Recently a friend asked me to create a trailer for his Let's Play Gaming Channel.
So I got the idea to create a wall of TVs where each screen shows a different game he is playing with the camera moving around from one screen to another... Even though I'm quite familiar with Sony Vegas, I haven't done something like that before. That's why the whole process was so interesting and the result so satisfying. That's how the final version looks like:
Not too bad, right? So let's go step by step explaining on how to make such a trailer. 1) Creating a TV wall
For doing that you either look for a fitting image online or create your own one. Make sure you can it has about as many screens as video clips you want to use. Once you've chosen a picture you put at the bottom of your project.
2) Put the clips on the screens
I downloaded like 12 videos of different games from my friend's channel. Then I started one by one, putting a video file above the TV wall template and minimized them by clicking on the icon at the edge of the clip in the timeline to open a window. Then you can accurately adapt the size of the clip and move it around to match on one of the TVs of your template.
That step you do with every clip until your TV wall is finished. That wall full of screen may looks like this.
3) Rendering the TV wall video Following that I rendered like a 30 second clip of that wall. This new file I copied into my project. 4) Let the "virtual camera" run
Now you work with your newly created TV wall clip in your project. Click again on the small icon at the bottom of your clip (see first screenshot in Step 1). At the bottom of that menu you see a timeline where you can set time markers. Now you can decide where to place the "F" window at each second.
You can zoom in, zoom out. Experiment a bit which works the best for you. In my case it worked best not to leave the gaps too big as moved the "F" window slowly from right to left to show the channel logo at the end. And that way you can create this kind of trailer video. For music I chose to use a fitting track in the YouTube Audio Library. I hope I could help or inspire you to create a nice channel trailer. Btw. I also made a tutorial video about it, if you wanna see a deeper explanation:
In the classic PS2 game Burnout Revenge reaction is quite crucial, be it to avoid other cars or making a proper start in the mode "Crash Party". However, when you record footage it may raises the difficulty level in an interesting way... As a friend and me have our Crash Party battle from time to time, we decided to now finally record it. Also, he started doing "Let's Plays" on Twitch and YouTube, so it would be appropriate footage for his channel. For doing that, I used my old Sony RDR HX 680 B DVD and HDD recorder. So I connected the PS2 with a SCART cable to the input slot of the recorder and another SCART cable for the output from the recorder to the TV.
After a recording test we started playing. A Crash Party with 9 rounds and two players. To quickly explain the starting procedure: You hit the X button once to start the engine, and as the RPM go higher (seen through a line of fire) you have to press X again (to avoid explosion). Then the line goes down again and you have to press X a third time. Depending on how accurately you press X the second and third time determines how good you start is going to be.
However, as the recording device was between the PS2 and the TV, the screen was probably a few milliseconds behind, causing us players being unable to hit X an the right moment, making the cars either explode and stalling the engine. As we were first surprised on what happened there, it took as a bit the figure out what's the issue. Ultimately we could adapt to the situation and I even got a score of around 10 million for like three times in a row (see video above). Quite interesting situation, right? Someone seen that before? I guess the issue is either the SCART cable, the device, or both... Unrelated, but worth to mention: How about getting the footage to a PC? There's no other way than burning it on a DVD and then convert the files from the DVD on your PC. I usually use HandBrake for that. The audio was recorded separately and later merged together with the video file.
This weekend I went for the Tokyo Game Show for the first time and I got the chance to test a few of the new games which caught my interest.
Knowing there would be a long queue I still arrived a bit late which made me wait for almost 2 hours to get in.
