Tag Archives: NES

Hector ’87 and Starship Hector

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From May 10th until May 17th HiscoreHeroes are hosting a competition on Instagram to celebrate Hudson’s 40th anniversary! This is the main reason why my interest and also frustration has grown for this game called Hector ’87, also known as Starship Hector in the US.
hector '87 start screen

The goal is to get the best score in the 2 minute score attack mode in either the Japanese version of Hector ´87 or the NTSC NES version Starship Hector. I had the Famicom version since before, never paid much attention to this game until I saw this competition, but I decided to give it a go!

Another very important rule to the competition is that you are not allowed to use any type of turbo fire, you must button mash! So, the right button fires bombs to hit ground targets and the left button fires shots to hit flying targets. After several evenings of button mashing until my entire arm was sore I managed to reach a score of 296.000. But other people have over 350.000!! I know how I could get at least 30.000 more, but the problem is THIS BASTARD:
midboss Hector '87

I’ve tried playing the game with turbo fire just to see if he’s even mortal, and yes he is, but he takes soooo many shots! I haven’t even been able to kill him a single time without turbo fire!! The second problem is the letters.. There are hidden letters under little mud piles that you can collect by bombing with a LOT of bombs, and the last letter will give you 100.000 points! Here’s where you will find them, what the piles looks like and what it looks like when the letters are revealed:
letter1
letter2
letter3
letter4
However, the last letter is located right next to the mid-boss-bastard, so without turbo fire, even if I would be able to kill the bastard, I would have no time to collect the last letter! >_< THIS GAME IS STUPID! IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY! I don’t understand how it would be possible to do both, unless you can button-mash in an incredibly stabile and super-fast-turbo-auto-fire speed! Can you???
I sure as hell can’t… :(

After seeing photos on instagram of all the people reaching scores way above 300k I realized they were all playing the NES NTSC version, Starship Hector. This made me wonder if there were any differences between these two games. Maybe I was playing the more difficult one?? :D So, when going to the Swedish retro gaming exhibition this saturday I only had one big objective, which was to find an NTSC version of Starship Hector. AND I DID! :D
Starship Hector NES_800

That evening me and my friend NinjaBrite played Starship Hector with big hopes of reaching even higher scores . but.. it was just the same. Just as hard, same enemies, same fire rate, same speed, same ship, same damn score, same everything! >_< I give up…

If you have a copy of Hector ’87 or Starship Hector and you want to compete, then you can read more about the competition on HiscoreHeroes instagram :) I hope there will be more competitions soon, this was great fun, even though it has been incredibly frustrating o_O

Some other advice for people trying to reach the high score (cause I’ve given up..)
Don’t kill the bunkers immediately, they will keep spawning flying spike-bombs that explode, however if you manage to shoot and kill one it gives 2.000 points!
There are hidden triggers in the ground that will make everything on screen on the ground explode if you reveal and destroy the triggers with 2 bombs. (You will still get the same score as if you would have shot the enemies) I have found 4 of them and they are in these locations:
secret spot 1
secret spot 2
secret spot 3
secret spot 4

And here’s the points you get for various enemies:

letters
1st letter 10.000
2nd letter 20.000
3rd letter 50.000
4th letter 100.000		 enemies-midboss
Mid-boss 20.000		 enemy-mr guy
This guy 10.000
enemy-mr guy's tiny friend
Mr. Guy’s tiny friend 5.000		 enemy-big amoeba
Big Amoeba 5.000		 enemy-bombs
Spike-bombs 2.000
enemy-squiddy
Squiddy 2.000		 enemy-angry crabhead
Angry crab-head 2.000		 enemy-boss cannon
Boss Cannon 2.000
enemy-bunker
Bunkers 1.000		 enemy-blue amoeba
Tiny Amoeba 1.000		 enemy-ship2
Ship thingy 500
enemy-ship
Round ship 500		 enemy-cannon
Cannons 500		 enemy-boss head
Boss 500 points (x4 for
each bomb-thingy)
enemy-health
Health bars (if you
have full health) 500		 enemy-boss shot
Boss shots 0 points :(

At least this is what I could figure out when watching my replays. Feel free to correct me or fill in if I missed something ^_^

Retrospelsmässan 2013 – Sweden’s yearly retro gaming exhibition

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Yesterday I went to Gothenburg with my friend NinjaBrite to attend Sweden’s yearly retro gaming exhibition ‘Retrospelsmässan‘. This is the 4th year in a row that they’re hosting this exhibition and I think it’s a GREAT initiative! I was there 2 years ago as well, last year I missed though since I was in Japan. It has grown immensely in these past years, and it will probably be even bigger next year. The amount of people who came was way more than they had anticipated, even though they had hired larger facilities people were still quieing for hours to get in! I myself had to que about 4 hours (arriving at 12, two hours after they opened). It was ok though, since Nintendo was hosting a Streetpass competition everybody had brought their 3DS and so did we, so we kept busy ^_^ And also met some awesome cosplayers, like Pixelninja dressed up as Megaman :)

megaman

que
This year on the exhibition they had all the old consoles displayed and connected to TVs so you could try everything out, everything from old Pong consoles and Odyssey 2001 to the Atari Jaguar and everything Nintendo and Sega of course. They also had a corner for speedruns where you could watch some of Sweden’s fastest gamers ;D They had a Doom LAN, Cosplay competitions, arcade and pinball corner, game competitions and stands with companies and people selling retro gaming stuff and of course games! :D

