Automating PSP ISO compression under Linux

I've recently started to test PPSSPP, a very promising PSP emulator that is available on a variety of platforms.

I had a bunch of ISO images lying on my disk, and wanted to compress them as CSO to spare toom on my SD cards. I stumbled upon pspshrink which is a nice command-line PSP ISO compressor for Linux. Building it on my desktop was a trivial task.

Next I wrote the following Bash script to automate compression:

#!/bin/bash

EXEC_PATH="`pwd`" 
echo -e "Executing in $EXEC_PATH"

ISO_FOLDER=iso
CSO_FOLDER=cso
COMPRESS="$EXEC_PATH/pspshrink-1.1.2/pspshrink 9"

while read r;
do
   DIR="`dirname "$r"`"
   pushd "$DIR"

   ROM="`basename "$DIR"`"
   
   # US rom?
   US=`expr match "$ROM" '.*_US'`
   if [ "$US" -gt 0 ]; then 
       ROM="`expr substr "$ROM" 1 "$US"`"
   else
     # EU rom?
     EU=`expr match "$ROM" '.*_EU'`
     if [ "$EU" -gt 0 ]; then 
         ROM="`expr substr "$ROM" 1 "$EU"`"
     fi
   fi

   echo -e "\n########## Start $ROM"

   unrar e -o+ "$r"

   rename -v 's/\.ISO/.iso/' *.ISO

   ISO="`find -name "*.iso"`"
   CSO=""$EXEC_PATH"/"$CSO_FOLDER"/"$ROM".cso"
   if [ -f "$CSO" ]; then
       echo -e "Skip existing "$CSO""
   else
       $COMPRESS "$ISO" "$CSO"
   fi
 
   rm -vf *.r*

   popd

   echo -e "\n########## End $ROM"

done < <(find $EXEC_PATH/$ISO_FOLDER -name "*.rar" | sort)

Worked like a charm!

And finally a small script, recycling the same base loop, that checks for missing ROMs (the compress script handles only RAR archives).

#!/bin/bash

EXEC_PATH="`pwd`" 
echo -e "Executing in $EXEC_PATH"

ISO_FOLDER=iso
CSO_FOLDER=cso

while read d;
do
   ROM="`basename "$d"`"
   
   # US rom?
   US=`expr match "$ROM" '.*_US'`
   if [ "$US" -gt 0 ]; then 
       ROM="`expr substr "$ROM" 1 "$US"`"
   else
     # EU rom?
     EU=`expr match "$ROM" '.*_EU'`
     if [ "$EU" -gt 0 ]; then 
         ROM="`expr substr "$ROM" 1 "$EU"`"
     fi
   fi

   CSO=""$EXEC_PATH"/"$CSO_FOLDER"/"$ROM".cso"
   if [ -f "$CSO" ]; then
       echo -e "[OK] "$CSO""
   else
       echo -e "[KO] "$CSO""
   fi

done < <(ls -ld $EXEC_PATH/$ISO_FOLDER/* | sort)

Golden Axe Myth

Today I discovered a very impressive fangame made with the Open Beats of Rage engine, Golden Axe Myth. Currently the game has only be released  for Windows (the module is encrypted to prevent hacks), hope someone can convince the modders to release it unencrypted so I can play it on the go on Android :-)

Head to the offical website of the game to grab it!

OpenBOR modules collection

Hi!

If you don't know about OpenBOR, I suggest searching for a couple of vids on Youtube. OpenBOR is a free game engine for fan-made 2D brawlers, a true heaven if you like this type of games as much as I do!

OpenBOR has been recently ported to Android, and it runs beautifully on my iDroid X360 chinese console. Latest builds are available on utunnel's (the dev in charge) Dropbox.

To celebrate this port, I've started to dust off my modules collection, and will make them available for download. Downloads are hosted on Mega (due to their size).

Here's the link to the shared folder on Mega where all mods are stored.

Below I'll list my comments about the ones that I like the most.

Title	Modder	Rating	Description	Size	Link
Art of Fighting III BOR Remix	Mr. Q	****	Art of Fighting III remixed as a beat'em'up. Includes cutscenes, motorcycle rides, combos and special moves. Great graphics.	96.2 MB	Mega
Beats of Rage	Senile Team	****	The original module that started it all. Basically a Streets of Rage remix with KoF characters. Quite hard.	59.8 MB	Mega
Classic Fantasy v1.48	NickyP	****	An action-RPG style brawler featuring deliciously retro sprites from the old FInal Fantasy titles. Nice combo system with a chain button.	86.7 MB	Mega
Crisis Evil	HarlemHero	***	A Resident Evil themed mod. Play as Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, blasting and fighting zombies, mutant dogs and other creatures. A bit amateurish, sprites have been edited and animation is so-so. Yet gameplay is great and there is some sense of survival to it.	27.1 MB	Mega
Crisis Evil 2	HarlemHero	****	Sequel to the first Resident Evil themed mod by HarlemHero. Play as Leon Kennedy or Claire Redfield. This mod is much more refined than its previous installment, animation and sprites are neat.	69.2 MB	Mega
Night Slashers X	BonusJZ	*****	My all-time favorite module! A remake of the arcade Night Slashers. Polished fighting system, hordes of zombies and gallons of blood!	104.7 MB	Mega
Night Slashers X 99x99	BonusJZ	****	An edit that gives the players 99 lives and 99 credits! A.k.a Easy Mode	104.7 MB	Mega