NDS Emulation - Roms, Games, Reviews - Home

So the DSi is out and it’s meant to be great. Well of course it is, the DS was great so any improvement is just a bonus. Ok so the new DIS has better media support, and yet it doesn’t support mp3 which is just crazy – saying that getting a homebrew compatible cart would sort this as is the case for the old DS. There’s the camera (well 2 to be exact) which is a neat idea, and a SD slot, again a homebrew compatible DS would have this anyway. The DSi Shop channel sounds good, but I guess most people reading this don’t actually need to buy games anyway. There’s a larger screen and better sound. In my opinion the only real advantages are these hardware upgrades and the camera. I really would have liked to see a processor upgrade, but then I guess the old DS would be come redundant. Still they could bring out a card add on that gives better graphical performance couldn’t they?

To conclude I think if you have a DS already, as I do, then its probably not worth the upgrade. If on the other hand you are new to the Nintendo DS system, then why not get the latest hardware.

Dialaphone Review

It’s like that film, 28 days later…

I recently decided to get a Sony PSP. I still love my DS but I was lured by the power of the PSP and frankly I haven’t seen any good DS games for a while. Anyway I decided that instead of just gong out the shop or buying one online I would renew my mobile phone contract. Dialaphone had an offer that would get me a new phone which I could give to my partner as I already have a fairly decent Nokia N95, £70 cash back and a Sony PSP. Now I realise that you are essentially still buying the PSP but the contract was actually cheaper than I was currently paying so it made sense.

I had problems from the word go. When I added the phone I wanted to the shopping cart, the PSP and all other offers strangely disappeared and I became a tiny bit suspicious of the website. I decided I better make my order by phone. I thought there might be a catch of some sort so I carefully checked the terms and conditions that are on every page. See below

You will notice there is no mention of the free gift but there is mention that you will be getting free next day delivery. Great! Well actually not so great because only when you purchase your phone and sign up to your contract do you get to find out that you have to wait 28 days before they will part with any free gifts. You see, the thing is they get a commissions from orange, o2 or whoever you go with and use part of that free commission to entice you in. Its win-win for them. They don’t want anyone closing their contract with the phone provider otherwise they will be out of pocket. The problem is people tend to do a lot less impulse buying when they find out their “free” PSP, Wii, Playstation or whatever will take over a month to arrive. So they carefully omit to tell you this.

Is this deception? I’m not sure but all I do know is that I genuinely thought I would have my PSP within a couple of weeks and it turns out I will actually have to wait over 5 weeks. I wanted to clarify the situation so I phoned their support system. Unlike the nice people in sales, the support system is run a robot called Rachel. Rachel recognises voices commands and understands your post code and date of birth. I am not taking the mick – she really is a robot, a very limited AI program, possibly running of one of the old Nokia 8210’s they have lying around. Anyway, I was getting nowhere with Rachel, she was severely lacking in charisma so I decided to email a support request in:

Hi

I am just wondering, am I likely to have to wait the whole 28 days for my free gift? My contract is connected now and I don’t intend to cancel.

Many thanks

I received and email the next day stating:

Dear X

Customer Reference: xxxxx

Thank you for contacting Dial-A-Phone Customer Care.

Unfortunately for security reasons we ask that all customers must wait until 28 days after their 7 day peace of mind period before any free gift will be despatched.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Kind Regards,

Dial-A-Phone Customer Care

Yours sincerely,

Dial-a-Phone Customer Care.

I’m not sure why they said kind regards and your sincerely, but anyway I emailed back:

Read more

Why aren’t they all like this:

Click here to find out how to overclock your own DS!

As some of you may know I have recently ordered an EZ Flash 3 in 1 tool for my Nintendo DS. Well that’s not strictly true. I have now ordered two of them. The first one was ordered quite some time ago and I still haven’t received it. I am filing a case with PayPal so I can’t give any more details until the case has been resolved and I have been refunded.

I’m not 100% happy with the service I have received from the other store either, but again I will give this more time before writing a full review on these stores and of course the 3 in 1 tool itself.

I guess the real problem here is that many of the bigger and better known stores like to steer clear from modchips, flash cards and anything that could void the warranty of a games console. There has always been a link between emulation and piracy, so really I can’t blame them for making that decision.

With the void of these bigger, well established online shops and stores we are left with the only people willing to take the risk in selling such products, the small or one man band companies. Unfortunately, a lot of these people don’t seem to have the staff, training or systems in place to make the process of actually ordering a product and receiving it easy. I am not criticising all small online shops, far from it: I think its a great thing, but I really believe a bit more effort in the customer services department wouldn’t go a miss. I guess this is probably true for bigger stores also. To me, and I believe most shoppers, whether its online or down the local high street, decent customer services is of vital importance. Read more

I have recently ordered an EZ 3 in 1 expansion pack. I will write a full review once it arrives as currently the only ones I can find are directly from the manufacturer. Regardless, I am looking forward to playing with the new toy. As well as the ability to play Gameboy Advance games and roms from my M3 simply the 3 in 1 also has a rumble feature and some much needed extra ram. Such ram is used by the DS to actually run Gameboy Advance roms (weird really that you need extra ram to run older games) and is also used for the DS browser. I believe this memory can also be used for special homebrew applications, but I wonder, are there any official games that can take advantage of this extra memory? I certainly have not seen any examples of this.

I remember, many years ago the N64 console brought out an expansion pack allowing certain games like Doom 2 to have enhanced graphics. Other systems like the Super Nintendo also had cartridges with special chips such as the infamous mode 7 chip to enhance the capability of games. Now, why aren’t games developers making the most of these readily available expansion packs for the DS? Maybe it is because they tend to be associated with the homebrew scene, something that Nintendo obviously does not want to bring attention too.

If you don’t have either machine then you should think carefully before choosing one or the other. I think to know which is right for you you need to think about what sort of gamer you are.

The PSP is a more powerful and I would say a more serious hand-held console. The DS on the other hand doesn’t pack as much punch in terms of raw processing power and graphics, but it is a unique and fun little thing. I would say the DS is more of an original and inspired device, the PSP is basically just a small PS2. The DS has a microphone, 2 screens and a stylus that are all used as input devices.

If you prefer first person shooters and decent racing games the the PSP is probably more your thing. If however, you like the retro feel of Mrio games, the DS is probably what your looking for.