Just to say...

[BPzeBanshee]

I do have a slight obsession about Raiden - i was my most played PS1 game when I had that old console. Perhaps I need to curb my obsession a bit, as yes - there are lots of good PAL shmups out there (though I didn't realise how many until I posted this thread)!

Don't curb it! Most of this forum are big Cave fans (not that that's bad) so you're pretty much like me - one extreme amongst many.

Hell, I've been here for a few years now and *I* didn't know there was this much stuff for PAL PS2. You're lucky to be in the Europe area though - all of this is pretty much nonexistant in Australia so if I wanted something like Raiden Project on a real console I'd be better off with a Japanese PS2 half the time.

[xbl0x180]

Okay, so there's no way to region-mod a PS2 without having to jump through hoops with shanks and shivs on the lids, right? There is no plug-and-play mod for the PS2, right

[RNGmaster]

Psyvariar is a badass game.

Save some room for Psikyo too - Dragon Blaze is great enough that I'm still playing it after months of frustration, but I'd recommend an emu for that - the PS2 port isn't great.

Whats wrong with it?

EDIT: I'm only asking because some ports like MMP/PS get slammed a bit, but I would still recommend them.

No keyboard support

I can't imagine Dragon Blaze with a stick, personally.

[spl]

Okay, so there's no way to region-mod a PS2 without having to jump through hoops with shanks and shivs on the lids, right? There is no plug-and-play mod for the PS2, right

Yeah there is - it's called FreeMcBoot and you just load it onto a memory card. Using the ESR boot manager all you need to do is burn the game image after applying a patch and you won't need to do anything swap or lid tricks.

It works on all PS2s except the very last ones I'm pretty sure.

[Kollision]

I've got R-Type Final... and.... er... it hasn't really grown on me yet... (am I wierd? Don't answer that)

you're not weird
the game is just boring as hell

[xbl0x180]

Okay, so there's no way to region-mod a PS2 without having to jump through hoops with shanks and shivs on the lids, right? There is no plug-and-play mod for the PS2, right

Yeah there is - it's called FreeMcBoot and you just load it onto a memory card. Using the ESR boot manager all you need to do is burn the game image after applying a patch and you won't need to do anything swap or lid tricks.

It works on all PS2s except the very last ones I'm pretty sure.

Dude, all this "burned ESR disc image" and "manager patches" jargon sounds like Chinese to me. It's almost as bad as saying I'd have to solder stuff. Besides, I have a slim PS2 console - the last to be produced in the U.S.

[spl]

Okay, so there's no way to region-mod a PS2 without having to jump through hoops with shanks and shivs on the lids, right? There is no plug-and-play mod for the PS2, right

Yeah there is - it's called FreeMcBoot and you just load it onto a memory card. Using the ESR boot manager all you need to do is burn the game image after applying a patch and you won't need to do anything swap or lid tricks.

It works on all PS2s except the very last ones I'm pretty sure.

Dude, all this "burned ESR disc image" and "manager patches" jargon sounds like Chinese to me. It's almost as bad as saying I'd have to solder stuff. Besides, I have a slim PS2 console - the last to be produced in the U.S.

OK - Not sure where you live but if you are not confident then there are normally people on psx-scene.com and other places that can load the software onto a memory card for you if you send it to them.

After you have the stuff on the memory card, all you need to do is run a program and open the ISO you are burning to patch it before you burn it. Then just insert and play.

I have a slim ps2 also it's only the very last model of the slim (I think it's SCPH-9XXX) but all this info is on psx-scene.com also.

Worst comes to worst just bite the bullet and pay the money for someone to chip your PS2 for you.

[dunpeal2064]

Psyvariar is a badass game.

Save some room for Psikyo too - Dragon Blaze is great enough that I'm still playing it after months of frustration, but I'd recommend an emu for that - the PS2 port isn't great.

Whats wrong with it?

EDIT: I'm only asking because some ports like MMP/PS get slammed a bit, but I would still recommend them.