But the wait was worth it. Many big halls and so many different stands. After running around for getting a general impression of the event I stopped at Bandai Namco, because one game got me really interested:
It's Jump Force. A game which puts several characters from JUMP magazine together, including Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto and more! The trailer itself gave me this "I wanna play" feeling with showing great stages like Namek, Himeji Castle or New York's Times Square. After a wait for around 30-40 minutes in the queue I got to play a 3 vs 3 battle. I selected Frieza, Luffy and Vegeta to fight on Namek. The demo was for two rounds until the first fighter was knocked out. The game is fun to play and the graphics are running stunning to see. I couldn't get deep into special moves or combos - at the end I just found out how to switch characters during the fight. It generally left a great impression and as there seems to be a story with a few from Akira Toriyama exclusively created characters makes the entire game even more interesting...
Following that I stopped by at the racing game area and some nostalgia put me into the line to test another game: V-Rally 4! Back in PS1 and PS2 days I liked the series. Especially I spent many years in the career of V-Rally 3 in the mid-2000s. I wasn't aware that finally a sequel is coming! The demo was one stage with a GoPro-sponsored car with a big rear wing. I clearly underestimated the cars reaction in the corners causing me a few crashes at the beginning. Plus: Manual shifting was activated! However at the end of the stage everything went more smoothly and I slowly got ready for more. It certainly brought back some nostalgia!
So... Since I was in the area - time for the next racing game: MotoGP 18! To be honest: I haven't played a lot of MotoGP games in the last decade, but there were times of the old MotoGP3 and 4 which I got to play a lot. Therefore, as expected it didn't take me long to get into the flow. Unfortunately the riding helps were activated and the difficulty quite easy. Meaning that despite a crash in lap 1 out of 3 and some general starting difficulties I was able to reach P10 at the end with Valentino Rossi! Was really fun to play again!
As it was getting afternoon, there was one more game I had to try out! Back to the Bandai Namco area and this time in the One Piece World Seeker queue! The game trailers were already promising showing an game-exclusive storyline with many major characters like Aokiji, Fujitora or Lucci involved. Ahead of the demo you get a manual to memorize the important controls. Once you get started you are playing Luffy running up a hill punching some marines. You get used to the attacks, especially the Red Hawk is quite powerful. The whole graphic of the landscape is quite impressive! After a fight with Kuma you are confronted with Sakazuki alias Aka Inu. The fight is a bit more difficult than the previous one, but still no problem. But Sabo comes to help Luffy as the demo ends. At the end you also get some stickers from the characters of the game, nice!
As the time was running out I soon left the place. It was quite interesting how much is offered there to see and play! A fun and inspiring day came to an end. Of course there was so much more to see like many other franchises I'm not that involved in, but I'm sure everyone would have found something interesting! Until another time!
The latter played a part again yesterday: A friend of mine got an PS2 slim and I remembered about the possibility to play games from USB. So as the first thing I tested with my Memory Card, if the homebrew menu works with the silver PS2 slim. As I read somewhere there were issues with certain firmware version delivered with newer slim models. However, it was no problem: FMCB started with the extended boot menu. In the following I installed it also on the Memory Card of my friend. As there were issues with the file manager (ULaunchELF) of my Memory Card which was unable to open elf files properly, I copied the FMCB installer on the USB drive and added the elf in the boot menu via the FMCB configurator as a workaround. FMCB was successfully installed on the Memory Card and I added the OpenPS2Loader to the Memory Card and linked it to the main menu. Now, via the USBUtilGUI tool I selected a few games to test which were converted from ISO file to a certain format to be able to be booted via OpenPS2Loader 0.9. A 32GB USB flash drive was used and as the games were launched you could notice that it takes a bit longer than using a DVD. Of course the internal HDD drive is the quicker way, but only with the older bigger PS2.
Both tested games, the infamous fighting DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3 was still working quickly (you could only see that the in-game transformations were slower than usual) and the fast racing game Burnout Revenge was also running well.
Plus, I also tested the old bicycle racing game Downhill Domination which was quite nostalgic played it again after a long time! Therefore, still nice having these tools for the good old PS2!
