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Blogger Archive: noiseredux 
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Tetris. It's an infamous title. Perhaps the original "casual game." The one that caused moms to buy their own Game Boys. The one that caused many of us to report seeing falling blocks on our inner eyelids upon attempting to fall asleep. It was first pack-in game when the Game Boy was released, and in many ways proved to be a killer app. So what would be the smart thing to do then? Make a whole bunch of variants for each Game Boy system of course. Although the original Game Boy is the biggest perpetuation of Tetris-fever, even its colorized big brothers got in on the fun. Let's take a look shall we?
Continue reading Tetris GB Series
Double Dragon. That's all you need to say and 30-year old dudes turn into 10-year old ninjas. The first two NES games are iconic. As Billy and Jimmy Lee you made your way through some mean streets and beat the tar out of anyone who crossed your path. Sure they were stripped way down in comparison to the arcades. But honestly they were so cool that it didn't matter. Who needed the arcade, man? Not me. And not a whole slew of other kids who blew the time after school and before dinner with some NES Double Dragon.
Now what we didn't know back then was that video games were a business. And sometimes games materialized not because they were good and deserved to exist, but instead because they'd make somebody else some money. It was a good lesson for us though. I know the 10-year old me had to learn that sometimes life just wasn't fair. Sometimes it punched your girlfriend in the stomach and threw her over its shoulder and carried her off fireman-style and then you and your brother had to go rescue her and then sometimes even he was a jerk too!
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The first Double Dragon game was ported to the Game Boy in 1990 by Tecmo, and it's actually kind of good. It's basically a miniaturized version of the NES game. It's got different level layouts, but they're basically all inspired by levels from the NES game. All of the characters from the NES release are also pretty much recognizable here as well. Of course it's not as good as the cult-classic, but it actually does a great job of being what it sets out to be: a portable substitute. It knows that it's a little-brother, and it's okay with that identity. If you want to have a good time playing a brief version of Double Dragon, well here it is.
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Then things got worse. You see the NES release of Double Dragon II was a huge hit. It remains the coolest game in the series. Just owning the cartridge literally figuratively put hair on your chest. So Acclaim knew they had to release a Game Boy port of the game. They had two options: (1) they could pay a developer to re-create the awesome experience of Double Dragon II on the Game Boy in a similar fashion to the first GB game. Or (2) they could just take a really abysmal River City Ransom sequel that had already been released in Japan, change the sprites to look like a Double Dragon game, keep all the horrible gameplay and call it Double Dragon II. Guess which one they felt would be more cost-effective?
However Double Dragon II does have one thing going for it; it's not Double Dragon 3: The Arcade Game.
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Double Dragon 3: The Arcade Game is bad. I mean really bad. Like if you ever find yourself on a long car-ride with a Game Boy that has this game loaded in it, you'll just start counting cars instead. It's biggest problem is the AI. You will be constantly surrounded by unmerciful enemies that will beat you to death really quickly. And considering the poor controls, you really have no choice but to just take it.
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After two total letdowns, it's surprising that the Double Dragon license lived on on the Game Boy, but surprisingly Battletoads/Double Dragon actually turned out pretty good. It's an ambitious port of the SNES title, and features all three 'toads along with both Lees as playable characters. The levels take cues from both series, and the gameplay is actually quite good on the Game Boy. Of course this comes from experience on the part of Tradewest who had already published two excellent Battletoads games on the Game Boy. If anything, they were kind enough to pull the Double Dragon name out of the mud with this one.
And then nothing happened for ten years.
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In 2003 Double Dragon Advance was published by Atlus for the GBA. This came as a total shock as the series had been dead on Game Boy systems for the last decade. Even as other classic NES titles like Super Mario Bros., Ghosts 'N Goblins, and 1942 were seeing re-releases on the portable-NES-ish Game Boy Color, nobody dared bring up Double Dragon. So what a relief this one was when it finally saw the light of day. It was actually a very faithful port of the arcade original which is actually quite impressive in and of itself, considering the NES version being the most recognized in this day and age. Though this would prove to be the final Game Boy-related release for the series, at least it went out on the sort of dignified high-note that the series deserves.
As of the New Year I've begun doing a bit of house-cleaning. Over the past six months I've been working on a really big and project so I've hoarded a rather ridiculous number of Game Boy carts that I'll never touch again, so it's time I figure out which ones those are and start making room for new ones. As I've been going through all these carts, I've also found some interesting occurrences in the little Gray Brick's library. Take the arcade classic Centipede for instance. Sure it's a solid little fixed-screen shooter. But for the life of me I can't understand why the game was ported to the original Game Boy three times!
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The first version of Centipede was released in 1992 by Accolade who were also responsible for designing the Game Boy port. The music is great and the sprites are just big enough to work well on the GB's tiny screen. However this particular version has become a collector's item as it is extremely rare that it pops up on eBay even. Really the only people who are going to be after it are completionists though.
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Three years later Majesco re-released Centipede as the second volume in their Arcade Classic series of Game Boy cartridges. This time it was coupled with a port of its sequel Millipede as well. But guess what? Although published by Majesco, a glance at the title screen reveals that this port of Centipede was in fact developed by Accolade! If you just want a port of the game to go, then this is your best bet since you get two games for one.
