Posts Tagged ‘Nintendo’

NES sized Gameboy game cases?

In the years prior to my hardcore vintage collecting addiction, I paid most of my attention to my Xbox. Within the last year and a half I’ve bought quite a few games for the NES, and when the games started to pile up I went searching for cases to put them in. All my NES games prior to this were in their own cases, whether it be a clear case with a big red Nintendo logo or a yellow, pink, purple or blue case that said Gameboy on it.

Wait, did I just say NES games in a Gameboy case? Yes, yes I did! Somewhere among my childhood I had acquired four Gameboy cases that were the same size as the NES (clam shell) cases.

I forget exactly where I got them and with all the local NES games that were floating around back then I could have gotten them from anywhere, but the fact is that I still have them. It came to me one night that I had a collection of game manuals stashed away inside one of them, so I started ripping through boxes to find out where they were. After I found them a whole new level of amazement dawned on me, which for some reason never dawned on me before, that I had never seen these things before and haven’t seen any since.

What I find remarkable is that these things are the exact same size and color as their NES counterparts, but emblazoned on the front is a black Gameboy logo, instead of Nintendo. Inside the case were 4 tiny corners, clearly cut out to fit a Gameboy game cartridge. I’m going to make a bold assumption that these were produced to accommodate the Gameboy players who wanted to keep the manuals with their games, as the manuals fit better in these cases than they would the smaller ones, obviously!

Sadly NES games wouldn’t fit inside these cases without a little modification, which I eventually did. Looking back I wish I hadn’t, but I needed more NES cases because I had plenty of the tiny Gameboy clam shells. You can still see the remnants of the corners that held the Gameboy game, but NES games and their manuals fit perfectly, although they do slide around a bit (sans the protection the Nintendo version afforded).

I can’t find information on these cases anywhere, so I have no clue how many were made and how many different colors were available. To my knowledge there may only be 4 different colors because I have been fooled by VHS cases that are the exact same colors as these, while gaming hunting, but I’ve never seen anymore for the Gameboy. I would love to own a full set of these (unmodified!), although I probably won’t use them for Gameboy games, I just want to own them because I find them fascinating.

Attack of the Clones: Send in the Clones!

I will admit that I’m pretty fond of my Super Joy 3, but lately it has been giving me problems. I think the batteries are going dead, but with anything made in China, it may also just be dying for good. Recently I found a functional Power Joy that may take it’s place, so I figured what better to do than to give the Power Joy it’s own review!

The Power Joy also has the N64 controller resemblance, but takes it a few steps further from the Super Joy, for the integrated light gun. The first thing you’ll notice is the toy jet design on the front, as well as the toy gun like handle, with trigger, underneath. The toy jet design may have been added to throw off the N64 controller shape, but the handle and trigger are essential and feel quite comfortable when you’re playing one of the many shooting games packed into this unit. Also, the light gun’s accuracy is surprisingly good!

At the bottom of the handle is the second controller port, as well as the hardwired AV cables, with optional power input. The cables are decent in length and don’t get in the way, despite their placement. Underneath the unit you’ll also find a 60 pin connector and the battery storage, which has an extremely weak feeling cover. The Power Joy does play Famicom cartridges, but the unit isn’t quite big enough to play them comfortably, so your fingers might be cramped until you find a comfortable playing position.

On top of the Power Joy are the controls, which are setup much like the Super Joy’s, but with a few exceptions. Here the D pad is still inaccurate, the reset button is much smaller but still too easy to hit in a hurry, the power switch is right above the reset button and start and select are the same. One feature the Super Joy lacks, but I enjoy on the Power Joy, is a fully functional joystick, which is more accurate (just slightly) than the D pad. A minor drawback is that the A and B buttons (including their turbo counterparts) are backwards, which takes a little time to adjust to.

My new Power Joy came with the cartridge, so I had a chance to see what it could offer. I honestly think the cartridge alone was worth the $3 I paid for the whole unit! The PJ-008 is packed with playable games, and it even works on the NES, with a Famicom to NES converter. Out of the 84 games on the cartridge, there are only a handful of failures. That isn’t to say they’re not functional, they’re just not games I enjoyed. It is noteworthy to say that most of the games packed on the PJ-008 are simply pirated, very few are hacks.

