Maldita Castilla - New Old School Retro style Freeware Game.

Maldita Castilla 

New, Old School, Retro Feeling Awesomeness in Video Game form, and best of all Free!

Maldita Castilla - Title Screen

This is the work of some pretty cool guys over at:

http://www.locomalito.com/

Locomalito Games

From looking over their website and doing some reading, It seems these guys have a great ethos and sound, admirable philosophy on what they do and why they do it, which in turn gives the Games they produce that extra bit of soul, sometimes lost in commercial developers.
 

They have a number of games so head over and check them all out, But this post will focus on just one of the games, and that game is Maldita Castilla:

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, GNU / Linux, Ouya

Gameplay:

The Game plays pretty much exactly like Ghouls 'n' Ghosts or Ghosts 'n' Goblins, so has nice simple responsive controls and a familiar gameplay mechanic, pretty much pick up and play 2 buttons, "jump" and "fire" and the direction buttons, up, down, left, right. Kill the ghoulies, beat the bosses and collect power ups and different weapons, there's also other items such as coins, crowns and general "loot", either dropped by enemies or from chests or "secrets", the whole point is to obviously beat the game with the highest score possible, there is also a time limit so keep an eye on that. There is a variety of enemies also which change and increase in difficulty as you progress.

Graphics:

Graphics are done purposefully in the style of late 80's arcade games in fact not only the graphics but the whole game is in that style, and as far as I am concerned that is a good thing. The graphics have been created pixel by pixel to give an authentic old school look, which works. The sprites look good and animations are all smooth and flow well nothing looks out of place or tacked on. Also they graphics scale well, attention has also been taken to give the game an old school look and feel with optional scanlines and "old n used" monitor look, although I didn't see any way to configure this on the Linux version(off by default).

Sound: 

Sound for the game for me is excellent, It's been created via emulated yamaha YM2203 sound chip, which was used in many late 80's / early 90's arcade games. This gives a really nice authentic feel and sound..erm to the sound. Me Likey.

Storyline:

The game has a storyline and there's a text and graphic intro so I'll let you be the judge of that. The setting for the game is old Spanish / European medievaly legend / history. Which in itself is fairly bloody and very fitting with the graphics and gameplay.

My Youtube Video on the Developer and Game and where I found out about this little gem of nostalgic awesomeness:

Conclusion

My Verdict, in case you have not already guessed, CHECK IT OUT! NOW! GO DO IT! DOOO EEEET!

Tomb Raider (1996) via DOSBox Linux / Windows

Original DOS version of Tomb Raider on modern hardware.

This also works for the Unfinished Business add-on.

Youtube video tutorial on how to get the original Tomb Raider running on standard / default DOSBox 0.74 with no other special software.

Video(best viewed in HD 1080p):

My Custom config file(dosbox.conf):

Google Docs link

Remember that this is my .conf file and is tailored to my system and setup so edit it to suit yours. This one does not auto-launch the game, but if you want to do that just add these commands to the end of the conf file:

c:
cd tombraid
tomb.exe

This should work for any other DOS game also. Just remember that some DOS games need to be launched via a .bat file instead of the .exe


A bit about disc Images.

I use a disc image here instead of just mounting the actual cdrom in my dvd drive for a few reasons, but mainly it just makes more sense. there's a few different options that can be used but i went for a .bin / .cue image. The reason for this is it's nice, quick and easy and mounts in DOSBox with no hassle.

A lot of DOS games use CD Audio for their music and tomb raider is no exception, meaning it is a mixed mode CD having multiple tracks 1 for data and then the other audio tracks, and in order for the game's music to work it needs the CD audio tracks which is why I use a .bin / .cue image (the .cue file is the one you need to mount in DOSBox, as it contains the track information/ CD layout) they(.cue) are just simple text files and can even be edited the .bin file is the actual disc image.

ISO format does not support multi track mixed mode images so and .ISO image will only be the DATA track and no audio tracks, this will work but you'll get no music in the game.

