Peripheral Vision: Super 8 by Innovation for the SNES
Is it a Famiclone? Is it a peripheral? Well, it’s actually both!
These days, it seems, at least a few times a year we read news of an upcoming video game console packing the necessary hardware, or software, to run multiple systems from a single unit. With the likes of the Retron5, among many others, gamers can now spend more time and money on video games themselves, rather than putting money into individual consoles. Though it may be a more current trend, this isn’t the first time such an idea has been marketed. I introduce to you the Super 8 by Innovation.
Innovation is, perhaps, most well known for their third party video game accessories. With products such as controllers, AV cables and many others, Innovations broke into the video game market. Where does a video game accessory company go when they are tired of only making video game accessories? To the console market, of course! Not you Mad Catz. NO! Bad Mad Catz! Bad!
With the Super 8 peripheral you can run three different consoles from the safety of your Super Nintendo, or Super Famicom. (Yes this works on the SNES-101 as well!) The Super 8 allows you to play Famicom and NES games from your SNES, which is quite odd but works very well. The Famicom and NES portions are handled by a system on a chip, but I haven’t found any incompatibility issued yet. Yes, it even plays Castlevania 3 without problems, and no I’m not kidding.
Are you someone who wants to play imported SNES/Super Famicom games without breaking the tabs in the cartridge slot? The Super 8 will facilitate that for you as well. I can’t fully test whether or not it will play PAL games for the Super Nintendo or PAL NES games, but I do know it plays Japanese NTSC games without a problem, at least the ones I have tested. I’m not completely sure, but I run on the assumption that Super Nintendo/Super Famicom games are run as pass-thru and working on the actual SNES hardware. Bone stock Super 8 units will have a rectifiable compatibility issue that I will explain later.
Simply place the Super 8 into your Super Nintendo like any other video game. Then you take the video pigtail, which looks like the normal Nintendo AV cables, and plug that into the back of your Super Nintendo console, and plug the actual AV cables into the output of the Super 8 peripheral. Be careful as the output on the Super 8 won’t fit perfectly snug, but as long as you make a good connection and don’t jostle the console or the peripheral you should be fine.
Now it’s up to you to decide which one of the systems you want to utilize. I would heavily advise against filling both the NES and Famicom slots at the same time, but putting a Super Nintendo cartridge in with either Famicom or NES catridges won’t have any affect on the Super 8. Once you’ve booted up your Super Nintendo you should be greeted by a screen showing two controllers, a Famicom for 8-bit and a Super Famicom controller for 16-bit. The on-screen instructions will guide you through the process. That’s pretty much it. Now you should be playing one of the three systems the Super 8 allows.
Now here are a few things you may need to know about the Super 8, whether you already own one or are thinking about purchasing one. The Super 8 was designed to sit atop the Super Famicom design, not the squared off Super Nintendo or even the redesigned Super Famicom/SNES-101. You may find yourself having to shim the Super 8 to keep it straight on the console.
If for any reason you are going to open your Super 8 it is highly advised not to do so in direct sunlight or under UV light as there is an exposed chip on top of the board. I carefully opened mine and covered that chip, so hopefully that’s taken care of that. Which leads us to why you may need to open your Super 8.
One thing you may notice is just how temperamental your Super 8 is. Sometimes it may work, other times it may not work at all. Mine slowly degraded into not working at all. Being familiar with Famiclones I just assumed it was rendered nothing more than a unique conversation piece. After a year or so of it not working I opened the unit and noticed some of the chips are in sockets. Ever so carefully I pressed down on each chip to see if it was well seated, which all of them seemed as if they were. However, when I checked the unit after doing so it fired right up without any glitches.