Videopac Computer displayed at Retrospelsmässan 2013 Pong
pinball
smb competition
arcade

Of course I had to pick up some games ^_^ I was looking for one game in particular, which was Starship Hector, but I’ll write more about that in a later post, that’s a looong story ^^ But I found it at this exhibition! And I also found Ninja Kid, Power Blade, Castle of Dragon, The Krion Conquest and James Bond JR. All were NTSC NES and I didn’t previously have them! (I am proud of myself that I brought a PDF of my collection in my phone, because I always tend to buy doubles unintentionally when attending places like this)… ;D
So here’s a little photo shoot I had of my latest pickups ^_^
Ninja Kid_800
Power blade_800
Castle of Dragon_800
The Krion Conquest_800
Starship Hector_800
James Bond JR_800

My Castlevania Collection!

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So what’s on this shelf.. well I have scanned all of my Castlevania games, so let’s start with the 8-bits and move forwards ^_^
edit: now my collection is taking up two shelves ^_^


Castlevania
The first Castlevania adventure for the NES. I have finally found a nice complete edition ^_^


Castlevania II Simon’s Quest
The second Castlevania adventure for the NES. Still looking for a complete one…


Castlevania II Simon’s Quest Tiger handheld
Here’s a handheld version of the Simon’s Quest Castlevania game. It’s really nothing like Simon’s Quest for the NES, it’s a very basic sidescrolling beat ‘em up, but still a nice edition to the collection ^_^


Castlevania III Dracula’s Curse for the NES
This one is a PAL edition and it’s complete in box quite nice condition.


Castlevania Blood Moon
This is not an actual release, it’s an NES reproduction cart with a fan-made hack of the Castlevania game.


Castlevania Chorus of Mysteries
This one is also an NES reproduction cart with a fan made hack.


Akumajou no Densetsu 悪魔城伝説 (Castlevania III Dracula’s Curse)
The third Castlevania game, released for the Famicom.


Akumajou Special Boku Dracula-kun 悪魔城すぺしゃる ぼくドラキュラくん
A cute platforming spinnoff of the Castlevania series. Released for the Famicom by Konami.


Akumajou no Dracula 悪魔城ドラキュラ (Castlevania I)
The first Castlevania adventure for the Famicom Disk System. I have this one complete with the outer plastic box and manual, but scanning the complete package with that box looks terrible >_< So I just scanned the inner case with the game and inlay.


Dracula 2 The Accursed Seal (Noroi no Fuuin) ドラキュラII呪いの封印 (Castlevania II Simon’s Quest)
The second Castlevania game on Famicom Disk System. Same here I have it complete in box with manual, but scanned the inner case with game and inlay.


Dracula Densetsu トラキュラ伝説 (Castlevania Adventures)
The first Castlevania game for the Game Boy. I wrote a bit about this game here. One thing that baffles me about this game is that hearts = health, where is the wall chicken?! I have this game in PAL edition as well, however only the loose cartridge.


Dracula Densetsu  II トラキュラ伝説II (The Castlevania Adventure II Belmont’s revenge)
The second Castlevania game for the Game Boy. Great adventure, great music. Shouldn’t be missed out on, all the Castlevania Game Boy games are completely new adventures, not just ports of the NES/Famicom adventures. I have this in PAL as well, but just the cartridge.


Akumajou Dracula Shikkokutaru Zensoukyoku 悪魔城ドラキュラダークナイトプレリュード (Castlevania Legends)
Probably my favourite Castlevania adventure for the Game Boy. I made a video of where I finished it here. Really hard final boss! But thanks to the password system I managed to go back and finally beat him ^_^ Great music in this one! Like most Castlevania games ;D You should really check out my video just to listen to the first stage song, a great remix of the Daylight music from Simon’s Quest! Also the Final Boss brings back the Vampire Killer theme song but in a new version, it’s kickass!! What are you waiting for? Go put on that video in the background to listen to those awesome tunes! ^_^


Castlevania Legends
I also have the PAL edition for Game Boy.


Akumajou no Dracula 悪魔城ドラキュラ (Castlevania)
The Famicom Mini Edition. Castlevania re-released for the Game Boy Advance in Japan.


Castlevania NES CLASSICS
The NES Classics edition for the Game Boy Advance.


Castlevania Aria of Sorrow
My favourite Castlevania adventure for the Game Boy Advance. You can collect the enemies’ souls and gain their powers! :D AWESOME!


Castlevania Circle of the Moon
Also for the Game Boy Advance, also a great adventure with some memorable tunes ^_^


Castlevania Circle of the Moon Soundtrack 悪魔城ドラキュラ 白夜の協奏曲 オリジナルサウンドトラック
The original soundtrack for Circle of the Moon to Game Boy Advance. This one is amazing! Here are some of my favorite Castlevania songs! :D


Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance
The third Castlevania adventure for the Game Boy Advance. There was a Game Boy Advance release that contained both Aria of Sorrow and Harmony of Dissonance but I haven’t been able to find it yet in decent condition.


Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow
For Nintendo DS. I have the game for Order of Ecclesia as well but without box and manual and I’m still keeping an eye out for Portrait of Ruin..


Castlevania Portrait of Ruin
Another Castlevania game for the DS, I just got this (that’s why it’s scanned with plastic around) so I haven’t been able to try it out yet.


Castlevania Order of Ecclesia
This one is also brand new, another Castlevania game for the DS. This one however I had the game cartridge for previously so I have played it and got pretty far, and it was great! But then I got stuck >_<


Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo 悪魔城ドラキュラX 血の輪廻 (Castlevania Rondo of Blood)
Finally got my hands on the rare Castlevania game, Rondo of Blood for the PC Engine! :D It’s in super nice condition, but unfortunately I am unable to play the game since I don’t have a PC Engine duo or the CD-ROM2 >_< but I’m getting one soon!!


Akumajou Dracula 悪魔城ドラクラ (Super Castlevania IV)
The first Castlevania game for the Super Nintendo / Super Famicom. This is the Japanese release. I have Super Castlevania IV for PAL as well, however only the cartridge :(


Akumajou Dracula XX 悪魔城ドラクラXX (Castlevania Vampire’s Kiss)
One of the rare Castlevania titles. This is a japanese release, complete and in great condition. The PAL version is really hard to find.. but I’m looking ^^


Castlevania The New Generation
The only Castlevania game I know of that was released on Sega. This one is PAL for the Sega Mega Drive, complete and in awesome condition ^^


Castlevania
The first Castlevania game for the Nintendo 64. Definitely not a favourite.. Castlevania games really should stay in the 2D platforming genre…


Akumajou Dracula Mokushiroku 悪魔城ドラクラ黙示録 (Castlevania)
I have the N64 Castlevania game in it’s Japanese release as well..


Castlevania Legacy of Darkness
When I finally bought Legacy of Darkness for the N64 I realized it was the same game as Legend of Cornell in Japan.. But now at least I can play it :D

Akumajou Dracula Mokushiroku Legend of Cornell 悪魔城ドラクラ黙示録レゲンドオブコーネール (Castlevania Legacy of Darkness)
This one is also for the Nintendo 64, but I don’t know much about it. I don’t have a Japanese N64 so I haven’t been able to try it out yet. But I can’t say I’m in a rush to do so, since the N64 is my least favourite console of all time.. edit: now I’ve found out that Legacy of Darkness and Legend of Cornell is the same game! It wasn’t much better than the previous N64 Castlevania game, same awkward 3D adventure >_<


Castlevania Chronicles
A PAL edition of the Castlevania Chronicles for the Playstation 1 (PS1)


Castlevania Symphony of the Night
A mint complete edition of a PAL SOTN. Here’s where the Metroidvania style of Castlevania games began. I like it alot ^_^ I especially love that they went back to 2D platforming instead of messing around with awkward 3D..


Castlevania Symphony of the Night Tiger handheld
Much like the Simon’s Quest Tiger handheld, this is also just a side-scrolling beat ‘em up game, though a bit more advanced with more options.


Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles
Mint PAL edition for the PSP. This one I was particularly happy about when I got since I would be able to play the rare Rondo of Blood adventure that had been released long ago on the PC Engine, but NOW that I HAVE a PC Engine I am looking for the actual Rondo of Blood for the PC Engine. Soooooon it will most definitely be a part of my Castlevania collection :D edit: I now possess the PC Engine version too ^_^


Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles Soundtrack 悪魔城ドラキュラ Xクロニクル オリジナルサウンドトラック
I also have the original soundtrack from Japan for the PSP game: Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles. This is a 2-disc collection, quite nice ^_^ It bugs me that they put the cover image in the wrong direction..


Castlevania Lament of Innocence
First Castlevania adventure for the Playstation 2. Here they went back to 3D, however I must say it looks better than on the N64 ;D


Castlevania Curse of Darkness
Another Castlevania game for the PS2. Stupid sticker ruining the front… >_<


Castlevania Judgement
This is the only Castlevania game I know of for the Wii and I just recently got it. I don’t really play the Wii that much, but now I have to try this game out ^_^


Castlevania Lords of Shadow
And finally a Castlevania game for the Xbox 360. It’s supposed to be good, but I haven’t actually had the time to try it yet o_O

Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum for NES

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Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum is a game i picked up dirt cheap on Ebay, and I hadn’t heard about it before. When I was sitting and trying out the lot of around 30 something NES games I had ordered I got stuck playing Dash Galaxy since it was so much fun!


At first the gameplay strikes you as very stiff, but after a while you realize that it’s supposed to be like that and that the stiffness of the controls just adds to the challenge of the game.