It's quite a debate among fans about which of these two games is the better one. Recently TeamFourStar rated their own favorite Dragon Ball games and both Budokai 3 and Tenkaichi 3 were the favorites... For TeamFourStar Budokai 3 ended up at the first place with Tenkaichi 3 as a close second. Personally I would have put it the other way around, but I can understand their rating for that order. The general thing about Tenkaichi 3 which makes it my all-time favorite is, that you can fly easily through a big 3D arena and can fight against your opponent using several tactics. Plus we have 98 characters in 161 transformations making that DB game the one with the highest number of playable characters. It's a game which does not get boring, if you want to fight against a friend once in a while. Selecting five fighters each and go for it. Also one of the only DB fighting games which come close to the real Dragon Ball fights.
In comparison Budokai 3 has not these kind of 3D elements. Of course you can move in a certain way, but the handling is nowhere close to Tenkaichi 3. The Raging Blast games (which were released for the next generation of consoles like PS3) came also close to that way of fighting, but it's not the same. But still, there are elements in Budokai 3 I still favour: The story mode where you could fly around Earth and Namek (which was similar in Tenkaichi 2), the way you could unlock and add attacks and abilities.
Both games had iconic and awesome soundtrack I still love listened to today, although the ones from the Budokai series have its special flair (although some of the were reused the the first Tenkaichi game). Generally: Both games set its benchmarks and are despite being older than 10 years still loved by fans around the world. And successors would be highly appreciated as many fan modder adding new characters from the Super series into these classic games (especially Tenkaichi 3).
So whichever of both games you prefer, I can understand both sites.
If you have ever played a PlayStation game in Japanese you may have noticed that the O and X buttons are used the other way around. But what is the reason behind it?
It's generally a cultural thing: As in western countries we are used to have an X to confirm something like marking the right answer in a quiz for example.
'X' means 'wrong' - not just at the Japanese PlayStation
In Japan they have a different association: The X is used for an incorrect answer in a test. It's meaning is ばつ (batsu) and has a general meaning for something negative like giving up and 'wrong'. So for in Japan it would be wrong to use it as a confirmation button. The circle on the other hand the circle with the meaning まる (maru) has the meaning of 'correct' since the correct answer in a test is marked in a circle. These can even be shown in gestures with arms or hands. Or in right-or-wrong games like 'batsumaru'.
This difference in terms of school tests corrections is actually a topic in the Detective Conan episodes 779 & 880 where a Japanese teacher who lived in America got it wrong after returning to Japan...
Looking at it from this perspective the different usage of the buttons makes totally sense.
I've been to Japan a few times now and it's every time really impressive how much support their own consoles get in comparison to US rivals from Microsoft... The numbers speak for themselves: More than 5 million sold PS4 in Japan and only around 80.000 XboxOne! I somewhere read a statistic that even more PS3 are sold than XboxOne's during one of the recent months. Old games and consoles from their own brands are also still popular and sold in Japan. You see so many stores with still lots of PS1 and PS2 games! Or even older Sega and Nintendo consoles + games. One example of a store in Akihabara in Tokyo is a great example of the situation: Just one shelf with Xbox360, XboxOne and Xbox games and multiple shelves just for old PS1 or PS2 games. The situation for Microsoft is tough in country of videogames and that shows really how tough it really is!
In December a new updated version of DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3 Latino Edition came out and with its new characters the game became even more awesome! How great it is I'd like to share with a few 5 vs. 5 battle I played against a friend.
'Tenkaichi 3' is despite being almost 10 years old still a fan-favourite - as I explained in another article. You can see that going on YouTube finding lots of battles with modded characters from the currently running new TV series Dragon Ball Super or even additional old ones who never made it to the official games. I tested the recent Latino Edition, where are lots of new characters included. Here's a short overview of the character selection:
Goku Black, Zamasu, their fusion, Hit, Cabba, SSJ Blue Vegetto, Future Trunks from Dragon Ball Super... it's all in it. Of course less important characters were replaced with new ones, but maybe they'll find a way to extent the amount of characters in the future.
