Games (tm) Magazine Disses Gp32

[finty]

I frst saw the GP32 nestled between some hentai ads in a certain Nation.

Games magazine isn't even stocked around here any more, I read Games Master.

Does anyone remember that old magazine Arcade? It was brilliant.

 

[razzy]

Games TM has covered the GP32 community better than any other mainstream mag.

It gave the console a favourable review when it looked like it might be released in the UK - it then went on to ask what had happened to it when the release never happened. The comments made by one writer in response to a readers letter hardly amount to a magazine 'dissing' our favourite toy.

I think the writer was just pointing to the possibilty of a future article rounding up all of the handhelds that are capable of emulation once we know more about them.

Thats fair enough isn't it? - If you want to write an article comparing handhelds for emulation and you know that several are due for immanent release does it not make sense to wait?

:rolleyes:

​

My thoughts exactly...

If it hadnt been for this magazine covering it over a year ago I probably wouldnt have heard of it to this day.

Games TM not only informed me of the consoles existence but also went on to say how great it was and what sort of things it ran, this prompted me to do a little digging on the internet and before you knew it I was here and have been ever since.

I dont understand how you can say the guy dissed it, he said it would be featured in a round up of handhelds in a later issue.

 

[khephren]

Retro Gamer mentions it frequently, and as they have covered the DC homebrew scene, there's hope they will cover ours. Plus Craigs full page adds every month help keep up our profile

 

[strider]

Hi guys, I've been told that there were a few upset people on this forum, so I thought I'd come along and explain a few things for everyone.

I took over the retro aection about 6 months ago and the original editor had no real interest In the GP32, so it never got covered by him.

We've got a GP32 in the office and I do think its a great piece of kit (although I like the Zodiac as well) but as of this moment, I've just not had time to feature it. With the likes of the Gizmonda and Tapwave also available now, it made more sense to me to wait for all the machines to become available and then do a large featured that covered the merits and weaknesses of each machine.

The other problem with the GP32 is that we're not allowed to talk about ROMS. Sure, we can mention the latest build of a new emulator (as we've done in previous ROM services), but we can't mention the actual games themselves. I'd love to go on about how there's a mame version of Turbo Outrun available or the current version of Tekken 2 runs at x amounts of frames per secnd, but it's not something we're allowed to do. as this is one of the main draws of the GP32 (at least from a gaming point of view) you can see why it's hardly ever mentioned in the magazine.

Of course, if there's anyone here who feels they could write a great feature on the GP32, then feel free to contact me and we can sort something out. The fact is though, the GP32 is primarily used to play some fantastic emulated versions of classic video games (I'm fully aware of its other capabilities). We are not allowed to condone playing roms in any shape or form though, so unless something changes in the future, the content for the GP32 will remain low (although I'm currently looking into the homebrew scene).

Oh, and please don't associate us with gamesTm Australia. It's nothing like the UK mag and we're more than a little upset every time we get sent the latest issue to read.

If anyone wants to continue this conversation, then I'm more than happy to listen. to suggest we're not true gamers though because we're not covering the GP32 is both misguided and rather sad. I'm 31 years old and have been playing games for as long as I remember, I love games just as much as you lot obviously do.

Kind regards,
Darran

 

[kknd_cf]

I dislike magazines that aren't speliased. An all rounder magazine always annoys me, this is probably because I've never been allowed a console.
EDIT: Also I've really gone off magazines for news about games since you get a much more educated opinion of some good un-linked (meaning not getting money from the console companies) reviews from the internet.

 

[finty]

Magazines will always be behind in terms of news, but I would far rather read a magazine than an article on the internet.

 

[GPJosh]

I think you could cover all the great games that recently have come out of the GBAX competition like SmashGP (Now updated) Lacuna, Tobi Drummer, Elena and Nazcadreams. Don't forget you can download and make additional characters in SmashGP (For example Metriod and Coolspot are now available for download).

 

[c0ncept]

multi-format magazine are far superior to console specific magazines simply because they can compare the same games on different formats and give its strengths and weaknesses on each console. Also most single format mags are grossly biased (anyone dared pick up the official nintendo magazine recently?). My two favourite magazines at the moment are Gamestm and Edge. The main reason for this is that I have a GC an Xbox and I also play PC games, I find it much better to have one magazine that covers all of them rather than three biased mags (actually PC magazines are usually quite good like that, console magazines though...)