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Here's where the story really starts to get strange. In 1998 Majesco decided to re-release Centipede once again, but this time without Millipede. So really, this is basically just a re-release of the original 1992 version that Accolade had published. However, they also went through the trouble of designing brand new artwork for this version as well. This is the most common of the Game Boy versions.
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As a bit of an addendum, and to make the history even more confusing, that very same year Majesco went ahead and colorized their "new" version of Centipede and managed to get it released as part of the Game Boy Color's launch in the US. This GBC cart was one of the early black cartridges that was fully backwards compatible with the original Game Boy, meaning that it just contained an optional color palette which was accessed when inserted into the GBC hardware, rather than taking advantage of the GBC's full potential. So in a sense, this would be the fourth time that the same version of Centipede made it to market in a single decade.
Stay tuned for more bizarre tales of Game Boy gluttony.
Much like the Wii's Virtual Console, the inclusion of the Game Boy Player add-on makes the GameCube a fantastic way to re-discover many retro games. There's a pile of Super Mario Bros., Sonic The Hedgehog, and just about every other 8 and 16-bit mascot out there to be played and yet the sad fact is that the GameCube's standard controller just doesn't seem all that great for retro gaming. Sure many of us just get used to it, and admittedly the added bulk and lack of wires makes the it easy to love the WaveBird, but there's certainly many other options out there, some of which you may not have thought of.
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The obvious choice is the Hori Digital Pad, also know as the Game Boy Player Controller. Generally speaking, this is the controller that all GB Player enthusiasts find a must-own. It's quite obvious that it's modeled quite liberally after the SNES pad. The size, shape and bulk are all very similar. The D-Pad is about the same size as well, which is a vast improvement over the GameCube's tiny D-Pad. The only thing that really differentiates it from the SNES pad is that the A, B, X and Y buttons all keep their GameCube layout. There's really nothing but good things to say about this one, except that its price-tag isn't for the faint of heart. Sadly because it was an import-only controller, and because Hori has a certain reputation, it's not uncommon for eBay auctions on one of these to hit triple digits.
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Luckily Pellican ripped off Hori's fantastic design and made a far more affordable alternative called the GC Retro Pad. It's almost the same exact size and shape as the Hori, and keeps the same GameCube-style A, B, X and Y layout. It moves the Z-Button to the center, which is actually slightly more convenient than on the Hori in fact. The major difference is that the D-Pad uses a Sega Genesis style instead of the traditional Nintendo cross-style. Although the plastic that makes up the controller is noticeably cheaper quality, the controller itself actually works quite well, and the fact that it can be found for the price of four Hori Pads makes it even more appealing.
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With a simple adapter called the Retro Port made available from http://RetroUSB.com you can actually just use a standard SNES controller. This option will be a bit more expensive than the Pellican pad, but it could certainly save you a bit if you want to avoid going the Hori route. It's hard to compete with the build-quality and layout-perfection of the original SNES pad, and considering the magnitude of SNES games ported to the GameCube, it's almost an obvious choice (though surprisingly it's an oft-overlooked solution it seems). The same site also sells a similar adapter for using a NES pad on the Cube as well, although seeing as how a NES pad only has two buttons this means that many GBA games won't be supported.
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If you do decide to go the SNES-adapter route then you'll also have access to another pricey Hori import, this time in the form of the Super Game Boy Controller. This strange creature was also a Japan-only accessory and features a unique layout and buttons that actually feel directly ripped out of an original Game Boy. Although it's an impressive show-piece, it's also not quite as comfortable as a standard SNES pad, as it's actually quite a bit bulkier (maybe in tribute to the gray brick).
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Speaking of adapters, PS2-to-GameCube controller adapters are actually quite cheap these days. A friend of mine does all of his retro Cubing using a PS1 controller and swears by it. It's easy to understand why as the PS1 controller certainly seems to have matured from the embryonic state of the SNES pad.
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Of course that same cheapo PS2 adapter means you could also track down the MadCatz Retrocon, which has a bit of a cult-following for PS2 retro-gamers. It's quite obviously modeled after the classic NES pad, but incorporates elements of the PS2 pad as well. It's made from a rubbery molding which although small, is also pretty comfortable and even offers up two analog controllers as well. Impressive.
So that about wraps it up, although there may be other options out there that I haven't myself tried. Does anybody else know of any hidden gems when it comes to retro controllers on the Cube?
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For the final month of 2010 the Together Retro game club at http://racketboy.com decided to travel all the way back to 1980 for the arcade classic Tempest. On first look Tempest seems overly simple with it's vector graphics and small color palette. But once you start to play the game you realize that it was actually rather ahead of its time. To start with the game is a Tube Shooter in which you pilot a ship that can actually rotate 360 degrees around the outside of the tube and fire into the vanishing point from where enemies materialize. Surprisingly the vector graphics really do create an impressive 3D feel once you submerge yourself into the game, although admittedly you really have to use your imagination to make anything out of the enemy shapes. As primitive as the whole thing appears, this game is certainly one for the hardcore. It is by no means simple, and requires constant shooting and dodging. When I first started playing the game I would often see GAME OVER in under a minute. However once you put some time into learning the nuances of the gameplay things start to make a certain sense. I can only imagine the quarters that were sunk into the arcade original while attempting to make sense of Tempest.
