Sonic the Hedgehog for iPhone isn’t a game, it’s a Genesis emulator
Sega’s recently released Sonic the Hedgehog for iPhone has received well-deserved accolades for bringing an amazing faithful port of the 1991 Sega Genesis classic to the iPhone platform, yet at the same time, it has also received almost as much criticism for its slow frame rates and performance issues. Well, the guys over at AllTechRelated may have discovered the reason. Apparently, Sonic isn’t so much a port to the iPhone as a Genesis emulator running Sonic on the iPhone.
It turns out if you open up the Sonic app folder on a jailbroken iPhone (as I’ve done below), you can replace the file named “rom.bin” with another Genesis ROM file you may own, and it will play. In their tests not all ROMs worked, (so far, they’ve had success with Sonic 1 and 2, Afterburner 2, and Ecco the Dolphin).
Above: Replace this file with a bin ROM of your own, and you’re good to go.
The obvious catch here is that only the D-Pad and A button are supported, so only certain games will play well even if they launch. I have tested out Sonic 2, and as you can see from the shots below (featuring Sonic’s friend Tails) the hack does indeed work. (I only tested that ROM because I still own the original Sonic 2 cartridge, and the underlying feeling in the ROM community is that you shouldn’t run emulated games you did not buy at some point).
I actually noticed the ROM for Sonic 2 plays smoother than the “official” Sega Sonic for the iPhone. For some, perhaps the knowledge that Sonic can in fact run many Genesis titles may help justify the $5.99 price tag on the laggy app. Of course, if you have a jailbroken iPhone, there’s already a free Genesis emulator out there.
As someone who plans to UNjailbreak my iPhone when the version 3 OS comes out, here’s hoping Sega decides to do right and fix the performance on Sonic, but in the meantime, running Sonic 2 ain’t a bad consolation prize.
[via AllTechRelated]
The blue blur returns!
Sadly, the 16-bit era is the only version that most fans want to remember.
I am so disappointed with this game. A traditional control scheme doesn’t work with the iphone as you don’t get the tangibility of the buttons. That coupled with the crappy framerate and slowdown make for a big fat waste of £3.50 until they sort it out.
Doesn’t that break Apple’s developer program license? You know the bit that says “An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means […]”
Seems that an emulator like this is *exactly* what’s prohibited.
Or is this one rule for big companies like Sega and one for the rest of us?
Hopefully when the new iPhone comes out in june it will have the rumoured new CPU which will be twice as fast as the current one. Hopefully that will help with the frame rate.
Bah on emulators. Native or none at all.
I’m glad they made it as an emulator and not as a shitty remake, sonic didn’t need to be remade.
And how about “Golden Axe” for iPhone? It has all three buttons, and may work better as a genesis emulator. I’ll give a try.
Hey Gley, i just downloaded Golden Axe and was looking in the files. There is no rom.bin like in the Sonic app anymore. But i found something else, the file pack1.fsys. When i change pack1.fsys in pack1.rar i can open it but it asks for a password…
I think that in this file we can find the rom, we only need a way to open it…
Ha ha iphone still sucks! Picodrive plays all sega genesis and master system games. Apple can hug one.
oh almost forgot, Picodrive is free!