain so I nipped into an arcade and I saw this machine glowing in the corner. It looked like nothing I’d seen before, [with] these gorgeous colour vectors. I dropped a few coins in and that was that; it was just so addictive…”

Tempest 2000 is one of the most exhilerating shooters around.

It was the start of a very long love affair. Written by Dave Theurer and released by Atari in 1981, Tempest would become one of Jeff’s all-time favourite games and he even acquired a coin-op machine so he could bring the arcade experience home. However, despite releasing many 8-bit titles through his Llamasoft label that were inspired by arcade hits – Gridrunner and Andes Attack were clearly homages to Centipede and Defender respectively – he never attempted to interpret Tempest for the home micros of the day. “It’s so pure and distinctive looking, if you tried to do Tempest with pixels you ended up with something that looked like a spider’s web made of Lego bricks,” he explains. “If you’ve ever seen the VCS prototype, it looks like a pair of stripy tights with a prawn on them!”

So Jeff left his beloved blaster well alone until 1992, when he found himself in London again, sitting in a conference organised by Atari to get developers interested in making games for their forthcoming Jaguar console. “They literally read out a list of game IP they owned and asked who was interested in doing what,” he recalls with a chuckle. “When they got to Tempest, I just put my hand up. I’ll have that!”

It seems a rather haphazard way for Atari to decide who would develop which titles for its latest attempt to regain the console crown it once wore, but we like to think Atari saw Jeff’s outstretched arm, thrust upward with the enthusiasm of a seven year-old volunteering to be football captain, and knew he was the right man for the job. The company flew him over to the States to show him the hardware, assigned him a producer and sent him back home to Wales with a prototype Jaguar.

Get some competitive blasting going with the two-player mode.

“It didn’t take me too long to get the Jag doing unfilled vectors and a simple version of the original working,” recalls Jeff. “I was inclined to leave it like that as I liked the look but my producer John gently said, ‘we’d really like you to fill those vectors up’. So I did. And he was right.”

Jeff used a technique called ‘Gouraud shading’, a function built into the Jaguar’s hardware, which gave the game’s polygons a colourful, three-dimensional feel. It also allowed him to bring his own distinctive aesthetic to the project whilst remaining faithful to Theurer’s original vision. “I didn’t want to shit on Dave’s ideas by filling it full of llamas,” blurts out Jeff. “It was quite a daunting thing to take what I consider to be one of the best designed games I’d ever seen and bolt stuff onto it. I really didn’t want to upset Dave by chucking in a load of random stuff.”

Being true to your source material without slavishly aping it and extending a game concept whilst never forgetting what made it great in the first place is a demanding task, and one that has confounded many developers charged with updating a classic title. Jeff approached this difficult balancing act by keeping the spirit of Tempest alive – the frenetic blasting and web-like structure of levels – whilst introducing a whole host of new power-ups and enemies to the fray. The friendly firepower of AI droids could help fight off the relentless stream of foes and the ability to jump off the edge of a web was handy when overwhelmed by the onslaught, which now included the horn-hurling Demon Head and the fiendish Mirror, a nasty piece of work that reflected your shots right back at you. “They were designed to be right bastards,” cackles Jeff.

All this frenzied action was accompanied by a banging techno soundtrack, which complimented the melting visuals and particle fireworks on-screen beautifully. “The audio guys were f***ing fantastic,” beams Jeff. “I sent them a video of me playing the game with some music that had the feel I wanted. I’d just been introduced to techno and industrial stuff and I think the game needed that vibe. A few weeks later I got back an audio tape with tracks they were working on and I was blown away. I had to phone them up and say, ‘this is awesome but will it really sound like this on my Jaguar?’ They were true to their word – it was the best f***ing music for a game ever!”

Avoid these spikes or you’ll lose a precious life.

The excellent work of those audio guys at Imagitec would later be released as a standalone CD, and remains a fine testament to the contribution music can play to the gaming experience. The sensory overload Tempest 2000 offered was spread across 100 levels – one more than the original – and a number of different game options including a traditional version and an innovative if squint-inducing Duel mode. And then there were the mellow warp sections interspersed between the madness. “I liked the juxtaposition of going from really hard action to a floaty, trancey vibe,” smiles Jeff. “They were a little chill pill.”

Released in 1994, Tempest 2000 was to be the Jaguar’s finest title… “I’d put a word in for Alien Vs Predator and Iron Soldier,” interrupts Jeff, modestly. We laugh and acknowledge that fine pair but then wonder whether, in retrospect, Jeff would have traded the honour of producing one of the best titles on the short-lived Jaguar in exchange for reaching a far wider audience for his game if he’d developed it for the PlayStation? He thinks a while before answering.