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In 2002 Tempest was ported to the Game Boy Advance as part of the wonderful Atari Anniversary Advance compilation. The GBA version looks and sounds great, and is almost arcade-perfect in execution. Of course there's one glaring omission from the GBA release: the rotary controller. My original plan was to purchase the Vaus rotary controller that was package with the NES version of Arkenoid and use it with the NES-to-GameCube controller adapter sold by http://retrousb.com. However, after doing a bit of research it became apparent that this would not work correctly due to some complicated analog stuff that I don't even fully understand. Having said that, I did get rather good at the game using a Hori pad. I did also test out using a GameCube steering wheel as an alternative to the rotary controller. Though the steering wheel didn't offer full 360 degrees freedom, it did have a certain arcade-style feel to it.
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Though the lack of rotary control is too bad, there is an exceptionally cool feature present in the GBA port of Tempest. If you hit the Select button the screen will actually rotate to display in a landscape presentation that actually represents the aspect-ratio of the original arcade cab. Now perhaps that was just a novelty on the Game Boy Advance hardware, but if you're playing it on a Game Boy Player and using a monitor that you can actually turn on its side, then this is actually pretty amazing.
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I should also mention that although the original Tempest has lots of sound effects, it is devoid of music during gameplay. If this bothers you at all then I have an excellent solution to offer up. In 1994 Tempest was remade as Tempest 2000 on the Atari Jaguar. The game is generally considered the absolute best game in the Jaguar catalog, and high on its list of credentials is its wonderful soundtrack. The Tempest 2000 soundtrack features a great mix of stereotypically awesome 90's techno, and it's also still easily available. There's something really great about playing an 80's arcade game while listening to 90's rave music made for a shooter imagining the year 2000.
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Even after a playing for a month I can hardly say I've mastered this game. But I do think it's a lot of fun, and can see myself playing it fairly often in the near future. Though I definitely got a lot better after a month of practice 77,380 is the best I could do. But there's much to be said for the fact that I loved every moment, no matter how difficult it was.
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A while back a friend of mine sent me a link for an old issue of Pocket Games that he found on eBay. Of course I'm a huge fan of books and magazines with a heavy Game Boy focus, so I made a lowball offer and ended up with a copy. As it turns out Pocket Games was actually a semi-yearly release by the staff of EGM. This Summer/Fall 1999 issue is presumably the first one, and is focused completely on the Game Boy Color, though later issues would branch out and cover various handheld systems. The more I've flipped through it in the past few months, the more I've realized how great a magazine it was.
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Though their reviews aren't extremely in-depth, they seem to be more honest and insightful than other multi-console magazines of the same time. This of course makes sense as at the time most video game magazines were interested in the sort of powerful graphics that would come from disc-based mediums and generally seemed to consider the cartridge a dying breed. However Pocket Games rather fairly compared GBC releases to other GBC releases rather than their console big brothers. But what's nice is that they also didn't sugar coat anything as Game Boy fanboys either. This particular issue finds them ripping apart Midway's GBC ports of Mortal Kombat 4 and NFL Blitz, but also pointing out the fine work that both Konami and Capcom had done with similarly challenging ports ultimately showing Midway as a bit lazy in learning the GBC's new and improved hardware.
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This particular issue also features a fifteen-page strategy guide for Pokemon Yellow, which actually sort of led to me finally seeing what was so enjoyable about the series. Though I've never been a huge fan, I decided that I'd follow the walkthrough included here and see what all the hype was really about. Since then I've played other games in the series, but Yellow (so far) remains a favorite of mine, as it has a certain streamlined quality to it, especially when compared to Red and Blue. But I digress, the point is that in this day and age of in-game walkthroughs and FAQs for every game being only a Google-search away, it's refreshing to instead have a dozen or so pages of in-depth help and wonderful pictures to just get you started in a game. Rather than showing you every last secret, these sort of walkthroughs were more for helping the player get sucked into a vast game. It reminds me of the early days of Nintendo Power, which is nice.
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This issue also features list of Pocket Games' Top 50 Games, which features both Game Boy and Game Boy Color releases. The list is actually pretty interesting, as the first thirty titles have full paragraph blurbs explaining their inclusion on the list, and the magazine was even thoughtful enough to include import-only titles as well. Though reprinting the entire list here would be a bit much, but for the curious here's their top ten as of Summer 1999:
1. Pokemon Red/Pokemon Blue
2. The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX
3. Tetris/Tetris DX
4. Metroid II: The Return Of Samus
5. Wario Land II
6. Donkey Kong
7. Super Mario Bros. Deluxe
8. Final Fantasy Legend (series)/Final Fantasy Adventure
9. Super Mario Land (series)
10. Mega Man (series)
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The back cover features a great Capcom advertisement for their then upcoming releases. The ad shows cover art for 1942, Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams, Ghost'N Goblins and most interestingly the unreleased port of Resident Evil that GBC fans were so excited about. Though Capcom would eventually release the amazing original game Resident Evil Gaiden, this promised demake of the first Resident Evil never saw the light of day. How awesome is that cover though?
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Also of interest is this particular review of the Hyper Zoom by Interact. Though the accessory itself is hardly worth noting, the picture of it is. Notice that the Game Boy Color seems to be running a version of the Sega Genesis RTS game Herzog Zwei. This picture drove me nuts and sent me on a crazy Google mission to find any mention of a planned GBC port of the game, but alas not even a passing mention could be found. It's a fair guess that for whatever reason the editors just decided to use a random screen in the picture, though it still seems odd to me that they wouldn't use a random screen from a GBC game instead!