The objective is to reach the tip of the Spaceship. You do this by entering different stages in different rooms. You can also find warps that will sometimes take you a few rooms ahead, but also send you back a bit. It’s trial and error, you basically need to find the correct route to take you to the last stage. This is what the different rooms can look like:





The tunnels lead to different stages and you can move around blocks to clear a path. There are also forcefields which kill you unless you have a key that opens them or a bomb to blow them up. In room 24 you will find the last stage which is the tunnel in the bottom left. Also if you stay in a room for too long your oxygen will run out and you will die. This is the same in each level, you have an oxygen meter which decreases even faster if you get hurt by enemies.


The stages have various design and backgrounds, and there’s several different types of enemies and obstacles. The music is very catchy, you can hear the songs and watch some of the gameplay in a video I put together here:

Here’s a what a few different stages look like:




The final stage looks like this:

This final stage is a bit tricky since the blue blocks are icy and slippery and whenever you make a long jump in between them you slide a bit without being able to stop, so you need to time the jump precisely.


I managed to beat them game today ^_^ While attempting to do a speed run. It took around 9 minutes I think.

Here’s a video of my speed run in case you need help trying to beat this game:

It’s a great game with great music, challenging but fun! I suggest everyone should pick it up, since it can be found really cheap on Ebay :D

Gifts from Canada!

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Yesterday I also received another parcel, however this was not from Ebay or any other store, this was a beautifully wrapped red parcel filled with surprise! :D

I knew my friend Alana had sent me some NES games she had duplicates of, but there was also some cute Nintendo stuff! Like Mushroom and Mario straps, a keychain with Mario characters and a stuffed Koopa! :D The games were Tetris, Bubble Bobble, Kung Fu Heroes and Operation Wolf! So exciting! I didn’t have these for the NES before, I had some for the Famicom and one for Sega Master System, it’s going to be interesting to see if there’s a lot of difference ^_^

Thank you Alana (Retrogamergirl) for these wonderful gifts! Tomorrow a package is in the mailbox heading for Canada! :D

Here’s some happy ZX Spectrum music by X-Agon to share my joy ^_^

NES games & Nintendo Power: vol 33 -92

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I got some more games from Ebay this week :D I also started buying Nintendo Power magazines, and in this lot there was a Nintendo Power issue with TMNT III. I also got a book called “How to Win at Nintendo”, written in 1988 by Jeff Rovin. It actually only has 30 games in it, described with the story and strategies to winning. Including games like Arkanoid, Balloon Fight, Castlevania, Commando, Ghosts n’ Goblins, Gradius, Kung Fu, Metroid, Mega Man, Zelda II and many other big titles. However there’s no pictures, only text describing everything. I’m not much of a reader, I need pictures to look at to stay focused >_<

The games I bought were Millipede, Wurm, Lone Ranger, Xenophobe, Friday the 13th, Dungeon Magic, Joust, Twin Eagle and Predator. Wurm is awesome <3

Well, in this post I think I will take a closer look at the Nintendo Power issue, volume 33 from 1992. (all images are clickable to view full size)

You just gotta love Nintendo Power. 16 pages of a comic about Zelda a Link to the Past, 8 pages Super Mario Adventure comic, Nester’s Adventure and a bunch of game walkthroughs, guides, pictures, game promotions, ads from the 80′s and early 90′s and more!

Here’s the Zelda comic for those of you who want to read it ^^ All 16 pages, large enough to read it clearly :D

 

Now I’m actually not that into the Zelda franchise.. I know many ppl think I’m weird now, but it’s a long story and I basically just never got into it.. but I know there’s a lot of ppl who do love Zelda so this was for all you hardcore Nintendo fanboys, and girls ^___^

Now this is some hardcore advertisement for the Nintendo Power!

And what the hell do they mean by this? Hook your SNES to your NES?! I guess they just wanted people to keep buying games for both systems..

They feature a lot of games in this issue, such as Gradius, one of my favorites ^_^

Another featured games is Super Hunchback for Gameboy, never heard of it. Has anybody played it? There’s apparently many bells to ring…

And T2, “He said he’d be back”, he sure did!

And here’s the Super Mario Adventure comic for those of you who are interested in reading it ^_^

There’s also a 10 page long walkthrough for the game  ”The Legend of the Mystical Ninja” for Super Nintendo. I haven’t heard of that one either. It looks kinda fun though, however all the stages seem to have the same shade of orange throughout the game, usually SNES games were more colorful..

The poster for this Nintendo Power volume was Lemmings:

 Super Scope was the shit back in ’92!

And all the children playing Gradius wanted to become an Astronaut! ;D

The Nester’s Adventure cartoon is only  1 page, it’s quite good though. This one is about Castlevania IV:

And last but not least, here’s the Top 20 of the NES, SNES and GB games in February 1992!


There’s a bunch of other stuff in this issue, like walkthroughs of TMNT III, G.I. Joe, Rampart, The Simpsons Bart vs the World, Asteroids, Q*Bert and Wanderers from Ys. If there’s anyone of these in particular that you’d like to see then just leave a comment and I’ll post some more pics :D

Gyromite for NES

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Yesterday I watched the episode ROB the Robot from AVGN, and it made me wanna play Gyromite, even though I didn’t have the Robot.