Finally the compatibility issue I spoke about earlier. The Super 8 will not natively play the Super Gameboy, and as an extension I assume it won’t play Super FX equipped games either. Someone at Innovation thought it would be a good idea to purposely cut one of the traces that is needed to play the Super Gameboy, but with a little soldering you can scrape yourself a few spots and bridge that gap. I’ve already done this on my Super 8 and can confirm it does restore the ability to use the Super Gameboy. I can not currently confirm whether it restores Super FX game compatibility though.
The Super 8 is a fun little piece to own that opens your video game library up to a few different consoles you may not have been able to play before, as well as consolidates power and AV cables. Playing Famicom and NES games with an SNES controller does feel a bit weird, but if you’re familiar with Super Mario All-Stars you should be fine. If you’re interested in owning a Super 8 they might be a bit hard to find, but if you find one in good working condition I believe it’s well worth owning.
The Art of Cheating 2: A Little Help From My Friends!
Most vintage gamers prefer to play video games as they were intended, trying over and over to get just 1 more level and feel our hard work has paid off. Others will only try so many times before they pull out an old issue of Nintendo Power, look up a walkthrough, or find cheat codes. For the rest of us, and even all of the above, there was the Game Genie, Action Replay or Game Shark!
The main function of these devices is to alter the game’s coding so that we don’t have to struggle. Sometimes, with a little fiddling around, codes could help us forget about our struggles by completely altering the game in quite interesting ways. From infinite exp, gold or levels in an RPG, to allowing Mario to swim through thin air and complete levels untouched, these cheating devices offered endless possibility and helped many gamers beat a game, while all their friends were struggling to beat the game the intended way. Ha, losers!
As far back as the Commodore 64 days, cheating devices have been on the market. When the home console market started heating up many companies decided it was time to step up to that market and throw their name into the ring. I don’t own them all (I wish I did though!), but I will be going through the cheat devices I do own (or have owned) for each console and giving them a quick review.
Nintendo Game Boy
One of the earliest Game Genies I owned was for my Game Boy, which came with a little code booklet that had such small print it was almost of no real use. It also came with stickers that you could place on the back of each game and punch in codes at a glance. When the Game Genie started up the user was prompted to enter codes, meaning if the game you wanted to use didn’t have any stickers or wasn’t in the booklet, you were out of luck.
This Game Genie works universally with the DMG, Game Boy Pocket and the Game Boy Color, but it will not work with the Super Game Boy without modification. Even though Game Boy Color games fit, they blank out the screen on the Game Boy Color. They do seem to work on the DMG and Pocket, but GBC games won’t work on that hardware anyway, leading me to assume Game Boy Color games will not work with the Game Genie.
Many years later I acquired a Game Shark Pro, which encompassed both the Game Boy and Game Boy Color library of games. Although a little unorthodox in the way you connect the cartridge, the Game Shark was far superior to the Game Genie, in that it offers on-board memory to store cheat codes, as well as allowing the user to remove or even input new codes/games into the Game Shark’s memory. Unlike the Game Genie, the Game Shark will work in a Super Game Boy, but due to the lack of a notch for the power switch, it will not work in an original DMG.
Nintendo Entertainment System
The only cheat device for the NES I’ve ever owned is a Game Genie, but I do believe there is an Action Replay out there for the NES as well. The Game Genie for the NES was released in two forms, that I know of, black and gold, which are simply esthetic differences and have nothing to do with performance. The Game Genie was very straight forward in how to use it with the old NES box design, but if you own an NES top loader you will notice that the Game Genie is almost impossible to get in. With a little force it will work, but once it is within the console it is extremely hard to remove. Galoob did remedy this with an adapter, which has become too rare for me to ever find.
As with any Game Genie, all codes were punched in manually and if the game I wanted to use wasn’t in the booklet, I was out of luck. Sometimes I would get additional codes from kids around the neighborhood, as well as punching in random codes to see what the results would be. I mostly enjoyed my Game Genie with various Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 codes, to completely alter the game. Anything from changing the background textures or enemy textures, to allowing Mario to walk over pits and walk through obstacles and enemies alike, the Game Genie produced amazing results in those two games.
