Consoles, Games and Emulators.

The best Sonic the Hedgehog game, ever!!
To me, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is by far the best game in the series. It improves in every aspect form the previous titles.

Sonic and the gang are back in an all-new adventure! When Doctor Robotnik returns once again with another evil plan, it will take even more effort from the duo of Sonic and Tails as Robotnik has more tricks up his sleeve than ever, including a tricky ally known as Knuckles the Echidna, who pursues Sonic in his travels on a never ending quest to stop the blue hedgehog from succeeding!

Sonic 3 is, in my eyes, the ultimate 2D Sonic experience. It has a great soundtrack. Great enemies, and colorful worlds. The soundtrack is excellent, from the aquatic jazz of HydroCity to someone shouting “go go go!” at you in the Launch Base to the peaceful wintery music of IceCap. The final boss music is the best, it starts out sounding menacing and doomsdayish, then speeds up, then has a very positive “you can do it!” sounding finish.

There are also different types of shields, the best one being the lightning shield, which makes collecting rings much easier.
There are only 2 negatives to this game: it’s a bit too easy and short, and it has a ridiculous number of underwater areas. EVERY single level except Marble Garden has an underwater area, and even that level has slime pits you can sink into. I mean, come on, who ever heard of an underwater carnival? Fortunately, both of these problems can be solved by locking the game on to Sonic & Knuckles, which is essentially the 2nd half of the game. S&K has no underwater areas and is a bit more challenging. If you buy S3, I recommend buying S&K and locking the two on in order to enjoy the TRUE Sonic 3 experience. While locking Sonic 3 with S&K, you can unlock hyper sonic, hyper knuckles, and a super tails…yes! now tails will transform when gaining all the chaos emeralds.

A neat feature i really like about this game, is the option to save your game, if you beat a level and decide to take a break, you can turn off the console, come back and start off in the last stage you where in.The new Special Stages are stellar, each in their own unique way, specifically the sphere-collecting Chaos Emerald levels that will ASSURE your reflexes a good workout.You also have the chance to play as tails, sonic & Tails, Sonic alone. YOU CAN MAKE TAILS FLY NOW! This is something I’m sure many fans complained about with Sonic 2, so now as the second controllable character, you actually have something to do. Plus, you can swim and lift Sonic up to otherwise unreachable areas out of his grasp. Pretty cool.The game also offers BONUS STAGES that reward you a nice change from the seriousness of the SS’s in that you don’t have to win them, just collect powerups, etc.

sonic 3 also has 2 player mode. but, its a bit dissapointing, Just run laps in very short zones. No playing through actual in-game levels or special stages like the ones in Sonic 2.

Sonic 3 is a true masterpiece, If you want a more intense gaming experience, buy Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles together and play Sonic 3 and Knuckles. Sonic 3 and Knuckles is quite possibly the best Sonic game ever.

Graphics:

+ The stages and characters have smooth animation and bright colors.
+The frame rate is always stable, the game will keep up with sonic’s speed no matter what.

Sound:

+ The soundtrack fits each level and boss fight.
+Sound effects are clear and perfect
- No voices.

Game Play:

+ Choose from Sonic and Tails, play alone with jsut on character or both.
+ Easy to pick up and play, all you need is to blink your eyes less to keep up with all the action.
+ Cool new special stages and bonus rounds.
+ Save game feature
+/- supports 2 player split screen, but its not that amazing as the Single Player

Replay Value:

+Each zone is big and each round contains a mini boss
+ Plenty of hidden areas
+ Use the lock on technology with Snic and Knuckles, and expand your gaming needs
+/- even thought the levels are huge, the game is short in zones.
-Doesent offer much challenge, its an easy game.

It was the 90’s. Alternative rock and gangsta rap ruled the airways, flannel shirts were in, and Seinfeld was yet to be in syndication. Oh, and little games called Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon were out at the time. With charming characters, colorful visuals, and clever challenges, it just didn’t get much better when it came to platforming. Without a doubt, it’s a period in my gaming career that I’ll always hold dear. Of course, these days, with franchises like Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank, the genre was just been elevated to a different level, and the old tricks, while still charming, just don’t work with today’s gamers. Scaler, a new game from Global Star Software, looked to be a great trip down memory lane, giving us all of the great fun of last generation, while still keeping current with the elaborate techniques of today. Sadly, it seems to just be a Crash or Spyro re-hash with prettier visuals.

Scaler tells the story of Bobby Jenkins, a young teen activist and resident lizard-enthusiast. When he learns that his next-door neighbor might be stealing his favorite reptile’s eggs, he heads over to investigate. It’s here that he finds out that his neighbor as well as corporate bigwigs are actually a team of mutants threatening humanity. Too bad for Bobby he’s in their grasps, and he’s being pumped full of lizard energy (something that’s quite painful, although I’m not sure why). Eventually, there’s an energy overload and Bobby is thrust into a portal. When he reaches the end of the wormhole, he finds that not only is he in a weird marsh-like world, but he has also transformed into a humanoid-esque lizard. A little later in the game, he’ll meet up with Leon, another poor soul who is stuck in the odd dimension. He’ll be there to offer moral support and transportation to new levels on the world map. Adopting the name “Scaler,” Bobby must now find a way back home and assure the safety of his reptilian friends once again.
The story was a little vexing at first, but soon I simply accepted it was meant for a child and thus shouldn’t be given too much thought. Not many things make sense, inferring its aimed appeal at people with low attention spans, as changes in dialogue and overall plot twist and bend almost to an annoying degree. Some characters aren’t even given proper introductions and a lot of the opening cutscene will be a bit confusing for a while. I’m always looking for a good story in a game and this is one of the worst I’ve encountered For shame.

