Surprisingly enough, it happened. People actually got the money together by February 3, 2012. In response, kiff uploaded two builds of the Game Boy Color port for people to play. Both are now available in the original post at that thread for any curious party to download. I haven’t had a chance to test the game out yet, but judging by the screenshots posted it seems like Capcom made the right call years ago.

If you decide to go and download the Game Boy Color version Resident Evil, you need to make sure you also have the right programs on your computer. The RAR file actually contains two builds of the game, both at different stages of production and both are .GBC files and require a Game Boy Color emulator to play. The first build appears to be more complete and playable. The second cart is playable, but is an earlier build where only Chris is a playable character.

Also, as early builds of a canceled game people should know they won’t get very far before a bug or error stops them. The fans are trying though and people at the forum seem hopeful. Considering the skill of some hackers, it might even be possible for them to find a way to eliminate bugs and glitches, or perhaps craft some kind of workaround so the game could be beaten.

Image Source: The ASSEMblergames.com

Read [The ASSEMblergames.com] Via [Destructoid]

Here’s a video, in case just seeing that picture up there wasn’t enough. Notice that, instead of shrieking when attacking, a Fluttershy yells a rather subdued, “Yay.”

Okay, I’ll admit that it looks a little better in action. Not to mention the idea of the pony yelling “Yay.” when it attacks is rather cute. It also seems the My Little Pony theme song will play when Fluttershy attacks. Actually, it’s more adorably hilarious than just plain “cute.”

That isn’t the only MLP: FIM mod at the Skyrim Nexus. You can also find MLP swords and shields, make the bards sing MLP songs and add textures that make the in-game horses look like, you guessed it, ponies from MLP. The Pony Horse mod is also by zdzichorowerzysta and again, is both cute and a little bit creepy at the same time. Here’s a video of it.

That song from the video won’t play whenever you ride one of the MLP ponies in Skyrim, so don’t get attached to it.

As mildly unsettling as al this is, I still have to say I would definitely add these mods to my game if I had the Windows version. Instead, I have to deal with save issues and standard horses on the PS3.

Read [Eurogamer] Site [Skyrim Nexus]

Wololo managed to get the Genesis emulator picodrive running on the Vita using a firmware exploit and the Half Byte Loader that was actually used to allow PSPs with official firmware to run emulators and other programs. It’s actually one which Wololo says could be easily fixed, and I’m sure now that Sony sees someone has found it, it will be removed with the next firmware update. However, it does show that the new handheld is just as susceptible as the old one and means diligent hackers could soon have Vitas running custom applications, games and probably even pirated media.

You can see Sonic and Knuckles chugging along on Wololo’s Vita in a video uploaded to Youtube.

As you can see, it’s a tad laggy and there are sound issues, but it’s still pretty impressive.

I suppose this could be seen as both good and bad. Bad primarily, because it shows pirates that they may be able to crack the Vita with little to no problems. Also, because it heralds the coming of the same constant stream of firmware updates the PS3 faces to hold back piracy. At the same time, it would be neat to see what kind of custom programs and apps people could create that would use both the front and back touchscreens.

Ironically, Nintendo’s 3DS has yet to be cracked, and it’s coming up on its first anniversary in a few months. Perhaps Sony needs to start talking to Nintendo about security and antipiracy measures.

Read [Destructoid] Site [Wololo]

However, on his site where he announced his investigation into Skylanders on October 27, 2011, he did say that he was going to try emulating the portal with a calculator. (A 84+/SE or 89Ti, if you want to be specific.) I’m thinking that was probably what frightened Activision and spurred its action.

So basically, this is a better safe than sorry situation.

For those who haven’t heard of it, Skylanders is an action game with RPG elements for the 3DS, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360. It comes in a Starter Kit bundle that includes a Portal of Power peripheral for reading figures and three figurines. You need those figures to play, as each one must be scanned into the game via the portal. The scanned figure appears as your avatar on screen. Fighting through levels and completing objectives levels the characters/figures up, boosting theirs and unlocking abilities. Each time the figure is scanned, the play data and its current abilities are saved to it. It’s quite a nifty premise, and people can collect over 30 different figures and adventure areas to expand their games.

I have to admit, Skylanders is actually pretty darn awesome. I grabbed a copy of the 3DS Starter Kit cheap at Goodwill. (It was only $15.99, because someone opened it to steal the figures, but the game was untouched and the portal intact.) I was surprised by how much fun it was and how the figurines work. While Wilson did have a right to fiddle with the portal device and characters to see how they do what they do, I’m actually glad his information wasn’t left online. Other unscrupulous hackers would probably have used it to cheat and break the game and, as I’ve learned from playing, most of the fun comes from using and leveling the characters either on your own or with friends.