Me and a friend are always enjoying the 5 versus 5 battles. Last time we did seven of these battles with new and old characters mixed up! Here's the result (Spoiler: I won the most of them :D).
Battle 01
Goku Black vs. Hit
Goku Black vs. Piccolo
Kid Buu vs. Piccolo
Kid Buu vs. SSJ4 Nappa
Super 17 vs. SSJ4 Nappa
Super 17 vs. Zaiko
Super 17 vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta
Freeza vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta
Vegeta (Buu Saga) vs SSJ Blue Vegeta
Battle 02
Vegeta (Buu Saga) vs. Whis
Broly vs. Whis
Freeza vs. Whis
Freeza vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta
Goku Black SSJ Rose vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta
Goku Black SSJ Rose vs. SSJ Blue Vegetto
Goku Black SSJ Rose vs. Piccolo
Goku Black SSJ Rose vs. Gine
Zamasu vs. Gine
Battle 03
SSJ2 Vegeta vs. Beerus
Kid Trunks vs. Beerus
SSJ Gotenks vs. Beerus
SSJ Gotenks vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta
SSJ3 Gotenks vs. Golden Cell
Frieza vs. Golden Cell
Frieza vs. SSJ Cabba
Goku Black vs. SSJ Cabba
Goku Black vs. SSJ Future Trunks (Super)
Battle 04
Goku Black vs. SSJ4 Vegeta
Goku Black vs. SSJ Goten GT
Baby vs. SSJ Goten GT
Baby vs. Piccolo
Nova Shenron vs. Piccolo
Frieza vs. Piccolo
Frieza vs. SSJ Future Trunks (Super)
Frieza vs. SSJ4 Goku
Super 17 vs. SSJ4 Goku
Battle 05
Goku Black vs. SSJ4 Vegeta
Frieza Final Form 100% vs. SSJ4 Vegeta
Frieza Final Form 100% vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta
Frieza Final Form vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta
SSJ2 Teen Gohan vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta
SSJ Blue Bardock vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta
SSJ Blue Bardock vs. SSJ Future Trunks (Super)
SSJ Blue Bardock vs. Piccolo
SSJ Blue Bardock vs. SSJ4 Goku
Battle 06
Goku Black vs. SSJ4 Pan
Goku Black vs. SSJ3 Kid Goku GT
LSSJ Broly vs. SSJ3 Kid Goku GT
SSJ4 Broly vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta
Kid Buu vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta
SSJ Blue Bardock vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta
SSJ Blue Bardock vs. Piccolo
SSJ Blue Bardock vs. Omega Shenron
Frieza Final Form 100% vs. Omega Shenron
Battle 07
Frieza vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta
Frieza vs. Piccolo
Majin Vegeta vs. Piccolo
Goku Black vs. Piccolo
Goku Black vs. SSJ4 Goku
Kid Buu vs. SSJ4 Goku
Kid Buu vs. SSJ Future Trunks Z
SSJ Blue Bardock vs. SSJ Future Trunks Z
SSJ Blue Bardock vs. Gine
These were my final battles of 2016 with the most recent mods at that time. Maybe this year I'll create my own mods after having made a bit experiences on how a few things on modding Tenkaichi 3 work - like exchanging music or downloaded characters. Let's see what 2017 brings - maybe even a new official Tenkaichi game? Better not giving up the hope and if not, there'll still be more mods!
In the past few years the split-screen options in video games began gradually to disappear. And now it went that far that even racing games do no longer have an offline 2P mode. Let's start with an example: The F1 racing games which are released by Codemasters every year. In F1 2011you could even do a whole season with 2 local players against each other. In the 2012 version split-screen was still possible, but just single races - same as in 2014. But in F1 2015 and in the current 2016 version the split-screen disappeared completely.