James from AVGN made it clear that it is possible to play the game even though you don’t have a robot. However, it demands control over both the P1 and P2 controller, since the P1 controller steers the character while the A and B button on the P2 controller controls the pillars that you need to move up and down to guide the character through the stage. Here’s AVGN’s solution:

I didn’t quite go to the extent of sawing apart two controllers and attaching them together with duct tape. Instead I played it together with my friend Becky, it’s a great game for 2-player co-op ^_^ However I did need to use two controllers myself while recording the game today for the review, one in each hand, not too difficult except when you need to pick up or place a radish which is controlled with A on the P1 controller:


The cartridge says Gyromite, but the title screen claims the name of the game is Robot Gyro… anyway, Gyromite or “Robot Gyro” is a classic arcade style game where you have to collect all the dynamite on each stage to clear it.



There are Dinosaurs that kill you if you touch them, and your character can not jump, so you will have to figure out ways to go around them, or try to crush them with the pillars. You can also pick up radishes and place in front of the Dinos, this will make them stop and eat for a while so you can pass them.


Gradually the stages get harder, and you will have to collect the dynamites in the correct order, otherwise you might get stuck with no way to get back up to collect the remaining dynamites. Then there’s no other option than to crush yourself or wait for the time to run out..

I made it to stage 35 today, apparently there’s 65 stages in total. I might give it another go the next time I have a friend over, cause it’s just more fun that way ;D
 

If you haven’t seen the AVGN episode with ROB the Robot you should check it out. I definitely have to get me a ROB eventually ^_^

Here’s a video I put together of the 35 levels I got to:

Recording Famicom gameplay and NTSC vs PAL

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I have finally found the optimal solution, and still being able to use the Elgato Video Capture i bought (see previous entry about Playing & recording 8-bit and 16-bit consoles on you Mac / computer). While the Elgato / DVD recorder combination worked excellently with all my PAL systems I still couldn’t get it to work with my NTSC NES and my japanese Famicom, since the DVD recorder was PAL region it messed up the images.

I had to buy rca y cable splitters since the Famicom only had one output of composite image and video cords, now being able to split the signal to two places I can play through connecting the Famicom to a TV while also having it connected to the Elgato, which actually captures the video and image perfectly however generates a black image (“no signal”) while recording. The rya y cable splitters might not be necessary for the regular NES since that console already has two outputs, one for the antenna input in a PAL television and also the composite on the side, however it is more nimble not having to search for the channel and just playing through the AV channel ^_^

If anyone has any questions about this topic feel free to ask me, I’ve been researching into it and going through a lot of trial/error phases to know a thing or two about it by now ;D

Abobo’s Big Adventure!

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I remembered watching this trailer quite a while back, and I was totally psyched about this Ultimate Tribute to the NES! Then i forgot about it.. and after browsing through my favorites on Youtube I found it again, and it has now been released since some time in January!

Tonight I’ve been playing through the whole game, it took me about 1 hour and 40 minutes, watching all the cutscenes and stuff (that are awesome btw!) ^_^

This game has it all, the retro 8-bit feeling and references to all the games we love <3 And it’s extremely funny! Here are just some of the things you will be able to enjoy and experience when playing Abobo’s Big Adventure!

Playing as MEGABOBO!

Earning medals for silly and funny things usually referenced to old NES games:

Working up your RAGE for amazing mind-blowingly awesome special attacks that are unique for each level!

References to Mortal Kombat, and in general pretty gory gameplay! =D

Finding hidden areas, where all the fun is at ;D

Abobo in Zelda:

Abobo in Balloon Fight!! With the Reaper from Castlevania!!!!

Encountering various famous NES characters all through the game, and with original NES music:

Awkward moments:

Or having babies with a mermaid.. or as they call it Merbobos!

Abobo in Contra, vs Krangby!!

YES! IT IS KIRBY WHO SWALLOWED KRANG TO BECOME KRANGBY!!!

Fighting Jaws, and even bigger Jaws!

Abobo vs Donkey Kong!

And much much more! I suggest you play it online or download it straight away!

What are you waiting for?? Go play it!

I always knew Kirby was evil…

80′s gaming day!

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Had an 80′s saturday with my friend and we spent most part of the the day playing NES, SNES and Famicom games ^_^
 

We started off with some Caveman Games for NES, it’s kind of like Track & Field except it’s set in the stone age and you’re cavemen playing various sports that could have been set in that age, like fire starting, dino racing, mate tossing etc..

Mate tossing was quite entertaining ^^  It was kind of hard to figure out which buttons you were supposed to press for most of the sports though since we didn’t have a manual. However most of the games we figured out.. except fire starting >_< but it was a fun competitive game, containing just as much button mashing as Track & Field but more laughs! =)

We also tried playing some Toobin, a Tengen game for NES. It’s about a guy floating down rivers on a rubber ring, collecting power ups and avoiding obstacles such as twigs, crocodiles, fishermen and other enemies that occasionally shoot at you. It’s a fun game, we played through quite a lot of levels before quitting, like a jurassic level with dinosaurs lying around in the river, the Nile where egyptians where shooting at you and an ice level with penguins and icebergs! ^_^

“Game over, Dude!”  :D

My friend also made it further in Time Lord than I ever did. Time Lord is an interesting game, where you play as a futuristic guy traveling through different epochs of time, like the middle ages around 1260 with knights and dragons and then 1800′s etc..