Super Nintendo
Again I must confess the only cheating device I’ve ever owned for the SNES has been the Game Genie, but I believe there was an Action Replay available for it and/or the Super Famicom, I’m not completely sure. The SNES version of the Game Genie was much like the NES version, as all you needed to do was piggyback the SNES cartridge on top, plug it all into the SNES and away you went. But sadly the Game Genie didn’t come equipped with the spare connectors that are used in games that utilize the Super FX chip. I’m not completely sure whether this affects using these two in combination, but I’m pretty sure those are essential and would indeed cause problems.
Another downside is that during the lifetime of the SNES, Nintendo got wise to all the game copying machines that were prevalent in that era. To stop these devices from working, and subsequently the Game Genie as well, Nintendo put a security measure in place that will prevent some games from loading correctly, if they detect they’re not connected directly into the SNES console. This means a lot of games, such as Killer Instinct, that you would like to use Game Genie codes for simply won’t load, defeating the whole purpose.
Nintendo 64
By the time the Nintendo 64 rolled out, Game Genie had become but a memory and left the other two devices to rule the console cheating device market. For the N64 I own a Game Shark Pro v3.3, which offers all the on board memory goodness that I’m familiar with in the Game Shark product line. Also by this time computers were becoming more prevalent, so the Game Shark offers a connection port on the back of the device, allowing for updates.
The N64 Game Shark Pro doesn’t allow for the comfortable, snug cartridge connection that I’m familiar with in all my other cheating devices, instead of function they went for form. This means the cartridge doesn’t always align properly, feeling very flimsy once its all put together, which often forces me to reconnect the game cartridge and the Game Shark to get it to function properly. Apart from the occasional need to reconnect the game cartridge I haven’t had many issues with the Game Shark, but I have heard many of them suffer from numerous problems and are often completely nonfunctional.
Sega Genesis
When I got my first Sega Genesis I had to find myself a Game Genie, so I did. Operation is the exact same as all the other Game Genies (punch in the codes and go!), as well as offering the familiar snug and comfortable fit between cartridge and Game Genie. I no longer have a Game Genie for the Genesis, so this means I can not offer pictures of it, but there is always Google.
The Sega Genesis version also came in 2 variations, that I know of, black label and gold label, again purely an esthetic change and nothing to do with performance. The Game Genie works with both the Sega Genesis model 1 and 2, but does not work with the Majesco model 3, which is a hardware limitation of the console and not the Game Genie. From what I understand this can be rectified by adding a few wires within the console to connect the points that need to be made for the Game Genie to work. As I’ve never owned a Nomad, or any other portable Genesis device, to test it with, I can not confirm or deny whether it works with any of those.
Sega Game Gear
Just like the Game Boy, the Sega Game Gear had a Game Genie as well. This one also had a compartment for a little code booklet, but unlike the Game Boy version the games actually went in the correct way around. My only real complaint is that once the unit is fitted to the Game Gear it becomes slightly difficult to properly plug in the power supply, which is almost vital for using a Sega Game Gear at home.
This version of the Game Genie seems to prefer loading the games first, requiring the user to hit the green reset button on the Game Genie to boot to the code entry screen. But once the Game Genie begins to boot you are greeted by a voice saying “Game Genie!”. Even more good news is that, unlike its Sega Genesis 3 cousin, the Majesco Game Gear will run the Game Genie with only slight glitches, but overall runs quite well on the games I have tested it with.
Sega Dreamcast
As the Sega Dreamcast was drawing its last breath, many stores were abandoning support for the terminally ill console. During this time I was trying to pick up as many games, VMUs and other things for the Sega Dreamcast as I could. One thing that caught my eye was a Game Shark Lite, in a pretty strange looking case.
