Genre : NDS Flash Card
Compatibility : Nintendo DS/Nintendo DS Lite
The R4DS gained fame and notoriety at the peak of its success, which lead to a lot of ‘clone’ companies coming out and copying their design (In some cases, the hardware itself!). Whilst the piracy problems may have caused the R4DS to be put to pasture, the clone companies seem to have ignored this trouble and are still very much in production. Luckily for us homebrew fans, the R4 SDHC is one of those surviving companies. Now, again, whether the company is a knockoff or such isn’t for discussion – There’s a more important issue at hand : Is it any good for homebrew? Let’s see…
As packaging goes, it doesn’t differ too much from the original R4DS style. The size of the box is reduced, and there’s some additional text on the front, but other than that its almost exactly like the R4 Revolution box. The logo is the same, the placement is the same, the only noticable differences are that the letters “SDHC” underneath the original R4 logo. It also mentions “upgrade” on the card which, in all honesty, I have no idea what it means. I assume to let you know it’s an upgrade over the original R4 card.
Inside the box is the same small plastic carrycase as before (Though a translucent gel, instead of a solid blue.) and a USB SD card reader, along with the your actual R4 SDHC card. The SD Reader provided seems a lot better produced that the previous incarnation. Its a sleeker, shaplier design that adds a bit of class to the full package.
The R4SDHC card itself looks… how can I put this any other way… almost exactly the same as the R4DS : Gray plastic card with similar reflective sticker. The main notable difference though is that there’s a holographic sticker over the back of the card. This is apparently a way of guaranteeing that you have an official product and not a fake. You can check the code under the sticker with the official website to make sure it’s legit. There’s also the usual SD-slot on the top of the card – this is where the R4SDHC shines. The “SDHC” being the key point to make and why it’s so unabashadly emblazoned on the packaging. Previous R4 cards could not use SDHC cards, which limited the storage space to only 2GB. The main leap for this card, is that it can now provide you with up to a whopping 32GB of space! Now why you would need so much space is entirely questionable – why I remember when I struggled to fill a 30GB hard drive on my laptop. But with various homebrew allowing you to play mediafiles such as movies/mp3’s/pictures and the like, you may actually need all this space. And if not, normal SD cards work all the same, so it’s entirely up to you.
Setting up is as easy as before. Simply download the necessary firmware from the official site. Drag and drop the files onto the root folder of your SD Card, Place the SD card into the back of your R4SDHC, then your R4 into the back of your DS. Switch it on and you’re away. It takes a couple of seconds to present you with the main screen, which AGAIN, is almost exactly like the R4DS. You have a nice splashscreen on the top screen and a selection of three activities on the bottom. These are GAME, MULTIMEDIA (Moonshell 2.0 is provided in the firmware) and… wait… that’s not SLOT 2!? No, whilst it may appear to be a slot 2 option, it’s actually for your setup options. It appears that, with letting you have up to 32GB storage space, the makers of the R4SDHC have decided that having a slot2 booting card is unnecessary, to which I kind of agree. Why would you need a slot 2 device when everything you need can be put on your slot1? Whilst its a shame for the minority of people that still use slot2, it’s hardly a great loss. In it’s place, you have a handful of options : The ability to have a sleeptimer for those who are worried about powersaving, some skin choices (4 are provided, and more to download from their website), a sound on/off (This is only for a ’switch’ sound effect that plays whenever you move or select something.) and a … well, quite frankly, USELESS power off button. Yep, instead of using the physical buttons provided on your DS – here’s one you can tap, and lo-and-behold – Your DS turns off…. WOW. This is one of the first signs that the team behind this is probably not those that brought you the R4DS. Another is that, on the main splash screen is a clock. Useful, other than its in the most horrible fonts I’ve ever seen. It wouldn’t be so bad, but when everything else is in the same font and is clearly readable, why use this font? This lack of proper design ethic, continues into the games screen.
