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Take it away, KC!

Don’t ever call me that again. If you thought jumping over barrels was hard, just wait’ll you feel the business end of my cane across the backside of your head!

Anywho, I’m here today to talk to you about a growing problem which affects all of us: Gamers today are too spoiled when it comes to ports!

Y’see, back in my day, we didn’t have all these fancy chips and computer whatchamadoos that could bring arcade games home perfectly! We were thankful to get a version of a game we could play at home at all, even if it wasn’t quite as pretty as the stuff at the local arcade, and we liked ’em, too! Preferred ’em, even!

Just look at those Contrary boys! Sure, the arcade game had more colors, and you could tell which one was Bimmy and which one was Jimmy even if you were colorblind, but the NES version? That one had heart! (And a 30-life code.)

And how about those Teeny Muted Ninny Turduckens?! Sure, they had voices in the arcade, but you shouldn’t need to have everything read to ya’! Open a book or maybe a good game magazine now and again, maybe you’ll learn yourself something! What’s more, the NES game only let you have two players, but gave you two more exclusive stages in the process. Now that’s what I call a deal! ‘Sides, you probably didn’t have four friends to play with, anyway. That’s why all the good consoles have only two controller ports!

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, trade-offs! Sometimes you’ve gotta give a little to get a little!

Now look at this. Thinga beauty, ain’t it? That chiselled jaw, that sculpted physique. Looks just like the arcade experience, but y’know what it took? It took getting only three-quarters of the whole game to make it work, but we were glad to get that much!

Then we have the kids today, who whine if maybe there aren’t as many pol.. poly… fancy triangles making up a character, or cry if the textiles look a little blurry, or lose their minds if puddles don’t look wet enough. You know what water looked like in my day? Blue and white, and that’s it! Maybe some black if the artist wanted t’be fancy about it. Don’t know how lucky you have it…

AND DON’T GET ME STARTED ON SAVE POI

It’s at this point we had to take the typewriter away from our guest, who walked away muttering under his breath about how he had better things to be doing anyway. We hope you enjoyed this special guest feature.

The post Rant: Gamers Today are Spoiled When It Comes to Ports appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

It’s not for nothing, but outside of high definition re-releases of the original Nintendo 64 games on Xbox 360 (subsequently repackaged with 28 other titles in Rare Replay), the only time the company has really gone to bat for the bird and the bear was in 2008’s Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts on the Xbox 360 (also packaged in Rare Replay). Suffice to say, the drastic change in direction, both in gameplay and art style, did little to placate fans.

As a result, it should be little surprise to hear that after ten years (and a recent appearance in their classic forms as downloadable characters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch), some fans are ready to take matters into their own hands.

Enter: “Banjo-Kazooie: Worlds Collide,” a ROM hack by one “Bynine B.” This hack has nine new worlds at the ready for players to explore, each inspired by the duo’s past adventures, combining previous elements to create something new. For instance, Rich Ruin Cove takes the Aztec aesthetic of the Mayahem Temple from Banjo-Tooie and combines it with the sands of the original game’s Treasure Trove Cove. Even the music is mixed!

Despite borrowing elements from both N64 installments, “Banjo-Kazooie: Worlds Collide” is a modification of the first game, meaning that only the moves featured in that game are applicable here. That said, it differs from the source material by being less of a collectathon than the games which inspired it.

For a more in-depth look at the game, N64 Today is a bit more thorough, and if you’d like to try the hack for yourself, you’ll find the file here, and it’s said that it will even run on original Nintendo 64 hardware using an Everdrive.

Finally, if you just want to check out the soundtrack, Bynine B has put together a whole playlist:

Source: Nintendo Enthusiast

The post Worlds Collide in Fan-Made Banjo-Kazooie ROM Hack appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Despite being a name that would no doubt perk a few ears up when mentioned in the years following the NES’s dominance, Nintendo didn’t really do much to follow it up until the turn of the century and Excitebike 64 on the Nintendo 64. At least, that’s how it appeared to most players on this side of the ocean; over in Japan, it was a different story entirely.

In addition to an arcade and Famicom Disk System release (both titled Vs. Excitebike), Nintendo would release a sequel of sorts for the 16-bit Super Famicom via the Broadcast Satellaview add-on. But unlike the original, you might say this one had a little bit more “character.” Mario characters, specifically, who took to the titular two-wheelers for a spin around a Piranha Plant-lined track for the amusement of a raucous crowd of Chomps, Boos, and Shy Guys.