Read [brandonw.net] Via [Geek.com]

Right now, AM2R is still in the early stages. However, substantial progress has been made and there’s even something pretty awesome to see. There’s a trailer to watch an a demo to download!

The demo works quite well on Windows PCs, as I’ve given it a shot myself and quite enjoyed it. It’s just the first part of the game, so you can see what you’ll be looking forward to and playing when the whole project is done. It’s free to download at the AM2R site. You may want to grab it sooner, rather than later. Just in case Nintendo decided to get sue-happy or something.

Did I mention it’s pretty? It’s very pretty. Go take a peek and enjoy the warm fuzzies of nostalgia, if you get some spare time later today.

Read [Project AM2R] Via [Siliconera]

The result is a slight alteration of the Apple Siri commercial. It’s mostly the same video you all remember from Apple’s big meeting this week, but only mostly. A very important detail has been changed, turning a simple virtual assistant into the best virtual assistant ever.

Let’s watch the fan-made creation. Let me warn you, it’s awesome.

Make sure you watch for the fine print at the end.

This is more than just the most awesome commercial and game mash-up ever. It’s also a challenge. Once the iPhone 4S is out, I guarantee you there will be at least one hacker trying to replicate the experience presented in that video. Perhaps there’ll even be an app for that!

Read [Bamfer P] Via [Kotaku]

What makes Yifan Lu’s work special is that it’s actually based entirely on the PlayStation emulator Sony has built into the Xperia Play. Yifan Lu just experimented with it, did a little reverse engineering and found a way to get PSOne ISO files (the information on the PSOne discs that contained the actual game) working on it. Most amazing is, Yifan Lu’s summary of the work done in the XDA Developers forum says the progress made so far was done in only nine days.

Yifan Lu even uploaded a YouTube video of the project’s progress so far, showing Crash Bandicoot 3 running on an Xperia Play thanks to his emulator tweaking.

The only things Yifan Lu doesn’t have working are PSOne games that required multiple discs, save state swapping to allow multiple save files to be maintained and a game manual function.

While this doesn’t necessarily mean everyone who takes advantage of this exploit is going to be resorting to piracy, since it isn’t exactly hard to rip the iso files from PSOne discs, there’s a good chance it many people will. After all, a lot of people were pretty upset that your PS3 and PSP PlayStation Store purchases don’t carry over to the Sony Ericsson smartphone. Oh, you didn’t know? The Xperia Play phone uses the PlayStation Suite, which is a separate entity from the PlayStation Store, meaning even if you already legitimately acquired a PSOne game for your PS3 and PSP, you’d have to rebuy it for your Xperia Play if you wanted it on your phone as well.

The next question is, when is Sony going to go after Yifan Lu to try and shut his work down. We already know the company’s stance on people reworking and modifying the PSP and PS3. I’m sure they won’t take kindly to an independent developer unlocking the Xperia Play.

Read [XDA Developers] Via [Phandroid] Site [Yifan Lu]

Arcades used to be a staple of every shopping mall, every other strip mall and even a few standalone places to kill some quarters. There are still a few such places sprinkled around but they’re pale shadows of what arcades used to be. even Disney’s Penny Arcade has but a few games of yesteryear.

Nowadays arcades are small and mostly filled with ‘gambling’ games where you win coupons to trade for plastic junk or try to pick up heavy objects with cranes that have the grasping strength of overcooked spaghetti. To even get a hint of what the old arcades were like, you pretty much have to go to a videogame museum.

There’s no need to grieve for the loss of such electronic glory, as modern consoles and PCs can easily match the graphics and speed of the old arcades. If, like me, you miss the look, feel and ease of play of the old machines and are one of the many folks that don’t have the space or $3000 (or much more) for a full size arcade machine, then perhaps this gentleman on YouTube can help:

While the heart of the matter is he’s modified a Game Boy Advance (GBA) and stuck it inside a mini-mockup of an old arcade cabinet, the cabinet changes things from yet another console game to an extremely cool and nigh irresistible toy that would look nice even on a professional’s desk.

While the booth is custom for Space Invaders, the fact that it’s a GBA inside means it’s a simple matter to change cartridges if you’re – somehow! – bored with playing Space Invaders. This is a labor of love on his part and it’s clear he’s happy to provide detailed instructions for how you can do it at home, or he’ll build to order if you’re willing to pay.