“It’s satisfying to think Tempest 2000 is perhaps one of the best games on the entire console, but I just wish the console itself had been more successful, then I would’ve got more royalties! I don’t regret doing it on the Jag at all, though. I know on a few occasions I’ve backed the wrong hardware horse but I’ve always enjoyed myself because the thing that drives me is learning new things on new hardware, to have a prototype and be on the cutting edge of something. Even when it hasn’t worked out, like with the Nuon, the coding I did on that was fantastic!”

...

1. Nemo confirmed for Smash

via thejonathanguy.tumblr.com

 

 

2. Presented without comment, "The Great Shrek Debate"

...

Das ganze Elend der neuen Terminators in knapp 3 Minuten.

Schickes Tool von Open Data City zur Visualisierung des Print-Sterbens (hier auf Github). Neue Erkenntnisse gibt’s nicht: Tageszeitungen gehen den Bach runter, Magazine halten sich so lala, desto spezialisierter das Thema, desto besser scheint’s denen zu gehen. Alles wie gehabt also und Egon Spengler hat nach über 30 Jahren immer noch Recht: „Print is dead.“ (via Johnny)

Unsere Visualisierung zeigt die durchschnittlichen Verbreitungszahlen aller deutschen Zeitungen und Zeitschriften, die ihre Auflagenzahlen an die IVW melden und seit 2001 mindestens einmal eine Auflage von über 25 000 Exemplaren hatten. Die Daten zeigen den Durchschnitt aller Auflagen in einem Quartal.

Wir projizieren die Auflagenzahlen in die Zukunft und berechnen, wie lange es dauert, bis eine Publikation die Hälfte ihrer Auflage verliert.

The NES is already fairly portable if you don’t mind sticking it in a backpack and going over to a friend’s house to play some classic Super Mario Bros., but if that isn’t small enough for you, you could try this Pitendo. It’s a tiny retro game emulator that is oh so adorable.

This compact console features a retro Nintendo design and at this size it is just cute as a button. Of course, since it’s a complete computer, it can run multiple emulators, but it’s ideal for NES or SNES games. After all, it might seem sacrilege to play Sonic the Hedgehog on this thing.

You can get just the Pi-tendo Case for $49(USD) and put the model B+ raspberry Pi in it yourself, or you can buy the Pitendo Ultimate which includes: Raspberry Pi Model B+, an 8GB SD Card with RetroPie, One USB SNES Controller, an AC Adapter and an HDMI Cable for $119.

This is the perfect way to play all of those vintage games. Your favorite old school games will be with you wherever you go now.

[via This Is Why I’m Broke]

It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this. When you go adventuring you really should take a journal so you can document all of the treasures you find and take notes on defeating bosses. You can wrap your journal inside of this stylish and classy leather Zelda Triforce journal cover.

You can use it to cover your journal, a book you are reading, a sketch book, or a day planner. Because these are handmade, no two will be exactly alike. Saddle tan and medium brown dyes are what give it that old and worn out look that is so cool.

It will fit books up to 5.5″ x 8.5″ or less. The cover itself is 9″ x 6.25″. That is one classy looking journal cover. It will cost you about $84(USD) over on SkinzNHydez Etsy shop.

These are the Admiral Ackbar brand mouse traps created by Cullen Sweet. In case you've been living under a rock your entire life, Admiral Ackbar is famous for yelling, 'IT'S A TARP!' during the Battle of Endor. "Trap, not tarp." You know, one day I'm going to get around to actually watching those movies. Thanks to Doctor Joe, who isn't actually allowed to practice medicine anymore since the incident.

Note: The chart is broken into pieces for readability. Full, much harder to read version HERE. This is a chart listing the twenty most popular (English speaking?) websites every year since 1996. I like how Penthouse actually made the list the first year. Sadly, Geekologie is nowhere to be seen, presumably because we always float around between the 21st and 30th most popular website. Don't wanna be too popular, you know? They you wouldn't feel special for reading. This is like a secret club. *knock at door* What's the secret password? "Probably something about penises." *opening door* Come in, quick, we were just about to get started giving each other our superhero names. Keep going for all the charts in order.

Mit Floppy Cloud (1.79 €; universal; App-Store-Link) rutscht erneut ein Emulator für NES- und SNES-Spiele in den App Store. Das ist insbesondere deshalb von Interesse, weil die Software, die Apple zeitnah wieder entfernen wird, mit offiziellen MFi-Controllern – beispielsweise dem kabellosen Stratus XL – zusammenspielt. Tadellos, wie ich anmerken kann.

via TouchArcade

You've seen the famous Christmas video. You know how important Super Mario 64 is to the design history of video games. But there are a few other nuggets of information about the Nintendo 64 that you may not know. Let's learn, shall we?

Read more...

