For someone who was highly disappointed with the Generation NEX, I'll have to admit that Messiah's latest product looks pretty cool. But then again, the NEX looked awesome when it was announced, and you know how that turned out.

The product is the "NEX Wireless Arcade Stick," a supposedly arcade-quality wireless arcade stick for Messiah's NEX system. And that right there is the catch, and it's a major one: it's "exclusively" compatible with the NEX system, which is likely a horrible business move on the part of Messiah. Why would they limit a great stick design (which looks…absolutely nothing like a NES Advantage, by the way) to such a cheap NES-on-a-chip famiclone machine when they could probably triple their sales if they included a wireless receiver that worked with a standard NES? This stick is essentially what the Advantage should have been back in 1987, and NES freaks would love to get their hands on it for their own NES. But sorry, folks, you're out of luck. That's Messiah for ya — just shy of the target, as always. Gotta love 'em.

So why on earth am I telling you about it?

[ Continue reading Messiah Announces "NEX Wireless Arcade Stick" » ]

[ Hacksterpiece Theatre is a regular column devoted to fun, odd, and interesting retro game hacks. ]

When I first played Super Metroid in April 1994, it was the most incredible gaming experience I'd ever had up to that point. Period. The atmosphere created by its top-notch graphics, music, and gameplay was palpable, enveloping me deeply into an incredible world of sci-fi fantasy and exploration.

There was only one problem with this otherwise excellent game: once you had finished it — exploring every nook, finding every secret, and collecting every power-up along the way — you had squeezed nearly every ounce of replay value out of the game. For years I wished so badly for a new Super Metroid, even if it were the exact same engine with a completely new world to explore. Well, my friends…in 2006, that wish was granted. Fans of this seminal work can explore the planet Zebes all over again in a new hack by Drewseph and crew called, quite simply, Super Metroid Redesign.

[ Continue reading Hacksterpiece Theatre: Return to Zebes with Super Metroid Redesign » ]

Well, the auction ended last night, and "bunikmonkey" is the winner. The final price? $282.73 (US). Not bad at all! This will definitely help take care of the kittens. I'd like to thank everyone who bid in the auction, and everyone who helped spread the word.

Before you start thinking "Wow, that's a great price! I should go into business selling NES DVD players," remember this: eBay is a strange market that sells to the highest bidder. Usually only a couple people on earth are willing to pay eBay prices for high profile items. I believe much of my NES DVD player's value is seated in the fact that it's a one-of-a-kind item. Once you start churning them out, the value per unit goes waay down. And I'm not going to make any more.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind, but I might post an entry about some more VC&G-related items for sale soon. I won't litter the blog with eBay crap, of course, but I might just do one more post to announce another round of VC&G fundraising / housecleaning in the future.

Thanks again, everybody, for your help.

[ Hacksterpiece Theatre is a regular column devoted to fun, odd, and interesting retro game hacks. ]

Greetings! Thanks for joining me once again for Hacksterpiece Theatre. This week, in the concluding segment of the "Lost Hacks of DahrkDaiz" series, I'll be examining another incomplete and "lost" DahrkDaiz NES game hack as usual — but this time it's a more recent one starring a certain iconic Italian plumber's green-garbed, typically overlooked brother.

Luigi in the Spotlight

Shortly after completing his 2004 magnum opus, Mario Adventure, DahrkDaiz got straight to work on a totally new hack of Super Mario Bros. 3 which would feature Luigi in the starring role, eschewing the usual Mario vehicle cliché. Luigi's Coin Quest, as it would be titled, would have numerous similarities with his previous SMB3 hack, but would greatly improve upon them. Over the next eight months, only one world of this epic project would be finished. And yet, despite being incomplete, the resulting work is one of the most sophisticated and highly playable examples of sheer technical mastery in the field of NES game hacking that the gaming world has never seen.