Excitebike: Bun Bun Mario Battle Stadium was released in four installments, with the first two arriving in May of 1997, and the last two in November of that same year. As with all Broadcast Satellaview games, players had to be present during scheduled broadcasting times in order to play the game.

The first installment came with Mario, Luigi, and Toad as selectable racers, with Wario and red and green Koopa Troopas filling out the rest of the 8-racer pack. Mario’s greedy doppelganger would become playable in the second installment, while Princess Peach was added in the third, and the fourth and final version would add Yoshi, but at the cost of Luigi. Guess some of those Troopas just had more pull at the time (little surprise, given Luigi was left out of Super Mario 64 and all but excluded from Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars).

As is the norm with these Broadcast Satellaview titles, this has yet to be made available in any official capacity outside of Japan (though some folks have worked around that). Excitebike would return to using normal human racers in its Nintendo 64 and WiiWare follow-ups, but some small vestiges of the game’s legacy can still be seen to this day.

In Mario Kart Wii, motorcycles were introduced to the series, and the Standard Bike frames are believed to be reminiscent of those seen in Excitebike. If that’s not enough, then Mario Kart 8 added an entire track based on the original game, “Excitebike Arena,” as downloadable content.

It may not be lined by Piranha Plants, but you can still recreate part of the Satellaview experience in 3D, if you so desire — and Luigi can join again, too!

The post Secret Sequels: The Games of Satellaview – Excitebike: Bun Bun Mario Battle Stadium appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

On October 8th, the folks over at Playtonic Games released a follow-up to their inaugural title, Yooka-Laylee, called Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. Unlike that 2017 release, however, this was intended less as a spiritual successor to 3D collectathons such as Rare’s Banjo-Kazooie, and more in line with their earlier 2D outings with the Donkey Kong Country series. And to that end, it includes a neat little Easter Egg as a throwback to that partnership with Nintendo.

Image via USgamer

One of the many items you can collect in the game is a Tonic called “GB Colour,” which provides a filter for the game which calls back to the original Game Boy, including a lower resolution and that iconic green hue. However, it’s more than just a simple callback to the 8-bit handheld, as the translation of Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair‘s visuals calls back to a specific trilogy of games, or at least one in particular.

Released in June of 1995, Donkey Kong Land was Rare’s first experiment with attempting the same style of pre-rendered graphics they’d used in Donkey Kong Country for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System on much weaker hardware — and hardware that could only grant them four colors, at that. The initial results were simultaneously impressive to see in action, yet a bit muddy as well.

Donkey Kong Land is often looked down upon as being a mere downgraded port of its Super NES big brother, and while that’s the case to varying degrees for its two follow-ups (Donkey Kong Land 2 attempted to be more faithful to Diddy’s Kong Quest, whereas Donkey Kong Land 3 chiefly borrowed the cast and premise), the reality is that it’s a wholly original game. It features an original story about the oft-meta Cranky Kong challenging Donkey and Diddy to retrieve their banana hoard on a less-powerful system, and the adventure features some unique settings and characters, not the least of which is the urban world of Big Ape City (seen at right, above) — stated to be the setting of the original Donkey Kong, decades before Super Mario Odyssey decided to revise Nintendo history.

While “classic” might be a strong word for it, the new material nevertheless makes Donkey Kong Land worth a look (and, if we’re being honest, maybe a remake as well), and you can check it out for only $3.99 USD on the Nintendo 3DS eShop.

The post Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair’s Callback to an Overlooked Game Boy Classic appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

As it turns out, that’s not all he’s been up to. As has been recently turned up, Lopez has another neat little side project going on.

Fans of Mario during the 80’s may remember a very different plumber than the one we see smashing other Nintendo characters or going on odysseys today. As the star of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! (a part live-action, part animated show produced by DiC), our hero was voiced by none other than wrestling legend Captain Lou Albano, and had an insatiable hunger for any and every type of pasta imaginable, happily chasing it down with tomato sauce by the gallon.

It was a different time.

Nintendo never made a video game based on the popular cartoon (even after spinning off into The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 on NBC Saturday mornings, the show continued in syndication and even received a notorious “Club Mario” update that replaced the live-action segments with different live-action segments), but that hasn’t stopped Lopez from trying his artistic hand at it in his spare time. The result is something rather remarkable, as we can see in this latest update:

The game (such as it is at the moment) uses the character models of Mario, Little Goomba, and Koopa Troopa from the cartoon show, which differ from most of Nintendo’s marketing materials of the time (though occasionally the cartoon version of Bowser, aka “King Koopa” as they called him, would creep out from time to time). The animations are original, though some (such as Mario shooting fireballs by pointing) are based on what’s seen in the show.

