Awesome Handheld Amiga games

[Twistin'Ghost]

[rattus]

LOL!

is...is that me? very good impression! except I'm not a redhead

now for teh linkers...

-Flash Advance (by Bung): this is an old, chunky parallel port external linker. Not many shops sell it anymore and it's not very compatible (most games need speed/crash patches applied in order to work). http://www.gameboy-advance.net/flash...er_advance.htm

-Flash Xtreme (by Visoly/Lik-Sang): an update of the above, still the same design but with the option of a USB interface. Was very popular until Nintendo shut down Visoly and severly castrated Lik-Sang http://www.gameboy-advance.net/flash...xtreme_usb.htm

Flash2Advance (by Bung): this one is a parallel port cable linker (it goes straight from your PC to your GBA) and is a good choice if you have an older PC/GBA. It is NOT compatible with the GBA-SP however. http://www.flash2advance.com

Flash2Advance USB (by Bung): this one is an update to the above linker with a USB interface and GBA-SP compatibility. http://www.flash2advance.com

EZ-Flash (by Borden): relatively unknown, Borden is famed for his amazing designs and this linker is no exception. It is a small external USB linker. The design is so good that Xinga got VERY jealous... http://www.ezflash.com.cn

XG-Flash (by Xinga): an unauthorized clone of the above. For some this is good news, Xinga have better marketing and push their linkers to all parts of the world. Cheaper parts used results in a lower price. Just beware as this can also be a BAD thing. http://www.xgflash.com

Wisebox (by ???): not much information about this one but by the looks of things it is an external Parallel port linker with two cartridge slots. This means you can copy data from one cartridge to another without the need of a PC. http://www.gameboy-advance.net/flash..._wise_card.htm

EZF Advance (by Borden): what with the EZ/XG fiasco Borden decided to sell the rights of the EZ-Flash to another company and start out on his own. He recently produced this fantastic piece of kit. Very similar to the original EZ but in a cable linker and with a RTC (Real Time Clock) built into the cards. Perfect for pokemon . Still in early stages...only 128Mb card sizes available with 256Mb and 512Mb to follow soon...this is definately one to watch! http://www.gba-toys.com

What about the future?

Well EZ-Corp are working on the successor to EZ-Flash called, not surprisingly, the EZ-Flash 2. This is going to be much the same thing (an external USB linker) but with bigger cart sizes (512Mb-1024Mb I should think), RTC, and other new features.

Xinga (surprise!) are also working on the XG-Flash 2...my only hope is that they do the right thing and not copy others designs

*a note about mac drivers*
All USB-based linkers will work on a Mac running Virtual PC under MacOS9 (MacOSX handles USB devices differently and wont let Virtual PC communicate with the linker properly). Xinga have somebody working on Mac native drivers for the XG/XG2...I am currently bugging Borden/EZ-Corp (through their main distributer www.easy-gadgets.com as I don't speak Chinese) to do the same for the EZ/EZ2 and EZF Advance

[SabreGolly]

Wow! Cheers Rattus - loads of good stuff to check out...

Feeling VERY tempted...!

Would only really be interested in emulating 8 bit machines an the GBA, especially the spectrum. Most of the commercial GBA stuff is really of 16 bit quality anyway, despite what they say.

Rare were going to bring out 'SabreWulf' for the GBA - which was rumoured to contain the old spectrum version as well. I was secretly hoping that they would bring out all the sabre man adventures that they released as 'Ultimate' on the spectrum (e.g. Underwurlde, Knight Lore etc) - that I am a huge fan of (as you possibly guessed from my name!) - but all was lost when the jumped into bed with ex-box.

Saw that there is even a Frotz (infocom text adventure) emulator. Bloody 'ell - how's that done without a keyboard and a magnifying glass?!

I'll be checking this stuff out...

Thanks again!

[fiath]

Getting back on topic...

Cadaver would probably actually get me to buy a GBA.

It is so perfect for the GBA, I am shocked it was not done at release!

[SabreGolly]

Getting back on topic...

Sorry - got carried away...

With Speedball 2 coming out to little fanfare or impact - hopes of some other bitmap brothers games finding developers and making it across seem dashed. I, like others here, would have loved to see 'The Chaos Engine' ported.

Other ones I'd like to see -

Heavy session games -
...Syndicate
...The Settlers
...Populous
...Alien Breed 3D (always thought this was of a better design than Doom)

As for pick up and play games - can't see past some good pinball action! There are plenty out there (if you can find them!) on the GBA - so why not 'pinball illusions' and 'slamtilt' - they could use that mode 7 type effect to zoom out for multiball. Where are all those scandinavian amiga pinball coders - the GBA needs you!