No keyboard support

I can't imagine Dragon Blaze with a stick, personally.

Lol. Do any ps2 shmups support keyboard?

[Illyrian]

No, but they do support good control methods like arcade stick.

Just kidding of course, there WAS a keyboard available for the PS1 YEARS ago back when Net Yaroze was supported (the alternate PS1 you could use to program your own PS1 games) which would probably be compatible with PS2 as controllers are backwards/forwards compatible between PS1 and PS2.

Whether the games will recognise it as a vaild controller is another story, and that's before you get into things like trying to remap controls.

[Obiwanshinobi]

There are keyboards and mice for the PS2 out there, as well as HD drives. Dirge of Cerberus: FFVII, of all games, supports mouse and keyboard.

[dunpeal2064]

Well, I'd personally rather play with a saturn pad, so I suppose the port of DB will be fine for me

Thats interesting that Dirge of Cerberus supports mouse & keyboard control, I probably would have never figured that out

[MrChiggins]

I've got R-Type Final... and.... er... it hasn't really grown on me yet... (am I wierd? Don't answer that)

you're not weird
the game is just boring as hell

I bought it about 6 months ago because everyone seemed to be going gaga over it... like it was one of the great underrated games of the ps2 and a 'fantastic swan song' for the R-Type series. After about 5 minutes of play I was just uggghhhh. I put another hour or so into it just to be sure and I was still so uggghhhhh. R-Type Final is one of the most overrated underrated games I've ever played. And I'm almost always on the underdog's side when it comes to underrated gem kinds of games.

[JJXB]

get a swapmagic disc that will boot homebrew from USB and you can use ULaunchelf to launch other stuff after that if needed.

i'd also get a USB HDD for Open PS2 Loader. if you were using a fatty, i'd have said get a PS2 network adapter and put a HDD in there instead. then just rip the PS2 discs on a PC and stick them on the HDD that goes into the PS2 for OPL to load. that's how i play most non-PAL ps2 games. convenient and fast to load while not wearing out your drive laser.

and for PS1 games in ISO form? use PS2PSXe (base rev 188 here, rev 198 to paste over 188 here and rev 202 to go over the previous revisions here. though PS2PSXe is still in early stages (didn't boot the version of raiden project i have and the version of raiden DX has issues with bg tiles though Zanac X Zanac's Neo version works fine while normal glitches to all hell)

and most of the stuff i listed works on any PS2 as long as you have some way of running homebrew on it. which for slim users is most likely a later version of swapmagic.

either way, it should be possible to run most import games, PS1 or PS2 using the stuff i listed.

if you want videos of some shmups running in PS2PSXe then i'll see what i can do.

[mjclark]

i'd also get a USB HDD for Open PS2 Loader. if you were using a fatty, i'd have said get a PS2 network adapter and put a HDD in there instead. then just rip the PS2 discs on a PC and stick them on the HDD that goes into the PS2 for OPL to load. that's how i play most non-PAL ps2 games. convenient and fast to load while not wearing out your drive laser.

Absolutely- HDD Loader (which is an equivalent) is definitely my PS2 solution of choice. You can get a phat PS2 here in Torquay for <£15 these days

[gray117]

A bit of fiddling and you can use memor32 to make mcfreeboot > hdloader console either using the memor card itself or installing from memor to a standard memory card. Or get a kind friend to do it for you if you have a spare memory card... even if you don't want a hard drive you should use esr.

Combined with a network adapter and hard drive this allows you to boot using memory card then use esr for a region free disc solution

or load region free games [hd loader is region free] from hard drive - never use the disc drive again, avoid nearly all wear and tear [unless you install games from it, or have an incompatible game (some multi disc rpgs in particular) or want to for shits and giggles - recommend simply installing images from pc]

By the way, a plus for patching many ps2 games if playing on a crt whether or not you use discs or not - 240p patch - scanlines ahoy:

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=17808

Please only use your own games...