The ULTIMATE Comprehensive Review of the GP2x Handheld (Videos + Pictures Included)

[Alpha]

-- UPDATED EMULATION/GAMING NEWS WILL BE POSTED BELOW --

 

1Emulation is proud to present to you our review of the GP2x handheld system by Gamepark Holdings. This is a milestone for us because it is our first hardware review. This would not have been possible with the help of Play-Asia. So check out our review and tell us what you think of it and the GP2x in our forums.

 

 

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-- UPDATED EMULATION/GAMING NEWS WILL BE POSTED BELOW --

[someboddy]

Gamecop... you suck at video games...

[ken_cinder]

Good review, sorry to say it has helped me make the decision to NOT buy a GP2X.

I'm not much a fan of handhelds, as I tend to break portable stuff easily.......but I was hoping this thing would be my "Portable Xbox" sans games..........it appears it's rather lacking for anything but videos/music, which I can get much cheaper in a dedicated video player.

[L.S.D]

No games <<<<<< owned

 

Seriously, this can;t compete with DS and PSP at all, especially PSP.

[Sturmvogel]

Of course it would not have been possible with their help. They suck...immensely. I don't care if they are our sponsor. I haven an order...shipped July 19. Still not ******* here. They can rot in hell.

[James]

Good review

May not be a good game machine but seems ok for other things .

[Robert]

Good comprehensive review.

[Mooney]

Nive review, but I still prefer my PSP and DS.

P.S.

Did you get all of that stuff for free (Or just cheap)? If so... can I review something? For example... The Nintendo Wii when it comes out?

Edited August 30, 2006 by Mooney

[someboddy]

Did you get all of that stuff for free (Or just cheap)? If so... can I review something? For example... The Nintendo Wii when it comes out?

 

He got a nice discount, but it still wasn't cheap.

[rmatheso]

What a bunch of crap.

 

 

 

Neo Geo Emulation not good enough? PSP and DS are better. Dude WTF?

 

Neo Geo absolutely rocks on GP2X. It is the only portable console that can play ALL AES/MVS Neo Geo games at fullspeed. PSP just can't with it's limited 32meg of ram. Yes, you do have to overclock to 266 but you have to overclock with the PSP as well!

 

I'm not knockin the PSP, it's has it's good and bad points too.

 

The reviewer obviously missed the point that the GP2X is not a plug and play system. You have to fiddle around with the emulators a bit to get the top performance. He obviously tried everything once and determined that it was crap, instead of reading up about it on www.gp32x.com and updating the emulators and so on. It would have taken him a good month to go over everything in depth but there is a difference in expectations between a new GP2X User (Going WTF. Why doesn't this work?) and an experienced GP2X user (The new emu came out with the MMU hack, damn that's a 20fps increase!) is obvious.

 

He should have done his research and taken some more time to get everything working properly before the final judgement. For a guy who is a veteran emulation junkie, the review is very N00Bish. "Ultimate" should be nowhere in the title.

 

Anyhow, freaking 60fps in Samurai Showdown 5 Special with UniBios hacked full fatalities and blood says my GP2X kicks ass.

Edited August 31, 2006 by rmatheso

[BobBorakovitz]

What a bunch of crap.

 

Neo Geo Emulation not good enough? PSP and DS are better. Dude WTF?

 

Neo Geo absolutely rocks on GP2X. It is the only portable console that can play ALL AES/MVS Neo Geo games at fullspeed. PSP just can't with it's limited 32meg of ram. Yes, you do have to overclock to 266 but you have to overclock with the PSP as well!

 

I'm not knockin the PSP, it's has it's good and bad points too.

 

The reviewer obviously missed the point that the GP2X is not a plug and play system. You have to fiddle around with the emulators a bit to get the top performance. He obviously tried everything once and determined that it was crap, instead of reading up about it on www.gp32x.com and updating the emulators and so on. It would have taken him a good month to go over everything in depth but there is a difference in expectations between a new GP2X User (Going WTF. Why doesn't this work?) and an experienced GP2X user (The new emu came out with the MMU hack, damn that's a 20fps increase!) is obvious.

