play! compatibility/progress report (01/10/2024)
Slightly earlier but good news can't wait. This month we had an above average compatibility bump, including (finally) a bunch of results updated to the arcade side of things as well. So let's jump directly into the interesting part:
New verified playable PS2 games:
Family Guy: Video Game!
White Van Racer
Finkles World
HSX: HyperSonic.Xtreme
L2 - Love x Loop
Mashed: Fully Loaded
X-treme Quads
Assault Suits Valken
DreamWorks Shark Tale
Bionicle
Police 24/7
Arcade Action: 30 Games
Family Guy: just a matter of actually having the time to finally finish the game to confirm it's fully playable, no previous known issues.
White Van Racer & X-Treme Quads: they're pretty much the same game (if you know Phoenix Games, you know they like to recycle the same "formula" with just some minor model/assets swap to release a BRAND NEW GAME that plays exactly the same). Performance, rendering and everything in between working as it should.
Finkles World: just had the time to finish the thing, another +1 with a simple game
HSX: HyperSonic.Xtreme: somehow I had a save in the game that was almost completed and I couldn't even remember, but that was enough to force me into finally finishing the last tracks.
L2 - Love x Loop: saving/loading issues fixed, making it fully playable (it was already finishable previously, but without the in-game saves you would need to use save states and those could break between versions of the emulator)
Mashed: Fully Loaded: minor rendering issues fixed, now fully playable
Assault Suits Valken: finally fully verified... and I had a hard time since I suck at the game and had to do multiple attempts at some missions (I'm looking at you, mission with a boss and a timer to destroy all the cannons that you could fail even after defeating the boss...)
DreamWorks Shark Tale: that one is a "mea culpa" case, I had already finished the game but forgot to report (yeah yeah, my bad)
Bionicle: not only booted for the first time this month, but also progressed directly into the playable status, with very good performance
Police 24/7: some improvements made it reach in-game and I could finally finish the entire thing. Note: this game supports the PS2 Camera device for a different gameplay style, but that's not supported yet, you'll need to play it with the regular controller
Arcade Action: 30 Games: every single game on the compilation confirmed as fully playable, with good performance.
And now for the arcade side of things...
New verified playable Namco System 246/256 games:
Bloody Roar 3
Sengoku Basara X
Taiko no Tatsujin 7
Taiko no Tatsujin 9
Taiko no Tatsujin 10
Taiko no Tatsujin 14
Super Dragon Ball Z
Time Crisis 3
Vampire Night
Bloody Roar 3: game works fine with no visual issues, but it's still missing the background soundtrack for now
Sengoku Basara X: working as good as it gets, our first arcade game with a 10/10 rating
Taiko no Tatsujin 7/9/10/14: from those, the new member of the family is Taiko 7, which was made playable this month, the other games were working for some time and I just needed to verify them to update the site.
Super Dragon Ball Z: with Taiko 7, a similar fix was made for the game to become playable. Note: some features aren't fully supported yet, but the "regular game" should work just fine
Time Crisis 3: fully playable but needs some improvements on the performance side of things
Vampire Night: verified as fully playable, with only an issue that it's more annoying than actually gamebreaking: the reloading. To reload in this game you need to shoot outside of the screen, but the game don't understand outside of the emulator screen as outside the game screen, you need to move the mouse above a very specific line at some corner (top, bottom, at the right side for the P1) to be able to reload. There's a solution being worked at to make the aim "jump" to the outside area with a shortcut button that can be used as a regular reload function for future versions, but for now you'll have to be carefull while trying to reload.
There's also a ton of other games that had progress related to the fix used for Bionicle: Judge Dredd, Meitantei Evangelion, Kinniku Banzuke: Muscle Wars 21, I-Ninja, Hello Kitty Roller Rescue, Ghost Rider... the list goes on, so you can expect some more playable results from this improvement alone next month, as well as new arcade updates to the site. I hope you all enjoyed this month results as much as I had, and prepare to read me complain about sport games because I'm finally going to deep dive into the FIFA games catalog (probably goes without saying, but I'm not exactly a fan of sport games). See you all next month ;)
Useful Links
play! site: https://purei.org/
play! NAMCO System 246/256 compatibility list: List
play! repository: https://github.com/jpd002/Play-
play! patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jpd002