Not that the game screen is unfunctional, it just seems a little cluttered. The top screen has a number of icons, as well as a couple of information windows. The Help window gives you the controls for the menus but dissapears before you really get chance to read it, and the Info window has vital information such as your game code and the time of your last save – Both of which show nothing as they’re homebrew. On the bottom screen you have the list of game titles, along with their icon. Now then, all the menus and bars are translucent so that you can see through them, but they’re at the exact level that you can’t really read them if you have a colourful background. Not only that, but they’ve got the “X” button in the corner implying that you have some control over closing certain menus…. um, no. It’s just for show. I understand that with the popularity of Windows, you’d want to impliment some of their functions, but to just seem like it – that’s a little tacky. The list of icons on the top screen giveway to some more options (Cheats/Language/RomInfo?) all of which aren’t useful in homebrew, never the less, the controls for them are enough for me to fill a whole other review. The icons on the gamescreen slide across for no reason what so ever, It wouldn’t be a problem except that it obscures the file name. The icon itself appears to have a color set to transparent, so anything that should have anything white, now appears to have a hole in it.
All these things are a little superficial when all you really need to do, to start your homebrew, is find your icon and tap it with the stylus. It just adds to the evidence pointing that the team behind the R4SDHC were not as skilled, at least design-wise, as the original R4DS team.
After all this negativity there’s one huge positive : EVERY homebrew I tested on this cartridge worked, and worked well. Even some files that are notorious for having problems with the R4 (Bobs Game and The Lone Wolf series in particular – reviews soon!). Absolutely everything worked without a hitch – admittidly I only used the compiled ‘.nds’ files, but on a pile of design flaws, this sits pretty well and brings the R4SDHC back into the good books.
Overall, if all you’re interested in is running your homebrew on a card that can take more than 2GB of files – this may be the card for you. If you want a bit more flash, and are willing to pay a bit more – there are other cards available.
FINAL SCORES;
SCREENSHOTS;
USEFUL LINKS;
www.r4i-sdhc.com – Additional info, latest firmware and additional skins.
www.r4cards.co.uk – One of the many places to purchase your R4 cards.
Genre : NDS Flash Card
Compatibility : Nintendo DS/Nintendo DS Lite
Possibly the most controversial card that came out for the DS, the R4DS is surrounded by negative perceptions. Rumours are everywhere that Nintendo sued back in 2007, due to the ability to play commercial roms, forcing the R4 company to shut down production. If this is true, how come there are so many R4 cards around today? It seems that the R4 is one of the most widely available cards on the market. Well, this may be due to a number of ‘clone’ companies : M3, R4SDHC, R4 Ultra, R4i, The list goes on. It’s possible that one of these clone companies may be the original team still working in secret on the product they originally created. In this and the following reviews, I will try not to get into the issues of whether a card is fake or not, but more to the point on how well the card works, and how well it works with the key subject : homebrew.
So let’s begin with the R4 Revolution…
The packaging is fairly simple. A sizable printed thin cardboard box containing the card, a usb Micro-SD reader, and a nice plastic carry case. Its a little bare-bones, but the quality of the goods should be more important than the packaging, wouldn’t you agree? On the card itself you have what appears to be a normal dark-grey Nintendo DS cartridge with a shiny metallic sticker showing the R4 logo. The sticker on my card was a little incorrectly placed, but I hope that this is just an exception and not a regular occurrence. On the back you have a tiny slot that allows you to insert a Micro-SD card. I should note that it doesn’t take MicroSDHC cards, so anything over 2GB will not work on this particular card. If you were looking for something over 2GB, then you may be interested in the R4 SDHC or the CycloDS Revolution both of which are SDHC enabled and shall be reviewed in future. Though, for the majority of homebrew, a 2GB card is more than necessary.
Setting up is quite easy also. R4 cards are generally set up by connecting your Micro-SD card to your PC, either through an adapter (One is usually provided.) or the appropriate slot if you’ve already got one on your PC, then placing the latest firmware files in the root directory of your Micro-SD card. This is where some of the problems with having a clone card may arise. The official firmware stopped back in 2008 with version 1.18 and is available from www.r4ds.com. If this doesn’t work on your card, you may need alternative firmware from one of the alternative websites. In this case, the R4 Revolution works fine with the official firmware.