 

He should have done his research and taken some more time to get everything working properly before the final judgement. For a guy who is a veteran emulation junkie, the review is very N00Bish. "Ultimate" should be nowhere in the title.

 

Anyhow, freaking 60fps in Samurai Showdown 5 Special with UniBios hacked full fatalities and blood says my GP2X kicks ass.

 

I agree with your statements 100%! I've had my Gp2x since the beginning, I have the first edition and have had almost NO problems with it. I own a DS AND a PSP and I think that the GP2x is the best out of the 3 unless you like crappy rehashes of current console games. Gp2x DEFFINATELY get's much more play out of me than the other 2. But, all in all, the 2x is no comparison because it's not really a commercial handheld unit. It's MEANT for homebrew. If you're expecting big budget commercial games, go look elsewhere.

 

I think he was negative about the unit before even buying it. He didn't even try to figure it all out. Read near the end about the Utility section. He states that they're there to fix flaws in the system. But then he gives 3 examples of utilities that ENHANCE the system, not fix flaws. Is overclocking a flaw? How pathetic. Read through it again and tell me otherwise!

 

Neo-Geo works GREAT! I play SVC:Chaos on my 2x and it works lovely, provided you have a fast SD card. I have the same SD card he has also and it's crap slow. If he got a REALLY FAST SD card and tried it again, he'd find that it's the best program on the 2x. I get NO crashes in the menu, but I use an addon menu with pics and more settings called Rage2x, it makes the experience a lot nicer. Overall, he gave Gngeo2x NO chance. How sad is that for a reviewer?

 

Also, he makes it seem like overclocking is a big chore or something....and that it's gonna hurt the chip or degrade the life of it... that's just plain WRONG. I have a GP32 and it's been overclocked it's entire life and it's still kicking perfectly. And that's with a TON of usage and being carried around, dropped, etc. Overclocking is nothing more than a setting you choose, it doesn't get any easier than that.

 

Another thing is that he chose a NES emulator that isn't the best choice. FishyNES has been discontinued, the compatibility is crap on it. He must not have played many games on it. But if he would've bothered to do some research, he'd have found that the best NES emulator is GPFCE, it runs beautifully and has great compatibility.

 

The Sega Genesis he makes it seem like it emulates the 32x console when it doesn't. Once again, research would've provided that info. Hell, the freaking readme says that! The reviewer should research his statements if he's not sure about it. Take your time next time you review something.

 

MAME - I love how he is dissappointed that SF2 doesn't run, then says that he wanted to play more classic games on it! HAHAHA SF2 is NOT an arcade classic. If you want to play the real classics, it actually plays them great. Pacman, Asteroids, Tron, Robotron(!), Donkey Kong series, Missile Command, Dig Dug, Mr Do, hell I can even play Megaman Power Battles full speed with sound, so I don't know what you're on about here. Once again, you didn't even try. Negative from the gate.

 

SNES - obviously he has no experience emulating SNES on any handhelds. NO HANDHELD GAMING SYSTEM CAN PLAY SNES AT FULL SPEED! The processor just isn't fast enough for a simple port. If someone codes an emulator from scratch for the 2x, it'd be perfect. This is due to an overly complex sound chip in combination with all of the SNES's fancy graphics modes that make it slow. IE: Mode7, transparency, etc.

 

Another frustrating thing was that during his bashing, he didn't even mention the fact that there are practicly no mentions from anyone about dead pixels unlike the PSP & the screen has no crappy ghosting unlike the PSP. And he didn't mention any the great homebrew games either.

 

Overall, I give this review a big thumbs down due to the fact that he didn't even try or give it a chance before giving parts of it bad reviews. It's just depressing because I visit here pretty much everyday because I thought you guys had the best emulation news around. You're even on my linkbar in firefox. I'm just really disappointed. I guess I thought you guys knew what you were talking about when it comes to emulation.