As the media had changed from cartridge to disc, I was completely ignorant to how this disc would work, as I was still imagining the mating between cartridge and cheat device to be the way things needed to be done. The concept was far more simple than I could imagine, you simply boot the Game Shark disc and pick from the preloaded games, pick your codes and then swap out the Game Shark disc for the game disc. Everything was smooth and easy! I own the Game Shark Lite, which only requires the single disc to operate, but I have seen Dreamcast Game Sharks with specialized memory cards that are required for the whole thing to work.
Sony Playstation
When the Playstation launched with disc based media, cheating devices had to become more clever in the way they would be utilized. One of the first ways was to tap into the Parallel I/O port on the back of the early Playstation consoles, at least that’s what the Game Shark I own does. Simply plug this into the I/O port on the back and the Game Shark boots up first. This Game Shark also has a port on the back, again I assume to allow for updates.
But once Sony started seeing the Parallel I/O port being used for thing they didn’t like, or license, they decided to do away with it. This gave birth to the disc based Game Shark, such as my Game Shark CDX. I have two different versions of the CDX, one only requires the disc and saves to any Playstation memory card, but the other requires the disc and a memory card combo.
I’ve always enjoyed the simplicity of the Game Genie. The Game Genie only required a simple code and even went out of its way to avoid any confusion between the letter O and number 0, something that I’ve actually found to be a problem with one of my Game Sharks. For every Game Genie other than the NES version, they offered an on/off switch to allow users to have codes at the ready, just in case they were wanting to beat a game without cheating.
Most Game Sharks offered the on/off switch as well, but I feel it was put in more as a fail-safe, as I’ve found the Game Shark tends to lock up games quite a bit more easily than Game Genies ever have. The Game Shark has an inviting interface, and the fact that offers an editable memory of codes gives it more overall appeal. But either way, both the Game Shark and Game Genie have helped me out of binds on more than a few occasions, as well as made games more fun.
Codes for both Game Sharks and Game Genies can readily be found online, allowing anyone who finds one of these devices out in the wild to take it home and use it straight away. But as with anything on the internet, codes aren’t always to be believed and often times don’t work. But the internet has shown me that someone has released a Game Genie for the Famicom, which is something I’ll have to get my hands on for sure!
J.League Soccer Prime Goal 2
After having a device called the Super 8, which allows you to play SNES, Super Famicom, NES and Famicom games all from your Super Nintendo console, for quite some time, I wanted to import my first Super Famicom game. The very first game I imported for the Famicom was Soccer, a straight forward, no nonsense game that required absolutely no translation to get started. I’m not a huge soccer fan, by no means, nor do I understand any Japanese, but I felt I had made a good choice in making Soccer my first Famicom import, so why not make my first Super Famicom import a soccer game as well?
After checking online, I just couldn’t find one that sparked any interest, so I settled for a soccer game someone had already imported. J. League Soccer Prime Goal 2, now I’m not sure if that is the true title, but that seems to be what everything lists it as. I feel a simple Prime Goal 2 would suffice. Once the game arrived I set everything up, gave the game a quick cleaning and popped it into the Super 8.
Once I got to the main menu screen I initially thought perhaps I had made a bit of a blunder in not doing any research on this game and exactly how much language would play a role within it; I just blindly assumed it was soccer. Although, at first, it seemed that language was going to be a bit of a hassle, the reality was that only two options on the main screen were indecipherable, the other four were actually quite straight forward.
I started off with the obvious choice of 1P vs COM and quickly realized I was going to need to go into the options to change the difficulty, as I could never hold on to the ball for more than 10 seconds. Not only that, but my goalie didn’t seem to be able to stop anything what so ever. This was going to be a learning experience, but if the main menu was fairly straight forward, how hard was the options going to be?
Oh, I see!
After a bit of mental deducing I scrolled down to the bottom option and chose the one on the far left side. After backing out of the menu I went straight back into the game where I noticed now I could do absolutely nothing but win, although the opposing team’s goalie is still very good at his job, but the rest of the team seem to have taken horse tranquilizers before that day’s match. At least I successfully navigated the options menu and found out where the difficulty settings were.
