With Christmas just over, it's time for the final MAME release for
2018, and what a year it's been! Before we move on, let's pause and
recap some of the significant milestones from the past twelve
months:
- We've emulated a steady stream of hand-held games from Nintendo,
Tiger and others. Our Tiger Game.com emulation now runs all released
games.
- Acorn computer emulation improvements have been too numerous to
count. In particular, MAME now supports a huge array of
peripherals.
- Emulation for home systems based on the SSD XaviX, SunPlus µ'nSP and
V.R. Technology VT platforms has really advanced, bringing a generation
of TV games to life.
- MAME now runs CLIX on InterPro and HP-UX on HP9000/300, both with
graphical desktop environments and networking. MAME will also run
SunOS with the SunView desktop environment on some SPARC workstations.
Additionally, the SGI Iris Indigo R4000 shows its boot menu.
- Long-standing graphical issues have been fixed, including priorities
in Pac-Land and Moon Patrol, row scroll effects on Capcom CPS-3, and
numerous glaring errors on Tatsumi games.
- Hit detection on the now-infamous helicopter in Time Crisis has been
corrected, rear-view mirrors work in Ridge Racer 2, Rave Racer and Ace
Driver, track mirroring works in Rave Racer, and graphics have been
improved across all Namco System 22 games.
- Taito C-Chip emulation finally allows Bonze Adventure to play as
intended, solving all the persistent gameplay issues.
- Games with Capcom QSound and Taito Zoom ZSG-2 hardware now provide a
far more enjoyable auditory experience.
- Rare arcade systems keep getting dumped and emulated, including Tom
Tom Magic, the original Gigas Mark II, Last KM, Night Mare, El Fin Del
Tiempo, a prototype of Led Storm Rally 2011, and the Pac-Man hack Titan.
Some of these were thought to be lost to time.
MAME 0.205 is no different. Newly supported arcade systems include
Unico's Magic Purple, and Visco's never-before-seen prototype Pastel
Island. The latter ties in nicely with improved video emulation for the
SSV platform (yes, this fixes other long-standing glitches, too). Newly
playable machines include Konami's Tobe! Polystars, Evil Night and Total
Vice. Yes, Konami M2 emulation is finally here! Be aware that there's
still a lot of room for performance optimisation on this system.
Putting arcade systems aside for a moment, this release includes
support for Dance Dance Revolution Strawberry Shortcake, and the
Nintendo Game & Watch titles Oil Panic and Squish. Interestingly,
there are no other emulators or simulators for Squish, and it hasn't
been included in any of Nintendo's Game & Watch collections. It
seems to draw inspiration from the Famicom game Devil World.
There are hundreds more Commodore 64 cassettes in the software list
now, and quite a few more BBC ROMs as well. Software lists have been
added for the Nascom computers, along with updates to the boot ROM
choices and better keyboard emulation. We've also created a skeleton
driver and documented the known software for the Chinese Monon Color
console. In a last-minute addition we added support for new
version 2 .WOZ floppy images on the Apple II family. |