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This first issue is still the only one that I have, though I do plan to start keeping my eyes peeled for others. I'm not quite sure how many issues were actually published, but I can find proof of at least an Issue #17 being released in the Spring of 2005. Are there any avid readers of this magazine out there? Any favorite issues or features in particular?
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I've been playing through a GBA shmup lately called World Reborn. The game is actually a really intriguing mix of not only shooting, but also RPG elements as well. Although Namco's Sigma Star Saga was a rather brilliant merging of similar genres, I never found it all that great of a game personally. But World Reborn just seems to get everything right.
First of all as a horizontal shmup, it plays well. The controls are good, the music is excellent, the graphics are a throwback to golden-age 16-bit shooters, the power-ups are plenty and the bullets are from hell. Though it's not up to the perfection of say Iridion II, it basically offers up everything a fan of retro shmups could want.
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On the RPG side of things you have several pilots to choose from for each level, and each can select which ship to take. Each ship and pilot have different stats that can be leveled up each time they're used. This adds an interesting depth to the game because you can choose to stick with one pilot and one ship and just max them out, or create a strategy to level up more than one for more balance in differently-suited levels. Maybe it's going a bit overboard to say that World Reborn is also an RPG though. If anything it's actually a bit closer to a visual novel. Between levels dialogue-heavy cut-scenes propel the story forward, but the level-route isn't linear. Instead you can choose which level to go to next in a sort of choose-your-own-adventure fork-in-the-road kind of way.
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To say that World Reborn must be tried by all GBA shmup fans is an understatement. However, here's where the game's major problem comes up: it was never released. Although a 100% finished game exists, the game never actually made it to retail. This is majorly sad, and it's my hope that bringing awareness of this fantastic game into light could perhaps rectify this. With wonderful outlets like Homebrew Heaven out there, it would seem that even a limited run of this game would be a belated gift for GBA enthusiasts out there such as we.
So here's everything I know from googling and pulling bits of the developer's defunct website up using http://archive.org's Wayback Machine:
The game was designed by a development group known as NeoPong. As far as I can tell, this is the only finished title that this particular team created. Presumably they own the rights to the game as their website actually officially hosted a free download of the ROM at a time. The game was to be published by Destination Software, who is probably better known as DSI Games who was also responsible for publishing the GBA port of R-Type III. I can't seem to find any history of why the game was canceled though, so it's unknown if Destination retained any rights.
From my research I believe this is the full team of NeoPong:
Charles Galyor - lead designer/president
Robert Dean - lead programmer
Kirby Thornton - programmer
Bertrand Dupuy - artist
Eric Stamm - musician
If anybody happens to know any of these guys, I'd love to know more of the story behind the abandonment of World Reborn. I think it would be amazing if there could be even a small release of this game to finally see itself materialize in cartridge form. I suppose the biggest factor would be determining if the demand exists for such a release, though.
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Posted on Dec 2nd 2010 at 05:43:15 AM by ( noiseredux) Posted under news |
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I would never use this blog as a means of plugging an auction under normal circumstances, but the Racketboy forum is currently hosting a charity auction to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Seeing as how we video game collectors are adults that are often attempting to hang on to a happy childhood through our hobby, it's important to remember the children who aren't making such happy memories. If you head over to the Racketboy forums you can take a look at the full auction details. The auction thread is here: http://racketboy.com/foru...iewtopic.php?f=15&t=26581
Fans of the Game Boy Player Land blog may want to check out Lot #162 (pictured above):
162. noiseredux's Growing Lot of GB/GBC/GBA Stuff
Amazing Spider-Man (GB), Antz Extreme Racing (GBA), Asteroids (GBC), Baseball (GB), Bionic Commando Elite Forces (GBC), Mortal Kombat II (GB), Solar Striker (GB), Star Wars Attack Of The Clones (GBA), Star Wars Trilogy Apprentice Of The Force (GBA), boxed GB Printer (feed drive seems jammed?), GB Printer paper (sealed), Nintendo Winter 2002 catalog (GCN/GBA), Pokemon Gold Japanese box & manual only, Purple GBC replacement case, 13 GB cartridge cases, 9 GB/GBC/GBA manuals, GBA SP box, Dialhex box, handful of possibly non-working GB games AND WHATEVER ELSE I CAN FIND TO INCLUDE
November's pick for the Together Retro game club over at http://racketboy.com was Adventure Island, a game with a rather infamously confusing history. To make an extremely long story short, Adventure Island is technically just the first Wonder Boy game but with completely different sprites. After the first game(s), each series began its own equally confusing lineage of games. Though no Wonder Boy games were released for any Game Boy systems, there were a handful of Adventure Island releases, so let's take a look at each.
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Adventure Island was released on the Game Boy in 1992, however it's really not a port of the original Adventure Island as much as it's a variation on the second NES game. For instance this title features dinosaurs that Master Higgins can ride on, a device that was not present in the first NES game. Similarly, many of the levels found here are based on levels from the second game. Though in true Hudson fashion, the levels in the Game Boy game are redesigned rather than directly pulled from the NES release.
The game controls quite well, and is actually very long with a full seven islands to conquer. It's definitely a game that will take you a full afternoon to beat, although considering the length of the quest some sort of save feature would have been a welcome addition. The graphics are excellent though, with extremely detailed and expressive sprites. Again, this is a hallmark of many Hudson Game Boy releases.