Overall, again, I am impressed with this cheap, Chinese toy. I enjoy sitting in front of my TV and having many choices right at my finger tips, which the Super Joy and Power Joy units provide in abundance. The controls are whacky, the games are mostly pirates or hacks of games we already know and love, but this system is a pretty cool little device. Thanks to my new Power Joy, I now know that my other Power Joy works as well, it just needed the battery cover to power up properly. I don’t expect them to live long, but for what they are, I will enjoy them as long as I can.

Here is the list of games that the Power Joy offers, as well as the PJ-008 cartridge. I know they released a few different versions, so I would imagine the games differ from cartridge to cartridge, so this is a list of what I’ve got on my system.

Peripheral Vision: NES Controllers

During the lifespan of the NES, there were many different companies trying to get their hands in on making controllers and different peripherals for the system. While there were many different options for replacement controllers or controllers that offered more features, it seems Nintendo always had the edge over the competition, at least in my personal opinion. Nintendo only released 4 main controllers (not counting the Zapper or the “Its so bad” Power Glove), and those are what I will be examining today.

Almost all of us started out with the standard NES controller. That rectangular hunk of plastic with it’s simplistic design, but was fully functional for any NES game you wanted to play, and later it would be redesigned into a more rounded off (SNES-ish/dog bone) shape. Then perhaps you may have also had the NES Max, a futuristic design with handles at the bottom and finger rests on the back that also featured turbo buttons along with an odd and oftentimes hard to use D-pad. Last and certainly not least there was the NES Advantage, this thing was huge in size all around and made you feel like you were turning your NES into an arcade machine!

NES Rectangle:

The standard NES controller offered the bare necessities you needed to play any game released for the NES. Unlike the more rounded off Famicom controller, if you didn’t learn to hold this controller just right you would often hurt your fingers, and if you wanted more than standard reactions from A and B, there was a lot of button mashing needed to be done! One thing Nintendo did do right with the NES over the Famicom was giving the cables more length and allowing for the controllers to be interchangeable, in case one was damaged.

NES Dog Bone:

Sporting a more rounded off shape (aka dog bone), this controller featured the same standard controls as the rectangle, but this time in a more comfortable, smaller design. To accent the rounded off design the A and B buttons were set in at an angle, as were the start and select buttons, to offer a more SNES controller feel. The cable is about 3″ longer than the standard NES controller and the D-pad is substantially larger. These controllers can be hard to find as they were released with the NES 2 (aka top loader) and are naturally harder to find than the rectangles. There are 3rd party copies of these controllers available today, but I would prefer the Nintendo brand, personally.

NES Max:

As I mentioned before, this controller has handles and finger rests possibly making it the most comfortable NES controller ever released. Introducing turbo buttons was a huge plus, but whatever they called the sliding D-pad featured on this controller really tanked the user friendliness overall. I think Nintendo was possibly looking to incorporate an 8 directional option, without using a joystick. You could still use the outer rim of the D-pad much the same as a normal D-pad, but it was only slightly less frustrating than the sliding button within it. If you can manage to use the D-pad without it sending you off in some odd direction, this controller would have been the best NES controller in my personal opinion.

NES Advantage:

With it’s huge base, giant A and B buttons and it’s 8 directional joystick, the NES Advantage was obviously modeled to simulate the arcade controls of it’s time. The Advantage also offered a slow motion feature, variable speed turbo with individual dials for both A and B, as well as a switch to hand it over to player 2 for their turn. My assumption is the Advantage was intended to be placed upon a table or the floor and used, but sometimes I like to pick it up as if it were a standard NES controller and use it that way. There are some games the Advantage can enhance, mostly the NES ports of arcade games, while others are hit or miss whether this controller is useful or more of a hindrance to the player.

Final Thoughts:

I own all four of the above controllers, in fact I own two of each with the exception of the NES Max. Over the years I can say I have quite a lot of personal experience with each design. With the exception of the D-pad design on the Max being a little tricky, all of these controllers get the job done. Each controller has a different purpose to me. If I’m playing my NES and need some turbo buttons, I’ll use my Max. When I just want that nostalgic experience, I use the standard rectangle.