Starting a match is fairly straight forward. After you’ve decided which mode you want to play you are given a selection of J. League Soccer teams. Pick your team and the opposing team and then you’re sent to pick your pitch plan and positions, followed by the the opposing team’s plan. After the team selection and managerial things are taken care of, its time for the kick off!
Prime Goal 2 is basically what you would expect from a soccer game, and provides all the same soccer fair as you would expect from FIFA of that era. Your objective is to score as many goals as you can while making sure the other team doesn’t score any, or at least fewer than you. Given Prime Goal 2 is a soccer game, Namco did give it a few interesting quirks which lead me to believe it may be more of an arcade style game play than simulations.
The normal field of view is a nice top down view, but on a few occasions you’ll find yourself in a more broad screen view. The initial kick off starts in this view, just as a nice artistic touch, but during gameplay you will find the game being briefly interrupted by a match up screen to determine who wins any on-pitch tussle. I have no instructions for this game, not to say I could understand them anyway, so I have no clue how to work these things, I just button mash and hope for the best. An interesting touch to an otherwise sport title.
After playing Prime Goal 2 I feel as though this was the correct choice for my first Super Famicom game, even though it wasn’t me who imported it. The gameplay is simple, the menus are fairly easy to navigate, even for someone with zero Japanese language understanding, and overall the game is fun! Sure its a sports title, sure its soccer, but Namco threw enough arcade style into this game to make it challenging and fun.
Lagoon for the SNES
Lagoon is an RPG for the SNES, in much the same ilk of Ys, Willow and Crystalis, although much more basic. Lagoon was published by Kemco, a company mostly known for giving us the Top Gear series and a whole lot of Game Boy games, only a few of which slightly resemble RPGs. So what could we expect from a company who published a little bit of everything?
Now I need to be perfectly honest, when I started playing the game for this article I fully expected to make a gleaming review to garner some respect for this game, thinking it had been judged too harshly. I can honestly say that after playing this game, up to the final bosses, I have nothing, even remotely, to praise about this game what so ever. Ok, so the game isn’t complete trash, but it fails on nearly every level it tried to clone from the games it so shamelessly copies!
A comparison of how Ys (SMS) starts, and how Lagoon starts.
Speaking of levels lets begin there; what is an RPG without a robust leveling system? In Lagoon you’re limited to 35, and although that is over twice the levels in both Crystalis and Willow, there is absolutely no reward, fanfare, or any notification at all for gaining new levels. In almost every other RPG you’re well aware when you’ve obtained a new level, no matter how deep into grinding you may be. With Lagoon levels nearly fly past, without even a hint that you’re gaining them, forcing you to open the menu to check which level you’re currently on.
Another thing Lagoon has in common with Crystalis and Willow is the armor and weapons scheme. You’ll only need to purchase your first set of armor, the rest of the equipment to see you through the game is sprawled out within the caves you’ll be exploring to advance through the pretty abysmal and boringly stock story. Which only has you going back and forth between places you’ve already been a few times, making this game feel entirely too linear for its own good.
Although the armor is setup to be found, once you find them you may be surprised at the detail of actually changing the armor on the main character sprite. Overall the armor and shields look good and are quite useful, but the weapons only get mildly stronger as you progress. Even though the weapons get stronger for some reason they never bothered to change it on the sprite, so for the whole of the game you look as if you’re swinging a dagger, or pocket knife, and the targeting system makes it feel that way too!
One thing I disliked about the two games I keep name dropping because this game so clearly copied them, was the hit detection system, but after a few levels I found the flow of how to center my attack and become more successful, without taking a heap of damage. Not the case with Lagoon, hitting enemies sometimes feels the equivalent of threading a needle while your hands are on fire, it’s virtually impossible! On normal enemies placed around the game to help you level up this may be fine, but it’s an exercise in frustration when it comes to a boss fight.