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Adventure Island II: Aliens In Paradise is a mostly original game (with a completely original subtitle) that is also somewhat influenced by the third NES release. Strangely I felt like the controls were actually less accurate in this release than in the first Game Boy game. But the graphics and music are excellent and feature an overworld map similar to games like Super Mario World. Also the inclusion of a password feature to resume your game is definitely appreciated as this one is a pretty long one like the first.
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In 2004 Adventure Island was ported to the Game Boy Advance as part of the Famicom Mini series, which was Japan's version of our NES Classic series. Fittingly, this port of Adventure Island is actually just an emulated version of the Famicom release, the only difference being a bit of cropping due to the resolution of the GBA's screen.
This was the first time I had ever spent any serious amount of time playing Adventure Island, and I must say it's an overly brutal game. Of course it comes across as a generic platformer in the vein of Super Mario Bros., but it's difficulty often hovers just around "unfair." The biggest dilemma is that of speed. You see there is a timer constantly ticking down, forcing you to speed through the level. However, running causes you to slide when landing jumps which makes already sketchy platforming areas dreadful. Likewise, since only one hit from an enemy kills you, going too fast leaves a lot of room for error. To make matters worse, there are no continues. You get three lives and then a GAME OVER. Luckily there is a trick out there to get unlimited continues. But even once you've discovered that, this game is highly frustrating. I myself didn't have the motivation to stick with it until the end.
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In 2006 Hudson released a GBA cartridge in Japan as part of their Hudson Best series that actually featured all four Famicom Adventure Island games in a single release. As you might imagine this one is extremely sought after in the US considering it's a compilation of four games. Not to mention the fact that Adventure Island IV had never been brought to the US, even in the NES days. I personally can't comment on this release since I don't have a copy, but I'd be willing to guess that it's a pretty straight forward emulation of the Famicom titles.
So there you have it. A whole lot of Adventure Island in portable form. Let me know what you all think of any of these titles. Oh, and if anyone has that Hudson Best cart that they want to part with, feel free to let me know!
[img width=600 height=300]http://www.thecoverproject.net/images/covers/gb_megaman3_2_thumb.jpg[/img]
The Cover Project is an amazing website that archives (you guessed it) covers for video games ranging the gamut of systems. However what's great about these covers is that they're not just straight up scans, they are actually reformatted to fit into different sized cases. For instance disc-based games are either available to be printed out to fit into CD jewel cases or DVD cases. Most cartridge based games are sized to fit into universal game cases. But of course what's most important to this blog is that there is an archive of Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance titles that are meant to fit into Nintendo DS cases. As you may be well aware DS cases have a slot to hold a GBA cartridge already. But three quick slices from a box-cutter can open it up to fit GB/GBC carts as well. This is great news for GB collectors as the great majority of GB/GBC/GBA carts found in the wild are just that: carts. No manual, no box. By visiting The Cover Project it's now possible to create an impressive looking library of games on a shelf that can be kept in alphabetical order with manuals packed-in. This certainly looks much better than piles of loose carts. Not to mention that once you hit the hundred mark and beyond, it gets exponentially more challenging to locate the cartridge that you're looking for in a pile.
[img width=700 height=393]http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z251/Lumberjack42_cjp/FFSpines.jpg[/img]
As you can see from the image above, the ultimate advantage is that you will have a great looking streamlined GB collection. One where GB, GBC, GBA and even e-Reader titles sit snugly together. I've personally been doing this myself for the past couple of years. Every now and again I order a few boxes of DS cases from the Nintendo store, pick up a fresh pack of paper and ink from the office supply store and spend a couple of hours getting more of my stray carts into cases. It's always really exciting to add more cased games to the shelves.
However there is a bit of a problem, dear readers. And that's where you all come in. Since the "death" of the Game Boy Advance in 2007 I've noticed a steady decline in new GB/GBC/GBA submissions at The Cover Project. To illustrate my point, currently there are 146 original Game Boy covers available. To put that in perspective there were 506 licensed carts released in the United States, so 146 is really a pretty small portion of the library, not to mention if you take into account unlicensed games and the vast array of imports available. I know I personally have somewhere in the neighborhood of at least fifty carts that have yet to be added to The Cover Project. And so far there have only been eleven new covers added to the archive for the Game Boy in 2010. That's one a month. Which means we're a long way off.
So I'm asking for all you Game Boy Player Land enthusiasts out there to go through your collections and see what boxes you have that you could possibly scan and add to the archive. You don't even need to be artful enough to reformat these scans to the DS cover template, though of course that's a plus. But even scanning the front, back, and spine of the box and uploading them to the archive for others to finish will be a huge help. I know there's a community of GB-collectors out there that wish that had a case to put their games in, so it would mean a lot to more than just me.
links:
The Cover Project: http://www.thecoverproject.net/index.php
GB Archive: http://www.thecoverproject.net/view.php?cat_id=12
GBC Archive: http://www.thecoverproject.net/view.php?cat_id=14
GBA Archive: http://www.thecoverproject.net/view.php?cat_id=13
GBAV Archive: http://www.thecoverproject.net/view.php?cat_id=20
e-Reader Thread: http://www.thecoverprojec...ums/index.php?topic=915.0
Scanning Guide: http://www.thecoverprojec...ums/index.php?topic=915.0
Templates: http://www.thecoverprojec...ms/index.php?topic=1610.0
DS Case Guide: http://www.thecoverprojec...ms/index.php?topic=1866.0
Being a collector means that the internet is both your best friend and worst enemy. For every cheap game you're able to find on eBay or great trade through a message-board there's another elusive and expensive rarity out there taunting you. These are the kind of items that we didn't even know existed because we've never seen them mentioned before. So stumbling upon them feels like you're in on a special secret. That's exactly how I felt when I discovered the Konami Hyper Boy a few weeks ago.