It’s tricky to figure out how to advance. On each stage you have to collect five orbs to continue time traveling, and to find the orbs you have to trigger certain things on each level and these are not always easy to find….

We also played Sunsoft’s Batman for NES, this is a great game =) Lots of different weapons and nice graphics.

I also forced my friend to try Punch Out since she’s never played it, she knocked out Glass Joe and then gave the german Von Kaiser a good match, but then she gave up.

I also got her to try 大迷路 (Dai Meiro) for Famicom. It’s a great game! You basically try to get to the end of a labyrinth, but first you have to find all the chests containing pieces of the key, when you have the key you can go to the exit. Now the hard part is that at every third step you take you loose a heart, so you can’t make a lot of mistakes or get lost. Also there is a map you can look at by pressing select, however this drains 3 of your hearts. So you just have to memorize the paths you took! I actually made it through 5 levels of this game, and I felt really proud ^_^ There are mini games you can find in the maze that can give you objects that help you along your way, however they cost a heart if you don’t succeed. It was Jeewario on Youtube who made me aware of this game, so I thank him for making his awesome videos of recommending famicom games! (you can watch it here).

After this we tried out some Mega Man for Game Boy briefly, mainly just to hear the awesome music! ^_^

LIKE SNAKE MAN!!! =D =D =D

And finally we were at the final event of the evening, the thing we had prepared for and looked forward to. Super Star Wars Trilogy for SNES!

I will make an entire post dedicated to the Super Star Wars game, since it did take us about 4-5 hours to beat it and I also have a lot of pictures. I speed-ran it this morning and finished it in 1 hour 40 minutes so I will also upload some videos after editing.. ^^

Until then!

Super Mario Bros. Crossover 2.0

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This is the coolest thing ever!!
I first saw a youtube video called Super Mario Bros. Crossover Trailer and didn’t reflect upon it actually being a game, just thought it was a cool video somebody put together. But NO! It’s actually a game! Where you can play as several famous 8-bit characters (such as Samus Aran, Mega Man, Link, etc) in the Super Mario Bros world!

I’ve just been trying it out and it’s awesome!

Now go play Super Mario Bros. Crossover 2.0 here!

Cleaning your NES cartridges = no more glitchy gaming!

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This week I’ve been busy learning how to thoroughly clean my old NES games, and after learning and experimenting I’ve been busy thoroughly cleaning all my NES games.. I’ve only gone through one out of the 7 boxes so far >_<

Here’s some advice for those of you who still are in possession of your old Nintendo Entertainment System and wish to re-visit you old games without having to huff ‘n’puff and jiggle your way to being able to play!

  • First of all you have to purchase a special NES cartridge screw-thingy, these can be bought online and really cheap. I got mine from a Swedish site called nesconnector for only 69 SEK (approximately 10 USD). This is needed to open the special screws on the back of your cartridge.
  • Open up the back lid of the cartridge, and lift up the circuit board carefully, avoid touching the surfaces and hold it steadily by gripping the sides.
  • Here is where it got tricky for me, I watched a video on youtube where they used some polish cream by an american brand to clean the connectors, but I couldn’t translate that into a corresponding Swedish product. However, after talking to three different stores in my hometown, the jewelry store finally suggested a polishing cloth since it’s a dry way of polishing without getting water on the circuit board. The polishing cloth is impregnated with some kind of gold polish, but nothing that hurts the connectors. Now rub both sides of the golden connectors on the bottom of the circuit board (try avoiding touching other things on it) and rub until there’s no more black coming off on the cloth.
  • After this you insert the circuit board in the same place you removed it from, and close of the cartridge and screw it back together. Easy peasy! =D I’ve even gotten a few games to work that previously didn’t! ^_^

Now go have yourself a nostalgic trip and play some Super Mario! ^_^

Trog! for NES

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I bought a game for the NES recently, which i had never heard of. It was called Trog! I thought you would be this caveman running around clubbing things and running from dinosaurs (kind of like Chuck Rock for Sega) since it’s a big picture of a caveman on the cartridge.
But no, you’re actually playing as the cutest little dinosaur! I guess his name is Trog, and you collect dinosaur eggs while avoiding cavemen, who wants to EAT you!! o_O

gif animator

It’s basically like a puzzle-platformer, reminds me a bit of the original Pac-Man with the grid and stuff to pick up. You have to collect all the eggs then exit where the HOME platform appears. There’s a lot of objects to pick up or avoid on the way, like:

  • Flowers that speed you up   
  • Mushrooms which slow you down   
  • Books that freeze the enemies   
  • Fire to shoot fireballs   
  • Fire that makes you burn  
  • Tar pits that you sink into and die   
  • Pineapples which turn you into a giant T-REX!
    (Awesome!!) and you can eat all the cavemen ^_^


…and probably some more things that I forgot to mention… oh yeah, like the horseshoe..  have no clue what that thing does o_O

The gameplay is smooth and can be quite fast if you take enough flowers and avoid mushrooms. You can hit the cavemen to avoid them eating you, but you have to make sure to hit first, cause if they do then you are dead.. Also you can fall of the edges of the platform which you are running around on, so you have to make sure to turn quickly!

