Tag: sega

FM Kit Creator

For all my life I have gamed and played video games since I was a child playing on the Sega Mega Drive. One of the earliest type of games I had got into was football (soccer) management simulation games. I forget the names now of the very early games I played on Mega Drive, maybe FIFA Manager or Championship Manager but they got me hooked.

Moving on to PC gaming I remember picking up big cardboard boxes containing Greatest Hits versions of Championship Manager 97/98 onwards and that is really the bulk of my gaming. Championship Manager eventually split into two rivals Football Manager and Championship Manager, though the name was retained the quality and game went to Football Manager.

Today there is only Football Manager existing, and it is on Football Manager 2024 (2025 version scrapped for FM 26 due to development issues). The game has a yearly release and despite minimal changes in recent years I have always bought it and played the life out of it, a quick look at steam shows the hours I have put into it, though some hours account for idle time and background. I’d play while I work or do stuff. A huge chunk of my life devoted to the game. A game that is essentially a spreadsheet.

Due to the current two year cycle of FM24 it is feeling a little stale and boring even with updated squads and new matchsim files to play with (a key feature of the series is fan made skin and mods to update the quality of life and cosmetic aspect of the game like kits, badges, profile pics and skins).

I discovered something and I am addicted to it, it is making my own kits for my teams to use in the game. I discovered this site FM Kit Creator and it has blown my mind being able to create my own 2D and 3D kits to use in game. I enjoy using the real kits but its fun to make my own. You can edit styles, patterns, colours, badges, logos and sponsors. The past few weeks I have spent as much time making kits as I have playing the game.

I plan to going forward make new kits every in game season for whoever I am managing, like currently I am managing Liverpool FC and Brazil, so made custom kits for both.

Here are some (mostly Liverpool FC) kits I have made for my game.

PS Vita Emulation

Recently I got into Pokémon cards and collecting Japanese cards of the game. I have amassed a small collection, nothing too expensive or valuable except a Golden Charizard from the Ruler of The Black Flame set (Japanese version of Obsidian Flames in English). That got me thinking how I miss playing the games especially the one ones from the Game Boy and Game Boy Colour era. Red, Blue and Yellow.

Emulation exists and I have tried them on my phone in the past but with life and using the phone and notifications its too distracting. I could buy an old Game Boy to try but then it is a bit iffy like will it have any faults and would it be expensive to repair or upgrade parts. Similarly you can buy emulators which look like a Game Boy or handheld console, but there is lots of choice and is it something I want to sink £100 into and not use in a week or twos time.

I was mulling it over and thinking then it dawned on me…. I have a PS Vita somewhere collecting dust. I could turn that into an emulator and play the games that way. After much hunting I found it finally. My only issue was the cable which I could not find, unfortunately the PS Vita uses a proprietary cable which is unavilable to buy like a generic USB-C or Micro USB cable. Eventually in my box of old cables and shit I found it which saved me a trip to China and AliExpress.

To be safe once the device came to life after years of neglect (came out in January 2012 and probably was dead as a device by May 2012) I decided to be safe and give it a complete wipe so none of my info was on there. Given that I was installing homebrew and unknown things to me I felt it best to safe than sorry.

All in all it was a relatively straight forward process first of all installing HENkaku to hack the device and then VitaDeploy, iTLS=Enso and VitaShell to name a few things. The one bit I had an issue with was ShaRKF00D which wouldn’t open and run properly but I found a work around for that and no more issues were faced.

I used mGBA to play the roms of Pokémon Yellow, Red and Blue and they work pretty damn well. It’s a fun blast of nastalgia playing the games and I am enjoying them.

I also decided to try and emulate the SNES/NES and Sega Mega Drive for those I use Retroarch and run the various cores to play the games and so far so good. Sonic and Jurasic Park The Lost World play very well on the Sega cores and McDonald Land and Super Mario World play well on the SNES/NES cores.

It does the job I want it to, is it perfect? Probably not but its perfect for me and has saved a nice chunk on money and put some old tech to good use and a new lease of life. Perhaps one day I may buy a purpose built emulator like an Anbernic RG35XX or Miyoo Mini Plus. For now though I am perfectly have with repurposed PS Vita.