Not a bad Boss design, just not much fun to kill.
Boss fights are strewn about to help push the story forward, again pretty standard RPG fare, but only require a slight bit of strategy, if any. But, and I can’t stress this enough, you need to hit a certain point or points on a massive boss with your equivalent of a pen knife, possibly leading to many frustrating attempts. Although sometimes the poorly thought out system can play extremely well in your favor, as I’ve sometimes walked straight into bosses and found the hot spot right away and did nothing more than button mash until they were defeated, taking little to no damage at all.
The first boss, learn from the frustration of this one, it doesn’t get any more fun.
The linear feel is broken up by a handful of caves, castles and other places you need to go through to level up, find essential items/armor and to fight the boss, but unlike any other RPG I’ve played Lagoon leaves you in the dark as to what floor you’re on once you’re inside. You go through door ways and passages and you’re never fully aware if you’ve gone up or down, in a circle or just through a door into another part of the building on the same floor. As I previously stated you’ll need to search these winding corridors to find the, very few, items you’ll need to progress, but when you do find them you’ll be presented with an obnoxiously long fanfare. They can put one in for finding an herb but not for gaining a level, that’s well thought out programming!
Yet another thing Lagoon has in common with Crystalis is a small amount of platforming, requiring you to jump from area to area, or else you fall to your death, Game Over! Which is turned into quite the task by the poorly thought out centering system. The main character will almost walk off the screen in any directly, leaving you unsure of what is along the next step. It could be something you need to kill, or it could be a pitfall that will kill you and take you to the Continue or End screen.
Nasir falling to his death.
Now we get into Ys territory with the ability to save virtually anywhere, expect boss rooms, so if you’ve planned out your save strategy well enough, once that dreaded Continue screen pops up you’ll be able to restart exactly where you last saved. This can be both handy and harmful as you can save almost anywhere, as often as you like, and progress through the game with a frequent save plan. But since the game tends to close things off behind you, in that linear fashion, I also assume if you miss an item and save down the road you may be screwed!
Again, you find almost every item you will need along your journey, but Lagoon does have a currency system. Monsters will drop small amounts of currency, by which I mean you just magically obtain it like exp, once they’ve been killed unless you kill them with magic, which I will get to in a second. The only real item that interested me was a Shiny Ball which speeds up your recovery on HP and MP, but by the time you’ve saved up the 10,000 coins you can’t go back to buy it, and its only a single use!
What would an RPG be without magic? Well Lagoon would probably be much better off as you can only use it on normal enemies and never in a boss fight! You only obtain magic through a variety of crystals and staves, which you can mix and match to create different spell effects. Not an original feature, but none the less the most creative feature in Lagoon.
And finally I’ve reached one of the most important aspects of all RPGs, your HP and MP. This is handled in the exact same way as Ys, you have two long bars across the bottom of the screen, both bars indicate how much HP you and your foes currently have, respectively. Your HP and MP will slowly refill as you sit still, you can’t be moving at all for them to refill, but in some key areas they will both refill rather quickly.
Game Over, well thankfully the suffering is over!
I originally planned to compare Lagoon to the games I name dropped oh so heavily in this review to highlight its strong points, but by the end of playing through the game I felt it mostly highlighted just how poorly they dismantled those games and half baked a game that isn’t as good as any of the games it tried to become. On a scale of 1 to 10 replay ability is a solid 0, but I fear Kemco never cared as they already conned people out of their money. I always try to keep my reviews positive, but I can’t for every game and as much as I wished, hoped and tried to like Lagoon for what it is, I simply can’t!
Vintage Gaming Cleaning Kits
In the days when cartridges ruled the world it seemed as if anyone and everyone put out a cleaning kit to keep your systems in working order. Which was a big selling point made all too easy by the NES and its, more often than not, ability to put on a light show rather than play a game. If there is one thing I believe about retro gaming, it has to be the fact that if you keep your systems and games clean they will last longer and give you much better functional results.
