Posts tagged Nes at DS Fanboy

Posts with tag nes

Electronic Gaming Twenty Years Ago

Posted Apr 22nd 2008 9:45AM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Fan stuff

Did you know that the first issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly (and the preview issue before that) was branded as U.S. National Video Game Team's Electronic Gaming Monthly? It's been a long time since we thought about that group, although one of them has come to notoriety recently. Team member Steve Harris is EGM's founder, and many of the guys worked as reviewers and "strategy consultants."

The world of 1989 EGM is a different one than we know now. Companies like Taxan and Beeshu could afford many consecutive ad pages. FCI had its own strategy hotline. It was possible to write neutral-to-good preview text about the execrable Hydlide. And handheld gaming was just about to be elevated to the status of real gaming. Steve Harris's opening "Insert Coin" column refers to the rumor that "Nintendo may be leading the way with a mid-range cartridge system that will play a variety of games on a specially developed 2" LCD screen." Although the magic of that statement is diminished somewhat when a full writeup of the Game Boy, including a picture, appears toward the end of the magazine. Maybe he wrote that before that information came in.

Students tackle Nintendo tunes, a capella style [update]

Posted Apr 21st 2008 10:35PM by David Hinkle
Filed under: Video

If there is one thing we can appreciate, it's talent. And these folk have it, as the students from Hermann Wesselink College manage to bust out into a pair of great Nintendo themes a capella style. They handle a choice selection from The Legend of Zelda, as well as Super Mario Bros. in the video above.

If our school had stuff like this back when we were in our developing stages, maybe we would've paid attention and not grown up to become blogging scum.

Update: Some readers point out that this isn't a capella. Sorry folks, we're not a music blog!

[Thanks, SpinachConvention!]

Passing on that fanboy love

Posted Apr 14th 2008 10:29PM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: Fan stuff

As Nintendo fans, we're pretty much required to at least attempt to pass on that love to our spawnlings, and if you're going to do it, you might as well get started early. Y'know, before they can crawl away from you and protest over your choice of clothing. Thanks to Etsy marketeer kaytea, you can start dressing your children in geeky style before they can wriggle out of your insistent hands. The above NES-decorated onesies are available in both yellow and green for $20 -- a bargain for any fanboy parent.

Unimportant side note: You'd better believe one of these is going on the boychild. He's already alarmed.

Rest your DS in these oldschool pouches

Posted Apr 10th 2008 10:30PM by Candace Savino
Filed under: Fan stuff

Since we're unabashed game enthusiasts, we appreciate any opportunity to combine our love for modern day gaming with our nostalgia for gaming of the past. That's why we find these DS covers to be absolutely darling. The Game Boy cover makes more sense to have, since the system belongs in the same family tree as Nintendo's dual-screened handheld. Yet, the NES controller is a perfect shape for a DS pouch -- and who doesn't love a NES controller? -- so that works, too.

Should you like these as much as we do, you can check them out at Janis13's Etsy store, along with some other DS cases.

[Via Technabob]

DS Daily: Would you gut a NES to create this?

Posted Apr 8th 2008 9:00AM by David Hinkle
Filed under: Fan stuff, DS Daily

This isn't the first time we've featured a wooden gaming system. Instead of a SNES, this time modders have turned a NES into a portable system, encasing the screen and hardware in a nice wooden frame. And to prove this modder means business, the portable NES is shown playing none other than badass title Contra.

What we would like to know is if you tried anything like this before and was it successful? Did you turn your NES into something much better? Share your experience(s) with us!

[Via Engadget]

Homebrew game bears Devilish Resemblance to original Castlevania

Posted Feb 7th 2008 5:00PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Homebrew, Screens

Likely taking inspiration from Koji Igarashi's formula of remaking Symphony of the Night ad nauseam (har har har), homebrew coder Frosty Chaotix is working on his own vampire-slaying update for the first Castlevania NES game. He released a demo for Castlevania: Devilish Resemblance yesterday to show off his progress on the project's engine, and it looks fantastic! Of course, most of that can be attributed to the ripped 2D assets from previous titles in the series, but it's still an impressive project.

So far, this proof-of-concept build has Simon Belmont walking, jumping, and whipping to his heart's content, all within the confines of a single test room. While there's still a lot left to be implemented -- e.g. enemies, interactive objects, touchscreen controls, etc. -- the soundtrack, grabbed from OCRemix, is the cat's galoshes. We totally wouldn't mind vanquishing the Prince of Darkness to this music!

See also: Leaked Castlevania screens or whipped-up fakes?

Gallery: Castlevania: Devilish Resemblance

[Via GBAtemp]

The Mother of All Brains

Posted Jan 23rd 2008 10:30PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Fan stuff

Lwelyk, the Lego mosaicist (mosaician?) behind some truly excellent Nintendo block art, has posted his latest masterpiece, a large-scale model of Metroid's final-boss-in-a-jar. This Mother Brain is "about the size of (Lwelyk's) torso" and took "four or five hours." We can only imagine that part of that time was spent shooting little flying rings so he could get back up on the tiny platform on which he was building the sculpture.

Can you imagine how upsetting it would be to walk in and see something like this, especially if you weren't familiar with Metroid? Or, even worse, to wake up in the middle of the night and see this ... mass ... in your house?