Once you have the correct firmware installed, all you have to do is slide the Micro-SD card into the back of your R4 Revolution. Insert the cartridge into you Nintendo DS and you’re away. The card boots up directly to the R4 Menu, so you don’t have to select it from the DS itself. You’re then presented with a customisable splash screen on the top, and a choice of three options on the bottom : Games, Multimedia or Slot 2.
The Multimedia button is a shortcut to Moonshell 1.6 which is provided with the firmware. This will allow you to play music, view pictures and even play movies, more on this when I review it separately. But needless to say, it’s a handy addition to have built in.
The Slot-2 button reads anything in the GBA slot. I didn’t have any GBA cartridges to test this with, but I assume that if you wish to use them, this would be the button you press.
The Games button is the most important one and it’s self explanatory. You’re able to drag your homebrew directly onto the cards root folder in Windows. Depending on the homebrew (Some require that you have the main files in the root folder.), you’re able to create sub-folders to keep those files tidy. Any unrelevant files are hidden so only the actual .nds files are visible. You’re provided the option to see anything that’s hidden with the use of the R button, but it’s a lot tidier on this setting. Also of note is that you are able to delete files directly from the card without having to reconnect back to Windows. If you select a file, it takes a few seconds to automatically create a save and your homebrew starts shortly.
I tested a wide variety of homebrew on this card and the majority of it worked without issue. Self contained roms ran perfectly, but other roms (that required sub-directories) usually had to be placed in the root folder. There were a couple of times that I had to make sure that the Slot-2 of the DS was empty, as for some reason this prevented a file or two from loading. As stated, once the slot-2 was empty, almost every file worked.
To sum it up, The R4 Revolution is a brilliant piece of work. It does exactly what you would need from a homebrew device, it does it well, and it does it easily. It has almost 100% compatibility with the homebrew tested, so there’s no wonder that this cards technology was imitated. This really seems to be the card that sets the standard and definitely worth the purchase should you want to look into trying some homebrew.
FINAL SCORES;
SCREENSHOTS;
Useful links;
www.r4ds.com – Additional info, and the official firmware 1.18.
www.ndsthemes.com – A huge selection of brilliant skins for this game.
www.ndsskin.com – More great skins for your R4 menu.
www.r4cards.co.uk – One of the many places to purchase your R4 cards.
Were you that kid at school that instead of listen to Mr Stones’ maths class, you sat at the back of class maiming stick figures in the corner of your maths book? No? Just me? Oh well. Should you want to relive those days of yore, but worry about wasting paper, this is the homebrew for you. Animanitee is simply put : a digital flipbook make (Or flick-book maker, depending on who you talk to). Using your stylus you can draw whatever you like on the bottom screen, add a frame using the D-pad (or the Y/A buttons if you’re lefthanded – it’s great that these things are considered.), then press play and the top screen shows you what the animation actually looks like. You can see instantly if a frame does or doesn’t work and can adjust accordingly.
By pressing the L/R button you can bring up a menu, allowing you to change ink colours, adhust the framerate, or undo any mistakes and such. But one of the best features is the Onion-Skin option. This lets you see the previous frame faintly in the background, effectively simulating what a light box does, so you can line up each drawing for fluidity.
There’s also a few other features like frame duplicatication, deletion, etc. But another unique one is that ability to add a background layer to the whole animation. Its simple and static, but saves you having to draw the scene again and again. Whilst this won’t normally be used, (you’re not going to be able to produce any Don Bluth/Disney style cartoon here,) it’s good that the program does have this available for those who would want to use it.
