Time for deep thinking as our homebrew round-up goes strategic
Who needs Advance Wars anyway?
Welcome back to our weekly jaunt through the sometimes confusing world of homebrew software. Each week we prove that pretty much anyone could (and should) dip their toe in the homebrew waters.
What's more, I'm abstaining from any commercial games or software on my two portable machines. And with Advance Wars: Dark Conflict hitting the DS, and Patapon soon to land on the PSP, I'm much in need of some tactical action.
To this end, the majority of my time on the DS has been spent on Defence of the Ancients (download here for version 0.93). The none-too-shabby visuals are complemented with some great head-scratching scenarios.
I paired this with a good helping of Warcraft Tower Defence (download here). This is a DS version of the super-popular PC Flash strategy game. Not only that, but it combines this with literally hosts of early WarCraft-style sprite-based visuals. After a few hours with these two games, any Advance Wars pangs were sent packing.
Following all this high tension on the DS, I turned to my PSP for some relaxation: homebrew style, of course!
This week I fired up PSPTube to watch some of my favourite posters' videos (available here). When my eyes grew tired of the PSP's screen I hooked up my Slim & Lite to my TV and tried out PSPTube's new video out function – result!
Whiling away more free time with some semi-entertaining amateur video productions, I was nicely relaxed. I rounded my evening off by catching up with some friends on IRC. With a little help from PSIRC (available here) I could chat away in the lounge while watching some old fashioned broadcast television.
The evening's session got me thinking that it may be time to splash out on an IR keyboard now that v1.1.2 provides better support for these devices. Speedy chatting here we come.
So it's been another week happily spent in the company of some homebrew software. Although I can't deny hankering for some Advance Wars and Patapon, my trusty homebrew library has kept me well employed and entertained. What's more I've probably saved myself a good £60 already.