Have you had your USDA recommended dose of Mushrooms and Vegetables today? No? Well, if you keep forgetting which "power-ups" you need and in what quantity, just glance at the art for Noisebot's Power-Up Pyramid T-shirt. Even better, try to name all the power-ups and which games they can from! I can handle everything except the three bottles in the Dairy section, which stump me hardcore.
I've written before about how a lot of classic Game Boy games deserved better hardware (which is part of why Wario Land: Shake It! is so rad to me). That said, the Game Boy's hardware constraints forced some very distinctive visual choices and design limitations on developers at the time. What would happen if you forced these constraints on a modern developer... or, say, a modern game?
This Way of the Pixel Mock-Up Challenge is a year old, but I just found it today while doing my rounds at CrunchGear. It's too rad to be ignored. A bunch of fans got together and made screens of what the Game Boy versions of a lot of other famous games, including very modern ones, would look like if crammed onto a sad little Game Boy cart.
I'm sure you can recognize the title above, and I've thrown some of my favorites into a section behind the cut. Can you guess them all?
This is more than a little ridiculous. 1up threw up an interview with Bionic Commando's franchise manager, Ben Judd, that is full of interesting things about the two new games in the franchise. There were also questions asked about where the original Bionic Commando was, and would it be on Virtual Console. The answers are... infuriating, I think.
1UP: What about the original Bionic Commando for Virtual Console?
BJ: We couldn't get it approved for the Virtual Console.
1UP: Is that because of the whole Nazi thing?
BJ: I can't say why. I can just say that we tried to get it to work. We're huge fans of the game. When you think about it, it totally makes sense as a strategy to have the original game out there in some format that people can play and see what was so great about it. But we were told no.
I have heaped praise on articles in JC Fletcher's Virtually Overlooked series at Wii Fanboy before, and now I fear I must do so again. This week he covered Hotel Mario, which is (or should be) uncontested holder of the title for Worst Mario Game Ever. By the way, it's a Phillips CD-i game. Are you surprised? No? Didn't expect so, really.
What would you do if you were handed the most famous video game license in the world, and given the opportunity to make a new entry in that franchise on an exciting new console capable of unprecedented visual displays? If you're Fantasy Factory, you would make a game about making sure all of the doors in a hotel are closed.
PC World has a completely awesome feature up that I felt obligated to link. Vintage computing expert Benj Edwards has completely disassembled a vintage Famicom - NES's Japanese counterpart - with great big photos and explanations of how the hardware differed, how it was the same, and how it caused some features to be altered or removed in American games. For instance, did you ever know this about the Famicom P2 controller? (I didn't.)
You'll notice that the second controller... lacks the start and select buttons of the first but features a built-in microphone and volume slider (more on that in a moment). This idiosyncracy of the Japanese system had some effects in the United States version. Early NES games such as Super Mario Bros. wouldn't pause with a press of the second controller's start button, because the Japanese counterpart had no equivalent button.
See that thing in the picture that looks like a DS but is clearly not a DS? That's the Game & Watch. To some it's an object of intense playground nostalgia, but for others it's just that thing Mr. Game & Watch is apparently from in Smash Bros.
Whether you ever knew a kid who owned one or not, it's an important piece of tech in terms of the evolution of Nintendo hardware. The Game & Watch gave Nintendo the chops they needed to really launch portable systems as we know them with the Game Boy in 1989. So, read this DS Fanboy interview with Game & Watch experts/collectors Michael Panayiotakis and Andy Cole and get yourself some education about both the Game & Watch, and the high-priced world of retro game collecting.
There's nothing worse than dropping money on a vintage RPG and finding out that you've gotten a copy with a dead battery. What's the point of even playing if you can't save your progress? I used to write this misadventures off as wasted cash, but I might not anymore. Check out this handy video from JJ Games that walks you through the process of replacing a dead SNES game's battery with a new one. This opens up a way to get hold of physical copies of 16-bit RPGs at much lower prices than might otherwise. Just buy your Earthbound or Chrono Trigger with a dead battery for next to nothing, and then replace it yourself.
This can only be considered an unparalleled triumph of retrogaming (or slavish nostalgia, if you want to be cynical). Capcom has announced Mega Man 9, a new 8-Bit entry in the "classic" Mega Man series devoid of wacky RPG robots, angsty pretty robots, or newfangled anime bullcrap. No, this is going to be 8-bit Mega Man hopping his way through a game with eight Robot Masters to defeat and Dr. Wily's castle waiting at the end. And one of the Robot Masters is a woman! Retro and progressive.
Right now Mega Man 9 appears to be a WiiWare exclusive. Rumors of a 360/PS3 release were fueled by E3 announcements, but have since been debunked by Capcom.
I'd love to have a real Mega Man 9 screen to post up, but those jerks at Nintendo Power have all the screens locked up for an exclusive article in the August issue. It's a good piece, too, so this issue is worth your time to track down. For now, settle for some stolen pixel art.
I've felt sort of bad about how the download assignments were shaking down over the past few weeks. I got to enjoy myself with Dr. Mario and Toki Tori while Sardius slaved in the fiendish hells of Protöthea and Critter Round-Up. Virtual Console had gotten so bad he was enjoying Sky Kid. Something had to be done.
This week would be different! This week he could enjoy Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa and My Pokemon Ranch, and I would play whatever he didn't want... oh, hey, it's Dig Dug? I like Dig Dug! I guess this won't be so bad after all.
... wait, it's six dollars?
Six dollars to play NES Dig Dug, when I could go on Xbox Live and buy a better port with leaderboards and 720p support for five dollars?
Ladies, gentlemen: the Virtual Console has reached a new milestone in failure.
(It hasn't failed as hard as the mobile version of Dig Dug, which retails for a ridiculous $14.99, but this week's NES Dig Dug port is still a six-dollar bomb of sadness.)
Oh yeah, the Virtual Console! I totally forgot about that old thing. And so has Nintendo, apparently, since only four new VC games have been released over the last month. Not only that, but rumors have recently suggested that Nintendo is planning to "wind down" its Virtual Console release schedule soon. What this means exactly is unknown, but it's probably not going to increase our chances of seeing Earthbound anytime this century.
But hey, why focus on future doom and gloom when we can discuss the Virtual Console's equally depressing present state? Has the last month brought us anything at all worth buying? Let's find out.
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