AAAHHH! FALLING OFF EDGE!!!! >_<

The game was easy to grasp and easy to progress through in the beginning but the difficulty increased with each new stage. The cavemen got smarter, started using new ways of reaching you, and more enemies were introduced, like wheels that were faster than you etc.
This was all in all a very enjoyable game, lots of stages and different difficulty modes, which seemed to actually just start you off further into the game instead of increasing difficulty, but that’s OK since the game didn’t have a save feature or passwords.

Here’s a movie I put together of the gameplay. I’m sorry for the sound quality but my NES insisted on growling in the background >_<

MOVIE GAMES

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Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES) had it’s glory days in the 80′s. Back then game developers sometimes had trouble coming up with new exciting game ideas, so they started making games from popular movies! You would think that this sounds like a great idea, if it’s a great movie with a great story why wouldn’t people wanna buy it and play it to relive those special moments they remember so dearly from the movie screen? Well a lot of people did buy them, and probably got disappointed seeing their favorite actors pixelated in a little blurry dot on the screen with horrible controls, sloppy programming and generally poor reenactments of the original plot/story or scenes. These games were made as a way for the movie and game companies to milk a few extra bucks out of a successful blockbuster film.

This doesn’t mean that all movie themed games are bad, there’s also a lot of examples of games based on movies that are in fact quite brilliant, sometimes even more enjoyable than the movie itself! Like Aladin for Sega Mega Drive (or Genesis), or most of the Batman games across all platforms.

But from my experience, the majority of games based on movies are horrendous experiences. Even back in the Atari age some movies made it into the gaming scene..  such as E.T. the Extra Terrestrial.. there are no words of describing how BAD this game is. I might try to show you sometime in another post. Some other really bad movie themed games have been reviewed amazingly by AVGN (Angry Video Game Nerd) such as Independence Day, Rambo, Terminator and all the Spielberg games. Visit the links to watch his movies.

Still today most big movies get turned into a game, and there are more shitty ones than good ones in my opinion.. Like the Golden Compass.. horrible >_< The control’s are worthless, and it’s frustrating. Even though it was super cheap (I guess they figured out quite quickly how shitty this game was) it still wasn’t worth the money..

I was surfing around and found some youtube movies and forum talk about a NES game that was based on the old 80′s series Full House, they called the game Full House Tournament Fighter, and it took some surfing around before I realized it was a spoof, the game never existed. Though it wouldn’t have surprised me if it did! This made me think about some big 80′s movies and what they would have looked like if they were made into NES games. Here’s my ideas:

Imagine if they would have made The Shining into a NES title, wouldn’t that have been awesome?? That’s a movie themed game I would definitely have gotten. You would start off playing as the Kid, avoiding ghosts like the twins and other supernatural things trying to survive and at the end change to play as Jack and try to hunt down your family with an axe through the maze. That would have been amazing and original!!

Another awesome NES game would have been the Poltergeist! They could have made a supernatural-looking environment where the game plays out in the world where they have taken the little girl, and the goal would be to have the girl find her way back to the light and her family in a platforming adventure kind of style. Just imagine! =D That would have been a scary and different game! With references to the movie, a great soundtrack and some cutscenes it would have been awesome!! “They’re here..”

Now here’s some examples of games that would have been awful if they ever would have been  converted to the NES!

Thank god they never made this, however so many other shitty games were made based on movies that one more wouldn’t really have made a difference..

Awful…

Or this:

Yikes!

Now I’m off to edit some gaming clips of my next review. Feel free to comment if you have any other fun ideas of games based of movies never made, or opinions about some movie games I didn’t mention ^_^

Castlevania Legends – Game Boy

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Castlevania Legends for Game Boy is a really great Castlevania game, compared to the first Castlevania Adventures for the same platform the movement is smoother, it feels like the character is a bit faster, the whip responds better and most importantly of all: THE HEARTS DO NOT GIVE YOU HEALTH! Like we have learned in previous Castlevania games, the hearts you collect are used for your special ability. In Castlevania legends you receive special abilities after each stage, instead of collecting them through candles, and they’re called soul weapons. You use them like normally in Castlevania games, by pressing up and attack. But there are also a few hidden weapons, like the holy water, throwing dagger etc, hidden in certain candles in a secret area of the maps of each stage (not really secret, mainly just a detour from the standard route).

Another different thing about Castlevania Legends is that you play as a girl, called Sonia.

Through the Super Game Boy for the Super NES they have improved some graphical aspects of the regular Game Boy games, such as giving Castlevania Legends this really neat interface with pillars and stone around the screen instead of the normal boring “Game-Boy-Look-a-Like” screen.

