June 2005 Archives

I hate flying... I hate bogus airport sercurity that harass people with facial hair, I hate taking off my shoes so they can be rubbed with handy-wipes, I hate flight delays and overbooked flights, I hate the crying babies, I hate the lack of airconditioners, I hate the fact that they use old broken down planes that take fifteen hours to repair before and after each flight, I hate poor judgement calls that leave passengers on a plane circling a thunderstorm until they have little fuel left and are forced to land, I hate the fact that they only serve bland trailmix instead of peanuts during mid flight, I hate the over iced sodas and the rotten tomato juice, and I just hate everything about flying and airports.

Unfortuantelyas of tomorrow, I'll be on a plane to Ohio and will be gone for about a week. The good news is I got this weeks comic done early and Ryo should post it sometime on Friday. The bad news is next weeks comic maybe running late considering I'll be busy checking out grad schools and resting in a more comfortable bed with healthier meals. Plus I don't know if I'll have a good enough internet connection in Ohio to post any updates or images. But at least you know this week won't be suffering from lazy-artist/late-update syndrome. And sorry for the big rant above, I just rather travel by land than deal with strangers in the sky.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was recently released for the Xbox and PC. I have played the Xbox version a little and can say it is a pretty fun game. It is like the GTA games in the fact that you can drive around and pick-up hookers (and kill them for your money back) and kill drug dealers for lots of money. The story starts out with you coming back to your home town; your mom is dead, your gang has lots its ground, and other gangs are getting out of control. It is your mission to take everything back. The graphics look almost like that of the PS2 version, except the draw distance is further and a few minor improvements. The PC version has improved a lot with cleaner textures, anti-aliasing and even further draw distance. This game is definitely not for minors. So please, adults only.

I have also been playing Need for Speed Rivals for the PSP. The game is harder than the Underground series on the Xbox. You have to be sure to upgrade your vehicles and start out the race good or else your gonna lose. The game will make me mad because of its difficulty and mad enough to keep me from playing it for a week. In fact, I don't feel like talking about it anymore.

I would like to thank Split Reason for contacting me and informing me about their website. I recently received this shirt (The Bomb) and it is a high-quality shirt. It isn't one of those cheap iron-on's. The material used for the picture seems to be thick enough to stand many many washes. I plan on ordering more from them and recommend giving them a visit.

New Comic. I know I'm way late with this one, so sorry everybody. Got worked over with other art projects and minor illness. Hopefully next week's will be early.

Have you read a post on our site, but forgot when we posted it but remember that it was about the PSP? Well, now you can sort all of our posts by category.

Over to the left you will notice nine little icons that will display every post made in that category. As time goes on, these pages will grown and literally be HUGE. This can come in handy if you are just interested in particular posts in categories made by us. Enjoy!

As for the new PSP exploit, I am loving it! It awesome, being able to play my homebrew games and *cough cough* without swapping memory cards; a method that can destroy your card and/or system. As Stndrdc said, it is annoying to have the corrupt data shown, but beggars can't be choosers. I predict it will be fixed in the near future.

Recently I've posted another game review. This time for Digimon World 4. I know the series isn't very popular with a lot of the community, but check it out anyways.

Today is the day I've been waiting for in over a week. PsP-Dev and Killer-X have combined their powers to create KXploit, the non-swapping, fingernail saving method for running homebrew applications. Turns out this method was possible all along, simply put a '%' at the end of the MS1 folder for the homebrew app or emulator and place it in the same spot as the MS2 folder would be. Although a simple fix, this method still poses one annoyance to me; for every executable EBOOT icon, there will also be a "Corrupt File" icon. I'm sure PsP-Dev is still working the kinks out of this exploit so expect to see more from them.

Grab the KXploit files here.

For the most part, I dislike RPGs. I'm not talking about games like Neverwinter Nights or the Mana series when I say this, rather I refer directly to the Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior series. In stead of innovative gameplay, these games simply try to entrall people with storylines or graphics only. When battles occur, one just randomly selects an option of action and fights until the battle is over. They serve no purpose other than prolong the players attention until the next story point or animated sequence. Such desires could easily be attained by reading a book or watching television.

To my joy and surprise, Digimon World 4 did not become this type of an RPG. Instead it had more in common with action games like Gauntlet with some of the elements of Phantasy Star Online I&II. Though one can level up their characters and weapon skills, game play and strategy takes more importance.