[img width=300 height=400]http://imgur.com/Fawugl.jpg[/img] [img width=300 height=400]http://imgur.com/EQm5Ql.jpg[/img]
The Hyper Boy was a unique accessory that Konami released in Japan for the original Game Boy. The idea is that the Game Boy would slip inside of the Hyper Boy and be turned into a tiny arcade machine. This is certainly novel, and of course appeals to fans of Game Boy shmups such as myself.
[img width=300 height=400]http://imgur.com/TJdL4l.jpg[/img] [img width=300 height=400]http://imgur.com/Y5Rjll.jpg[/img]
The unit itself runs on two D batteries, which as you might imagine add up to a considerable weight when coupled with the Hyper Boy and Game Boy (which already has its own four AA batteries inside). Sadly the Hyper Boy does not offer an AC Adapter option, which means those D batteries are your only option to power it. Luckily the Game Boy's AC port is still reachable though.
[img width=300 height=400]http://imgur.com/XoiGll.jpg[/img] [img width=300 height=400]http://imgur.com/fyylpl.jpg[/img]
Besides the obvious addition of an arcade stick rather than D-pad, the Hyper Boy also incorporates a magnifying screen and front-light as well as an amplified speaker. Interestingly the arcade stick even has separate settings for four or eight directional controls.
[img width=300 height=400]http://imgur.com/D6eeDl.jpg[/img] [img width=300 height=400]http://imgur.com/gyHlBl.jpg[/img]
Of course the real question is how well does it work? Well first off the magnification and light certainly helps the screen out, but it certainly can't deliver any miracles. The classic Game Boy screen is still going to be a challenge if you don't get the contrast just right. The added speaker on the other hand works quite well. It actually adds a nice bit of clarity and strength to the output. As far as the arcade stick goes, it's by no means arcade quality but it definitely does the job. The eight-way setting feels comfortable and loose enough on shmups like Konami's own Nemesis.
[img width=300 height=400]http://imgur.com/JF39al.jpg[/img] [img width=300 height=400]http://imgur.com/nS6xEl.jpg[/img]
Though this accessory is far from perfect, it's also ridiculously unique. It was obviously made for a very niche audience, of which I'm definitely in attendance. Perhaps it's not the kind of device that every gamer would drool over, but for someone like me with such an affection for Game Boy shmups it's one of the crowning pieces in my collection.
Gaming websites are currently all going nuts celebrating the "25th Anniversary" of Mario. Of course we all know that Mario (as "Jumpman") has actually been around a bit longer than the NES, but really the birthday is in celebration of Super Mario Bros., undoubtedly an important game as it may have single-handedly rescued video games from the fallout of E.T. Or whatever other urban legend you feel is responsible for the great video game crash that left the landscape baron until the NES and its pack-in game Super Mario Bros. changed everything.
Personally I already had some gaming exposure before Mario hit it big on the NES. When I was a mere toddler my dad got me a Commodore 64 and a slew of educational titles in hopes that playing games on a TV might help me learn. And just before the NES became a household appliance, I also found myself the proud owner of a hand-me-down Atari 2600 and box of random games. But like many others my age, it was seeing that first Super Mario Bros. game at a friend's house that had me begging my parents for a NES, and beginning a longtime interest in video games. With all of this in mind, I thought it would be appropriate for the Game Boy Player Land blog to spend some time looking at the history of Super Mario platformers available on the various Game Boy systems.
[img width=300 height=300]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-069/bf/U-069-S-03700-A.jpg[/img] [img width=300 height=300]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-074/bf/U-074-S-00730-A.jpg[/img]
The classic Super Mario Bros. was made available twice for Game Boy fans. In 2000 it was released as Super Mario Bros. Deluxe on the Game Boy Color. This is actually a bit of a remake as it features an overhead map view between levels, much like in Super Mario Bros. 3 and some enhanced graphics. However the biggest change in presentation is that holding Up or Down on the control pad will scroll the screen up or down. This is due to the change in screen resolution from the original NES version to the GBC version. For some gamers this subtle change is totally game-breaking, while others find it perfectly fine. I personally am somewhere in the middle. I'm not crazy about the screen-scroll, but the cartridge is a fine release, plus it includes The Lost Levels as a bonus (see below).
Super Mario Bros. was then ported to the Game Boy Advance in 2004 as part of the Classic NES Series. This edition is a rather perfect port of the original NES title with no enhancements whatsoever. This edition will surely appeal more to purists, although it's a lot more expensive to hunt down and has no extra's like the GBC Deluxe release. Though it must be said that the game really does look excellent while taking up the full GBA screen.