Merry Christmas, everyone! (Or, if you don't celebrate the holiday: Have a terrific Thursday!) We hope you all have a great day.

Read more...

Die Website archive.org bietet aktuell eine Menge alter Spiele an, die ihr online im Browser spielen könnt.

• Über 2000 MS-DOS-Spiele kostenlos spielen – z.B. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade oder Prince of Persia

Um den ultimativen Spielgenuss geht es hier nicht, sondern vielmehr darum, alte Erinnerungen wachzurufen. Bedenkt, dass es manchmal zu Ladeproblemen kommen könnte. Wechselt einfach den Browser und startet das Spiel neu. Der einzige Wermutstropfen bei diesen Spielen sind die fehlenden Anleitungen. Ihr müsst euch bei unbekannten Spielen also durchwurschteln. Das ist verkraftbar, denke ich   Anbei meine 3 Vorschläge. Viel Spaß!

• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Lemming 3D
• Prince of Persia

Die Website archive.org hat zuletzt häufiger von sich Reden gemacht. Millionen Bücher, Filme, Software, Musik und Videospiele werden dort kostenlos angeboten. Dabei versteht sich die Site tatsächlich auch wie ein Archiv, das immer wieder ganze Konvolute mit alten Materialen der Öffentlichkeit zur Verfügung stellt. Nun wurden rund 2400 Computerspiele der MS-DOS-Ära online gestellt. Darunter befinden sich Ikonen wie Prince of Persia, Lemmings oder Wolfenstein 3D. Darüber hatte zuerst die Website „The Verge“ berichtet. Noch nicht alle Spiele laufen auf allen Browsern ganz reibungslos, was das Wiedersehen mit den alten Bekannten aber nur bedingt stört. Manchmal hilft ein Wechsel des Browsers, um bessere Ergebnisse zu erzielen. Schwieriger ist für Neueinsteiger, dass keines der Games mit einer Anleitung versehen ist. Man muss etwas rumprobieren, bis man die richtigen Tastenkombinationen findet, die den persischen Prinzen zum laufen oder springen animieren.

One thing I forgot in the annual tradition of telling the App Store Christmas story this year was the nearly-annual tradition of a developer sneaking an emulator onto the App Store moments before the iTunes freeze thinking it'll last until Apple thaws out next week. iMAME did it a few years ago and lasted exactly two days, which I believe is the current record holder for longest time an emulator has been on the App Store before getting pulled.

This time around, Floppy Cloud [$1.99] has grabbed the iTunes freeze emulation torch. It's masquerading as a file management app, which technically lets you manage your files, but if you let it "manage" a .nes NES ROM or a .smc Super Nintendo ROM in a very special way: It'll load right up inside of the appropriate emulator. Both iCade and MFi controllers are supported too, making this a particularly sweet find for someone who owns any kind of controller accessory.

Using Floppy Cloud is super easy. Download the app onto your iOS device, load it up, and hit the "+" in the top right corner to connect to your Dropbox account. Don't have a free Dropbox account? Click one of these links to show you love Eric Ford or Carter Dotson more. (They get a little extra space free when you sign up through their referral link.) Once you've got Dropbox, log in, and navigate to where you have your .nes or .smc files stored. Tap the one you want to "manage" and blammo, you're playing a SNES or NES game.

Now, just so you know what you're getting into when you download one of these: As mentioned, it'll likely be pulled from the App Store pretty quickly. Back up your Floppy Cloud .ipa somewhere safe (Like the Dropbox account you just signed up for!) as it might not be available in your previous purchases after it gets removed. Additionally, NES and SNES games were very much designed with the tactile feedback of a controller in mind, and often the ability to press two buttons at once, or press a button while holding another. This is nearly impossible with virtual controls. Unless you plan on exclusively playing turn-based RPGs and similar, you're going to be in for a frustrating time.

That being said, I have completed full games using virtual controls in emulators like GBA4iOS. Anything is possible with a little patience, particularly with the right kind of game (i.e. RPGs, as mentioned), and the experience gets exponentially better once you add a MFi controller into the mix. If you're at all into emulation this is very much worth picking up, as it not only runs on the latest versions of iOS but it's also universal.

Now, to start the clock to see how long it lasts...

Google Play Movies bietet zu Zeit den Film Kampf der Titanen kostenlos an. Schauspieler u.a. Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson und Ralph Fiennes. Kampf der Titanen ist ein im Jahr 2010 produzierter US-amerikanischer Fantasyfilm, dessen Handlung sich verschiedener Motive aus der griechischen Mythologie bedient. Es handelt sich um eine Neuverfilmung des gleichnamigen Films aus dem Jahr 1981. (Wikipedia) 5,8 von 10 auf IMDb, auf Amazon 3,3 von 5 Sternen