Gameplay: despite the lack of a jump attack, the gameplay seems very refined. The only problem is dealing with using ranged attacks. For some odd reason you can't aim worth crap in the game. Period.

Graphics: Bright bold colors and non-blocky 3d. It captured the feel of the digimon cartoons, despite the Megaman Battle Network knock-off HQ the main character works for.

Sound: Nothing stellar and nothing annoying. Nothing worth buying the games soundtrack, but no person music is needed to drown out bad music.

Story: Kinda bland. There's trouble in the digital world, as a new recruit you must venture alone and untrained against enemies of vastly larger strength. And of course Former allies seem to be turning against you. I haven't gotten that far yet, but it looks like the early PSO plotlines. As with other games which one creates their own main character, it feels like you are hearing the plot and story points second hand rather than interacting with the main world directly.

Difficulty: Currently I'm playing the Normal difficulty. And their idea of normal is when you start the game at level one your character dies almost instantly in their first battle. And bosses can kill almost anyone with one or two solid hits. The game is hard and more difficult than what most people would expect from a "children's" game. Luckily enemies drop weapons, health, and other items like halloween candy. Its a game the gets easier the more you play.

Overall: not a bad game, but definately for people who enjoy dungeon crawling. It takes a lot a quick wits and practice to play the game, allowing it to transcend the standard beat-them-up game genre. Despite the lack of a good or innovative story, I still say it is worth the thrity bucks I paid for the game.

I told Ryo that the swap method for the PSP hack would be replaced by a single one card method within a week of the initial launch. It was announced today that the same group, PSP-DEV, will be releasing a one card, no swap, glorified way to run homebrew on the PSP.

Several days ago we released the swaploit (15-Jun) , some of the sceners got satisfied but some of you tell us to do it better. Today we are proud to announce that in a few days you will get a new hit from Killer-X and PsP-Dev Team...

This morning I expected to be able to boot up my PSP with the same old ugly purple default background for June, but someone has developed a flashing program that will put your custom backgrounds into your PSP bios. This comes in very handy, especially for those months when the backgrounds aren't so manly, such as June. Here are the rules for the images:

I will be making some custom background images. If you have a request just shoot me an email.

Find out more at DualScene.

New Comic. It is based on the Puyo Pop games. Not much else going on now.

I stumbled upon a site that has a massive amount of old and current videogame commericals. They have ads for many countries. I remember a lot of the old Super Nintendo and NES ads they have on the site.

Right now, it seems the server may have a lot of traffic because the download speeds are kinda slow. I also found a few mistakes on some videos on the console category they should be in and emailed the author.

I tried to find the new Kirdy DS Canvas Curse commercial, but they don't have it yet. Definitely give this site a visit; it is fun way to waste time.

The PSP exploit was released early this morning. The procedure was a little confusing at first because the developers don't speak very good English, but we did manage to figure it out. The expoit is pretty cool except the fact that you have to do the annoying memory card swap. Hopefully this will be fixed in the future. But for now go pick it up here and have fun. I'm so happy I decided not to upgrade my firmware.

The folks over at Only4 PSP Dev have finally found a way to run homebrewed games on the PSP. This has only been confirmed to work on the 1.5 version. The 1.52 firmware update is not currently working with the exploit and the 1.51 is yet to be tested. Stay tuned sometime on Wednesday the 15th for an update on the news.

Read more at MaxConsole

We have a picture of the signed Gameboy that was given to EV3 Sniperfox for winning the giveaway.

Isn't it pretty? Don't worry, we will hold more prize contests. So be sure to keep a look out for them.

I am proud to present TGZs first mod tutorial. I haven't seen any information on this before, so this is first place you will find this...

We take no responsibility for anything that may happen if you decide to do this modification. Do this at your own risk. Also, opening your Gamecube will void your warranty.

Needed materials:
-Nintendo Wave bird
-Gamebit or a Sears Nut driver*
-15watt Soldering Iron
-60/40 Rosin core solder .032 dia.
-Electrical Tape
-Solder vacuum (may not be needed)
-Pair of wire strippers
-Y-shaped screwdriver (or I used a small Philips screw driver)
-4- 12" thin pieces of wire

Most of the materials can be found at your local RadioShack. The only things not available there are the gamebit and the controller. If you don't have a gamebit or do not want to order one online, visit *Sears and pick up a 5/32 x 2-1/2 nutdriver (which are kept in the mini-screwdriver isle).

