I'm actually referring to The Flow, who just released an update to Adrenaline. This homebrew app greatly expands the Vita's compatibility with its ancestor the PSP, while adding features that enhance the overall experience. The latest version of Adrenaline offers save states (handy for ball busters like the Prinny games) and support for the PSOne's immense software library. That's fantastic news, because there are plenty of titles for Sony's first game system which will probably never make an appearance on the Playstation Store. It's even better for Playstation TV owners... thanks to a previous hack, they'll be able to cram dozens of these games on a flash drive, rather than having to pay big bucks for Vita memory cards.
It takes some work to install Adrenaline, and you'll of course need the 3.60 firmware on your system, but trust me, it's worth the hassle. If you're interested, you can download Adrenaline from the GBAtemp web site... they'll even help you install it if you ask nicely!
All right, what else? That fight stick I mentioned in a previous post arrived this afternoon, and I spent a couple of hours giving it a test drive. I didn't pay much for this so I really can't complain, but if you're thinking of buying one of these for yourself, know this: the Hori Fighting Stick 3 works ONLY with the Playstation 3, along with a handful of Playstation 4 games. Other systems either won't recognize it, or will grudgingly acknowledge its existence while ignoring all input from the controller.
There's another thing I feel compelled to mention. This stick works pretty well for basic movement and most special attacks, but has an annoying habit of whiffing anti-air attacks and supers. This is more of a problem in Capcom's games than SNK's... I finished King of Fighters '99 with a single credit, whipping out Iori's flame spiral and King's trap shot on a whim, but was completely hopeless with Ken in Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Shoryukens are about all he does well in that game... without them, he's a big red punching bag. The PSOne port of Street Fighter Alpha 3 fared better, but changing the command setting to "long" probably helped sharpen the game's reactions to my input. Not every versus fighter has this option, as was painfully evident in Capcom vs. SNK 2.
I've got a few other nits to pick with this stick- the weird button layout and no real place to set my left wrist immediately come to mind- but it nevertheless gave me a taste of the arcade experience I'd been craving for so long. I had a blast hammering buttons and frantically dodging bullets in Xevious, suggesting that the Fighting Stick 3 will get plenty of use. (Just not necessarily with fighting games.)
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