Although I now know the true cause of these glitches, I was still taken in by the cleaning kits propaganda when I was younger. They made promises to keep the blinking NES, or just a black screen on other systems, away forever! Almost every cartridge based video game system had some form of cleaning kit, and although most of the time it worked for just a short while, the fact that it worked at all made them feel like essential hardware.
My first cleaning kit was a Doc’s Fix-a-system, which had what I still feel is a genius idea in the clip on NES cleaner. You simply took any NES game cartridge, clipped the contraption to the front of it and you proceeded to stab the living daylights out of your NES. Doing so cleared unwanted dirt and gave way to a few more minutes of uninterrupted gameplay.
I still love this idea, it still works great!
After that cleaning kit was lost or broken, I’m sure, I purchased a Player’s Edge NES cleaning kit. This one was a stand alone unit with a handle, and everything you needed fit conveniently inside the unit itself. Again you just took the unit and stabbed the living daylights out of your NES and you were good to play for a little while longer.
Years of use on this thing, does it show?
That would be the last cleaning kit I bought for nearly 14 years, until one day at a Salvation Army store I found a Player’s Edge cleaning kit for the SNES. Later, at another Salvation Army, I found an incomplete Doc’s 2000 kit, which brought back a flood of memories of the good old days. Sadly the NES clip was broken, but I decided to take what was left of it and turn it into a cleaning kit inside of an old Gyromite cartridge I had laying around. (Original article: Here)
Same system, only one fits perfectly into the NES so I can shut the lid.
It seems nowadays I go through thrift stores and find cleaning kits for almost every system, and if they’re at a reasonable price I’ll pick them up. Just this year I’ve accrued quite a few system cleaning kits, and although I may not use them I still pick them up when I can.
My current collection of boxed cleaning kits.
As an adult, I know the best way to keep my systems running is to clean both the games and the systems. But it seems a good Q-tip with rubbing alcohol thoroughly rubbed through a game keeps all my systems running well. Admittedly I have had some hiccups with my Sega Genesis, N64 and SNES, but nothing a good game cleaning hasn’t remedied, so far!
Back in the day cleaning kits were pushed in our faces, and as time went on they faded away. I still get nostalgic for cleaning kits and make room for them in my collection. Though they serve no practical purpose to me, as I’ve learned far better ways to keep my systems running, they still connect me to a time when video games were problematic, but so much fun.
Retro Games and Passwords, why!?
Passwords, the bane of many retro gamers. After a long week of writing things down at school the last thing you wanted was having to write down something from a video game you just rented or bought. No, video games were suppose to be a refreshing exit to your week and made looking forward to the next week a little more sweet.
Before the luxury of memory cards or even battery backups, many gamers had to sit next to a pad of paper with their choice of pen or pencil to write down codes to log their hours of hard work. But to some writing down passwords seemed more like the modern day achievement, rather than a common nuisance. Passwords were, for many great retro games, the only way to ensure your hard work was there the next time you fired up the game, but many retro gamers quickly learned that passwords simply weren’t going to work.
Passwords were comprised of a given combination of letters, numbers or even symbols given to the player after what in many other games would be the game over screen. Many game developers just tossed out a grid of all 26 letters in the alphabet, sometimes in lower case and capitals, alone side numbers; sometimes things got rather confusing. Lower case Q’s could have been confused for P’s or G’s, Zeros looked like a capital O, and more often than not gamers simply had to start the game all over!
One good thing about passwords was that they were exclusive to the programming within the game, so you didn’t have to worry about renting the exact same cartridge twice to enjoy a correctly transcribed password. But still many retro gamers will have as many fond memories of mistaken passwords as they will of actually enjoying the games they were trying to write down the password for.