[ Continue reading Hacksterpiece Theatre: The Lost Hacks of DahrkDaiz, Part 3 (Luigi's Coin Quest) » ]

"Ok, RedWolf. Now you've gone and done it. Selling out to the Man!" That's me. I've got a lot of clutter to clear and a lot of hungry kitten mouths to feed / fix, so I'm going to be auctioning a series of vintage computing and gaming related items in the coming weeks. The first item on the block is my very own custom NES DVD Player, which I lovingly crafted by hand and featured in an article on this very site back in early March. The article was very popular and I received a number of offers to purchase the unique player. I figured I'd never sell it, so I turned them down. How silly I was — here it is, for sale. I'm not planning on making any more of these, so this is your only chance to get the real thing. Tell all your friends and help me spread the word. It's for a good cause, after all…feline population control. Thanks!

[ Hacksterpiece Theatre is a regular column devoted to fun, odd, and interesting retro game hacks. ]

Welcome back to Hacksterpiece Theatre, and thanks for joining us for Part 2 of our series on the "Lost Hacks of DahrkDaiz." Last week, we took a look at Mario Seasons, a nifty Super Mario Bros. hack. This week, I'll be showing you a couple more early NES hacks from DahrkDaiz — one of Ms. Pac-Man and another of Mega Man III.

Pac Man III

Pac-Man III is an inventive hack of the NES version of Ms. Pac-Man that adds new boards, new colors, new features, and new eyeballs.

Yes, new eyeballs. Ms. Pac-Man has appropriately been changed to Mr. Pac-Man for this hack, but for some reason DahrkDaiz, in his ceaseless quest for NES graphical enhancement perfection, decided to give Pac-Man bulging white eyeballs (if you'll recall, Pac-Man was originally eyeless in the first Pac-Man). After playing this game for about thirty minutes, those disturbingly googly eyes have a startling way of being permanently etched into your brain.

Nightmares aside, this is a really fun hack. DahrkDaiz designed 32 new levels for a wide-eyed Pac-Man to chomp his way through. Some of them are on the traditional side of things (ho-hum square-ish), while some are quite devious (invisible walls!). Never one to just modify a few tiles and walk away, DD had to provide a completely new feature or two. In this case, he provided a new way to play the levels: on the title screen, you can select either "Linear" play, which takes you through the boards in sequential order, or "Random" play, in which (surprise!) you play the boards in a random order. DD also added a pellet counter in the upper-right portion of the screen which keeps track of how many pellets you have left to eat before completing the board.

I've never been a huge Pac-Man fan, but all these new features combined make Pac-Man III feel like an entirely new game to me that is definitely worth a try. You can download the complete Pac Man III game here. And as always, you will need an emulator to play it (I recommend FCEU for Windows).

Mega Man Challenge

Honestly, this next hack is nothing too special, but I thought I'd include it for completeness.

DahrkDaiz intended to make Mega Man Challenge into a "Mario Adventure" for Mega Man III. That is, he was going to completely overhaul the game. But for reasons unknown to me, he never got very far. The only stage he finished was the "Snake Man" stage, which has a new level layout with new graphics, an impressive parallax-scrolling background, and a new acorn-dropping enemy. DD also added the ability to switch between your weapons with the select button. Like I said, it's not much. But if you want to give it a try, you can download it here.

(Update 06/15/2006: DahrkDaiz has send me a version of Mega Man Challenge with the Top-Man stage completely redone. However, the Snake Man board is not complete in this version. You can download it here if you're interested in seeing some wicked-cool atmosphertic effects added to Mega Man III.)

In our next episode, I'll be profiling another fun Super Mario Bros. 3 hack by DahrkDaiz that I've never even mentioned before on VC&G. This time we'll get to take control of Luigi and help him find his lost coins…

Have any cool, funny, or weird retro game hacks that you'd like to share? Send 'em along!