So just multiplayer online racing? Or bringing your own console to a friend and at best with your own TV? That makes it even more complicated. Especially at times where the TV screens are getting bigger which would make 2P racing even more exciting. Are the gaming companies expecting that with faster Internet connection the people don't meet anymore? It rather forces the people to stay at home playing with friends also being at home. Of course adding a split-screen needs extra resources and so on. Ok. But for me F1 2015 was a wake-up call in terms the direction they're going. I already know a few people who didn't buy it - same as F1 2016 - because they found it that there's no split-screen.
As far as I know with Nintendo they're still doing it right. Imagine they would remove the split-screen from Mario Kart. Can't think of that. At Nintendo they know that people still meet and play against each other. It's part of their concept and their success. Are the Xbox One or PS4 players rather the ones who prefer to play at home alone? Of course there are many games which are made to play as a single player. But still, at the point where a Formula One racing game no longer has a split-screen, something goes really wrong. Obviously the protests are not big enough, the producers are getting through with it. It's still sold, but it could be sold more often. But maybe not copies enough to compensate the effort adding a split-screen? I can't repeat myself often enough: It's going in the wrong direction. It has a bad impact on the peoples social lifes. More isolation. And so on. You can find petitions against it, but are they working? Surely not enough. But you still find lots of people being frustrated about it like me. Or is it just the older generation growing up with split-screen video games now missing it? And the younger generation won't care? I do really hope there's a change in the future, hopefully already for games like F1 2017, but I doubt it.
It was also possible for them to add some characters - not just changing them. Some stages were also changed like Kamis Lookout now has a dark sky. There's also a stage were you solely fight in the Earths stratosphere. In terms of characters you can clearly say that Merged Zamasu is quite superior to others. Especially one long combination attack. And attention concerning using other costumes: The games freezes after you chose the 3rd or 4th costume of certain characters - Whis for example. Better checkout the video above to see what's possible. Anyway, I'd suggest to test it yourself, it's truly fun and interesting. And if you don't want to listen to Spanish voices instead of English, you can always select Japanese.
It was THE Dragon Ball Z fighting game for the PlayStation 2. 161 characters and the way of fighting came really close to how it would be in the TV series. Despite many new games have been released since then - many fans want that game from 2007 back. The currently quite popular Dragon Ball games are Xenoverse and its recently released successor Xenoverse 2. These games are in terms of story with the Time Patrols quite interesting and playing it online is also quite cool. But - in my view - the fighting system or the handling itself is not as fun as in the final part of the Budokai Tenkaichi series. I admit, nostalgia is also playing a part, but playing a Dragon Ball game having been released since then is mostly disappointing, if you know Tenkaichi 3 from 2007. Of course, the story in Tenkaichi 3 was quite short and easy to get through, but it's always awesome for having a fast 5 vs. 5 match against a friend. The controls are easy, the battles are fast and really fun - and that after almost 10 years.
Modded Tenkaichi 3 games on YouTube
An update on the current console generation like PS4 would have much potential. Especially now, where the Dragon Ball universe has expanded with new characters and the story of Dragon Ball Super. And people are still loving Tenkaichi 3 - just go to YouTube and look for videos of modded Tenkaichi 3 like grognougnou's channel. You'll find videos of fusions with SSJ Blue mods with millions of clicks. I also couldn't help and modded my Tenkaichi 3 game with instructions and downloads being published on another website. So Namco Bandai would surely sell enough copies if they would release an updated version of Tenkaichi 3 for the PS4 or other consoles. And how often you read comments like 'best DBZ game ever made'?
Answers from Bandai Namco
Such a re-release happened in 2012 with Budokai and Budokai 3 being released as 'Dragon Ball Z Budokai HD Collection'. So what's the situation with a new Budokai Tenkaichi 3 release?