Lately I’ve grown very attached to my redesigned NES controller because its very comfortable and sits right in my hands, comfort is important when you’re playing video games for hours at a time. Some 3rd party controllers have the more rounded Famicom design, but for whatever reason it just didn’t occur to Nintendo to make some for the NES. The official NES controllers have a sharp reaction that is difficult to achieve with other controllers, although not impossible. I own a lot of different controllers for the NES, both official and not, but there is just a certain feeling I get when I’m using Nintendo brand controllers with the NES.

Emulation vs Original

A while back, a friend of mine acquired an Atari 2600 and wanted me to test it out and clean it up, knowing I love doing that sort of thing. After I got the system running, I was playing through some games when it dawned on me, sitting there with the joystick and it’s single button was the best feeling I’ve had playing Atari 2600 games in quite a while! I own software for PC and my other consoles that allows me to play most of my favorite Atari 2600 games, since I can’t play them on my own (broken) system, and it just isn’t the same.

When I play Activision Anthology on my PS2, sometimes I get confused as to what to press because the PS2 controller has more buttons (and 2 analog sticks!), not to mention the shoulder buttons being mapped to emulate the switches on the Atari deck. The Atari was super simplistic with merely 4 to 8 directions and 1 button. If I’m playing a game designed for the PS2 there is no confusion, it all comes naturally with the mental understanding that this game has a feature for most if not all the buttons on the controller. Video games have come a long way since the Atari 2600 and thankfully so, but when they try to reach back there seems to be a disconnection within that transition.

Don’t misunderstand me, I believe it is a great idea to offer classic video games on next gen consoles. I believe it helps keep the classics alive and bring them to a new audience that may not have been exposed to them beforehand or possibly can’t find or wouldn’t be caught dead with the classic systems these games were programmed for. There are many pros and cons for each side and I can understand them both equally, but I still feel that personally I would rather take the time to hunt down an old system and it’s software so that I can connect with the originality over playing them on a console they were never designed to be played on.

Emulation and software remakes have done a lot of good for classic video gaming, with companies like Atari, Activision, Namco and many others releasing multiple (albeit usually the same games over and over again) compilations of their classic games for many of the next gen consoles. I use emulation as a learning tool, sometimes they might offer games I’ve never heard of or haven’t seen before so I try them out and find out whether its a game I would like to add to my collection or not. While I must admit, I do own them, will probably continue to buy them and for the most part thoroughly enjoy them, I’m simply saying that emulations and software remakes are not a perfect alternative to the decades of bliss and simplicity that the original hardware has provided before.

College Slam

In 1996, Acclaim decided to go back to school and released College Slam for all major home and handheld systems. College Slam seems to be a more polished, albeit college themed, version of Acclaim’s smash hit NBA Jam. With NBA Jam you will probably remember shooting three pointers from just about anywhere and slam dunking from half court, all of which is still here in College Slam, as well as a few added features to increase the longevity of the game. Sadly, it seems since this game didn’t have the big names that it’s predecessor did, it didn’t translate with the audience as well as Acclaim may have hoped.

College Slam’s game play is identical to NBA Jam. You still have turbo to boost your player around the court for a short period of time before needing to recharge it, you can still shoot the ball from anywhere, steal the ball, push the other players over, elbow them and even catch fire. But unlike NBA Jam, you can call a time out at any point you possess the ball and substitute for 1 or 2 fresh players. College Slam also borrows from NBA Jam Tournament Edition with it’s more fluid movement and of course the tournament mode, as well as offering a more upbeat announcer who has more dialog than he did in NBA Jam. As you would expect, College Slam follows the college rule of 2 halves instead of four quarters.

To get started, you pick your team from a list of over 40 colleges, then select any 2 of 5 positions, as opposed to NBA Jam’s strictly 2 players per team. With College Slam there are no names, simply different stats for each position, which I like to think of as an advantage for re-playability. No matter when you play this game, you can just imagine you’re controlling your favorite college player (even if they weren’t even born when this game was released!) instead of being stuck with outdated rosters. From there you go to the Tonight’s Match-Up screen, where you can enter codes as the announcer tells you which 2 teams are playing and you prepare for the opening tip off.

