GBAtemp's acekard 2 Review

[Giangsta]

Too bad it's sold out at Dealextreme.

And how come this gets a gold award? it doesn't even run the Castlevania intros properly.

 

[Salamantis]

I must say that UI looks very sexy.

 

[martin88]

Aww not in stock at DealExtreme.

 

[Sinkhead]

Good review Urza, I wouldn't have given it Gold Award myself, but it was an interesting read nevertheless.

 

[nightwalker]

Aww not in stock at DealExtreme.

http://www.emvee.ca/acekard2.php they can be found there

that guy bought all of them off DX and now sells it for double the price

his entire site consists of marked up DX products...

 

[4playgaming]

The prices I've seen at particular places are a bit expensive. Obviously barring DealExtreme, which is conveniently located in Asia. As for North America, my local business has 150+ of these on order at the moment. I can openly let you all know they can be comfortably let go in North America for probably $35-40 without much hassles or worries.

The emvee.ca seller has a ridiculous overhead on his units! I'd obviously recommend either buying straight from Asia or at least from a seller who doesn't put them up at about 150% premium.

 

[Bri]

@Urza

How do you like the Acekard 2 compared to the Edge?

-Bri

 

[cutterjohn]

Apparently DX will be selling them for $31 which is a FAR more reasonable price than the c. $40 @ bamboogaming for what this cart is. Unfortunately they seem to be sold out already. (It seems like every new cart that they get is sold out immediately.)

The only thing that they could do to push this over the top would be to discontinue the RPG, and open source the AK2's firmware. I'm already thinking about picking up one of these over the Edge cart, and would up my purchase to the next couple of months if the open sourced the firmware for this cart as well, otherwise I'll wait until around the end of the year or until one of my other carts dies randomly before then.

 

[4playgaming]

Apparently DX will be selling them for $31 which is a FAR more reasonable price than the c. $40 @ bamboogaming for what this cart is. Unfortunately they seem to be sold out already. (It seems like every new cart that they get is sold out immediately.)

The only thing that they could do to push this over the top would be to discontinue the RPG, and open source the AK2's firmware. I'm already thinking about picking up one of these over the Edge cart, and would up my purchase to the next couple of months if the open sourced the firmware for this cart as well, otherwise I'll wait until around the end of the year or until one of my other carts dies randomly before then.

As a consumer of flash cartridges, I was never one to mind ordering from Asia. The prices were low and that alone deemed it a good choice.

As a business owner that sells flash cartridges, and currently based in North America, I can tell you that they can be comfortably sold even in North America for about $35-40. I have about 150 of these on order, but none of the R.P.G. I simply don't see an audience for it's predecessor, the higher-end version of the two. Yes, it is open-source, but most people cannot validate purchasing a card for $60+ before shipping.

I personally love this card and advocate it. I'll be replacing my own Supercard DS One with it solely for the menu. I'm a whore for looks, so this will do it just right as I don't use any of the premium features in either the CycloDS or the Supercard DS One. IMO, I believe the menu system within Acekard products (minus the first-generation one of course) is league's superior than any other one out there. This is the first card where I felt the GUI wasn't just 'tacked on' or was an afterthought, but rather, made a priority.

 

[mrbass]

I believe it be a good budget choice for the masses (speaking of myself too here).
Acekard, EDGE, and possibly M3 budget card yet to come out.

 

[Bri]

DSTT is also a pretty good choice for a budget cart. It will be even better when and if they add file sorting to the menu. YSMenu is already available to do that.

Edge will be better when the cheat database can be updated by the user and when they fix that menu that comes up every time you launch a game with cheats enabled.

Sounds like the Acekard 2's biggest drawbacks are the somewhat flimsy hardware and the way you have to rebuild the cheats for each game when you update them.

Do any of these carts run GBA games without a loader (this is listed as a "con" on the DSTT review, but do the other two do this)? YSMenu for the DSTT comes close, but still has some bugs with saving (it does launch the browser without having to use the GBA Loader to patch the expansion cart).

-Bri

 

[gbaguy]

It's no wonder that DX is always almost immediately sold out: that a$$ emvee is hoarding them to unload them at ridiculous prices! So unfair. He often posts at the DX forums by the way as "emvee1".