There are other options, it is possible to use a .ISO format image along with a .CUE file pointing to audio files for example mp3 files, this will allow for smaller file sizes as the audio tracks will be compressed mp3 files. This method is also fine but a bit more involved, however it is recommended if you need to keep file sizes down.

Imgburn is what I use to make .bin / .cue files and can be found here:

http://www.imgburn.com/

Most burning software will be able to do this but I like Imgburn.

DOSBox can be found here:

http://www.dosbox.com/

SNK Hyper NeoGeo 64 Arcade Hardware Stereo Sound Mod.

So as the title states this is just a quick and easy mod to enable direct output of Stereo Sound from the HNG64.

First up is Why? And the answer is, Because I can, I feel like it, and i like a nice easy way to hook it up to stereo speakers / external amp / whatever else i feel like. Or maybe adding this to an arcade cab with custom speakers etc..?

There are a few ways this could be done, but I'm doing it this way for a number of reasons,

1. I have the parts needed lying around.
2. It's nice and practical for what i need.
3. It's completely and Easily Reversible without damaging or altering the hardware.

What's required:

1. Good Quality wire that's not too thick but not too thin,
2. Some form of Stereo Audio Jacks or Sockets (3.5mm headphone jack or RCA phono jacks work nicely)
3. Solder
4. Soldering Iron

Now this could be done a little more easily if you had access to a connector that fits the 4 pin header on the HNG64 board, I initially tried a floppy drive molex power connector but it didn't fit even after trimming a little.

So what I decided to do is solder the wires directly to the pins from the header on the back of the PCB.

HNG64 Bottom PCB

The 4 pins are (from right to left when jamma connector is facing towards you) Audio Left, Ground, Audio right, Ground. The two ground pins are common and you can follow the traces from the other two pins for left and right audio to the corresponding pin on the JAMMA connector, they are clearly labelled on the HNG64, Pin L is for left audio or mono and Pin 10 is for right audio

Pins for Audio

I used some RCA phono jacks that i scavenged from an old satellite box a while back.

so all you need to do is connect 3 wires 1 for ground, 1 for Audio Right and one for Audio Left.

Then just hook up some speakers, receiver / amp or headphones and get your game on!

If you wanted to tap some un-amplfied audio you would need to get it from somewhere before the volume pot.

Volume can be controlled by the volume pot which is beside the 4 pin connector, also so this would be a great spot to put a headphone jack if you were to consolize the HNG64.

Some Interesting Arcade Hardware: HNG64

Got my hands on some interesting arcade hardware for a really good price on ebay, What I got were two systems in a bundle and then a game for them off the same seller(always handy to have a game...). One unit was meant to be working and the other faulty, which is fine as I like tinkering with these things. So what did I get?

What I did get is the Hyper Neo Geo 64 arcade system (HNG64) Fighting board and one game which is Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition / Garou Densetsu: wild ambition. As stated I got 2 of the arcade systems, one system is faulty and one works, so all good there. Now there's not a whole lot of information out there on the Hyper Neo Geo 64, or at least not easily found and accessible. It did not last very long when it was released and only has a handful of games(and you'd need very big hands to hold them).

Working board with game

Faulty Board, no game

Now with this hardware, there are a 4 different boards and different game types are only compatible with their specific board. the 4 types are: Fighting, Shooting, Driving and a Korean board, which only plays the Samurai Showdown games.

Having had some (all be it brief) experience with the older Neo Geo MVS hardware(progress with which is still on hold) I still had my hacked test control pad and MVS wired jamma harness, I just had to mod the latter slightly connecting up all the +5v Ground and +12v wires instead of just the top row as the HNG64 is a dual layer board. For video out I'm using RGB SCART so Red Green Blue and sync straight from the jamma harness.