Some people may prefer NBA to college, but in my opinion this game shined it’s whole career, but never made it to the draft. I own a complete in box set of this game as well as another cartridge strictly used for playing the game. Certainly this game will never become rare or highly valuable, but its a secret treasure for me to own a complete set of the game because I enjoy it that much! Still to this day I enjoy (win or lose) firing three pointers from the other team’s goal just to see whether I can get them to fall or not. NBA Jam has all the big names, but College Slam has the perpetual starry-eyed heart and determination it takes to make it to the big time.

Vintage Enough?

Since the beginning of TVG, we’ve had 1 rule. Cover systems that are 3 systems behind the current system. With Wii U coming soon, we will cover Gamecube games when it’s out.

Our forum community leader Dillon had a good point: With the 3DS out, the original DS/DS Lite is now 3 systems behind. You have the DS/DS Lite, DSi/DSi XL and the 3DS.

The question is, does it classify as vintage or classic enough to be on the site? It only came out in 2004.

Instead, should we change the rules to 3 generations back or 10 years, whichever is older?

Post your ideas in the comments below.

Famicom to NES Converters

The Japanese Famicom had a much larger gaming library than the NES did (approximately 20% bigger), but sadly a lot of good titles never made it to the NES library for one reason or another. If you don’t own a Famicom and want to play these games in your NES, you’ll need to hunt down a commercially available 60 to 72 pin converter and they can be expensive! I did some research online and I’ve found a more interesting solution to this issue, and I’m here to help you out through my experience!

A fact most people may not know is that some of the early NES games were no more than Famicom ROM boards with a converter, stuffed into an NES cartridge. I’m not sure why they did this, so I won’t bother to speculate. Among the list of potential converter carrying games is Gyromite, an extremely easy to find cartridge, but it doesn’t always yield a converter. I happen to own 3 copies of Gyromite, all of which showed supposed signs of having the converter inside, only 1 of which did. Here I will be explaining which games possibly have the converter, how to detect without a doubt whether or not your game will have one as well as what you need to do once you’ve found one.

Not all NES games have the converter inside. Most of the games that do are the early black labelled games released by Nintendo. These games were only released in this form for a short period of time, so these games can be pretty hard to find, but you may already have one in your collection. Here is a list I found online of games that potentially hold the converter:

Now, I’ve read many different methods on how to detect whether your game has a converter or not, but the truth is only 3 simple factors matter: A) It should be a game from the list above. B) The cartridge MUST have 5 screws. and C) The connection tabs on the board are off to the side instead of centered like most NES games. If your cartridge fits the required criteria, its a safe bet you can open it and find a shiny converter inside. There are normal NES games that don’t have the converter inside but do have the offset connection tabs, so if you’re looking through your collection to see if you may already have one, stick with the listed games above.

Once you’ve opened the game (which should only require a small flat head screw driver) and found the converter, you can’t use it just yet. First you have to take the ROM board out and flip the black part over so that the longest side is now facing upwards. Also you are going to need to shave down the sides to allow the Famicom games to fit on top of it, don’t shave too much just enough for the cartridge to be seated solidly into the converter.

Next you will need to make a case so that everything stays together and you can easily remove it from your NES, you can use it naked but removing it from an old box NES will be a problem, especially if you have a new 72 pin connector installed. Most people just cut the (now empty) cartridge straight across leaving just enough room at the top to exposed the connector. Case design is all up to your personal tastes, but remember the Famicom cartridge must have enough room to be seated securely and you will need something attached to remove the unit, such as a string or fabric strip.

Before putting everything together you may want to clean the contacts so that you don’t end up with glitchy graphics. Once you’re ready to put everything together, you will need something to hold the black connector in place as you will find it moves quite a bit in both inserting and removing the Famicom cartridges. I’ve seen people use hot glue and others use double sided tape, I had to use a combination of both as the gap between the converter and the side of the casing was bigger than I originally thought. Finally, take the two remaining screws and put the case together, now you can play Famicom games on your NES!

Famicom cartridges must be installed with the front label facing down. If you look at the converter and the Famicom cartridge, the bevels will be on the same side, so you know you’ve installed it correctly. The great part about this converter project is that (pending you can find one) they’re fairly inexpensive as well as having an official NES10 chip to avoid your system trying to lockout the Famicom game. I’ve tested mine and everything works great, its a fun little project and the converter is a great piece of hardware for NES fans wanting to expand their game library to games that weren’t available for the NES, until now!