The guys from the YouTube channel Rhymestyle actually talked to a guy from Bandai Namco about this topic in January 2015 (see video above), the man seemed interested, but they never heard of him again. And if you the Internet about that topic most reports are from the first half of 2015 - but apparently no recent information. It seems that it was considered, news of that possibility were spread, but that was it. There were also several petitions, but all I could see was that they were closed by now never reaching 6,000 signatures. Interestingly, Treevax (the guy who is working on game concepts for a possible Raging Blast 3) also got some answers from Bandai staff concerning Tenkaichi 3 - but this is from February 2013:
Will there ever be a Tenkaichi HD Collection?First, you must know that making the Budokai HD Collection has been a real copyright maze. This is one of the reasons why we didn’t have Budokai 2 in the collection. Though, they succeeded into obtaining the rights, and made the game.I’ve been told that making Tenkaichi HD Collection would be even more complicated. Thus, it might never been made, because of copyright issues (game content, BGM…).
So, copyright issues... I'm aware within the Budokai series there were tracks produced by Kenji Yamamoto, but facing some plagiarism issues around 2011 the composer didn't produce any more Dragon Ball music. About Tenkaichi 3 I just know that the theme song 'Super Survivor' was produced by Yamamoto. So there's more behind it. To sum this up: Many fans want it, but there are apparently issues with the rights making this even more difficult. I don't know if they're working on it or not - we may just have to be more patient...
This tutorial shows you precisely how you can change the background music from the classic PS2 game Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3.
Back in 2013 I already made a tutorial about this topic here on my blog, but this time I want to go more deeply into it with having more knowledge and experience about it - also with additional video material. Note: Your PS2 has to be able to run copied games - either with having an integrated chip, using ESR or running the game from the local or external hard disk drive - or via LAN if you like it that way. For testing this whole scenario I would recommend you to have an emulator, but more on that later. 1) Copy the disk to your PC Select a folder to copy the content of the DVD on your local drive. It contains the folders 'BIN', 'DATA' and 'IRX' plus two files to give the disk an ID (also it looks different depending on the version - EU or US). For the music modding you just need to focus on the folder 'DATA'.
2) Open the AFS file with '2' in it using DKZ Studio Within the folder 'Data' you'll find a file named like PZS3US2 (in the US version) or PZS3EU2 (European version). You need to open this file with the tool DKZ Studio, which you can find online. As you can see then this archive is filled with a huge amount of files from the game, mostly with character voices or noises as adx files. With double-click you can listen to every piece of sound because luckily the software has en adx player included. With this huge amount of files it's divided in three pages and you'll find the actual background music close to the end of the third pages. The files are named like this: zs3_00_US.adx (again, US version). 3) Changing the background music So and here's the interesting part: In order to change the music you need to convert your music to the adx format. So you need to go and check for the PES Sound File Converter. With that tool it's pretty easy to do. Click on 'Add' to select the files you want to convert, go 'Next', select the output folder and the process will run. And: Also mark that the song should run in a loop!
Before in terms of the file itself there's only one thing you need to look after: The size. As you can see in the screenshot above all the files are having a size between 3 and 5 MB. The created adx file should have a lower size than the file you want to change it with in order to work without any conflicts or error messages. So you need to shrink your mp3 files to a lower quality. I used the video editing tool Sony Vegas for that, but there are surely better ways to manage that. So let's say you now have an adx file with a suitable file size, then you need to rename it to the file you are planning to change it with. Then, - in DKZ Studio - right-click the music file which is about to change, click 'Import' and select your converted file with the same name. If no error message shows up, the whole process worked out. Now, do the same with other music tracks you are planning to change. You'll also notice on the file icon which files were already changed. 4) Create a patch With every change done the whole thing should be saved. By using 'File' and 'Save' I sometimes ended up not having the correct size of the afs file which meant lots of files were missing. So I recommend the following way: Create a patch with all your changes! So go to 'Patch' and select 'New Patch (With Modified)'.
