After a few months of silence, Brazilian map maker only_69 strikes back with a new bag full o' game maps! A great resource to assist you in finishing a game, and a great resource for game developers to see how games are designed. Behold:

• Last Mission (MSX2 version)
  
• Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro
  
• Lupin III: The Legend of The Gold of Babylon
  
• Deep Forest
  
• Super Boy 3
  
• Ganbare Goemon (first province)
  
• Boulder Dash (first level)
  
• King's Valley II
  
• The Stone of Wisdom
  
• Eggerland Mystery
  
• Inspecteur Z
  
• The Munsters (minus stage 2, only_96 requests a version of this game where this level can be accessed. Anyone?)
  
• Penguin kun Wars
  
• Penguin kun Wars 2
  
• El Capitan Trueno - Part II
  
• Ninja Jaja Maru kun
  
• Bumpy
  
• Youma Kourin

Also, the following walk troughs were added:

• King Kong 2, by Casper Smith
  
• Eggerland Mystery, by Matthew McIntyre
• Don Quijote - Part I, by MSX Solutions.

Relevant link: MSX Solutions

This weekend, while some MSX nerds were seen sitting at their desk discussing IotZM sprites, El Viejo Archivero and his team were at the succesful retro fair RetroMadrid 2010, releasing Invasion of the Zombie Monsters, a new MSX / Spectrum platform game. The game was met with much enjoyment by the visitors, Spectrum users liked it too.

Invasion of the Zombie Monsters MSX cartridge is available for order at Matra for €20 (excluding shipping costs), and mayhaps later at Bitwise too.

Relevant link: Relevo Videogames

Invasion of the Zombie Monsters, an upcoming MSX / Spectrum platform game by Relevo Videogames (a fork of Karoshi), was previewed today on the Spanish gaming website Metodologic.

The preview, accompanied with screenshots, discusses its difficult and addictive gameplay, reminiscent of and seemingly inspired from classic arcade games like Legend of Hero Tonma and Ghosts 'n Goblins. If Google's translation is correct, it also mentions large end of level bosses and multi layered scrolling. Read on if you understand Spanish.

Relevant link: IotZM preview (Spanish), Video 1, 2

Playball III by Sony/Klon had a lot of qualities that could have made it a good game by design, graphics, music, creative voice simulation using the YM2413, and an innovative center-view that allowed the game to be played from the perspective of the pitcher instead of the traditional batter perspective. It also featured imperfect players, from time to time someone will let the ball slip between their fingers.

Unfortunately the game also had flaws that plagued its gameplay. It was glitchy, and more significantly, unoptimized code made the game slow. To say the least, Klon seemed to lack experience with MSX programming. This is where sd_snatcher kicks in. Today, he released an enhanced HD version of Playball III. Its improvements are plenty.

• Hard disk installable
  
• Turbo fixed, the game can be played at decent speed
  
• Turbo is enabled by default for MSX computers that support it
  
• Enhancements, bugfixes and speed optimizations, read the included documentation for details
  
• Problems caused by corrupted files from bad dumps were fixed

This HD version is very CPU intensive, the minimal hardware requirements are an MSX2+ with a 7MHz Z80, an MSX turbo R is recommended.

Relevant link: FRS' HD Games

Miniboss wolf_ doesn't like it if we repost forumposts to the front page, so be sure to keep this one a secret to him. DamageX updated and released the source code of his underrated MSXdev '06 Super Robot Taisen inspired tactical RPG Mecha Taisen on Planet Oldskool, cleverly naming the new version Mecha Taisen on Planet Oldskool Plus. The update, that smells a bit according to MSX master Latok, can be downloaded by visiting the related forum thread.

Relevant link: DamageX's site, MTOPO+ on our forum

Exactly one month after its creation, BiFi, a Dutch MSX and Z80 guru, updated his R-Type Improvement Addition. On request, he kindly added 50/60Hz selection, and a Turbo feature for MSX computers that disobey ASCII's speed limit of 3.58MHz. The update can be obtained from BiFi's website, in the Downloads section, under Bugfixes.

Relevant link: BiFi's Home Page

The festivities of Christmas and New Year may be over, but that doesn't mean the time of presents has gone as well. Brazilian MSX fan sd_snatcher just released an HD version of an all-time classic: Starship Rendezvous, the game famous for its unique musical style and its hilarious reputation in a certain old Dutch MSX magazine. This new version features several improvements:

• Hard disk installable
  
• Turbo Fix
  
• The turbo is enabled by default for Panasonic's FS-A1GT/ST/WSX/WX/FX and ExpertTurbo. Now the game can be played at a decent speed and the loading times are minimized.
  
• Default FM Music in the game
  
• The game won't freeze anymore after it's been finished

Contrary to adult movies where the acting is typically pointless, an English translation for this game may actually make it complete. Any person with omnipotent Japanese translation skills may apply for this noble job! Who dares?

Relevant link: Starship Rendezvous HD version

Vampier has uploaded a complete walk through of one of Konami's biggest hits and franchises: Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake. Like his other recent videos, the sound is clean 'n crisp while the graphics are in razor sharp HD. As long as YouTube is free, Vampier will without doubt continue to fill her up with MSX walk throughs. Do you have a special walk through request? Let's hear it!

Relevant link: Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake walk through

Shiver me timbers! For all ye swashbucklin' sprogs and landlubbers out thar who want to raise the Jolly Roger but only met the cat o' nine tails, scallywag Vampier has created a new video for all ye lily-livered gentlemen o' fortune, Yo-ho-ho. In fifteen videos he'll be demonstratin' how to finish this grand fine game called Makaijima - Higemaru, an MSX2 doubloon from 1987 by Capcom. By the Powers, yarr!

Relevant link: Makaijima - Higemaru video

Vampier has uploaded six fly-throughs of MSX shooters to his YouTube page. Featured are all the main levels (not the bonus levels) including the demo cut scenes. These videos are of course an interesting insight into these games, in case you have never managed to get all that far yourself.

But is Vampier really such a shooting wizzard? No, he was testing a brand new feature in openMSX: reverse. This is a function you may know already from emulators such as meisei, where you just 'rewind the tape' if you made a fatal mistake. As the current formal version of openMSX (0.7.2) was released half a year ago, this new version of openMSX is obviously a development version.

The six fly-throughs Vampier has uploaded are:

• Nemesis
• Salamander
• Nemesis 3
• Parodius
• Space Manbow
• Universe: Unknown

Relevant link: Vampier's YouTube page