Attack of the Clones: Updates and testing!

Since the last Famiclone article, I’ve spent more time testing my handheld units and sadly I can confirm my Power Joy isn’t working, but its possibly an easy fix. I’ve also painstakingly compiled a list of what games are in my Super Joy III (I say my Super Joy because it seems the games vary from unit to unit), although it says 12000 it only has 120 difference choices and only 45 of those are unique games. Below is the list I have compiled, please note that I have been as careful as possible to spell everything according to the Super Joy, if anything is misspelled that is how it appears within the unit.

Whether they added all individual ROMs or they just used coding to achieve this many choices I’m not sure, but I would assume it would be easier to just use code. After the first 120 the list starts all over and continues to do so until you have the illusion of 12000 choices. While making the list I broke up the time by playing Super Man Bomb1 (aka Super C w/100 Lives), the game was still challenging but with 100 lives beating the game was extremely easy!

Since I don’t own a Famicom (yet!) I didn’t have any games to test in my Super Joy, but I was still pretty certain it would work if a real Famicom game were attached, being the unit is blank until you insert the ROM board into the slot. This lead me to checking around online for a Famicom game that wouldn’t require me to translate dialog and was something I knew I already enjoyed. So I ended up buying a Soccer Famicom cartridge, its a game I know I already like and there isn’t anything in Japanese, oddly enough.

After almost a whole agonizing day waiting for the game to arrive it finally did, but I was upset to find the Famicom cartridge was too big to fit within the unit, so I took my Super Joy apart. After attaching the Famicom game and powering up the unit, SOCCER flashed on the screen and the game music began! I played the game for a little bit to see if it would glitch out and everything seemed to work perfectly.

Knowing that my Super Joy can play Famicom cartridges gives me pretty good idea of what to do if I happen to find another one. Since I want to keep my current Super Joy complete, I need to find another Super Joy 3 or I might be able to use the Power Joy and transform it from a handheld into something more like a console with real NES controller ports. I’m thinking this might make a decent and cheap Famiclone system given the right parts and attention.

Guerrilla War

Guerrilla War for the NES is a port of the 1987 arcade game developed and published by SNK. SNK also brought us the Ikari Warrior series which, at first glance, Guerrilla War seems to be much like it’s big brother, albeit with a much deeper, much darker history. On the surface Guerrilla War seems to be the normal top-down shooting game, yet it was actually based on Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s plot to overthrow the Batista dictatorship of Cuba in the 1950s. Within the game there are subtle, mostly graphical (players 1 and 2 are actually based on Che Guevara and Fidel Castro respectively), hints that carried over from the Japanese release, but for the western release they changed some dialog and changed the name from Guevara to Guerrilla War.

In the game your mission is straight forward, defeat all the enemies along the way to the final boss. Your mission is cut up into sections and spread through out these sections are an increasing number of enemies, some hostages you can rescue and each stage finishes with a boss. Now, I say you can rescue the hostages because it isn’t necessary, in fact you can blow them up and keep going as it merely reduces your score slightly and otherwise has no effect on the overall goal of beating the game. To help you through each stage you have an infinite supply of ammo and grenades, also littered throughout the stages you can find many different weapons upgrades and in some stages you can even find a tank!

Guerrilla War is very generous with continues, my first complete play through took only about an hour. You can use as many continues as you need, but each time you use one your score will return to 0 preventing you from posting much of a high score. Since Guerrilla War was ported from the arcade, the 8 directional walking and shooting has carried over quite well and is used often thanks to some creative level designs. If you’re looking for that authentic feel, using a Nintendo Advantage is highly recommended!

Overall, the graphics are pretty standard for it’s time but can’t stand up to the graphics it was ported from. SNK did a very good job of filling the screen and bringing the many different environments to life whether it’s in a forest, sewer, riding in the mining car or walking through a town. If you’re a fan of other SNK games, such as Crystalis, you’ll notice many sound effects as well as the background music sound very similar. Although Guerrilla War may have a somewhat taboo back story, I can’t deny that this game is utterly and thoroughly enjoyable. Even with the simplicity brought on by endless continues this game is still challenging and very fun to play!

I found gameplay footage of “Guevara” on youtube!