I really like your review Urza, thanks for doing it. Please give us your take on the Edge vs this one.

Thanks

 

[tinymonkeyt]

hey um how good does the acekard 2 save up on battery?

 

[Urza]

The "awards" are fairly arbitrary, I wouldn't base too much on them. The reason I gave it a "Gold" award is due to its fantastic user interface (as mentioned in the review). It simply is the best in that aspect, which I think is worth something.

I think it would be worth mentioning under cons that it isn't open source, since the AKRPG was, and they're basically the same minus the NAND.
While it is disappointing, its not really (or at all) a standard feature among flashcarts, therefore it seems hard to justify it as a "con" when none of the competing carts have one.

How do you like the Acekard 2 compared to the Edge?

Please give us your take on the Edge vs this one.

While the EDGE is a great cart as well, in a contest with the acekard 2, the acekard wins hands down. In addition to having a much more detailed theming, I just love the level of tweaking you get with "globalsettings.ini". As far as menu responsiveness and speed, they're about equal (although you can slow down the acekard's by changing some settings if you want).

Outside of menu appearance and tweaking, they're about on par feature-wise. The acekard has a slight advantage here as well due to its supporting of standard cheat libraries, while the EDGE is locked into its proprietary format (meaning you have to use the cheats they provide).

One thing I have yet to test is Wii DS linkage. I'd think that the EDGE has it since its a clone of the Cyclo, which may be something to consider for a Wii owner.

QUOTE

And how come this gets a gold award? it doesn't even run the Castlevania intros properly.

Because I'm not going to buy a cart for sitting around watching the intro movie. Personally, I never found it to be a very relevant benchmark anyways. No slowdown was experienced during the day or so of testing.

 

[golden]

The only thing that they could do to push this over the top would be to discontinue the RPG, and open source the AK2's firmware. I'm already thinking about picking up one of these over the Edge cart, and would up my purchase to the next couple of months if the open sourced the firmware for this cart as well, otherwise I'll wait until around the end of the year or until one of my other carts dies randomly before then.

That has got to be the most illogical thing you have posted cutterjohn. Why would they discontinue the RPG when it is doing so well not to mention many people have bought it that expect good support. If the RPG turns into a DSX then acekard will probably go out of business. And just so you know, the AK2 isn't OFFICIALLY open source but it will have all the open source releases that the RPG gets so it technically still gets all the goodies of open source.

 

[Urza]

And just so you know, the AK2 isn't OFFICIALLY open source but it will have all the open source releases that the RPG gets so it technically still gets all the goodies of open source.

What are you basing this on?

 

[golden]

And just so you know, the AK2 isn't OFFICIALLY open source but it will have all the open source releases that the RPG gets so it technically still gets all the goodies of open source.

What are you basing this on?

Forgive me for not going back and quoting my source but I saw smith's or normmatts post a couple days ago about the AK2 and they(can't remember which, smith or normmatt or another person here that helps with the firmware) said that their releases for the open source RPG will also be implemented in the next release of AK2 firmware.

 

[sk3tch]

And just so you know, the AK2 isn't OFFICIALLY open source but it will have all the open source releases that the RPG gets so it technically still gets all the goodies of open source.

What are you basing this on?

Some of the people working on the RPG have confirmed that the Acekard team has contacted them to get permission to use their work on the Acekard 2. One could safely make the assumption that they will continue this RPG > 2 relationship. Hopefully they'll take the "best of the best" from RPG's open source dev and migrate it to the 2.

 

[golden]

And just so you know, the AK2 isn't OFFICIALLY open source but it will have all the open source releases that the RPG gets so it technically still gets all the goodies of open source.

What are you basing this on?

Some of the people working on the RPG have confirmed that the Acekard team has contacted them to get permission to use their work on the Acekard 2. One could safely make the assumption that they will continue this RPG > 2 relationship. Hopefully they'll take the "best of the best" from RPG's open source dev and migrate it to the 2.

Ya, thanks. That's what I was talking about Urza. Except, I don't know who said it. I think it might have been smith or normmatt. Can't remember.

 

[azotyp]

For me they could close source of acekard rpg and bliss normatt and smith could only make a custom firmware for it, everyone would be happy, and all acekards would have the same new cool features at one time.