Even after battery backup was commonplace, the 16-bit era still rolled out games requiring passwords. For the most part though, the 16-bit era learned from the guinea pig that was the 8-bit era. Passwords were much shorter and less confusing, for the most part, to write down, making games that required passwords more enjoyable to play.
Today I keep a notepad on my laptop containing the passwords for games, and no I don’t mean through emulation, simply because notepad’s font is light years ahead of my own handwriting. I also take the time to scrutinize each line of the password to make sure I have it written down correctly. Sure I could easily go online and seek out a password pertaining to my current status on some retro games, but it isn’t my hard work, now is it?
One particular game sticks out from my childhood that frustrated me to no end with it’s completely, and utterly, useless and pointless password system, River City Ransom. River City Ransom is without question an NES classic, but that password system left a lot, and I mean heaps, to be desired. Partly because the password system required you to start a new game, press start and then select the password option; but most because River City Ransom required a whopping 66 characters per password!
Passwords could be fun also, sometimes you could mash in a nonsensical combination and have the game start up with things you didn’t earn yourself, other times the password wasn’t acceptable or it just started fresh anyway. Many retro gamers would give passwords to their friends to show off their progress, or to help them out a little. I’ve found many slips of paper covered in passwords within retro game cases, or even hand written inside the manual.
Today they are but a distant memory, but many retro gamers still retain the memories of frustration when a good password went bad. Love them or hate them, passwords were a part of retro gaming culture. I liken the retro gaming password to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, something to be remembered so we aren’t doomed to repeat our past.
Sam’s Scores IX
Finally Sam’s Scores has made a triumphant, yet brief, return to it’s maiden format, the article! Some changes have to be made as the video format simply isn’t working out very well for myself, as well as the complete and utter lack of anything worth buying that isn’t outrageously overpriced. In previous editions I loved to show off the price tags as proof that I was indeed getting a score, but nowadays I often buy things in bulk from the Goodwill Outlet stores.
From now on most scores will be noted as bought from the Goodwill Outlet store as well as the bulk price paid, but when I do indeed get a score from somewhere I will do my best to show the price tag. Sadly the price tags on two of today’s scores were both on the back and were removed when I cleaned them. Normally I clean around them, take the pics I need for the article and then remove them after I’ve gotten what I need, but since it would do no good to simply show the back of the items I decided to just remove them anyway and toss them up, enjoy!
4) – Superbike 2000
Number 4 isn’t really anything to brag about, but it is a rare find none the less. Not the game itself, no, but the fact that this game is still wrapped and sealed (note the hologram to the right of the helmet in the image), with the exception of the lower right corner being ripped. From the reviews I’ve seen of the Playstation version, which this one is, perhaps that is where it is most rightful to stay, forever! But finding it still intrigued me enough to warrant a purchase.
3) – Interact Superpad for the SNES
Number 3 is an interesting tale of going back for something you wanted, but finding more than you originally went in for. I went into a Goodwill looking to find score #2 (see below), as I had previously passed on it, and couldn’t find it, but instead ran across this sad looking controller. The controller had damage on it and had been pried half open, as if some idiot couldn’t simply remove the 6 phillips screws holding it together. In the end I picked it up, and after a good cleaning, and careful reconstruction, the controller works great. It also has a contoured back, making it quite comfortable to hold as well!
2) – Sega Sports edition Dreamcast Controller
As I mentioned above I had passed this one up but it stayed on my mind for a week, until it’s price tag color was half off. I hardly find anything related to the Sega Dreamcast, and even less related to the Sega Sports edition, so when I saw this at the price they wanted AND the 50% off, I couldn’t walk away a second time.
1) – Final Fantasy VII
And finally, an original black label copy of Final Fantasy 7, with all 3 discs but no manual. I used to own this when they were between running out of the original stock and making up the green labelled “Greatest Hits” version. Personally I don’t mind either, as long as I can play the game, yet as a collector I’m glad I have the original version.