The stage itself is based on World 1-1 from the original Super Mario Bros. and sports background music from the show, while the setting itself is that of Pasta Land, which appeared twice over the course of the series (Episode #20 – “The Pied Koopa” and Episode #30 – “Mario and the Red Baron Koopa,” for those interested). The castle at the end is even based on one seen in the show’s intro:

While the software of the day would not have been able to replicate the details of the cartoon to such a degree as this demo, more modern titles such as Lopez’s body of work (including Shantae 1/2 Genie Hero, The Simpsons Tapped Out, and the aforementioned DuckTales Remastered) or even Nintendo’s own Wario Land: Shake It!! (which is actually more than a decade old now) show it could easily be done today. As it stands, a lot of fans have grown weary of the “new” look of 2D Mario in the New Super Mario Bros. series. Areas such as Painted Swampland in New Super Mario Bros. U being praised for how refreshingly distinct they are, while simultaneously being decried for their brevity.

Aside from a re-release of that game and the recent Super Mario Maker 2, Nintendo’s future plans for the style of Mario gameplay we fell in love with all the way back in 1985 (or thereabouts) remain unknown. The unlikelihood of them basing a new one on The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! is so high as to be astronomical, but nevertheless, wouldn’t it be nice to see something with this level of creativity injected into the series?

As far as this project is concerned, however, it seems that it will have to continue being admired from afar; while Lopez only says he won’t be “selling” the game and that it’s only a personal project to help keep his skills sharp, it seems unlikely that it will be released into the wild, and understandably so — if there’s one thing many a fan game creator has learned over the years, it’s that Nintendo’s lawyers aren’t to be trifled with.

With that said, if you’d like to see more of the project and how it’s come along since its early days a few years ago, here are the other videos Lopez has featured on his channel:

• Part 1. Super Mario Bros. super show video game – Art Animation
• Part 2. Super Mario Bros. super show video game.
• Super Mario/ Runaway Brain video game update.
• Super Mario Super Show Update!!! Princess Peach

SwankyBox also has a video with a clearer, direct-capture look at the stage as well, plus their own analysis:

Source: Kotaku

The post Hey, Paisanos! It’s The Super Mario Bros. Super Show Video Game! appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Recently, retrogaming “preservationist, restorer, hobby sw + hw engineer” Shane Battye got their hands on the prototype Nintendo Ultra 64 controller — the black one shown off in early images and at trade shows during that prolonged period between Nintendo revealing the console and actually getting it to market.

A prototype Ultra 64 controller thread…

It houses a thumbstick significantly different to the final retail version and first appeared in a black and white press release photo alongside the Ultra 64 (#Nintendo64) back in 1995. So let’s ‘crack’ it open and see what’s inside… pic.twitter.com/lj3PhSzOEQ

— Shane Battye (@shanebattye) September 21, 2019

Right on the face of it, you can see several differences between what Nintendo would show and what we would ultimately get. Instead of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) grey of the pack-in controller, this one sported a black finish which matched well with the console itself. And while Nintendo would release a black version of their controller, it nevertheless still differed from what is shown above by way of the analog stick and its rainbow-colored face buttons, which itself are marked and placed slightly differently.

The analog stick itself features an indentation on the top, rather than the circular ribbing of the final version. Surrounding the stick are several notches, which provide a nice visual cue as to the greater degree of movement it could provide versus a Dpad, though this was not included in the final, either.

Perhaps conspicuous by its absence in these early marketing materials is the connector which plugs the controller in to the front of the console, and there is apparently a reason for that:

But before we do, let’s zoom out a bit and check out the connector. This isn’t a normal N64 plug; it’s an RJ-11 connector.
This might explain in part why the press release photo of this controller did not show it connected to the console.
But why an RJ-11?… pic.twitter.com/0JrDd5GyK1

— Shane Battye (@shanebattye) September 21, 2019

The long and the short of the reason why is that this version was designed to interface with workstations from Silicon Graphics, Inc.

In addition to all this, the Z button/trigger on the underside of the controller sported a smaller and rounder shape, too.

