There’s now the full video recording of Paul Koller’s presentation at the Game Developer’s Conference that we mentioned earlier. In his first slide he talks about this figure taken from my Mobygames: Quantify Me paper. Watch his talk here!
Let’s take a look at Week 34 at our lovely forum.What have they been up to? Click on “more” for the full article.
2D/3D models
Paul Koller talked about “Porting Contemporary Games to a Vintage Platform” during the Game Developer Conference in Cologne, Germany last Tuesday. Paul is the one responsible for porting games of this day and age back to the platform of the past: the Commodore 64. We remember the port of VVVVVV back in 2010? This time around he showed his conversion of Canabalt, C64anabalt, and SuperBreadBox (you know, Super Crate Box, by Vlambeer) as well during his talk. His opening slide to introduce his talk? This one taken from Mr. Mouse’s MobyGames: Quantify Me analysis. What a smart guy! We hope to see the full presentation soon up at GDC Vault. Hopefully, for free. ..
Today, let’s take a look at some of the things going on at the Game Research Forum this week. A selection of new topics this period, and some brief information. Check it out!
Shakotay2 helped out !!!!! and created a fix for a QuickBMS script for Rayman Legends *.IPK files that work on PC/XBOX360 files at least, other platforms not yet tested. !!!!! still needs help with the PC audio container of Rayman Legends though. Researchman is interested in an Dragon’s Crown *.AWB, *.ACB unpacker. Meanwhile, Vosvoy came in to ask for help converting PayDay 2 sounds to IMA ADPCM, only to help himself along the way as he was editing his original request, coming up with a solution using VLC! FantasyHeroBoy was aided by MiLØ in converting Inuyasha Feudal Combat *.XAG files to WAV. Speaking of audio, JohnGrimm would like some help with Xuandou Zhiwang *.FSB files. If anyone can help Nobby with a strange *.JPG format from Test Drive Unlimited 2 he would be most appreciative. Alon needs his *.DDS files from Gundam Breaker fixed (PS3) and Gh0stblade is offering a hand. Ekey uploaded a tool to unpack Ducktales Remastered *.PAK files, and another to encrypt/decrypt the assets/art.dat from Papers, Please. If anyone has info on how to import *.NIF model files from Squad in NifSkope, onelove1210 would like to hear it. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier *.SDAT files from PS3 can be unpacked using a tool pointed to 3ps3 by Thief1987. Finally, MrAdults’ Noesis thread is nearly reaching 100 pages length! Research on, folks!
Some bugs were addressed in this minor update of the original Multi game file archive editor MultiEx Commander. Also, donations required to obtain it go down to 5 euros! Check http://multiex.xentax.com. The readme says:
MultiEx Commander 4.5.1 Release Candidate 1.1 (Alpha) README.TXT
============================================================
July 2013
http://multiex.xentax.com
============================================================Minor Changes:
* Bugfix: (re)Compression of files as needed was failing.
* Bugfix: Browsing for files in left Mex Editor window was failing.
* Bugfix: Failure of decompression of files left some other files open, causing mayhem.
* Bugfix: Failed compression on files when user opted for extraction anyway would not work.
* Textual changesImportant note: You must at all times run MultiEx Commander as administrator. Make sure you set this in the short-cut accordingly.
If you do not run MultiEx Commander as admin, problems with file management may arise, causing the program to run ashore.=—————-=
(C) 1997-1998 SadCom Ltd.
(C) 1999-2003 XeNTaX
(C) 2003-2004 XeNTaX/GNU Public License
(C) 2005 XeNTaX
(C) 2006-2013 The Xentax Foundation
=—————-=
We’ve been busy adding some more lately, thanks also to ikskoks for his work, and there are now 135 tools! Some titles are: BF Extractor (Jade Engine games), JADE Game Engine .bin file pack-tool v1.0, Fable 2 Tools, MPQ Editor, Decrypt Perry, Arcania Audiostream Unpacker, BloodRayne Tools v3.7 and many others. Go to the Tools now!
Indeed, going through the Game Research Forum, the score up to now has reached 100 tools. 100 tools created by our forum members for a multitude of games and running on different platforms. Oh yeah, there is some cool stuff in there. Is that it? By no means, this is just the start of more to be dug up, and more new releases to be archived at the Tools Blog. Tune in for more!
Taking data from MobyGames I have analyzed their information on games released since 1977 on many platforms in an attempt to make some historical sense of it all in a descriptive way. It is entitled MobyGames: Quantify Me. A brief quantitative analysis of the gaming era according to MobyGames. Below is the Abstract plus some key figures, but you are encouraged to read the full article here: MobyGames: Quantify Me 2012. Enjoy the read!
Michalss released version 2.0 of his QuickBMS GUI ! With this excellent tool you can now do some heavy scripting for QuickBMS by Luigi Auriemma in a comfortable IDE. What more can you wish ? Check the forum entry, or get it from the Tools Blog. Here’s the info on the version changes.
Features & Version:
======== version 2.0 beta ========
[+] fixed a lot of bugs
[+] replace old syntax editor with a new one
[+] integrated Simple HEX Editor
[+] Key Editor from settings
[+] autoupdate for qbms.exe
[+] Project functionality added
[+] real time command string monitor
[+] custom qbms variables
[+] fixed problem with double quotes
[+] command whisper(beta) gr8 functions
[+] line grouping to syntax editor
[+] option to open HTML format from qbms
[+] And lot of more 
I’ve completed the transition of the tools that were posted at the Tools Blog to the new custom field template. We now list 45 member-created game-mod tools, many of them custom created in response to visitor requests. I am positive this is just the tip of the iceberg, and there are many more tools posted throughout. We must list them all at the Tools Blog! Check also this post for a How-To.
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