Old Zodiac Games

[habib15]

The Zodiac was great. If mine still worked I would still be using it.

I envy people whose Zods still work. Lucky bastards.

Envy me
Mine still works, but I only use it for playing games while taking a crap.

It would be cool to emulate the Z on the Pandora but I bet the hard part would be getting the ATI chip and Yamaha sound chip emulated since the documentation was scarce. I think the freescale MX is an arm so that shouldn't really be a problem.

The only really good zodiac game I've played was Animated Dudes (very challenging), all the rest even the ones that were released by Tapwave sucked. Duke was fun but the levels were way too short. I only use it mainly to emulate snes and nes games now so if it can't be emulated not that big of deal.

 

[El_Poco]

It is nearly 7 years old and I've yet to find any device as versatile or powerful that will fit in my pocket. People still give me the, "Wow! What is that?" when they see it.

Same here. What's kind of funny is that before the iPhone was out or widespread people would marvel at the Zod's design, saying it looked "beautiful" or "futuristic" and now they find it ugly, big and clunky... Until I start playing Metal Slug with physical gaming controls. Then everyone wants to try it.

QUOTE
I ordered a Pandora with the idea that it is the first device I've seen that -might- be able to replace it.



I really hesitated but finally decided to wait, at least until I can get a glimpse of the actual product. After all, my Zod already does nearly everything I'd do with a Pandora (maybe not as well in some cases, but well enough for me) and it still has a few advantages such as a smaller size and wake on alarm for PIM (I guess it could be done for the Pandora, but I'd like to see it in action before committing).

So right now I think I'll stick with the Zod until it dies. Then I'd probably replace it with a Pandora (except if there's a better device by then, there sure are interesting things coming up even if they often lack something).
That's the plan at least... I guess it'll also depend on my ability to resist the call of the Pandora.

 

[Prophet]

Anyone with a working Zod...

Try getting a game called Bike or Die. It was probably my favorite Zodiac game toward the end, and the Zod version was the best. Not only was the game extremely fun with a fascinating physics engine, you could arrange a custom mp3 soundtrack with ease.

I'm hoping BoD gets ported to Pandora, but it probably won't. Maybe OrR can shake that tree though.

 

[Vilmos]

I still have 3 working Zodiacs.

They get daily use as well, actually only one does, the others are for backup. Nothing else has been good enough to replace the Zodiac yet.

 

[douglasamcintosh]

On the off chance anyone is interested the US GP2X has zodiac AC adapters on sale. My Zod came without one and charging is a pain through the USB cable.

The Zod had a pretty UI from what I remember. Something similar for the Pandora would be sweet.

If we are talking about unlikely emulators though a Gizmondo emulator would be pretty handy too. Then I could have all my obscure and failed handhelds running on one device!

 

[FlyingMonkieBat]

If we are talking about unlikely emulators though a Gizmondo emulator would be pretty handy too. Then I could have all my obscure and failed handhelds running on one device!

Didn't the gizmondo have like a 128bit video card and a gps in it. i thought gettin a zod emu would be a stretch but the gizmondo. i think we are both asking for things we may never have.

 

[OrR]

Please, people, don't mention the mafia scam handheld and the Zodiac in the same sentence.

Anyone with a working Zod...

Try getting a game called Bike or Die. It was probably my favorite Zodiac game toward the end, and the Zod version was the best. Not only was the game extremely fun with a fascinating physics engine, you could arrange a custom mp3 soundtrack with ease.

I'm hoping BoD gets ported to Pandora, but it probably won't. Maybe OrR can shake that tree though.

I'm shaking it! It's out on the iPhone and that version is running on OpenGL so a port to everything else should be relatively quick and painless. A PC version might be next though Szymon seems to doubt that his simple graphics would be appreciated on big computers. Personally I think TIGsource would love this game...

By the way, it is now possible to emulate Bike or Die 1 on Windows with proper button controls. Ask Xuzz on http://bike.toyspring.com if you want to know how.

Regarding Legacy, Redshift are short on money because the PDA market pretty much vanished. They are porting their games to the iPhone as well. If that works out, I guess a Pandora version could be realistic. They can't afford to spend any resources on it at this point because it's not possible to tell how big the Pandora market might be.

Anyone know what the Animated Dudes guys are doing? I'd love to play that game again...

The Zodiac really was the best thing ever... How did they make something so awesome back in 2003?! It was so awesome that it left me unable to buy most of the electronic devices on the market because I know what worthless pieces of shit they are. Mobile phones are only just now barely catching up to what the Zodiac did five years ago and the Pandora is the first gaming device that might actually be superior to the Zodiac...

 

[douglasamcintosh]

Pandora, Gizmondo and Zodiac all together in the same sentence

Hey we could call it the

Panmondoiac.

Wow!

 

[OrR]

Anyone know what the Animated Dudes guys are doing? I'd love to play that game again...

Answering my own question here: http://www.titan-interactive.com/
Seems like they may still be functional.