Familator taken out for a test-Familate

Posted Jan 16th 2008 2:15PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Accessories

We are still fascinated by this gigantic, impractical Famicom cartridge adapter. That's why we were delighted when GAME Watch picked up one of CYBER Gadget's CYBER Familator Lite adapters and tested it out, taking plenty of pictures during the process. Unsurprisingly, but still sadly, the various issues with the device make it a suboptimal method of playing Famicom games.

Most notably, you can't plug a second controller in, meaning also that the Famicom microphone (which is embeded in the player 2 controller) cannot be used. Also, the system can't hook up to the Famicom Disk System. The Familator also suffers compatibility issues with a few games, including Bases Loaded.

GAME Watch did a side-by-side comparison of the Familator's TV output of Xevious to the Wii's Virtual Console version of the same game, and found that the colors and the sound were inferior, even without taking into account the Wii's ability to use component and D-terminal connections. Battery life was, of course, also an issue.

None of these concerns are exactly dealbreakers, but even as a novelty it would be hard to justify the expense of such an item without excellent performance.

Super Mario Sisters was almost a reality

Posted Nov 22nd 2007 1:30PM by Chris Greenhough
Filed under: News

In some deeply weird alternative universe, perhaps one in which Japanese people actually bought Microsoft consoles and England's footballers weren't quite so irredeemably rubbish, we might never have experienced Super Mario Bros. as we know it. Instead, we could have been playing Super Mario Sisters.

Alas, Nintendo of America never did follow through on a trademark application it filed in February, 1990 for a game called "SUPER MARIO SISTERS." The application was abandoned almost two years later, depriving us all of an estrogen-fuelled version of the world's favorite platformer.

Go past the break for a grab of the application.

Continue reading Super Mario Sisters was almost a reality

DS Daily: GRUMBLE, GRUMBLE ...

Posted Oct 6th 2007 10:30AM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: DS Daily

The "Enemy Bait" item was required in three of The Legend of Zelda's dungeons, to get past hungry Goriyas like this one. As an aside, that's one of the least intuitive puzzles we can think of, and we have no idea how we ever got through it the first time.

But the Enemy Bait was sold (by the "BUY SOMETHIN' WILL YA?" guy and his friend, the "BOY, THIS IS REALLY EXPENSIVE!" guy) primarily as a means of diverting enemies during a fight. Our question: have any of you ever used Enemy Bait for that purpose? Did you even consider using Enemy Bait in the overworld? Was it useful?

DS Daily: Z-cell

Posted Oct 3rd 2007 9:00AM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: DS Daily

For obvious reasons, today's daily question is aimed squarely at those of you who still have physical copies of Zelda cartridges. I have a bunch of Zelda games on cartridge myself, and have since The Legend of Zelda first went up for sale.

But the copy of NES Zelda I currently have is not my first copy. The battery died on that one back when new copies of the game were still available. It's been replaced a couple of times, and the "NES Classics" grey-cartridge version is still holding on.

These games were replaced, of course, before I realized that you could change the battery in NES cartridges. It was also back when, if you wanted a triwing screwdriver, you had to go through one of the janky mail-order outfits found in the back of Electronic Gaming Monthly instead of some janky dude on eBay.

Have you had a similar issue? Has your NES Zelda cartridge forgotten how you totally beat the second quest? Have you had to replace your Link to the Past, or its battery? And, for a bonus question, can you name at least one other item in video gaming that, annoyingly, requires constant replacement of CR2032 batteries?

You kids and your flash memory. You don't know how good you have it!

DS Daily: Which Zelda games do you physically own?

Posted Oct 1st 2007 9:00AM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: DS Daily

You may have a few Zelda games on the Virtual Console -- and sure, we'd love to hear about those -- but which discs and carts do you still physically own? Sometimes, the best are just worth keeping, even if you sometimes don't even have the system on which they run any longer. We know a lot of people who've hung on to that first golden cartridge long after selling (or converting) their old NES.

Promotional Consideration: COBRAAA!!!

Posted Sep 30th 2007 6:00PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Promotional Consideration

Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.

"G.I. Joe is the codename for America's daring, highly trained, special mission force. Its purpose: To defend human freedom against COBRA, a ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world."

Continue reading Promotional Consideration: COBRAAA!!!

Game Center CX: the game

Posted Sep 14th 2007 2:00PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Screens, Imports

Game Center CX is an absolutely brilliant Japanese TV show in which, with the help of some production assistants, Shinya Arino plays old games to completion. The show documents the hardships involved in trying to finish the most unfairly difficult and nonsensical old games from the Famicom generation and beyond.

And now it's getting its own DS game. The game consists of fake retro games made in authentic NES style, including a ninja platformer (Karakuri Ninja Haguruman) and its sequel, a shooter (Starprince) and even an RPG; to go along with the fake games, there's even a fake weekly game magazine. Maybe in 20 years, someone will play through this whole game on TV.

NES controller coin purse, Mark III

Posted Sep 14th 2007 1:10PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Fan stuff

Etsy user LindseyPorter has taken an unconventional approach to the NES-controller coin purse-- an item that now seems to have been made enough times to have a conventional approach. Rather than destroying a real NES controller, she replicated its image in felt for the body of her coin purse.

We're not official purse judges or anything, but we're going to declare this one a winner in the categories of craftsmanship and pocket comfort.

While you've got your (possibly NES-controller-made) wallet out, and you're cruising Etsy, check out some cushy, bright, uh, butterfly-y DS Lite cases.

[Thanks, bs angel!]

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