There are 2 revisions of the HNG64, Rev1 is non JAMMA and Rev2 which has a JAMMA connector  which can be configured via a switch on the bottom PCB to either standard JAMMA or MVS mode, there is also a switch for the audio output which enables you to swap between Stereo/MVS and MONO jamma, as standard jamma only supports mono audio from the connector while MVS supports stereo.

SNK Hyper NeoGeo 64 MVS/JAMMA switches

Power: With Regards to Powering the HNG64 I am simply using a PC ATX power supply which gives plenty of amps on the +5v and 12v lines so Ground, +5v and +12v all come into the MVS JAMMA harness via a molex connector so it's nice and easy to connect / disconnect. the ATX power supply is modified with a simple switch to turn it on / off (as normally the PC motherboard would handle this) you can google how to do this if you want.

Sound: for Sound there is a 4 pin header near the JAMMA connector which is for Stereo out and also a Volume control which is nice. As I didn't have anything to plug into the header I had to do a small mod in order to use it. which I'll cover in another post.

Video Connection: Is just as stated earlier simple RGB and Sync taken directly from the JAMMA connector and going to RGB SCART, now not all TV sets or monitors will like this some are more tolerant than others, my Sony Trinitron works fine with this setup whereas my JVC CRT does display an image but it's not a very good one, this does work fine with a GBS 8220 CGA/EGA to VGA scaler/converter so with this it's nice and easy to hook it up to a VGA monitor, I have not tried any superguns but I assume the HNG64 should work fine with them although you may need to switch to jamma mode for some.

HNG64 on VGA monitor via GBS 8220 EGA/CVG to VGA converter board

Controls: for the controls ideally I'd want an arcade stick and buttons but sadly I do not have any, so going back to my MVS testing I took a MegaDrive ASCIIPAD which has a similar 4 button config to the neo geo and also a dpad, start, mode, and 2 shoulder buttons. I removed the chip in the controller and wired up the buttons to work with the jamma harness so the face buttons are ABCD and the Dpad is well.. The dpad up down left right, start is start, mode is 1p coin in, and the shoulder buttons I wired up for Test and Service.

Asciipad MD-6 hacked to work with MVS / JAMMA

Starting up: so with everything hooked up and the game rom board seated, it's time to fire this beast up, now what you will want to do is probably set some options in the test mode both for the game and the system, while there are some physical DIP switches on the board (a bank of 4) I have no idea what these do. instructions did come with the boards but they're all in Japanese, which I can't read. You will not be able to enter the test/service mode unless there is a game connected and loaded if no game is present then the system does not boot and sits at a blue screen, when powered up with a game in, it will run through some checks then display a crosshatch and boot the game you can then go into the test/service mode.

You can set various game and system options here all the usual like difficulty, credits, number of rounds etc and also I/O tests sound test and options and also set to Free play or whatever, one to watch out for is if you boot a game and there's no sound on the Hyper NeoGeo 64 animation or game intro, make sure you have "sound in demo mode" turned on.

The Faulty Board: as there seems to be little information on the hardware and no real reference or starting point for common faults it boils down to just simple fault finding, probing, testing, swapping parts, etc. trial and error basically all the fun stuff. 

What the board is doing now: It powers on but goes to a blank but stable red screen and stays this way. I believe the NeoGeo AES does something similar if there is a ram error, but I am unsure if this is in anyway related, perhaps the board is just dead altogether. 

What I know is working: Power, it's powering up and also the smaller bottom board as I have swapped this over with the working HNG64 and all is well so the issue lies with the top board which has some ram chips and the processors / whatever else is on there and also a large voltage regulator with a big heat sink. 

Where will I start: Well I will start to look at the ram as mentioned earlier the AES does something similar with ram faults and the ram checks are the first checks that the working board seems to perform power on / boot up.


Thoughts, Feelings and conclusion:

It's a step further into the unknown world of arcade hardware for me, and a journey I take on with wonder, awe and renewed optimism, As for the HNG64 I really like the thing, These are built like tanks, literally it even kinda looks like one with the game cart/rom board on top, very well made and heavy construction. 