Destiny of an Emperor

Destiny of an Emperor is a fairly obscure NES RPG by Capcom that never received much in the way of accolades, but is one I always thought should be in any serious old-school RPG collection! The story is based on the ancient Chinese epic “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” (with quite a bit of liberty taken, I might add), which follows Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu, and tells of the unification of the Han Dynasty. Many characters should be familiar to anyone who has played the Koei “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” games or the “Dynasty Warrior” games. Unlike those games however, this is a turn-based RPG similar in gameplay to the Final Fantasy / Dragon Warrior series, but has some fairly unique elements I’ve never seen anywhere else.

Your party is comprised of “characters” that are actually Generals that command large armies. You can have 5 Generals in your front line, and 2 more Generals as support/backup. Each General is actually played much like a normal RPG character however, and the “armies” they command are really just treated as hit points. You can buy weapons and armor for your armies, but they are equipped like normal RPG equipment, it is just assumed that the General’s entire army is now equipped with that kind of gear. It takes a little suspension of disbelief, but once you get past that and the occasional grinding, it is a thoroughly enjoyable, and at times challenging game. Just don’t forget to talk to everyone (as usual) and definitely bring along plenty of rations!!

A unique aspect of this game is that you can recruit 98% of the enemy Generals you will ever fight! The most powerful Generals are usually guarding towns and castles (virtually all towns and castles have an army defending them when you first arrive), but can also be found in smaller armies roving the local countryside. After you face a particularly nasty castle fight, you can usually take solace in the fact that most, if not all, of the guys you just barely beat up can now be added to your own team! This is also quite necessary through much of the game, because as you level, most Generals don’t get any stronger (ie. their armies don’t get any bigger). You start out with a couple of Generals that will grow as you level, but the vast majority won’t. You’ll eventually find a few more Generals that grow (like the 5 Tigers! Grrr!!), but until then, adding new, more powerful Generals from newer areas to your team is essential for success. An interesting aspect of this system is that it has a rather ‘Pokemon’ feel to it, and it can be very easy to get the “Gotta catch’em all” fever!! After a battle, some ask for money, some ask for a Steed, and some refuse outright, but with work you can ‘catch’ nearly anyone! Steeds are great later on when Generals ask for several thousand gold, or they’ll take a 200g horse instead! Seriously? I guess ‘I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’ (har har har!)

The “magic” system in this game is quite unique as well. I put magic in quotes because it is actually referred to as “Tactics” and requires a designated Tactician. This is typically one of the 2 support characters (or the last General in the battle line-up if you only have 5 or fewer Generals in your traveling team), and has to be selected by the player. Once a character is designated as the Tactician, any Tactics that they have learned can be used by any of your fighting Generals, but you only have a limited number of Tactics Points (TP), which is determined by your army’s level. Different Generals make better Tacticians than others, having better and/or different Tactics and higher Intellect. Tactics can have a variety of effects, from causing Fire or Flood damage, to healing , to increasing combat strength  or durability . Like I said, “magic”! The names are all in Chinese though, so you’re gonna need to bust out the instruction manual or look up a walkthrough to understand which Tactics do what, but there aren’t too many, so it’s not too bad.

Since the Tactic names are jibberish to most, I made a list with effects and attempted my own translations (made by playing around with Google Translate for a while :p):

As the game progresses, you find yourself increasingly caught up in the middle of a growing political and military struggle to control different areas of ancient China (Shu, Wu, and Wei). Eventually, your role becomes saving it all from the would-be “Dragon” Emperor and unite all of China under the Han Dynasty (ie. yourself). Pretty ambitious if you ask me! There is plenty of intrigue along the way: dictators overthrown, alliances made and broken, betrayal… and Lu Bu. Good grief! Lu Bu must be Chinese for “drama”!!

There is a sequel to this game that was never released outside of Japan (Destiny of an Emperor 2). It re-tells the same set of events, but it is mixed up quite a bit with newer features, brand new maps, and tries to tell the story in a more dramatic way, with more specific character interactions. You could probably compare DoaE 1 and 2 to Dragon Warrior 3 and 4, as far as the story-telling quality is concerned. To play through the sequal though, you’ll need to find a translated version. That is unless you know Japanese and can find the original cart, of course!