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Decaying Orbit - From Yaroze To Nuon

Posted by simoniker on from the curiouser-and-curiouser dept.

Thanks to InsertCredit for pointing to the Nuon-Dome page, which has the latest info on the Nuon port of cult 2D "space action" freeware title Decaying Orbit, which was originally created via Net Yaroze for the PSOne. In this title, you must "navigate your way through levels filled with [gravity-changing] planets, nebulae, enemy emplacements, and who knows what else.." in order to get home. Since the DVD players that include the bizarre Nuon console-on-a-chip can read normal CDRs, there's a downloadable/burnable demo of an "optimization forthcoming... first three levels" of Decaying Orbit.

14 comments

  1. Cool by NanoGator · · Score: 1

    Ya know, even if you don't have a NUON or don't care about the game itself, the details about porting the game are pretty interesting.

    I have to admit, though, I was under the impression the NUON was more powerful than it was. Maybe it's just kinda weak in the 2d area.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
    1. Re:Cool by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 1

      Nice to see NUON getting used.

      I remember when I bought the Tim Burton remake of "Planet of the Apes" (I liked it, bite me) it said it was NUON ENHANCED. To which I thought "What the fuck is NUON?"

      I looked into it and learnt two things.

      1) Very few players were built with a NUON chip in them.

      2) Only about 6 DVD's were released with features that took advantage of them.

      It's a real shame as I'd love to know what the content on the DVD is that uses NUON. I'd at least like to see what I paid for, but ah well.

    2. Re:Cool by K3V · · Score: 3, Interesting

      To be honest, the NUON features that were available for DVD movies were not very useful or intriguing. The problem was that movie studios didn't want to invest much money into the features since there weren't many DVD players with the chipsets, and the DVD player manufacturers didn't want to make a lot of models with the NUON chipset because there wasn't much NUON content. Unfortunately VM Labs ran out of money before the situation could be resolved and NUON is now left in the hands of the users. Luckily some at VML were smart enough to see the commercial end of NUON coming and released the public SDK so the fanbase could play around with the hardware. Info on the NUON features in DVD movies is up on the Movies section of NUON-Dome (http://www.nuon-dome.com/movies.html) or you can download the Public SDK and other freeware games such as Doom, PacMan, BOMB, etc from the Download page (http://www.nuon-dome.com/download.html). -Kevin

    3. Re:Cool by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the info. While my player doesn't do NUON, I'm at least curious to see what NUON can actually do.

  2. Convergance by cL0h · · Score: 1

    The PS2 is a console with DVD features. Now we're seeing DVD players with the seeds of gaming features. The future I think lies somewhere in between. As a start I see the ubiquitous games section on every commercial website being incorporated into DVDs.
    Hopefully with internet connectivity and a decent multi purpose controller we'll see some good convergant interactive titles coming out soon.

    --
    cL0h
  3. DVD in intimate detail by !the!bad!fish! · · Score: 0
    ... features such as smooth, seamless scanning of DVD video, 20X zoom, action capture ...
    Market this right, and it should be the best selling DVD player ever. With those features it's the ultimate for DVD porn. (It can also play games.)
    --
    Kids today are tyrants. They contradict their parent, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers. - Socrates 400 BC
  4. does anyone know where i can get hold of a NUON .. by spiny · · Score: 1

    .. compatable player in the UK ?

    i've just been reading Edge magazines 10th bitrthday edition and they have T3K listed in their top 10 shoot-em-ups of all time. i've been meaning to get this game for a while, but i have no idea where to start.

    --

    Fry: heh, Yakov Smirnoff said it
    Leela: No he didn't.
  5. Re:does anyone know where i can get hold of a NUON by !the!bad!fish! · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Nuon Experience
    July 2003

    There are two options for those who need a Nuon in the UK. Either you could try to get one of the US models on import, or fly to Europe and get yourself a machine there (if you can find one).

    Pity :0(

    --
    Kids today are tyrants. They contradict their parent, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers. - Socrates 400 BC
  6. [Old industry joke] by JazFresh · · Score: 2, Funny

    They asked the makers "Why did you call it NUON?"

    They replied "Because NUON will buy it!"

  7. Was that English? by pecosdave · · Score: 1

    I read what was up there. I don't think I properly understood. I would see a sentance, then I would see words like NUON and Ya-what? I loose non-geeks and often geeks with my use of Jargon in my day to day speech, but this one lost me. Lots of research to even see what they hell they were talking about.

    --
    The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
  8. NUON longevity... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How long were NUON based players being produced? I'm assuming they died pretty quickly cause I only remember seeing ads for them for about a month. Anyone know how many are out there?

    1. Re:NUON longevity... by K3V · · Score: 1
      It's kind of a complex history, but I'll try to break it down.

      There were 3 NUON DVD players released in the US that play official NUON games. Of those, only one will play the homebrew software, and that's the Samsung DVD-N501. The other models were the Samsung DVD-N2000 and the Toshiba SD2300. RCA also released 2 DVD players with the NUON chip inside (The RCA DRC300N and DRC480N). The big difference in the two is that the 480N is progressive scan, but both players have lobotomized NUON features. Luckily both have the VLM intact, but lack the interactivity of the N501 version.

      There were two models released in Europe, the Samsung DVD-N504 and DVD-N505. The N504 has controller ports and the N505 does not. Both have the ability to play the homebrew NUON games and the N505 can be hacked to add controller ports should you be able to find a set.

      Samsung also released one NUON player to the Korean market, the N591 which featured an exclusive pack-in game based on the Crayon Shin-Chan cartoon.

      All in all, the DVD players were on the market for 2-3 years but were never heavily advertised. They can still be found on eBay and Amazon occasionaly, along with games and controllers.

      -Kevin

  9. Re:I got 3 by derrickh · · Score: 1

    I just realized that I have 3 Nuon players. I got the N2000 because I was sure this was the beginning of something big. With all the promise of the Nuon, how could it now. Unfortunately, the N2000 was a little weak as a DVD player and I found it simply wouldn't play a number of movies correctly. So then I went with the SD2300, same features as the N2000 but a much better dvd player. And finally, I got the N501 even though I knew Nuon was on the way out.

    The Nuon needed much more howrspower and if the features were updated and refined I think they could have done better. For once, I don't think mismanagement killed the technology, the tech just wasn't good enough and no amount of marketing could overcome it weaknesses.

    D

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  10. Re:does anyone know where i can get hold of a NUON by spiny · · Score: 1

    hmmm, looks like an import it is then ...

    --

    Fry: heh, Yakov Smirnoff said it
    Leela: No he didn't.