The gameplay is very reminiscent of a 32-bit game. In other words, it’s very primitive. The main objective here is to traverse through overly repetitive platforming levels and find a gigantic lizard egg. After that, you’ll be transported to the beginning of the level, where your transport awaits. Every once in a while you’ll find a boss battle, or as I like to call it: cheap excuse for a boss so that the game seems a little longer. These “battles” pit you against a monster of the world where you’ll have to exploit an obvious weakness that never changes or gets more difficult for the duration of the level. To be honest, it’s a total bore-fest, and I wouldn’t wish these on my worst enemy.

With a limited move-set and childish combat, there’s not much here to keep you interested. One of the only things Scaler does right is the integration of shape-shifting. Over the course of the game, you’ll discover ways to transform into other creatures to adapt to your environment. You’ll take the from of everything, from small, bowling gremlins (just take my word on this one) to flying manta-rays. Also, you’re given the chance to create a burst of electricity through gathering energy on vines. “How?” you might ask. You’ll be surfing along them, which actually has a great effect on the gameplay. Still, even with all of this, I wasn’t impressed.
Another feature that detracts from the experience is the incredibly spotty control scheme. By tapping the analog lightly, I nearly ran a mile. Buttons are sometimes not responsive, and jumping is a little hard to manage with the terrible camera. Because of this, I died many unnecessary deaths, and became more frustrated that I needed to be with this already disappointing title.

The visuals in this game are mediocre at best. Leon looks particularly below par (when I can see the polygons on your character, it’s a bad thing). The frame rate is low at times even when there isn’t a lot of action on-screen, something I’m even sure how to explain. Environments basically all look the same and, while colorful, don’t look all that great. Effects are nice, but won’t blow you away, coming across as “average.” A few years ago, graphics like this would have been acceptable, but these days I can’t forgive the lack of detail present in Scaler.

Sound design is an area where I was actually pleasantly surprised. Voice actors did a great job considering their script, and the in-game music suits the environments. Of course, with that being true, they aren’t all that varied. If you can recall the kind of audio that was present in games like Crash, then you’ve hit the nail on the head with this one. Still, the quality is nice and I appreciated the effort.
As aforementioned, I was hoping Scaler would re-kindle my love for old-school platforming, but it has instead trampled those dreams into this: a gaming nightmare that actually makes me cringe. Every time I found something to like in this game I was given five things to hate, ruining any positive experiences. The whole package is horribly dated, and the seasoned gamer shouldn’t give it the time of day. Don’t be tempted with the 20 dollar price tag, as it’s just a means to tempt you into playing this weary attempt at a modern platformer that will anger fans of the genre and newbies alike.
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Here is a new version of PSPAtari the emulator of Atari 800,
800XL, 130XE and 5200 series.

For those who haven’t seen previous versions, Atari800 is an emulator
for the 800, 800XL, 130XE and 5200 models of the atari personal computer.
It can be used on console, FrameBuffer or X11.
See http://atari800.sourceforge.net/ for further informations.

PSPATARI is a port on PSP of the version 2.0.2 (April 08 2006) of Atari800
from Petr Stehlik.

What’s new in version 1.0.6 :

- Multiple keyboard mapping feature (Thanks to Pou-chan) :
You can now toggle between 3 different keyboard mapping using
LTrigger and RTrigger keys
- Add help menu
- New background image
- Bug fix in Rom file requester
- Bug fix in screenshots
- Bug fix in keyboard handler

How to use it ? Everything is in the README.txt file.

Sources are included, and this package is under the GNU public license,
read COPYING.txt file for more information about it.

What’s new in 0.9.0b1 since 0.8.5 –  

- A new high quality audio option to process audio with full low-level emulation on Intel machines. (This feature has been ported over and upgraded from the PowerPC version.)

- Zelda now shows indoor backgrounds correctly on Intel machines.

- Diddy Kong Racing will now save games properly.

- Mario Kart with no longer crash after the 4th Race.

- Other minor bug fixes throughout the application.

The new high quality audio option is a full low-level emulator for the dsp that processes sound. That’s why it took a while! You can turn it on in the ‘Preferences’.

While it won’t fix every single problem with sound (skipping is next on the hit list) it greatly increases sound compatibility because it should work in any game and improves the quality because it produces sound that exactly matches the original. (Minor bugs in this beta release aside!)

In short: A number of games that didn’t have sound before work fine with the new audio processing. (For ex: Paper Mario.) A number of games that had sound, now sound much better. (In particular reverb effects in games like Zelda.)

It is significantly slower than the audio plugin sound, but it’s more than fast enough on my 1.83GHz Mac Book Pro and sounds much better!

Sound skipping is the first project for the next release, and hopefully will be the last of mucking about trying to work magic in real time.

Enjoy the new version!