Also magazines like gamesm and edge arew much more marketed towards gamers (rather than parents or something) meaning that games like Ikaruga are reviewed fairly rather than compared to another wildly innapropriate game and then dismissed.

 

[Vimacs]

You could test with public domain roms (pdroms.de), and for scumm/doom/quake, i think theres nothing that disallows you to copy over the game files of games you own to another media.
You can also mention its ability to playback divx/xvid/mp3/wma/mod, viewing ebooks (pdf,rtf).
And don't forget the fantastic (by many guys underjuged) homebrew games and remakes we have.
About comemrcial roms i dont know whats the right is over there, but if iam not wrong you should be allow to emulate your games on another system when you actualy own them and the original hardware.

 

[yaustar]

I actually brought a GP32 because of that magazine (they did a quarter page review in one of the early issues) .. they even mentioned where to get it from (gbax.com)..

Edit: Vimacs: Some consoles (i think the nintendo series) it is illegal to have any roms regardless of ownership... and that's a great idea using pd roms and demos of other games and I think there are a few consoles that have lots of legal commerical roms as well..

 

[strider]

You could test with public domain roms (pdroms.de), and for scumm/doom/quake, i think theres nothing that disallows you to copy over the game files of games you own to another media.
You can also mention its ability to playback divx/xvid/mp3/wma/mod, viewing ebooks (pdf,rtf).
And don't forget the fantastic (by many guys underjuged) homebrew games and remakes we have.
About comemrcial roms i dont know whats the right is over there, but if iam not wrong you should be allow to emulate your games on another system when you actualy own them and the original hardware.

​

The whole 'you can download this game as long as you have for 24 only' thing is complete bullshit sadly. I'll need to scout out the site a bit more. I've no problems with homebrew remakes of existing retro titles, but I can't cover brand new titles as they aren't retro (there's no reason why a feature can't appear in the main mag though...)

Like I said though, I'm always happy to chat to readers and welcome feedback of any kind.

Kind regards,
Darran

 

[Tobriand]

Glad to hear I was slightly wrong lol

Hmm... to be honest, its mostly the other capabilities I use it for these days. Lacuna, GPQuake, DoomGP, Nazca's games, SmashGP, GPFinalWar, KoF91... need I continue? Whilst the thing most think of is emulators, there's now enough of a scene outside of them that, were they to vanish, I suspect I'd continue to use my GP32 about as much as I do at the moment. I might use it less were GPCinema to be unusable too, but hey - I imagine that can get mentioned; there's a LOT of public domain movies out there (check www.archive.org for some, www.machinima.com for some more; just look around a bit and you'll find the things, letting alone the possibility of converting Flash anims to .avis). So far as I know, ripping/ancoding your own DVDs isn't outside the law as yet, either, but I'm unsure where a computer magazine would have to stand in terms of advocating a device's capabilities where that is concerned.

Emulators just have the added plus that using them you can fit a few hundred games on at any one time.

The only thing emulators are absolutely essential for on the GP is RPGs, simply because there aren't any made for it specifically (at least in english). Platformers, shooters, and puzzle games are all covered in one area or another (Giana's Return, Vertical, and too many to name respectively lol as examples). RPGs are, iirc, being worked on. But nothing's actually come of anything as yet.

 

[DaveC]

Hi guys, I've been told that there were a few upset people on this forum, so I thought I'd come along and explain a few things for everyone.

......
We've got a GP32 in the office and I do think its a great piece of kit (although I like the Zodiac as well) but as of this moment, I've just not had time to feature it. With the likes of the Gizmonda and Tapwave also available now, it made more sense to me to wait for all the machines to become available and then do a large featured that covered the merits and weaknesses of each machine.

Kind regards,
Darran

​

I would guess the following:

The GP32 you have is a non-lit or frontlit unit as you have had it for awhile. Of course the screen on these units is quite poor compared to the new backlit GP32 units now available. I also sense a preference for the Zodiac here as you felt the need to say that you like that one. This future article I am afraid will end up as a praise for the Zodiac, and a writing off of the GP32. It won't quite be fair to compare a non-lit GP32 to a backlit zodiac, I would suggest getting a true backlit GP32 to do a more fair comparison. I always notice the Zodiac comes off better in reviews as it is newer and articles just tend to compare specs. What I have found that is in actual use I prefer the GP32 (I had a Zodiac 2) as I don't like using that analog stick on the Z as it is too sloppy for emulated games, and just feels more comfortable to use.