[ Hacksterpiece Theatre is a regular column devoted to fun, odd, and interesting retro game hacks. ]

Hello, friends. Welcome to my new regular column on VC&G, Hacksterpiece Theatre, where I hope to profile for you the best, worst, and most interesting retro game hacks in existence.

Back in March on Vintage Computing and Gaming, I profiled what I called "The Best NES Game Hack of All Time," Mario Adventure. Shortly after the hack exploded across the Net, I tracked down the author of that masterful piece of SMB3 modification and conducted an interview with him. He goes by the name "DahrkDaiz" in the online retro hacking community, and it is my belief that he is likely the most talented NES game hacker out there today. After many conversations with him about hacking, he agreed to send me some of his earlier NES game hacks that have been relatively "lost" as of late. And by lost, I mean that they were once available for download on his site, but have not been for quite some time. In this inaugural column of HT, and the first in a series of "Lost Hacks of DahrkDaiz," I'll be profiling one of his earliest hacks, Mario Seasons.

[ Continue reading Hacksterpiece Theatre: The Lost Hacks of DahrkDaiz, Part 1 (Mario Seasons) » ]

I have always wanted to build something that I like to call a "Universal Game System" (UGS). You could also call it the "ultimate game system," since it would play all games for every game system ever released. Well, theoretically it could — with a powerful enough processor and the right emulators. That's why I call it "universal." But for now I'll set my sights lower and stop at the N64 generation. The UGS itself would have a simple interface to launch every game, would have ports for every type of controller for each system (or at least a select few that could be used on most games), it would hook up to a TV, and it would require nothing more than a game controller to select the games and operate the interface. You, the user, would provide the ROMs and controllers, and the UGS would do the rest. I suppose this would be kinda like a making a "MAME cabinet" for console games.

Central to the UGS would be a powerful computer fitted with emulators for every system, all seamlessly integrated into one easy-to-use front end interface. You would never have to use a keyboard or mouse (although you could if you so desired), as you could easily select, launch, and play games with only a game controller. Also, you could see everything you're doing on an ordinary old TV (not HDTV, although it would definitely support that too) with larger fonts and a layout designed for analog TV legibility. While HDTVs should be cheap and plentiful in the future, playing games on an old analog TV might be a big part of the "authentic nostalgia factor" soon, as regular TVs are quickly being supplanted by the new technology. And besides, I personally neither have nor can afford an HDTV-capable TV right now.

It is my goal to one day build one of these, but the requisite software is not quite together yet. I'm not aware of all the latest and greatest in the emulator scene, but maybe something that would help me build a UGS is in the works. I know about MESS (Multiple Emulator Super System), but last time I used it, it wasn't in the best of shape (it still needs lots of work, in my opinion). Still, when it's fully mature, MESS combined with the right front-end interface might just do the trick on the software end.

But the software is only half the battle. I also need a small, compact, quiet, and cool PC case that can hold the right cards for the I/O required, while also being able to hold a powerful enough processor to do the job (processor-generated heat is the main factor in dictating noise level and case size). Inside said box would be a versatile computer video card with an excellent composite or S-Video analog TV-out that looks good on regular old TVs. I've tried a few cards so far, but the video is always lackluster, and you have to reference a VGA monitor on the side to actually read what you're doing (to select the games to play, etc.). As far as interfaces go, I plan on building a large controller interface box that has ten or more types of classic system controller ports that would all hook up to a USB connection, similar to RetroZone's controllers, or Lik Sang's Smart Joy series. You could plug in your NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, PlayStation, etc. controllers and play the original system's games with them on a regular TV as if you had the real console in front of you.

My question for you guys out there is this: do you know of any software or hardware that would help me fulfill my dream of building this ultimate emulator system? Hardware? Front ends? Emulators? Any suggestions about how the UGS should function? Let's work together to figure this thing out. Eventually, a commercial version of a device like this will probably be as common in a household as a DVD player is now (minus the ten different controller ports, of course). Until then, we have to work hard to make it happen on our own terms.