I wonder if someone out there is willing to acquire 20 or so different mini-cabinets, just to set up a scale model arcade. All that would be missing are some G.I. Joe and Ken dolls as customers (Barbie would never be caught dead in such a place!).

If you’re more into the old games than the cabinets they came in, check out the MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) site, which have software that will run literally thousands of those old arcade games on your PC.

Read [http://www.technologytell.com/gaming/71833/opinion-so-how-do-gamers-feel-about-anonymous-now/ Anonymous: an online community of hackers notorious for hacking into government sites and sticking it to ‘the man’. Their activities include releasing government information about war crimes, striking back at anti-piracy enforcers, and generally sticking up for the little guy, whoever they think he is. Note the motto on the flier. It almost sounds like something out of a movie, but this real (if loose) group of people actually exists, and up until recently, was viewed with some admiration by gamers, who can only imagine that hackers are gamer geeks as well (after all, gamers use computers just like Anonymous, right?). ]]> Anonymous is an online community of hackers notorious for hacking into government sites and sticking it to ‘the man.’ Their activities include releasing government information about war crimes, striking back at anti-piracy enforcers and generally sticking up for the little guy, whoever they think he is. Note the motto on the flier. It almost sounds like something out of a movie but this a real (if loose) group of people. Until recently, these guys were viewed with some admiration by gamers who can only imagine that hackers are gamer geeks as well (after all, gamers use computers just like Anonymous).

That high admiration sagged when it was reported that Anonymous attempted to distribute denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on Sony’s PlayStation-related websites and exposed the personal data of many gamers. Respect drops sharply when it starts to cut into Playstation time, not to mention the bank account.

But Anonymous denies they were behind the attacks, snarling that Sony’s accusations only come from incompetence and that Anonymous has no interest in credit card information. OK, we’ve got accusation and denial, yet there’s more.

Apparently, there’s a civil war of some sort going on in Anonymous, so it’s quite possible that a sub-faction may actually be involved with the Sony incidents after all. What a mess.

There’s no reason to hold Anonymous in respect or even disdain. Anonymous is just a loose collection of people who do stuff. Some of it is illegal, some of it legal, some of it moral and some of it immoral. Some members engage in courageous behavior (doing things that annoy the CIA is quite dangerous) others are, quite possibly, scum. Since they have no figurehead, no spokesperson, no way to really identify if any given person is a member, the only way to consider this organization is with caution. Even if Anonymous actually had nothing to do with Sony, it’s just a matter of time before any particular system of any value gets hacked, with or without Anonymous’ help.

The existence of Anonymous, combined with their many hacking successes, means gamers should take from this whole episode the following: Anything and everything you put online can become very public and you’ll probably never know who ‘outed’ your information.

The convenience and fun of the online world must be weighed against the risks of exposure. Contain those risks. Don’t put information online that you wouldn’t want your worst enemy to know. If you must use a credit card – and I know I must – consider getting a card that’s only for online stuff, so that when the inevitable hack comes, your inconvenience and risks are minimized.

Read [MSNBC] Also Read [GMAnews] Also Read [Forbes]

“And to anyone who thinks I was involved in any way with this, I’m not crazy, and would prefer to not have the FBI knocking on my door,” Hotz wrote. “Running homebrew and exploring security on your devices is cool, hacking into someone elses server and stealing databases of user info is not cool. You make the hacking community look bad, even if it is aimed at douches like Sony.”

Hotz went on to sympathize with the 77 million users whose accounts have been compromised as a result of the hack. However, he doesn’t blame Sony’s engineers but rather the executives.

“The fault lies with the executives who declared a war on hackers, laughed at the idea of people penetrating the fortress that once was Sony, whined incessantly about piracy, and kept hiring more lawyers when they really needed to hire good security experts. Alienating the hacker community is not a good idea,” he said.

Commenters on his blog are split in two camps. On one hand, there are those who believe that Hotz is still to blame for what has happened. Some accuse him of a number of things that include inspiring other hackers to, in a sense, teach Sony a lesson while others blame Hotz for providing the hackers the tools that allowed them to infiltrate Sony’s defenses. Yet many others support him and feel that it’s silly to blame Hotz for the actions of others. One commenter compared it to blaming Smith and Wesson for deaths related to guns.

Although we reported on April 26, 2011 that the PSN would hopefully be up and running by Wednesday April 27, as of Thursday April 28 and currently there are no signs of improvement.

What do you all think of Hotz’s post? He may not be directly behind the PSN breach but should he shoulder some of the blame for it?

Site [Geohot got Sued] Via [IndustryGamers]