Also the stages have different colors, which makes it feel like you’re really advancing through the game. Here’s some of the stage colors, and in the bottom right corner is the standard sepia/brown that the Game Boy games had as a standard through the SNES.

Some downsides of the game… the bats are annoying as usual and they come in groups and respawn on the screen when you are trying to advance upwards, creepy flying black shades pop from nowhere and have a really annoying pattern which makes it really frustrating to try to hit them, stupid big ass knights that charge you and take way to many hits to kill and hurt you way too much, (SPOILER ALERT!) Alucard is actually one of the bosses (even though he’s a friend to the character, Sonia, he needs her to prove her strength) but he is way too easy to beat =(, Alucard is supposed to be kick-ass!! There are also some special candles that have a different color than regular candles, DO NOT HIT THESE, since they will make you fall into a pit of bad guys which won’t let you out until you are almost drained of health.. stupid…

Apart from this Castlevania Legends was a really great game, but Aria of Sorrow for Game Boy Advance is still my favorite ^_^

Here’s a video I put together of the music, the gameplay, the stages, the bosses and so on.. enjoy! =D

I heart Castlevania!!

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Hooray for today! For today I got a special lot of games from the internetz ^___^ One of my favourite game series of all time is Castlevania, and today I received three games from the series that I have not previously owned or even tried!! This is sooo exciting! =D Following is the pictures I took of the games, you can click them if you wanna see them bigger ^^

The first one is Castlevania Legends for Gameboy, complete in great condition!

The second one was Castlevania III Dracula’s Curse for NES! Which now gives me a complete collection of the NES Castlevania games ^_^ Also complete, in pretty good shape (for its age) except the stupid price sticker on TOP of the Original Nintendo Seal >_<

The third one was Castlevania the New Generation for Sega Mega Drive!! Exciting!!! =D This too complete and in really awesome condition, except for a small sticker on the game cartridge but I think it’s removable =)

So tonight I will be absorbed in the mystical fantasy world of Castlevania, slaying Dracula and what not, and tomorrow evening you’ll get to see my reviews of these most likely awesome games! My hopes are high!

Super Gameboy to Super NES!

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Tonight I’ve been trying out my new Super Gameboy for Super NES (or SNES, but Super NES is what it says on the cartridge…). At first I wasn’t sure if it was working since I just got a black screen, but after jiggling the games around for a bit it worked =)

The games I’ve played for Game Boy tonight are: Mega Man III, Battletoads, Metroid II and the Castlevania Adventures. I have the Japanese Metroid II for Game Boy in original box and everything, but the other 3 are just the game cartridges. But here’s what their covers did look like:

First off was Mega Man III. I started off with facing Spark Man, the music was great and after a few trial and errors during the stage I got to the boss, and I then went on to Gemini Man.. This stage is UNBEARABLE! wtf.. there’s flying mosquito shits all over the place, you take ONE step and a new one appears and if they are not charging straight towards you then you have penguin fuckers throwing bombs at you!! You can’t even try to run past the flying fuckers or the penguins cause the penguins’ bombs will bounce around until they hit you and the mosquitos will push you into a whole in the ground in case you barely touch one >_< And everything hurts you like hell! The music on this stage isn’t even good enough to make it worth the frustration to just advance a tiny bit. After 20 minutes I gave up and went on to Snake Man…
Snake Man is my ALL TIME FAVOURITE song from Mega Man. I shit you not, it is amazing! I can just listen to it over and over and over and over again, and even on the Game Boy the song sounds great!! Here’s a sample:

The music was so uplifting that I just ran though the stage without even thinking. On the second try I beat the boss. For the fourth stage I chose Shadow Man, this too has awesome music, and it was a little bit harder than Snake Man. I made it to Shadow Man and he was definitively the easiest boss. This is as far as I made it through Mega Man III, I went on to Battletoads after this.

The intro made no sense… and then I start beating up pigs in bathing suites with axes. I made it through the first stage just beating things up, but on the second stage I got stuck. It was like a space shooter stage, just fly and shoot, but at the end you have to dodge spikes in rows flying towards you. Not to hard you might say, I thought so too at first, just aim your ship towards the opening in the spikes, but the darn things started moving faster and faster, eventually I didn’t even have time to move from one hole to the next without getting hit by the following spike! WTF! After 4 continues and several lives of tries I finally gave up =(

Next up was Metroid II.

I was amazed at how much colours were in this one, many old Game Boy games just have this sepia touch to the black and white when playing them on the TV. However, something that really bugged me was the title screen music.. I LOOOOVE the title screen music of the first Metroid for NES, however in this one it sounded like you had put somebody’s retarded little brother in front of a keyboard and pressed record >___< Listen for yourselves:

And here’s the original:

I played it for a little bit, but I think I would need some sort of world map before attempting to finish it.. >_< Also, in the game there’s hardly any music, only the beeping sound that increases in speed the more hurt you are.. extremely frustrating. You had to have over 50 in health before the sound even stopped! In the original NES Metroid I think it only beeps when you’re below 15 or something…

Well that’s it for my Super Game Boy for Super NES review, I might try out some other Game Boy games for it later, but I should first go back to the Saturn I think ^_^