A dkz file will be created. The file includes your music and after double-clicking it you have to select 'Patch' and then 'Apply patch in folder' before choosing the destination folder. So go to the place where you extracted your DVD and select the 'DATA' folder. All changes will be applied. Now check if the file size didn't drop and also the changing date of PZS3US2.afs should be quite up-to-date. 5) Burn it and test it! I'd recommend to use IMGBurn to create an ISO file with the extracted DVD files including your changed afs file. Confirm the suggested label name and let the process run. With a completed ISO image you need to find a way to test it. A quick and fast check would be possible with an PS2 emulator like PCSX2. You only need to find a matching BIOS. Of course you can also burn it or copy it to your hard drive directly but it would be good to know if it really works. If you changed the first file (zs3_00_US.adx called 'The Meteor') you directly notice after the intro video if the process worked. To check all the background music, go to 'Duel', select two fighters and while selecting the stage you can move to the right to check all the BGM. Have fun to fight with your own music! And did you notice the screenshots with the new characters? If you want to see more, visit the blog and other channels of Kinnikuchu. A tutorial from my site will follow soon.
So you want to play a PS2 game with everything unlocked, but you don't wanna go through the whole game again - luckily the Internet is filled with savegames. But how can you use them? When you go through the Internet you'll find savegames in the following formats: xps, psu, max, pws, sps
But when you start ULaunchElfand check the Memory Card you'll find out that every savegame has its own folder with a few files included. So you'll have to extract the files and copy them in such a folder. For doing that you need this tool: PS2 Save Converter
Using the tool itself is quite easy:
1) Extract the savegame file
Open the tool, select your savegame and then you'll see three files listed below. Right-click each one and select 'Extract File'.
Create a new folder and copy all the files in it. Rename the folder to the same name as the ID of the game. Now you can copy the folder to an USB drive and start your PS2.
3) Copy savegame folder to your Memory Card
Open the homebrew tool ULaunchElf, connect your USB drive and select 'Mass'. Copy the savegame folder, go to your Memory Card and select 'McPaste'. Copying will take a few second, it's still USB 1.1.
4) Check and start the game
Reboot your PS2 and go to 'Browser' to check if you can see the savegame icon in your Memory Card. If so, start your game and your files will be loaded.
By the end and after the PS2 era more and more homebrew software was released for the famous console of the early 2000s. After the first step was done, you were able to execute multiple applications.
First, you had to find a way to install 'FreeMCBoot' (in short FMCB) on your Memory Card. I only know two ways to do that: Let someone who already has it install FMCB on your Memory Card or: Buy a network adapter to install a hard disk in the PS2 (of course only possible with the older, bigger model), install an ISO image with homebrew software on your hard drive and boot it with a special CD.
Installing FMCB
I would recommend to use the Windows tool WinHIIP for that: Connect the IDE hard drive either with an USB adapter or with an IDE cable with your PC. Start the tool and select the ISO you want to install (it's usually used for games). Before using it the hard drive must be formatted in PFS which is possible with WinHIIP. Following that the hard disk has to get back in the PS2 again. The previously called 'special CD' is something like 'HD Advance' or any other software which was sold with the network adapter to use the hard disk. So after booting the CD you'll end up in the menu with all on the hard disk installed PS2 games - including the ISO with homebrew software. This image should include the software 'ULaunchELF', a software - as the name says - able to execute ELF files. ULaunchELF is a kind of file explorer for the PlayStation 2. You can even plug in an USB flash drive (in FAT32 of course) and use it for saving and executing files. ELF files - which means "executable and linkable format" - can now be used from this point. You only need some of them. But now you should use the opportunity to install "FMCB" by launching the installation files from either an USB drive or from the hard drive. Make sure that you have some space on your Memory Card. It takes something around 2 MB which is crucial because the Memory Cards usually had 8 MB space. From that point your boot menu is extended and you can add more software in the list by using the configurator.
Which opportunities do you get?