Worms would be nice - have the original GB version, but without the voices something is lost...

Anyway - awaiting 'Rainbow Islands' with baited breath - and the arrival of my flash linker!

[Dastardly]

Originally posted by fiath
Getting back on topic...

Cadaver would probably actually get me to buy a GBA.

It is so perfect for the GBA, I am shocked it was not done at release!

Yeah Cadaver is one of my all time faves and was planned as a future release by Crawfish, but unfortunately they went the way of the cadaver.

I like to see conversions of all the Bitmaps games. :sigh

[Belgarath]

if you want to play the bitmaps games on a handheld get a gp32!
atari st emulation on that is now excellent!

[fiath]

Originally posted by Dastardly
Yeah Cadaver is one of my all time faves and was planned as a future release by Crawfish, but unfortunately they went the way of the cadaver.

Yeah. I heard.

Anyway, I decided I like Cadaver better than Rainbow Islands, so I changed my Avitar

[staticgerbil]

Where has everyone bought their linkers from?

I am a bit worried about buying a stuff from a weird chinese shop that i have never heard of?

The only company i know that someone has delt with, with no problems, is lik-sang and i think someone has already said that they have been forced to stop selling them

I really want one of these things as i really enjoy programming in the arm processor and would like to actually see something on the real machine.

Cheers for any help

[Steve]

Stay on topic. If you want to talk about frickin' flash linkers then start a new thread!

[wakeupbomb]

Originally posted by Steve
Stay on topic. If you want to talk about frickin' flash linkers then start a new thread!

[staticgerbil]

How about this.....

Where has everyone bought their linkers from?

So that I can make some Awsome Handheld Amiga Games myself

[rattus]

sorry...last OT post for me, I promise!

www.easy-gadgets.com is a good place to buy linkers. Also www.success-hk.com and www.gbax.com are also good choices. shop around for best prices.

Or I am planning to sell my Parallel-port Flash2Advance 256Mb kit...PM me if you're interested.

Also PM me if you want to take this OT linker-talk further so we don't piss-off Steve!

And please realise that you should only use linkers for development and freeware/PD stuff. Piracy is bad. Much better to support good games

again, apologies for the Off-Topic post. It won't happen again.

*EDIT* my parallel F2A is now sold! thanks staticgerbil!

[Steve]

Originally posted by rattus
Also PM me if you want to take this OT linker-talk further so we don't piss-off Steve!

If you really want some uptodate information about GBA Flash Carts, I'd suggest you try out www.gbaemu.com ... We're (yes I'm plugging) a BIG, respected scene site and have recently reviewed the new flash carts that have only just come onto the market. We're a none piracy website, so you won't find your games on there, but we do assist with the software side of flashing, the carts themselves and emulation in general on GBA... There's also our sister site www.gp32emu.com, a system which already has Atari ST *EVIL COUGH* emulation and I know a few people to be *thinking* about trying Amiga emulation on this handheld

Crawfish are now none-existant.. there team has been picked off, but I forget by who, so who knows if any of those other port projects are still active or not

[IFW]

You can emulate hardware non-intensive miggy games there, about the same specs with the ST emulation.
That's plenty of games like RPGs, some good adventures and very simple ports that do not use miggy specific hw too much like Badlands.
Don't expect anything more (playable that is), but still that's going to be a good handheld collection
Dragon Wars and Bard's Tale on handheld - yumm. No more pseudo rpgs, good old hard core adventure stuff

[SabreGolly]

Hello! Been on holiday, and just moved house... What did I miss?

Anyway... Just been to Toys'R'Us in Liverpool - (the one next to Costco if you know the city) - They have two copies of 'Pinball Challenge Deluxe' just sitting on their shelves! After I spent all that time and effort looking for it - it was right under my bloody nose!

And worse - I didn't buy one! Might go back today - don't know. I now have the game, but GBQUIDS9.99 for the original... hmm...

[FromWithin]

Oy. GP32.

!!!!!

[rattus]

@SabreGolly, go for it! who knows, in a few years it might be very rare

@FromWithin, aye, the GP32 is cool, especially for emulator nuts. Does anyone know when that Giana Sisters remake is going to be released? It was in the gbax2003 competition but supposedly copyright issues are stopping it from reaching the masses

[Daz]

ooooh?