Taking Apart the Cube
You will need to disassemble your gamecube. Take your gamebit/nut driver and take out the four screws on the bottom of the gamecube. Carefully turn the cube back over and lift the top off.

Removing the controller board
The board is located on the front of the cube, right above the memory card slots. The board also houses the system battery, power LED and the reset switch.

Once the lid is off, carefully pull the controller port board toward you and unplug the ribbon cable. Remove the two screws found on the back of the board and remove the plastic molding. Then you should have something like this:

(board may differ a little *pic from anandtech.com*)

After removing the controller board, you will want to decide which controller port you will want to use as the permanent port. I chose port 1 because most single player games require a controller to be plugged into port 1. (Don't fear though, because a regular controller can still be used in the port you chose)

Taking apart the receiver
The receiver is housed in plastic casing and isn't too hard to open. If you have a Y-bit screwdriver, just simply unscrew the two screws on the back of the housing and remove the back. I used a small Philips screwdriver and applied enough force to remove the screws (Caution: This method may strip the screws and the screwdriver). Once the back is removed, carefully pull out the board.

There will be four wires: purple, red, brown and green. CAREFULLY unplug them from the board and you will be left with the four wires attached to the part of the receiver that plugs into the gamecube. Now CAREFULLY pull each wire out one-by-one. I recommend using a pair of needle nose pliers, and be sure to leave enough wire to strip and solder later on. Now you should be left with a container that looks like this:

Extending the wires
Now you will want to connect your four 12" pieces of wire to four wires that you pulled out of the wave bird receiver. You will need to solder these wires together and then wrap the solder points up with electrical tape. You should end up with something like this:

Soldering the wires to the controller board

Front view of the controller port

You will want to solder your wires that you extended to the following corresponding solder points.

Point 2 - Green
Point 3 - Brown
Point 6 - Red
Any of the four (4) big solder points - purple

We have provided a picture to illustrate which color goes to which point. (Ignore the color of wire we have going to the point, just go by the color as stated in the picture) Also, the controller port picture shown above will be backwards of what of points are on the back of the board. In the picture below the reset switch is at the top and you will have 6 solder points in the center of the four big solder points. The Brown goes on the top left, Green goes on the top center, Red on the bottom left (right below the Brown). The purple can go on any of the big solder points. (Note: The top right, bottom center, and bottom right points will have nothing attached to them)

Click to enlarge image

Once all of your soldering is done, you will want to test to make sure everything was installed correctly. Plug the four wires back into the receiver and then plug the controller board ribbon cable back into the gamecube and power it on. The gamecube will load without the top on and should go into the bios screen. Make sure the receiver and the controller are on the same channel and test it out.

If the controller works, proceed to the next step. If the controller does not work, make sure your solder points are good and that you don't have any crossed solder points on the board. Also make sure the wires are plugged into the receiver and that you didn't break any of the controller boards points.

Receiver Placement
I chose the right side of the cube, opposite side of the fan unit as the side to house the receiver. Run the wires over to the side and vertically stand the receiver by the screw hole. Once in place, you may want to use a little electrical tape to hold it in place.

Closing it up:
Assuming that you already tested the unit to ensure the installation was a success (make sure to write down which channel the receiver is turned to), carefully put the lid back on. Make sure the receiver isn't in the way of the lid or any internal parts and proceed to put the four screws back in. Enjoy!

All content is copyright Totalgamerz.com. If you would like to use any or part of this information for anything other than personal use, please contact me first for permission.

If you have any questions, comments or need help with this mod. Email me (ryo) and I will try to answer any questions.

---------------------------------------------------

New Comic. I know I already used Kirby in my first comic, but with the new game out I figured he needed another update. For the record, I don't hate him. I just hate driving behind him.

I have started a new thread in the TGZ forums. You might have heard of things like this before, this is a photoshop contest. Take the image that I have provided, modify it any way you like. A winner will be chosen after two weeks. Refer to this thread for the rules and to see the contest images. Happy Photoshopping.

TGZ Photoshop Contest

We have two new items to add to the downloads section. TGZRadio is proud to present:

Thats How I Live
and
This is not a game

Enjoy

New Comic. I feel really sick and tired now, so I'm going to sleep.

On the GameStop website, they show Halo 3 as being released around June 2006 here in the US.

Microsoft originally stated that they will release Halo 3 around the launch of the Playstation 3 and Sony stated that the PS3 should launch around mid 2006. It is possible that GameStop is basing the release date off what M$ has said about competing with the launch of the PS3.

We will keep you updated as news develops.