I'm Selling These Fine Leather Jackets

Indy4! No, not Fate of Atlantis, but the new one! It was very good. If you're reading this and haven't seen the movie for some childish reasons or something (coughDrMcCoycough), you don't have to worry as there won't be any spoilers. I'll say two things: The movie was great, but the ending was a bit too sci-fi. And, it was better than Temple of Doom.

In other news, I fixed some RTZ Sega Saturn things and I got it to start loading the script, but before crashing due to an array out of bounds assertion. I'll look into it in the upcoming days.

I also played the "real" Indy4 and Indy5 getting ready for the movie. Too bad Indy5 barely works in WinXP, but it's always nice seeing Guybrush using a machine gun to massacre some commies.

The Best Video Games

I've been playing video games for years, starting with the earliest (Concentration, Family Feud, Jeopardy!) and working my way to today. My opinion on games hasn't changed much. If I have fun playing it, it's a good game. It seems like a simple formula, but it has always worked for me. For instance, I could not get myself to play most Game Boy games (except PokeMon, which was quite addictive). Well, here are my favorite games, in category order.

• Racing:
• Gran Turismo
• I really don't play racing games.This is one of the only exceptions. Episode I Racer, maybe too. But, it was really good. I remember playing with my Uncle for hours at a time.
  

• FPS's:
  This is tough. I was never really an FPS player. But, I have two favorites:
• Dark Forces
• Star Wars + FPS = Nice. Sure, I enjoyed the others, but I had the most fun in this game.
• Goldeneye 007
• That's right! The best multiplayer FPS I've ever played. Better than that Halo thing so many talk about. I still play with my friends who have an N64.
  

• Strategy:
• Theme Park
• Besides "The Sims", it's the only strategy game I have. (The Star Wars ones will not be mentioned). I could play for hours, just building and managing.
  

• RPG:
  Blegh. RPG. I have no favorite. PokeMon would probably be the closest, but KoToR and KH also are up there.
  

• Action/Adventure:
  Ah, platforming. That's better. This is probably more of my adventure game heritage showing, though.
• Crash Bandicoot 3:
  
• Warped Yeah, that's right. Make fun all you want, but this game was really fun.
• Jak and Daxter/Ratchet and Clank
• Runners up. Both in their own way.
  

• Flight Simulation:
• TIE-Fighter
• Star Wars bottled up into awesomeness. I haven't found a better flight sim game out there. Though, Rogue Squadron II was pretty good too. Rebel Assault also has a soft spot on me.
  

• Adventure:
  Ah, the pinnacle of gaming. The creme de la creme. Adventure games. I have no favorite. I know, that's horrible. But, I've played so many good ones! So, I'll list them here:
• Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
• Riven: The Sequel to Myst
• The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
  

Disagree? Post comments!

Disclaimer: This is only the opinion of the author, clone2727.










ONE DAY LEFT!

More RTZ Sega Saturn Work

Benjamin and I looked into the files a bit more. There are some different files, and some that are similar. The files are basically mapped out now.

rtz.dat: The same format as the PC version, but in BE order.

rtz.prj: Similar to the PC version, in BE order, but smaller. Many images are separate or in videos.

*.16b: Raw 16bit images in BE order.

*.ton: Raw, uncompressed 16bit audio data in BE order.

*.cpk: Sega FILM videos with the Cinepak for Sega codec.

A few others (bootsnd.mp, bootsnd.map, sddrvs.tsk) still aren't known. My guess is that they are just drivers to play the audio. Just a hunch.

Another, rtz.ref, is the game state, but it is unknown how it is used...

While we have not disassembled the binary yet (a.bin), we have noticed large tables of filenames for the videos and images. The script functions are also listed in the executable. Hopefully in their correct order :P.





TWO DAYS LEFT!

Yabause!

Two days ago I guess, I ran RTZ Sega Saturn through Yabause. It worked surprisingly well! It showed the videos pretty well (only some minor stuttering, probably from running off the CD -- a Windows problem...) and was playable from what I could tell. Due to my lack of Japanese language knowledge, I had to rely on my limited knowledge of the DOS version. In that case, it's very limited. I, truthfully, never played the game until it was added to ScummVM. It had been down in my basement for years collecting dust with other non-played games.

I also ran The Manhole PCE through Hu-Go! It showed the intro, but I couldn't get far. I couldn't control the game after the beanstalk rose from the manhole. Oh well.

In other news, I've been working on an engine for a game I had to design (for something). Not for ScummVM, and not really for adventure games either. Just something that I threw together for a simple first person maze game. Perhaps I should extend it to allow for more functionality...

Semi-Progress

It's been eleven days since the last post. Perhaps it's time to update. For that one person out there reading this, this is for you.

I got the Manhole PCE extracted using TurboRip. That's all so far. It appears very different from RTZ/Manhole New & Enhanced after a brief glance. I'll probably have to compare it to an original Manhole PC version. When I get it....

Return to Zork Sega Saturn came the other day. To my surprise, it actually had rtz.dat/prj. Amazing! Most console ports (that at least I have dealt with, especially from a certain company that shall remain nameless) have used a custom form of the engine. There are still many differences. The rtz.dat/prj seem to be similar to the PC versions, except in BE order. The videos are Sega FILM (with Cinepak for Sega codec), and the graphics are 16bpp. Sound/sprite formats seem to be different, and possibly external functions as well. I uploaded a patch for detection and endianness correction, as well as a rough video parser. Well, Benjamin and I'll be working on it... and knowing myself, I'll slow the process down.

On a lighter note, Putt-Putt Joins the Parade 3DO Japanese came as well. After quickly extracting the data and adding detection, it worked fine. That was simple enough!

Tune in next time. Same clone channel. Same clone time. Well, maybe a slightly different time.

The Past Few Days....

Well, this weekend a few things happened. The Manhole PCE came. But, no luck extracting it (That's a long/ongoing story, that makes it seem like I have no luck whatsoever, but anywho...). I also bought Return to Zork Sega Saturn (Japanese). Still en route.

Coding wise, just a simple patch. It corrects the saved game names for save files from the MADE engine. But, I did do other coding. What it is, you may ask? Well, you may ask. It's that something else from my wiki page. Yup, I'm still working on it. Well, one of two somethin' elses.

Well, enough of this stupid enigmatic-code-talk. I'm working on

More Manhole Mayhem

The Manhole PC-Engine came today. Funny how it takes only a day longer to come from Japan than Utah.... Anyway, no luck trying to extract the files yet. "dumpcd" isn't able to dump the pseudo-audio track to an iso. Perhaps another program will help.... In the end, I'll have to write an extraction program for the data like with extract_tg16_loom.

Better news is that The Manhole New and Enhanced is now working in ScummVM! Yays! (Though, my only contribution was the minor detection changes, and had almost nothing to do with it actually working... :P). Well, it works as far as I can tell anyway (it starts and shows the first few screens :P).

A Day MADE Great...

Well, today "The Manhole: New and Enhanced" came. So, I wrote a patch that adds detection. Sure, it detects, but then crashes immediately. :P Oh well.....

In other news, I did get "Return to Zork" up and running..... :)