the nintendo ds is an awesome portipal gaming system. i have the ds lite, its thin, weights under a pound, has two super bright backlit screens, pretty sweet integrated speakers, the classic nintendo plus d-pad, four front buttons, and two sholder buttons. the bottom screen is touch sensitive, which makes for some awesome gameplay. the touch screen is sick, but a lot of people can be put off by it. so tons of games let your switch between the touch motion and d-pad motion. another thing i love about the ds lite is it's backwards compatable with gameboy advance. the new nintendo ds-i however is NOT backwards compatable, which i think is rediculious.

so the R4-DS is a revolution in homebrew/emulation/mod chip technology. the cart is what i like to call a "hack loader". basically during the normal boot sequence the data being read executes an exploit that allows the user to run any custom code they want. this affords many interesting possibilitys. for instance custom operating system and interface graphics, running homebrew applications, or running roms/archival copys of games. the official site is here. but i bought mine on amazon.

as yew can see, the r4-ds is the same size as a regular ds cartridge. the game shown is chrono trigger, which is a revamp of a classic super nintendo rpg, its one of my favorite games of all time. but the r4 has a tiny sd-micro slot on the back. the size of the sd card supported varies depending on which model of the r4 yew have. i have the r4-ds sd-hc version, which supports the maximum of 32 gigabytes. i suggest you get the sd-hc version, the R4-III only supports up to 2gb, which is a huge difference.

the main interface can be customized to look how ever you want. the developers of the r4 dont provide you with a tool to customize it with themeselves, but someone else has created a program called alice. its a freeware gui application that tells your all the necessarly file sizes and resolutions for each of the images, as well as help you create layover, transparency, and rollover effects for menus.

here's the theme i made for my r4-ds. i call it circuit board. download it here. the three buttons on the bottom left screen are the three main options of the r4. the first is ds emulations, this allows yew to play archival copies of games. the center icon is the media player moonshell. it can play mp3s and a custom ds video codec. the final option is to boot to slot-2 (gameboy advance slot). this however will not play regular gba games (you have to remove the r4 to do that) this option is for booting legacy gba hackloaders.

playback of emulated games is flawless! the speed, the sounds, the graphics, everything looks exactly the same. even games with multiplayer functionality work perfectly. whats great about the r4 is yew can grab an 0-day rom of a new game and check it out. if it sux, yew just delete the rom and forget about it. and if yew find out its awesome, then yew can buy the game and feel assured what its gonna be all about. i think if nintendo allowed yew to download demo roms directly to an sd card on the hardware to "try before yew buy" people would go crazy, and the ds scene would explode.

so now, yew might be asking...

 

"so xero, what can you play on this? and where can i get it???"

 

i have been wanting to make a metroid font for a long time now. NARPASSWORD00000 is made from the classic nintendo NES game metroid's password screen. the font also includes some dingbatz made from the games sprites. but i decided to go the extra mile and create the rest of the full international character set. the fonts name is a reference to a special backdoor password hidden in the game. click here to download.



my next new font is a capcom classic. ghouls ghosts and goblins made from sprites ripped directly from the NES rom chip. the game has had many incarnations over the years, like ghosts 'n goblins and ghouls 'n ghosts. so i named the font a combination of the two. this font contains the full set of A-Z, digits, special characters, and some 8bit dingbatz. click here to download.

my font, graffonti, has been featured in a new flash and papervision3D skateboarding game called kickflip. the game was designed and programmed by ugur ister (aka tom samson) co-founder of stimunationgames for the wrigley's candystand site.

click here to play kickflip

well its official, nintendo announced this weekend at E3 that they are releasing the wii zapper. nintendo promises that this offspring of the wiimote and nunchuk is going to revolutionize the first person shooter experience... honestly, i hope this is true. since doom i have been a first person shooter fan, and have always had a soft spot for gun-con games like time crisis. in their E3 conference nintendo announced that they have 3 wii zapper games coming out this year. first is resident evil: the umbrella chronicles, next is sega's online ghost squad, and a secret nintendo release, which i'm hoping is a reenvisioning of duckhunt :D

watch nintendo's entire E3 speech here

i found this bad dude over at http://videogame.brando.com.hk. this one piece plastic wiimote attachement allows you to immerse yerself in first person shooter games. the gun also allows yew to use the nun-chuk, by plugging it into the butt of the gun. at $20, this might just be another fun wii peripheral!


here's another kewl lightgun mod for the wiimote. this one utilizes the nun-chuk a bit more, placing into the handle of the gun, for a double handed grip style. This ones is also from videogame.brando.com.hk , the difference is that is one is only $17.

this little freeware gem will keep yew occupied for hours. the game combines fluid dynamics with classic 80's nostalgia for and awesome game. and did i mention that it was free? grab a copy for pc or mac at plasmapong.com.

this link is to a rad DIY nes controller messenger bag... check it!

ok, to answer everyones emails: YES I HAVE ZELDA THE MINISH CAP! yes ill tell you where you can get it too. NESchile, romreactor, and zelda paradise. hope that helps all yew rom phanatix. actually this rom was kind of hard to find. it's a great game, though nothing can top the snes classic, a link to the past.