 

PS - What's up with the gloves? Are you a burn victim or something? lol

And watching you play Duke Nukem was really painful, i wanted to poke my eyes out with a fork

[Diso]

I think after reading the two comments above, a second review is needed at hand.

 

Personally, I thought the review seemed a little rushed. I thought the seeing it in action was pretty well done and showing its size was pretty good. However, Going through the system just for one time doesn't really give much basis for review. I think we should have at least tested this thing out for at least a week (excuse me if you did) or so, so that we would have gotten a better feel for it.

 

 

Edit: "We did not have much time to mess with the Atari emulator." <-- Since we had the handheld, I believe this line shouldn't have been there at all. It wasn't like we had a specific timeframe to put the review out.

 

Otherwise, I thought it was a pretty good thorough review for our first time, and it would be nice to see others.

 

Those gloves were weird, were you playing the handheld with those?

[darkman]

I am usually a Guest. I apologize for this having to be my first post. But.... I could not help but respond!

I think this review would go against the board rules for this forum because it is “inaccurate.”

 

This has got to be the worse review that I have ever seen written for the GP2X! So unprofessional and bias. It almost seems rushed to get something up for a review. His claim of having the experience of five years with emulators does not show!

 

Straight out of the box, within an hour, I had the Neo Geo emulator going full speed with sound. Jaw dropping, is what it was. I have over 60 Neo Geo games running full speed with sound! I am loving my Blazing Star, Far East of Eden, Fatal Fury 3, Last Blade 2, Garou, Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown, and King of Fighters. Neo Geo, Mame, Turbo Grafx 16, NES, and a host of the other emulators that I use run full speed with sound. And BobBorakovitz is right, it all depends on the speed of your SD card. I own over nine portable gaming systems and the GP2X is what I consider the best for any homebrew or emulator experience. And the quality of the system seems no different than many of my other systems. I am a retro gamer. I love homebrew. And I love portable gaming. The GP2X really rocks when it comes to portable gaming! I think the author of this article needs to go back and fiddle with his GP2X for a while, learn how to use it and then do another review. I have had a very positive experience with mine. I really don't understand why people continuously compare the GP2X to the PSP and the DS. The PSP and the DS are commercial plug and play systems. The GP2X is best viewed as a portable computer optimized for emulation, homebrew, and various other multimedia functions. And it excels in doing this! The GP2X is the king of emulation and homebrew IMO!

Great Post rmatheso! Your right!! And BobBorakovitz, you are so right on!!

 

For the record: I am no Linux guru or developer, I am just your average video gamer and would highly recommend this to anyone that enjoys retro gaming and is capable of loading up an emulator on their PC and getting it running.

 

You would think the author of this article would at least do a little investigation so he could give an in depth sound accurate review, being that he is a gamer. He sounds more like a fanboy than someone who is capable of making an honest assessment of something and giving a comprehensive opinion. I could care less whether or not any of you purchase this neat little system, I do care that you have an honest truthful report so that you can make an informed decision.

 

 

 

edit: I hope there is a reconsideration and an update to this review!

Edited September 1, 2006 by darkman

[Alpha]

Actually, I am back now. I admit, the review was a bit rushed and I'll be retyping many parts of it and correcting some errors I made. I deeply apologize if the review offended or angered anyone. It was not my intention.

[BobBorakovitz]

Actually, I am back now. I admit, the review was a bit rushed and I'll be retyping many parts of it and correcting some errors I made. I deeply apologize if the review offended or angered anyone. It was not my intention.

 

The score you gave was fairly accurate, but it made absolutely no sense after reading the negative review how it scored so high. Also, when you 'retype it' try not to sound like a PSP fanboi, and don't even bother recommending the DS for an emulation system, it is not a very good one at all.

 

Actually try to get some of the emulators to work instead of jumping to the conclusion that they suck.

 

Ditch the gloves for gods sake man! no wonder you had such a hard time at Duke Nukem! That video doesn't exactly scream 'experience with emulation for over 5 years.' It looks really really bad.