The Fun I had with the GamePark GP32: Something New Every Day
The GamePark GP32 is unique in two ways. One, it is the only dedicated gaming handheld whose software is exclusively (and cleverly) stored on Smart Media cards. Second, it is the only device that there are many times more freeware than commercial games. At current count, amongst the hundreds of games, emulators, public domain ROMs, MP3 files, demos, sound-bits, movies etc. there is no more than 30 commercial games.
What drew most people to the GP32 are the emulators. There are currently more emulators of PCs, game consoles and handhelds for the device than number of commercial games. Each emulator, eg SNES or GameBoy has thousands of existing games. This past week (of 31st April 2003), out of the blue came an Atari 2600 emulator. Then another (VCS). Both with sound and all the good stuff. The Vectrex and Atari ST which was released just a week before, suddenly became playable - both on their third beta version. Boy, this device is hot!
Here is a partial listing of the current freeware emulators available and more are being developed (eg Sega Genesis and GameBoy Advance) or improved all the time:
Atari 2600,
Atari ST,
Commodore Plus 4,
Commodore64,
Dragon 32/64,
Game Boy / GB Color,
Java Virtual Machine,
M.A.M.E.,
Msx1 / Msx2,
NeoGeo Pocket,
NES,
PC Engine,
SMS / GameGear,
Super Nintendo,
Vectrex,
WonderSwan / WSColor,
ZX Spectrum,
AgiSci,
Descent,
Doom,
Elite - The New Kind,
Heretic,
Wolfenstein 3D & SoD
and gpSCUMM which runs many R.P.G. games.
Sunday of Week One: 5th April 2003 - The first time I come across the GamePark GP32 was from a writeup on Julie's Diary on 04-03-2003 at the Gadgeteer's website. I followed the links and thought of getting it for myself as it was my birthday month.
Monday of Week One: 6th April - On my day off, I chased more links using search engines and ended up ordering one for US$177 on-line from
GBAx in UK. Amongst the sites I visited were its manufacturer,
Game Park in Korea and a pretty good review here.
Wednesday of Week One: 8th April - While waiting my the device to come, I downloaded its PC emulator, aptly called
GeePee32. I was amazed at the high quality of the many freeware games which I downloaded from the excellent GP32 Extreme site.
Saturday of Week One: 11th April - By this time, I was getting a real feel for this device, so I posted an article on my web site which I call, 'The 3 Advances of Handheld Gaming'.
Monday of Week Two: 13th April - As this is my day off, I took the opportunity to learn more about the device, registering in EmuBoards
Discussion Groups and asking questions.
Friday of Week Two: 18th April - My order arrived 2 days after my birthday, due to a delay in GBAx's shipment as my device was not in stock. I immediately purchased a 128mb Smart Media card (the largest there is) and put away the 'present from myself' until Monday (my day off).
Monday of Week Three: 21st April - It took me the better part of the morning to get the device working. What cogged the process was the Free Launcher which I just copied over to the SM card, using a card reader instead of installing it. Once it started working, the 128mb card was completely filled within a few days.
Wednesday of Week Three: 23rd April - No, I didn't get another 128mb SMC. Instead I noted that a new GamePark GP32 with backlight was released. My present device is very clear outdoors, but not very good indoors. Since the only online vendor that has this new model was
Play Asia in HongKong, I sent in my order that night.
Monday of Week Four: 28 April - After 3 weeks, the more I played with the GP32, I more I enjoyed it. Today, I purchased my first GamePark game, Pinball Dreams from LogikState. It's the most playable pinball on any handheld!
Friday of Week Four: 1 May - Today being a public holiday, I posted my first article
on a GamePark site. Would I be posting as many articles as my PC, Palm or PPC writeups? Stay tuned...
Friday of Week Five: 9 May - first I flashed (nervously, with fear and trembling) the firmware in my new GP32 with backlight, using the great MultiFW utility. I really liked the file manager in PacRom,
not as elegant as Winds-Up but more functionable (such as returning to the file manager after running a program). Next, I flashed my older GP32 with the commerical Pinball Dreams game. For this device, I defaulted the start-up to Winds-Up. Horray, no more of that silly free launcher!