[img width=300 height=300]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-074/bf/U-074-S-04880-A.jpg[/img]
Super Mario Bros. 2 was released as a launch title for the Game Boy Advance under the perplexing and annoyingly new title Super Mario Advance. This version is based on the Super Mario All-Stars version originally released on the SNES. There's two major differences in this release from the SNES version. First is that it features a much-needed save feature. This is good. Second, all four characters now have added voices which are used way too often. This is bad. But if you can get past the voices, this is a great port of a great game. (And like all the Super Mario Advance titles, it includes the original Mario Bros. as a bonus.)
[img width=300 height=300]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-069/bf/U-069-S-03700-A.jpg[/img] [img width=200 height=300]http://imgur.com/ZMC7Rl.jpg[/img]
The "real" Super Mario Bros. 2, known here in the US as The Lost Levels found two different releases on Game Boy systems. The GBC cart Super Mario Bros. Deluxe actually featured it as an unlockable once you beat the first game. This two-for-one fact alone makes Deluxe a total necessity. This port of Lost Levels also features the scroll up/down feature found in the GBC version of the first game, and is also supposedly slightly easier, which in a sense defeats the purpose of the game's existence.
The game was also released as part of the Famicom Mini series of Game Boy Advance games in Japan. The Famicom Mini series was Japan's version of the US Classic NES series. Much like you might expect, this GBA version is an exact port of the Famicom version of the game. As such it's completely sought after by collectors, and considerably pricey to import.
[img width=300 height=300]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-074/bf/U-074-S-04890-A.jpg[/img]
Super Mario Bros. 3 was re-released as the fourth volume in the stupidly out-of-chronological-order Super Mario Advance series on the GBA. This one is also based on the SNES All-Stars port of the game, and also features some added annoying voice work. However, this particular release is the most interesting of all the titles released in this series due to its compatibility with the Nintendo e-Reader. If you can find the e-cards, there are actually ten additional levels that can be played for the first time in Super Mario Bros. 3. Think of it as a very early experiment in DLC. Considering this is one of the greatest games ever made, this should get at least some of you out there hunting for e-cards.
[img width=300 height=300]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-074/bf/U-074-S-04900-A.jpg[/img]
Super Mario World was the 2nd GBA release in the Super Mario Advance series, and the porting from the SNES to the GBA looks excellent. Perhaps I'm slightly biased because it happens to be my absolute favorite 2D Mario game of all time. So I'm not sure there's much I can tell you, other than it's basically a close to perfect port of the SNES game. And that's a good thing. (Oh, and there's still some stupid voice work.)
[img width=300 height=300]http://imgur.com/rBNwQl.jpg[/img]
The sometimes overlooked Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island was also released as part of the GBA Super Mario Advance series. However it strangely dropped the "Super Mario World 2" part of its title upon re-release. Having said that, this game looks staggeringly good on the Game Boy Advance. Many gamers missed the original game as it appeared very late in the SNES' lifespan, which is too bad as it basically showed off a lot of graphical effects that most people probably didn't realize that the SNES was capable of. On the same token, although the GBA is technically more powerful than the SNES, somehow this title still looks astonishing in this re-release. It's a huge bonus that the game is an epic, challenging and quirky adventure that is as addicting as it is fun.
[img width=300 height=300]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-037/bf/U-037-S-04360-A.jpg[/img]
Super Mario Land was actually a launch title for the original Game Boy. As such it is often overlooked as a "dated" entry in the series. However really it's a totally unique and amazing title. Sure it's way too short. But it's also full of incredible music, interesting levels (including shmup-inspired ones) and weird enemies. It's a bit of a black-sheep in the series, much like the US Super Mario Bros. 2, but both titles are deserving of respect based on their own unique merits.
[img width=300 height=300]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-037/bf/U-037-S-04370-A.jpg[/img]
The second Super Mario Land is one of those Game Boy games that even Game Boy detractors have to admit is amazing. It's a huge game full of the kind of characters and well thought out levels you would have been expecting on the SNES at the time. This game is ridiculously awesome, allowing you to roam the overworld map and tackle the levels in any order you wish. Each world has its own theme and each is full of references to other extremes of the series. This one is amazing.
[img width=300 height=300]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-037/bf/U-037-S-04380-A.jpg[/img]
I originally planned to not mention this one, as it's really far more the first game in the Wario Land series than it is the third game in the Mario Land series. But alas, I knew if I left it out I'd be left with a lot of angry comments and maybe a decapitated Koopa left in my bed. In my own personal opinion, Wario Land is the definition of a "transitional game." It's nowhere near as good as the Mario Land games that preceded it, nor is it as genre-defying as the Wario Land sequels that would follow it. Really it's just a pretty run of the mill platformer with some decent ideas that would be fleshed out later.
Phew. Well there we have it. Of course there are a million other Mario-related games on the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance and e-Reader, but going through everything is far beyond the scope of this post. I may try to outline some of the fringe releases later, namely the sports titles and so on. But please feel free to use the comments section below to add your own personal thoughts, memories, etc on these titles!
[img width=640 height=426]http://imgur.com/IqzvXl.jpg[/img]
September 2010 saw the release of the first mass-produced Game Boy Color homebrew cartridge that I know of, a Puzzler called Chunkout. This is really a pretty big deal. Slowly Game Boy Advance homebrew carts are becoming more and more common, but a Game Boy Color release seems almost unheard of. The truth is that just the historical aspect of this release would have made it a must-have for me anyway, but it so happens I love GBC Puzzlers. So bonus! When it arrived in my mailbox last month I have to say that it was one of the most impressive unboxings for a homebrew release that I've ever experienced.