You can use the 'Simple Media System' - short 'SMS Player' to use your PS2 as a media center with files even on your external HDD. Unfortunately because there was no further development you can't play all media files. Especially the mp4 format does not work, while at least most of the avi files run. Some minigames are available like rebuilds of Space Invaders, Tetris or even Super Mario - to be started as a single ELF. Keyword emulators: There's a selection of ways to play games from older consoles like NES, SNES, GB, C64 and much more. In the last years there was even a PlayStation 1 emulator for its successor. Unfortunately a bit slow, but you can't expect miracles by starting such big games from the flash drive... The ESR shows an alternate way to play copied games from the disk without having a special chip. A game with a special ESR patch can be started from the FMCB menu. There are also alternate ways to start games from your hard drive: With the OpenPS2Loader you can not only launch games from your HDD - you can also create Virtual Memory Cards (VMC) to have your savegames on your HDD in a special folder. And there's more: You can use your FAT32 external hard drive or a public folder in your network to store your games instead of an internal hard drive. And despite we have already 2015 - there's still development!
Summary
Even in this short overview you can see the amount of opportunities you have once the PS2 has the ability to launch ELF files. It just shows extended features beyond the basic firmware.
Of course the successor PS3 has way more to offer in the homebrew area, but in the PS2 era the firmware didn't change like every week - just with the release of newer models - which makes the homebrew usage a lot easier.
Even if it's a ten-year-old PS2 game it's still a special game about the famous Japanese anime series One Piece. It also contains interesting background music - so let's get the sound! I have the European edition of the game (One Piece: Round The Land (2004)). If you look at the root of the disc, you'll see the following folders:
The root folder of the PS2 disc
In the folder 'BGM' you'll find the subfolders '00', '01' and '02' which all contain the whole background music from the video game. But they are in the file format *.int. Int stands for PS2 RAW Interleaved Format. You can listen to the music with using the BZR Player. That's a music player for a lot of video game music formats as you can see in this list. But while running a playlist of songs it often happens that the program is ending up with "Not responding". But at least the songs are played correctly. Attempts with using the tools MFAudio and PSound to convert the int-files into proper wav files failed - they sound similar, but not as good and correct as with BZR Player. So any tool which is able to record the system sound (such as Free Audio Recorder) while playing the soundtrack with the BZR Player would be the only solution I can currently offer. But if you know it better you can of course tell me in the comments.
In the Japanese edition of Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (in Japan published as Dragon Ball Z: Sparking! METEOR) we have the many tracks from the TV series unlike in the US or European version where this soundtrack was substituted with a new music. But now we have the opportunity to exchange the soundtrack with the original soundtrack or anything we want.
In the folder 'data' you'll find three afs-files. Most important for replacing the background audio is the file pzs3eu2.afs (the letters 'eu' might be different depending on where you're from).
This file has to be opened by the DKZ Studio. Then you see the archive is divided in three pages - you have to go to the last one (3) and scroll almost to the end.
The PS2 audio files are in the adx-format. The background soundtrack is named like zs3_00_US.adx and so on. In the next step you should convert your favourited music from mp3 to adx. That's why you need the PES Sound File Converter:
After selecting the file, click 'next', chose a destination folder and press 'convert'. You may check the first setting for making an adx-file with a complete loop.
Following that you have to rename the output file with the same name like the file to be replaced with (like zs3_00_US.adx). Then you need to use the DKZ Studio again, right-click the adx-file to replace and select 'import'. Then chose the before created adx-file.
The adx-file has now been replaced and you should save the afs-archive (floppy disk icon as usual).
For having a proper ISO-image to use, the original file pzs3eu2.afs has to be exchanged within the ISO-image.
Luckily the DKZ Studio is also able to open ISO-images. Now you only have to do the same with the afs-file like done before with the adx-file. Right-click, replace and save - and know you have a modified ISO.
Ok, I have read in forums that it's also possible to simply create an ISO out of the extracted files. Unfortunately this ISO never really worked in an emulator - the image could never boot.
Yes, an emulator. Before burning it or copying the image to PS2 hard disk it would be better to test the image previously. The PCSX2 is always a good way to find it out if everything works.
If you have chosen the z3_00-adx-file you'll hear the confirmation that it worked directly at the start screen...