There are further technical details, for those interested in such things, and if you are, then check out the thread with a dissection on Shane’s Twitter. And for one final thought:

imagine the palms that did not need to be shredded from Mario Party https://t.co/B5ckQ1Dm4a

— Dan Harden (@dharden) September 22, 2019

Source: Via GameXplain

The post Nintendo Ultra 64 Controller Prototype Discovered appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

But getting right down to it, this site is called “Old School Gamer.” That means if you’re reading it, you’ve either grown up with retro games, or at least have some affinity for them, and have probably played your fair share. Super Mario Bros. 3? Fantastic game, and if you can think of a game cartridge without thinking of something people touch to their tongue against all logic, then there’s a good chance you might be familiar with that one.

Not every retro game get the love, attention, and incessant re-releases of a Super Mario Bros. 3. Would you believe that some games have never even been re-released after appearing on their original hardware? Of course you would! It happens all the time.

So if you’ve got Nintendo Switch Online, but shrugged at their overexposed early offerings, here are four games that are at least worth a gander. You’re already paying for the service, after all.

Joe & Mac 2: Lost in the Tropics

Joe & Mac, alternatively known as Caveman Ninja and even Caveman Ninja: Joe & Mac, was a pretty big deal when it was first released in 1991. Originally developed as an arcade game by Data East, it was soon ported to the PC, the SEGA Genesis, the Nintendo Entertainment System, Amiga, and even the Game Boy. But perhaps the biggest spotlight came from the hype machine for the Super NES, where it was highlighted as an example of the arcade-quality graphics and gameplay Nintendo’s newest hardware was capable of.

Despite all this fanfare, the sequel wound up being released on a much smaller scale, also on the Super NES — and just the Super NES. As a result, there’s a chance you might have played and enjoyed the first game, but never got around to checking out its sequel. If that’s the case, there’s no better time than now, as it’s available to play for free (unlike its predecessor) on Nintendo Switch Online. You can even grab a friend for 2-player co-op action locally or online!

And incidentally, if you’d like both Joe & Mac games, plus Congo’s Caper (another sequel), Retro-Bit has you covered with a Joe & Mac: Ultimate Caveman Collection for $34.99 USD.

Star Fox

In 1993, Nintendo released Star Fox for the Super NES, a 3D shooter powered by the new Super FX Chip co-developed by Nintendo EAD and Argonaut Software. A sequel was planned, but cancelled in favor of the company’s newer upcoming platform and its version Star Fox 64.

And they never looked back… until recently, that is.

Star Fox 64 was a reboot of the series, and every game in the franchise since has built off of it, with the Wii U’s Star Fox Zero effectively resetting that version of the Star Fox universe. But the original is still worth checking out on its own merits, in part for its stellar soundtrack and what they were able to pull off with the hardware available at the time. (And if I’m being honest, I might even prefer it at points over its 64-bit successor.)

Star Fox never graced any of Nintendo’s Virtual Consoles, but it — along with its canned sequel — were included on the Super NES Classic Edition in 2017. If you missed out on that, though, then here’s another chance to visit the Lylat System as it originally was.

Stunt Race FX

The Super NES Classic Edition was a boon for those who wanted quick, easy access to Nintendo’s Super FX Chip classics. Star Fox was available again for the first time in 24 years, Star Fox 2 was available for the first time ever, and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island was finally available in a way that wasn’t the compromised Game Boy Advance port. However, one title powered by the famous chip was conspicuous by its absence.

Stunt Race FX finally comes out of retirement, thanks to the Super NES – Nintendo Switch Online program, and can even be played online in its multiplayer modes. It’s a neat little racing game that flexed the Super NES’s muscles when it arrived in 1994.

If you really want to see what makes the game fun, charming, and unique, then I highly recommend checking out the take of another Stunt Race FX fan, Andre from GameXplain, who streamed the entire game recently, pointing out highlights all along the way.

Vice: Project Doom

Hey, they couldn’t all be Super NES games, right? Okay, so they probably could (this is the part of the month where I usually crank out a Super NES article, after all), but nevertheless, here we are.

Vice: Project Doom is one of those games that probably deserved better. It featured great graphics, mixes different styles of gameplay such as top-down driving, shooting, and Ninja Gaiden-styled platforming, and even had the cover of the May 1991 issue of Nintendo Power magazine.