There may not be a whole lot of games available and I may not be able to afford most of them but it's nice to have, and the game I do have is a lot of fun classic SNK fighting in 3D, Also this system puts out really nice crisp visuals and great audio. More to come on this. But I am very happy and will try to resurrect the faulty board if I can, if not then so be it.

Retro Review: Alisia Dragoon SEGA MegaDrive / Genesis

I'll start by saying, This is a post I've been meaning to do since I got the game, and it's been a while since I picked it up, I didn't want to comment on the game without giving it some game time, and I just have not got round to doing that, until now... While I've not been able to throw a whole heap of time into it, I have played it enough to know, I like this game, simply put, it's SEGA Mega Drive at it's 16bit blast processing best.

I'll keep this post short and sweet, I'm just going to gush over this one as it just brings back a whole load of great nostalgia for me, and I sat on the floor this morning, in the dark (4-5am-ish) with some headphones on infront of a CRT TV and put in some solid gametime, it felt great like i was back in my early 90s youth.. Anyway, This is a 1992 release developed by GameArts and Gainax, published of course by SEGA(in North America and Europe, GameArts in Japan), a side scrolling fantasy platforming "shooter"(more erm zapper?).

My thoughts on the Game:

Story/Plot: Classic fantasy save the world from the evil powerful magic bad guys who have awoken their all powerful master, you play Alisia(oh look "feminists" what's this we have here? one of them strong female heroines that are apparently non existent and under represented in the video game world?? And from the early 90s too!!!) so you're a sorceress / warrior with dragons and stuff and yeah you shoot lightening at enemies, all good stuff!

Graphics: This game looks great, the sprites, backgrounds, animations, effects all very nice and colourful, looks outstanding on a CRT via RGB scart in all it's 16bit glory.

Sound: I felt the sound and music were excellent, that is all. now as i said in the video my model 1 mega drive is modified so it gets stereo sound direct from the sound chip and it does sound great.

Gameplay: Controls are nice and responsive and everything works well, although when zapping enemies due to it being auto targeting sometimes it does not target the enemy you want when you want, but all in all it works really well, but don't be fooled even though it is auto targeting the game still packs a decent challenge and is by no means easy, enemies come at you from everywhere and the game can be brutal / unforgiving and even "cheap" at times but that's all part of the fun in these games, beating them! There's plenty of secrets, power ups and also you have a slection of "dragons" to chose from during game play, which have their own attack / power, but also are just as vulnerable as you and can be killed, but do help especially when there's multiple enemies on screen.

Here's a short-ish game play video so you can see for yourself what it's like.

Conclusion:

I really like this game, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who has a SEGA Mega Drive / Genesis or anyone who likes these old school games, it's not expensive and easily available on the likes of ebay or maybe out in the wild if you're lucky, if not, check it out on an emulator, you won't be disappointed it's well worth the time. Top notch 5/5 11/10.

Small update:

Has taken me far too long to get this post out there but I've been busy and distracted by many things. Including my new youtube channel TheSynrgy1987 which now has channel art! Also now have a Domain name: http://www.thesynrgy.com which currently only links to this blog.

Beer: A look at Corona Extra - Viva Mexico!!

Corona Extra

Beer, Yes.. I like beer, so I thought why not share it with the world or at least anyone who happens across this blog.

In this post I'll be Drinking some Corona Extra, and also testing out my new Trusty Beer Mug which will not only facilitate drinking of beer, but also aid in everyday non beer drinking activities, such as drinking or water, orange juice or Pepsi:

Why is there a Dreamcast Controller there? Who knows...?

A bit about Corona Extra:

This is the first time I will be trying Corona while sober, I've had it many times while already drinking or already drunk, but never from a stone cold sober state. As you can see in the picture above, It's a Clear Gold coloured beer, imported from Mexic, weighing in at 4.5% vol. this is the 330ml bottle, and is Eq. to 1.5 UK units per bottle. How this differs from standard Corona I have no idea, I didn't get any to compare. Corona Extra is distributed(in the UK) by "Molson Coors Ltd".