When you’ve finished creating your mini-masterpiece you can save it to your card for those social gatherings where you whip out your DS and amuse your friends (Who may give you strange looks, and wonder when you’re going to get a “real” job, but hey…). Or better yet, you have the option from the save screen to export as an ‘.AVI’ file. Enabling you to watch this in Windows Media Player or upload it to YouTube and show your piece to the world. There are a few animations already up there, so I assume a community is in the works.
All in all, this is a great piece of fun to waste time with. It’s missing a few features to really make it brilliant such as the ability to draw higher resolution pictures, or a zoom function to get into those nooks and crannies. But overall ‘FUN’ is the key word here. If you’re just looking for something cheap (But clever!) to have a giggle with, this should be your program of choice.
Still Alive is a remake of a flash-game called Portal 2D, which in turn is a 2 dimensional remake of Portal for the PC, Xbox360 and PS3. The game is a simple platform game where all you have to do is collect a number of what can only be described as little pink wibbly things, in order to open the exit of each test room. The added twist is that in order to reach the exit, you must use your patent pending portal gun to travese huge gaps, high platforms and other hazardous obstacles.
There’s a selection of about 30 rooms provided in the main game with the added option of making your own levels which you can share at the official site. So you’ve got a potentially unlimited amount of levels at your disposal.
Looks wise, Still Alive is presented in a 60s/70s retro cartoon style that will also remind you of Dexters Lab and shows of that nature. Then in-game, the main graphics are reminiscent of an updated Manic Miner or Jet Set Willy. Everything is small and functional so that you can see what everything is, but still leaving lots of space to fill the room with various challenges. There’s also an option to change the style to a Mario based theme, or a Sonic one should you feel the need. Personally i prefer the main one, but at least the option is there. Hopefully there will be other skins available in the future for those that would like a, for example, HALO themed game. Just throwing it out there…
Controls are simple and effective. Use left, right and up on the d-pad (or Y,A and X if you’re a lefty) to move and jump, then use the stylus to aim the portal gun. L (or R) fires a blue portal, Down (or B) fires the red one. You WILL shoot the wrong portal sometimes, but this is all part of the challenge.
Overall this is a fun and quick game to play, completely worth the download and it’s obvious that lots of love has gone into
REVIEW – STILL ALIVE DS
Genre : Platform / Puzzle
Theme(s) : Sci fi, Remake
Still Alive is a remake of a flash-game called Portal 2D, which in turn is a 2 dimensional remake of Portal for the PC, Xbox360 and PS3. The game is a simple platform game where all you have to do is collect a number of what can only be described as little pink wibbly things, in order to open the exit of each test room. The added twist is that in order to reach the exit, you must use your patent pending portal gun to travese huge gaps, high platforms and other hazardous obstacles.
There’s a selection of about 30 rooms provided in the main game with the added option of making your own levels which you can share at the official site. So you’ve got a potentially unlimited amount of levels at your disposal.
Looks wise, Still Alive is presented in a 60s/70s retro cartoon style that will also remind you of Dexters Lab and shows of that nature. Then in-game, the main graphics are reminiscent of an updated Manic Miner or Jet Set Willy. Everything is small and functional so that you can see what everything is, but still leaving lots of space to fill the room with various challenges. There’s also an option to change the style to a Mario based theme, or a Sonic one should you feel the need. Personally i prefer the main one, but at least the option is there. Hopefully there will be other skins available in the future for those that would like a, for example, HALO themed game. Just throwing it out there…
Controls are simple and effective. Use left, right and up on the d-pad (or Y,A and X if you’re a lefty) to move and jump, then use the stylus to aim the portal gun. L (or R) fires a blue portal, Down (or B) fires the red one. You WILL shoot the wrong portal sometimes, but this is all part of the challenge. Everything takes place on the lower screen, with the top screen simply used to add humourous commentary from the test computer : GlaDOS. Samples of GlaDOS’ speech are also used to add to the atmosphere.
Overall this is a fun and quick game to play, completely worth the download and it’s obvious that lots of thought has gone into the extras. The programmers have put a lot of the files that were in Portal here also, so if you make it to the ending – you know how great it is.