It’s that last part that may have killed it. Not being on Nintendo Power‘s cover, but the date — May 1991. Given the wishy-washy distribution of games at the time, there’s a good chance that few might have seen it before it was sitting alongside the newly-released Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and that may have very well sealed its fate at the time. But now, history has a chance to be rewritten as generations of players new and old can check out this obscurity on the Nintendo Switch.

The post Four Retro Games Worth Checking Out on Nintendo Switch Online appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Throughout the 90’s, through battery-draining competition and teases of the concept, one question surrounding the Game Boy remained constant: “When are we getting a color Game Boy?” Rumors of such a device were kicked up a notch in early 1996 as buzz began to circulate about a new handheld titled “Project Atlantis,” said to be a 32-bit color successor to the company’s colorless cash cow.

However, various factors kept any such device from reaching the market. For one thing, the original Game Boy (in all its various permutations) was still just too dang popular, especially with Pokémon providing a much-needed shot in the arm. For another, perhaps more significant reason, it just wasn’t practical: It was cumbersome, guzzled batteries, and cost too much to manufacture — effectively making it the antithesis of the Game Boy in all the worst ways.

While the Game Boy Advance would come along to eventually fulfill the promise of Project Atlantis, Nintendo needed something to respond to developers’ demands for something more capable. Enter: The Game Boy Color.

Released in around the world over the latter part of 1998, the Game Boy Color upped the system’s specs to include a color display with graphics that were roughly on par with those of the Nintendo Entertainment System, minus the smaller 160×144 screen resolution. At 133.5mm tall, 78mm wide, and 27.4 mm thick, it was slightly beefier than the Game Boy Pocket which preceded it, but not by much.

The Game Boy Color ran three types of games: Original Game Boy cartridges, typically released in the standard grey; Game Boy Color cartridges, which were clear and would only run on the Game Boy Color hardware; and backwards compatible games, which came on black cartridges and would run on both Game Boy Color hardware with full pallets, as well as original Game Boy models with monochromatic visuals. For original Game Boy titles, different button combinations could be used to initiate a limited color palette, though some titles had their own custom palettes built into the hardware itself.

Nintendo also attempted to introduce the world to wireless linking with the Game Boy Color, by way of the introduction of an infrared communications port, but it didn’t really catch on.

The hardware came in a variety of colors and styles, initially launching in North America with Grape (purple) and Atomic Purple (transparent purple). Japan had a wider range at launch, many of which followed in North America the following year, as well as a number of limited edition and Pokémon variants.

While the original Game Boy hardware would have a lifetime of 14 years, running from 1989 to 2003, the Game Boy Color’s life would be less than half of it, acting more as a bookend to the line’s 8-bit legacy as it too came to an end in 2003. Nevertheless, it helped to nicely bridge the gap between the monochrome portable titles of yesteryear and the more advanced games of the 21st century.

The post Boy, Oh Game Boy: Getting Color appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

In this day and age of the internet, it seems that every new release is in some way chronicled and talked about, recorded for all time. But looking back as recently as 30 years ago, there are all sorts of hidden gems, minutiae, and oddities still waiting to be discovered.

Case in point: Video game collector and YouTuber Nikolai “Russian Geek” Gubanov bid on an auction for a bizarre cartridge and adapter for the Nintendo Famicom. The adapter, called QTa, is needed in order to play a series of games known as the Space School series, which consists of six programs created with Japanese national broadcaster NHK for schools, with a seventh made for a Japanese gas company. These titles were never offered commercially, instead only being available to those who worked in the education system.

Gubanov’s acquisition caught the attention of an infamous Russian ROM hacker going by the screen name “CaH4e3,” who had other entries in the series, but lacked access to the adapter necessary in order to reverse-engineer it. Now, after ten years and a bit of work, Russian Geek and CaH4e3 have four of the seven Space School titles are available for all to see online.

As Video Game History Foundation founder Frank Cifaldi explained to Polygon about the breakthrough, “not only were they rare, they also ran on unique hardware that had not previously been documented.”

“Not only did the games have to be obtained somehow, which felt impossible enough,” he continued, “they also had to be dissected and reverse-engineered by one of only a handful of people around the world who do that sort of work. The likelihood of both happening felt really low.”

While this can be chalked up as a huge find, with only four of the seven titles logged, the series remains incomplete. Nevertheless, an enormous hurdle has been overcome, as Cifaldi notes that the documentation is done, and it’s merely a matter of extracting the data from the remaining three so that the entire series can be preserved.

Source: Polygon

The post Extremely Rare Konami Famicom Games Cracked and Released appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.