Also if you have had the GP32 for awile I would guess that the emus are pretty outdated. Do you you know that there is a full speed Megadrive emu out with sound for the GP32 called DrMD? I just hope that this article will be comparing the newest to the newest version of the GP32.

As far as the Gizmondo it is powerful, but has a tiny screen and no open developement for it.

 

[toxibunny]

lots of stuff...

​

I don't have much to say on this subject, but it's nice to have interaction with the printed press... even a lot of the top homebrew stuff is fan ports and *inspired by* games with ripped GFX etc...

if it's taboo for the mag to enthuse about emulation hen fair enough... (otherwise HELLO LAWSUIT!)

nice to see you anyway, strider... ever complete manic miner?

 

[toxibunny]

what's this mag again? it's been a while since I was at WH smiths...

 

[Alpha2]

Ultimately the only thing that need be mentioned is the versatile ability to view movies and videos, huge screen, it's eager open source community and wealth of free software. If there were a better commercial game presseance or more complete homebrews it'd be easier to extole the virtues of the system but these should be enough.

On the down side, as I said the lack of commercial games and the obscure/limited SMC format (which is becoming a little hard to find in a scary way) hurts a little but nothing's perfect.

 

[Radio]

Retro Gamer mentions it frequently, and as they have covered the DC homebrew scene, there's hope they will cover ours. Plus Craigs full page adds every month help keep up our profile

​

That is a very effective add. (Guess where I got introduced to the GP32 )

I was wondering if "Retro Gamer" are going to do a feature about emulation on the handheld systems although I would also guess that the Zodiac would come out on top because of the addtional speed and pda functions. It's a shame though seeing as the mag seems more focused on old atari games etc that would work comfortably on the gp32.

I guess it's also how close to the radar they want to fly. They have covered cabinet building and incorporating MAME into it. They mention only using legal roms but then in the pictures the games menu had Donkey Kong on there. :blink: Which I found a bit odd. (Read: Brave)

I don't blame any other more rounded games magazines from avoiding the issue altogether though.

 

[strider]

Hi guys, I've been told that there were a few upset people on this forum, so I thought I'd come along and explain a few things for everyone.

......
We've got a GP32 in the office and I do think its a great piece of kit (although I like the Zodiac as well) but as of this moment, I've just not had time to feature it. With the likes of the Gizmonda and Tapwave also available now, it made more sense to me to wait for all the machines to become available and then do a large featured that covered the merits and weaknesses of each machine.

Kind regards,
Darran

​

I would guess the following:

The GP32 you have is a non-lit or frontlit unit as you have had it for awhile. Of course the screen on these units is quite poor compared to the new backlit GP32 units now available. I also sense a preference for the Zodiac here as you felt the need to say that you like that one. This future article I am afraid will end up as a praise for the Zodiac, and a writing off of the GP32. It won't quite be fair to compare a non-lit GP32 to a backlit zodiac, I would suggest getting a true backlit GP32 to do a more fair comparison. I always notice the Zodiac comes off better in reviews as it is newer and articles just tend to compare specs. What I have found that is in actual use I prefer the GP32 (I had a Zodiac 2) as I don't like using that analog stick on the Z as it is too sloppy for emulated games, and just feels more comfortable to use.

Also if you have had the GP32 for awile I would guess that the emus are pretty outdated. Do you you know that there is a full speed Megadrive emu out with sound for the GP32 called DrMD? I just hope that this article will be comparing the newest to the newest version of the GP32.

As far as the Gizmondo it is powerful, but has a tiny screen and no open developement for it.

​

The article isn't alreay written, yet you're already writing it off :blink:
you're right, the original machine we have is very old, but that's not to say that I've not seen/played on the backlit version (one of my mates friends has one and it is very impressive.

We originally got our machine from gamepark for the intial review. If anyone wants to send me one of the new ones, then I'm more than happy to get on with the article as soon as possible

Ultimately though, you need to have a bit more faith in us. Just because we don't hang around your boards, or say that we like the Zodiac, doesn't mean that we'll do a halfarsed job on the new system.

kind regards,
Darran

 

[ste_167]

There's nothing else like it around at the moment - remember that when you write the review!! The Zodiac is basically a palm device with a dodgy control pad whereas the GP32 is the ultimate handheld emulator machine*!









*as I'm sure you will say in your review

 

[johncross85]

Strider, can you not even mention roms that have been released from copyright? If memory serves Gremlin has given permission for their Speccy back catalogue to be used - I think _tyrell_ even supplies most of them with Speccyal K (possibly only the DC version tho').

Just a thought...

J(ohn)