As I am sure you are all aware RomUlation, one of, if not the biggest rom sites was recently given a cease and desist notice from the Entertainment Software Association, essentially closing down the site. What does this mean for the gaming community at large? We ask Seph, the founder of RomUlation.
“I’m 19 years old and working as a part-time PHP programmer, the other part of my work hours I spend on various Internet related projects; RomUlation being one of those. I started out my web career doing work for other people while working on re-launching a highly improved version of RomUlation. When it finally got done I stopped doing work for other people and focused instead on my own project. Along the way some more ideas fermented in my which I am now working on; they’re still a few months away from total realization - RomUlation took up a lot of development time. 
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What made you start RomUlation?
“I don’t remember really; RomUlation initially started more than 5 years ago as a very amateurish website with static html pages and uploads to Yahoo Groups. I don’t think I can brag about having had some noble purpose for starting RomUlation. I was quite naive back then and I suppose I merely liked being able to play N64 games on my PC and wanted to share my joy with others. My parents had this crazy idea that I couldn’t have an N64 because I already had a PlayStation. Obviously no child should ever have to face that horror.
My reasons changed with time though; it’s no longer just about the philosophy that “sharing is caring”. I suppose it’s more about showing that today’s business models are outdated and don’t work anymore, it’s tiring to buy a game only to find out an hour later that you should rather have spent the money on that other game. I honestly don’t think I’d keep RomUlation running if Nintendo made it easy to download demos and full games and use them with a flash cart; well at least not the download aspect. I’d probably still run the forum and the community.”
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Dementium Rom Download
Score 7.8/10
Download Link 1 [external]
Download Link 2 [external]
Full review here
Well it seems to me companies like Nintendo are hell bent on getting rid of people providing nintendo DS roms online. I can’t blame them really and I would probably do the same. However, my web statistics show that most people actually landing on this site are indeed looking for roms to download. Whilst I wont host any roms (because I don’t want to break the law if that’s ok with you), I am more than happy to post external links to roms hosted elsewhere. I dont have time to upload every single pony game that comes out, so I am going to focus on decent games only. I am also going to supply a video clip and rating for each rom I link to as I think this is what a lot of other sites are missing. I will add a few pages later today.
Dementium – The Ward Review
Score 7.8/10
At first glance of this game I was was very impressed. The setting is an abandoned mental hospital, covered with smears of blood and gore, so as you can probably tell this game isn’t for kids. I guess that’s what appealed to me, as the majority of DS games are targeted at the younger gamer and there are only a few games that have an adult feel to them. This game kind of reminds me of Touch The Dead crossed with Resident Evil.
This is an arcade game, there may be a story line but I have not paid much attention to it. You simply walk around endless corridors looking for weapons to kill the hordes of zombies. It sounds pretty boring, and it has been done to death (excuse the pun), but at the end of the day it is what some people want out of a game.
Graphically it outshines most DS games and it has a real dirty feel to it. The 3D engine is pretty powerful for a DS game and there are several little graphical touches that give the game a greater sense or realism. For example, the top screen which is the first person view point has a texture on top of it which gives the game a feeling of grit and dirt. Using a combinations of steering your direction with the touch screen and d-pad and firing with the L button, moving around the environment is intuitive and within a few minutes you pretty much know what you are doing.
Check out these graphics
The sound is great on this game. A few times I was actually scared by zombies jumping out of nowhere! Its not often a game gets to me like that, in fact the last time I remember that happening was Resident Evil on the Playstation. (The bit where the zombie dogs jump through the window!)
All in all this game is a bit of fun. It looks fantastic and the environment is believable. Somehow though I am left a bit disappointed, this game is missing something, perhaps its depth. It is a fairly linear title, which despite a great aesthetic delivery fails to sustain any long term play and is all too predictable. The only saving grace being its control method, although this in its self does little to garner any extended time from a title you have probably played before.
One of the best and most popular rom websites has finally closed down. Here is an extract from their notice of closure.
It is with great regret that we must announce the immediate closure of RomUlation. We’ve had a good streak in our opinion, almost a year of service where we managed to rise to being one of the most popular ROM sites, if not the most popular one. At our peak we served 35,000 people daily; pushing 241mbit/sec of data; on average we serve 25,000 people daily while pushing 80-120mbit/sec of data. This was not cheap to provide but then again, we were never in it for the money, but because we believe that the current system Nintendo use is flawed. What follows is a rant on this very topic, if you have no interest in this then I suggest you skip to the second headline where there will be some technical details for users who were premium members and about our future.
You can read the rest in full here, something I would recommend you do. The author, Seph, makes some interesting, and in my opinion, valid points about Nintendo and the gaming industry as a whole.
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
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass Review
Score 9.6/10
It has been a good few weeks now since I started playing this fabulous game and I still haven’t completed it yet. As you can probably tell from my first sentence I am very pleased with how this game has turned out. Initially I was really concerned that the method of controlling our hero Link, by use of the stylus would ruin this game, however I find that if anything it has improved it considerably.
Most gamers are familiar with the Zelda story lines so I will spare you the history lesson, less to say that the Zelda franchise has taken many incarnations since 1986 and the majority of these games are based around the idea of saving a princess named Zelda. More recent games tended to have a particular theme. Majora’s mask is about a mask, the Ocarina of times is themed around an instrument, and this game has an hourglass. The hourglass is used to preserve your health whilst in the Temple of the Ocean King. A simple concept, but there is much more to the game than that.
At first I thought this version of Zelda was going to be a quick one to conquest. After all I have completed The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past many times over the years and I am familiar with the way Zelda games work. I soon realised that this game was holding back, it was just revealing part of what it had to offer, and it is a much bigger game than I first imagined. The storyline is engaging and the puzzles are rewarding and this game feels fresh.
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There seem to be many websites that now offer free downloads of Ninitendo DS Roms. I have listed a couple below. What interested me though is how they get away with this. It is essentially piracy after all! I know there is the old argument that you can make a backup of software you have purchased, but I think that’s just an excuse really. Anyway, I wont complain.
http://nds-roms.com/
http://www.romulation.net/
http://dashroms.com
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.
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