[img width=640 height=426]http://imgur.com/cPx1Gl.jpg[/img]
The work that went into producing these games is amazing. It's almost hard to believe that these were assembled by hand. Opening up that box -- which was incredible to see a new boxed GBC in 2010 -- it was great to see the colorful manual, and pristine little "Game" cartridge. There's no doubt that Chunkout is an immense labor of love. This is a release for GG-freaks, by GB-freaks.
[img width=200 height=200]http://chunkout.com/images/gameboy/chunkouttitle.png[/img] [img width=200 height=200]http://chunkout.com/images/gameboy/chunkout.png[/img]
Chunkout is a classic block-Puzzler that involves dissolving clusters of like-colored blocks in the hopes that you won't be left with a single block. The game is far more difficult than it sounds, and will really work out your brain. Its gameplay offers up a rather quick thrust of complete addiction. It's a fantastic release that all Game Boy Color puzzle fans should seek out fast, as the initial (and possibly only) run is limited to 100 copies.
http://chunkout.com/
[img width=300 height=300]http://imgur.com/RVG0n.jpg[/img]
Back in 2003 composer Manfred Linzer released a CD entitled Iridion 3D & II Perfect Selection, which as you might guess compiled the music from the two Game Boy Advance Iridion games. Now as a huge fan of Game Boy related Shmups, this was a huge deal to me when I found out that such a CD existed. Unfortunately my quest led me to the realization that the soundtrack was only released in Germany, in small numbers and it's pretty impossible to find now anywhere. However Mr. Linzer himself pointed me to the fact that the entire soundtrack had been digitally re-released this very year. So with that in mind I urge you all to go download this badboy. Though certainly I would prefer a physical copy, this is still a must-have release in any format you can find it. And it's important to support someone who put so much work into such a fun game (Iridion II is unbelievable -- I know I've plugged it before, but if you haven't played it yet I'm not sure what you're waiting for).
You can download the soundtrack here:
http://www.amazon.com/Iri...sic&qid=1288657401&sr=8-1
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ManfredLinzner
http://www.emusic.com/alb...P3-Download/11981854.html
[img width=300 height=300]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-074/bf/U-074-S-02070-A.jpg[/img]
The Together Retro game club over at http://racketboy.com played a double feature for October that consisted of King Of The Monsters (Genesis, Neo Geo, SNES) and Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee (GameCube, PS2, XBox). Of course I gave both titles a chance. You see I'm not only an avid participator in the Together Retro game club -- I'm also a big Godzilla fan, so a double feature of giant monster games seemed like a blast to me. Unfortunately neither game really blew me away all that much.
King Of The Monsters I had played before in its Genesis incarnation around the time it originally was released. I remember not being too enthused back then, but figured I'd give it another shot. Basically it came off as a wrestling game, only you were a giant lizard or monster and instead of a ring you fought on top of a city. The idea is certainly cool, but there's a few things that I didn't care for about it. First of all, it's almost annoying that the few characters to choose from are so obviously meant to be Godzilla-like characters. Instead they're just second-rate Kaiju-wannabes. Not to mention that there's very little distinction from one character to the next. Unlike in a game like Street Fighter where character selection is important, the move set is so similar from character to character in King Of The Monsters that it's almost uninteresting. But worse of all is the controls. I just don't feel like the controls are responsive, or well thought out. Ultimately King Of The Fighters falls into the old button-mashing category.
As far as Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee goes, it at least sidestepped many of the mistakes that King Of The Monsters made. Of course the big draw is that the Godzilla license is present here. Once you unlock them all in story mode, there's a pretty hefty roster of Kaiju to choose from, which is awesome. And although there's no denying that the graphics in this game are breathtaking, I personally preferred the 2D charm of King Of The Fighters. Of course graphics are something I can always get by as long as the game is good, but ultimately I really found the controls here overwhelming. I also found the monsters to move too sluggishly, which I suppose is more realistic but not really as fun. Add to that the cheapness of the AI, which meant that I was often being ravaged in Round 2.
Oh if only there was a game that took all the awesome stuff from these two titles and avoided all the crap! If only there was a 2D melee Fighter that used real Godzilla monsters and had excellent controls! If only there was a game where I could play as King Ghidorah!
Most likely you realize that I'm getting around to the fact that there is such a game. And if you read the title of this blog post then you may have guessed that it's called Godzilla: Domination! and it was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2002.
[img width=300 height=200]http://imgur.com/lvWHd.jpg[/img] [img width=300 height=200]http://imgur.com/QohmN.jpg[/img]
Yes that's right, Godzilla: Domination rules. You get to play as the king lizard himself along with the aforementioned and ridiculously awesome King Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, Mecha-King Ghidorah, Megalon, Mothra and Rodan. Each of them has their own specific special moves, which is useful while pummeling other monsters all over the globe. The graphics are fantastic. They resemble the 16-bit King Of The Monsters style quite a bit, but are far more detailed on the 32-bit hardware with no sign of slowdown even during four-way melee action. Bottom line: this game is great. Go get it!
[img width=300 height=200]http://imgur.com/YClFr.jpg[/img] [img width=300 height=200]http://imgur.com/e6lJv.jpg[/img]
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