Hands-On Review of Connectix Virtual Game Station v1.4 Updater
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Hands-On Review: Virtual Game Station v1.4By Chris Adamson Connectix, Inc. Price: Free Download
The interface to the program is utterly unchanged from 1.2, released in March of 1999. The same is largely true of the feature list, which is a shame because it still lacks any way to edit the contents of an emulated memory card, something we called for in our initial review of CVGS 1.0. The only new addition to the CVGS folder is a utility for swapping game cards with the recently-released Windows version of CVGS... a utility that the Connectix "Read Me" suggests is one they hope to obviate in the future. We also noticed that after installation, we needed to re-configure our Gravis GamePad in the Preferences dialog. Figuring that the .2 increase in the version number primarily indicated improvements to the actual emulation code, we set about playing some games in the new and old CVGS. After installing 1.4 on a Rev/A iMac to test out the basic functionality, we played a couple troublesome games on a 300 MHz iBook, first in CVGS 1.2 and then in 1.4. The overall speed seems to have been improved slightly. We first and most clearly saw this in Brave Fencer Musashi which was choppy in 1.2 and had distorted speech, but ran much more smoothly in 1.4. Less dramatic speed improvement was noticed in the racing games Sled Storm and Hydro Thunder -- in the latter case, frame rates in 1.2 would drop to a near stop in certain sections of the course we tried, and while the frame rate deteriorated in the same sections on 1.4, it wasn't as bad. But while 1.4 giveth frames, 1.4 also taketh away. Rival Schools: United By Fate seemed at first to be playing more smoothly, but its music noticeably slowed down and distorted during gameplay, and some of the game's more outrageous special effects seemed to be choking both the iBook and the iMac. Even if CVGS 1.4 is running this game faster, a Capcom fighting game running at anything less than 30fps simply isn't worth playing. It's perhaps more significant that individual, game-hosing bugs seem to have been targeted by the CVGS development team. Our readers are already writing in with positive developments on this front. Glenn Batuyong says that the graphic bugs in Gran Turismo 2, which made "all the cars look like they were covered in plastic shrinkwrap," has been fixed. "IanC" writes that 1.4 eliminates a long pause after a failed mission in Syphon Filter, eliminating the only problem he had with the game in CVGS. As always, we're grateful for the input of our readers, and will be updating entries in the Macs Only! CVGS Watch as they come in! We too found some welcome fixes to game-hosing bugs. In Final Fantasy Tactics, the games at positions 2-15 that we'd tried to save in CVGS 1.2 showed up in 1.4 and could be loaded and played. This eliminates the only serious problem with playing this cult classic (but good luck finding it at retail). As for its four-disc cousin, Final Fantasy VIII, we were finally able to see the battle menus, but there's no "finger" icon to point at the selected action, meaning that you practically have to use the sound of the pointer moving to figure out whether you're selecting an item or drawing out magic. FF8 also had an odd way to end battles -- freezing the picture until the "rewards" screen appears, meaning you get to hear the victory fanfare but you can't see your characters' celebration moves. Odd. There are still some total strike-outs. The puzzle game Roll Away remains absolutely unplayable, with weird lines stretching into infinity from the points where various objects should be. There haven't been many games that are absolutely unplayable on CVGS, so it will be interesting to see which fatal bugs are fixed in the new version. The documentation indicates that CVGS now plays games in both NTSC and PAL formats. While we didn't have any PAL games to test with, this should be great news for Euro-gamers and those in the States and Canada who pine for Europe-only games. Then again, many European titles eventually get North American releases, even if it takes a while for publishers to bring a game like Colin McRae Rally across the pond. What isn't clear is if this indicates a complete abandonment of Sony's regional lock-out scheme by CVGS. If CVGS will now play Japanese imports as well, it presents an alternative to gamers who currently have to physically re-wire or "mod chip" their PlayStations to play Japanese games that don't get North American releases for various reasons (such as publishers' belief that genres like dating simulations and dance games wouldn't attract a Western audience, or that Tobal No. 2 should stay Japan-only because gamers here wouldn't know a good fighting game if it smacked them in the head with a 10-hit finishing combo). In all, CVGS 1.4 has the feel of an application that has quietly been put into maintenance mode. In lieu of envelope-pushing new features or conveniences, Connectix seems content to plug away at eliminating the most serious emulation problems, and to make modest performance gains where possible. The gaming world is different than what is was at this time last year -- the PlayStation is now a fairly dated platform, clearly outclassed by the Sega Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2. While the PlayStation's game library is bigger than the Mac's by several orders of magnitude, it's likely that in a few years, a PlayStation emulator will be as palatable as a Genesis or Super Nintendo emulator is today: fine for nostalgia, the key to a handful of classics, but not something you'll spend significant time or money on. And with real PlayStations running $99 or less at retail, CVGS probably has about a year to 18 months of relvance left to it, before the company moves on to their next clever product. But until then, we'll look forward to running Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and Vagrant Story on our PowerBooks, attracting jealous stares from across the airplane...
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