Update (03/31/2006): I like how I made the UGS sound like some kind of incredibly complex, dramatic project, requiring resources and effort akin to the Space Race to achieve properly. And then you guys come along and nonchalantly say "Yep, I've got one already." Well, I don't "got one" yet, of course, but I will some day, thanks to your help (it was your feedback that I wanted about front ends, etc.). Still, to me, the ideal, seamlessly fuctioning UGS has not yet been created. Who knows if it ever will…

Ok, I'm being dramatic again.

Mario Adventure FAQ v0.9
Written by Greg Head - Edited & Formatted for HTML by RedWolf

Table of Contents:

Section 1: Introduction & FAQ History
Section 2: What is Mario Adventure?
Section 3: Enemies
Section 4: Items
Section 5: Frequently Asked Questions (Hints & Tips)
Section 6: Level/Map Walkthroughs
Section 7: Key Locations
Section 8: Props
Section 9: Legal Notice

Section 1: Introduction & FAQ History

Mario Adventure is a ROM hack of Super Mario Bros 3 that's so good that calling it a ROM hack is almost an insult. Think of it as "The Lost Levels" from Super Mario All-Stars, only based on SMB3 instead of SMB1. This game has totally new maps and levels, items, enemies, and surprises.

Like Lost Levels, Mario Adventure is hard. In fact, you'll have to be able to beat SMB3 proficiently before you can really sink your teeth into this game. It's full of intense and well-thought out levels, some of which will require you to build and refine strategies to complete. Some levels may leave you too frustrated to continue, and that's where this FAQ comes in.

I like to think of this FAQ as a last resort. It's better to do the game without outside help, but a little explanation can go a long way to understanding a level, and really, beating this game without any real cheating is a heck of a job well done. Check out the What is Mario Adventure? section to read all the changes between Mario Adventure and SMB3. The next two sections give details of the enemies and items in this game. The Frequently Asked Questions section contains lots of tips that apply to many situations in the game.

After that is the detailed Level/Map Walkthrough section, which gives tips on individual levels. Right now, only the first two and last two worlds are covered by the walkthrough, but the aforementioned Frequently Asked Questions section has tips that may help you through those levels.

After the walkthrough is the Key Locations section. Only peek at this one if you've given up on finding a key.

[ Continue reading Mario Adventure FAQ » ]

I know; the title is not really saying a lot. Who needs a DVD player in their NES? Well, nobody really. But it sure is fun to see what you can cram inside a NES case and make it still look as much like an authentic NES as possible. It was only after I completed this hack that I bothered to see if anyone had done something similar before. It turns out that somebody has, but in my totally biased opinion, not nearly as well.

Despite my pride in my creation and the "ultimate" in the article title (I like to exaggerate sometimes for dramatic effect), it doesn't mean that a NES DVD player design couldn't be improved. I am particularly proud of my unit's exterior — how the NES' look and feel was preserved without drastic interruption. However, the internals could have probably been pulled off with a lot more elegance if one had better tools, better materials, and more experience in doing this sort of thing. All that being said, here are some nice features of my particular NES DVD Player:

• NES Power Button turns DVD Power on/off.
• NES Reset Button ejects DVD tray.
• Fully functional remote control…control.
• Infrared receiver (for remote control) inconspicuously placed in first-player controller port area.
• Upon ejecting or retracting the DVD tray, the NES cartridge slot door opens/closes automatically.
• Stereo RCA audio left and right output jacks positioned on right side of unit where former NES composite video and mono audio RCA jacks were.
• RCA Composite video output jack positioned where former NES RF output was.
• Optional S-Video Output jack where NES channel 3-4 switch was.
• AC Power cord firmly attached where NES AC Power Adapter used to plug in.
• Yes, it really plays DVDs.

Now with all of that out of the way, sit down, relax, and I'll tell you the story of how I made this beast.

Prepare for lots of pictures after the break…

[ Continue reading The Ultimate NES DVD Player Hack » ]