Conclusion:

I was Actually surprised, I enjoyed this beer and would highly recommend it to anyone(Except pregnant women) for any occasion or just for a cold beer whenever, when I tested/tasted for this post It was at ambient room temperature and the Glass was slightly cooler, Gives a nice Crisp taste but nothing overpowering, and not too gassy either. when poured into a glass There was no head at all. after drinking there was kind of a sweet or honey-like smell from the Glass which was also pleasant, Anyway I like this beer it's good and adds to the list of Mexican drinks I like.

So Yeah, if you can, stock up on these and keep a few in the fridge for whenever. It's also not expensive at all. Corona Extra gets my Official ThumbsUp! "Good all rounder" beer rating... which I just made up.

My beer rating system:

The system I use to rate beer has more of a mystical and/or extra-normal Basis rather than scientific as I do not believe science is applicable to beer rating as it's more of an individual and spiritual experience. the science of my taste in beer does not apply to the next person.

Retro Gaming: Ebay SNES Part 2 - Getting started

Small update on the Ebay SNES.

This is an update from an earlier post Part 1 can be found here: Ebay SNES Part 1.

The 4.5mm gamebit arrived giving me the ability to open up the console. Which I did, arriving also a cheap Chinese video capture USB dongle, I’ve not played with it much yet and I'm not expecting much from it either.

Anyway back to the SNES, I opened it up, turns out to be a SNSP-CPU-01 motherboard, took some pictures of the inside for my own reference they can be found here:Photos on Flickr, although it wasn't needed I went ahead and changed a few of the Capacitors anyway with some I already had, There's not a whole lot inside the SNES so it's not a big issue, just thought I'd do it while I had it open. here's a quick list of values:

Value	Voltage	Amount
47uf	16v	1
2200uf	25v	1
33uf	25v	2
10uf	50v	5
2.2uf	50v	1

Other models of SNES may have different components, these are just what mine has, also being one of the early PAL models yours may be different. I did not change all the capacitors as I didn't have all the ones I needed so just changed what I had(2200uf, 47uf, 1x 33uf) the others I need to order up along with some LEDs. I'm using just standard electrolytic radial capacitors and not the SMT ones.

Progress!

Few other things I completed while the SNES was in pieces, PAL SNES consoles are unable to use USA/JPN control pads and also some 3rd party imported pads as standard, this may not effect all PAL units but it Did with this one, There's two methods of fixing this, one is a mod on the control pad PCB itself which involves added two resistors, which I won't go into, It makes much more sense to make the console universally accept control pads from any region. And this is very easy, Just Bridge 4 points and that's it, a little bit of wire or legs from a resistor or capacitor work great too. Here's a Picture of the Controller port PCB with the points to bridge outlined in red:

Also in the above picture, you can see the red power LED I'll be changing this to a Green LED because it fits the theme/look I'm going for and I like Green better, there's a 160ohm resistor in series with it(2 legs top right of pic). After doing this quick mod, I tested with a control pad from a retrobit "RetroDuo" which did not previously work with the PAL SNES, and now it works just fine.

The Second thing I done was widen the cartridge slot to accommodate US Game Carts, yes, I could have got adapter/converter but meh didn’t want to, and yeah i could have got a US SNES but meh they're ugly as all hell, and SFCs are a bit more expensive than I wanted to pay right now but would still need a slot mod or converter.


Look a bit rough, but then I did use a mini hacksaw/blade but it's by far not the worst job I’ve seen, I'll tidy it up somewhere down the line when I get to the aesthetics sand / smooth the rough edges etc, along with extending the cart slot flap to stop dust getting in.

That's all for now, but there will probably be a part 3 and maybe even 4, who knows! <place holder for link to part 3>