Retro Gaming Australia

Two previously unreleased Nintendo Entertainment System prototypes have found their way out of obscurity in the last week.

The first release was Dino Hockey, a bizarre take on ice hockey by Sunsoft which features dinosaurs in place of humans. What makes this release more interesting is that there was almost no coverage in the press of the time about Dino Hockey, so it was relatively unknown among the NES community. The only sighting of the game was at the 1991 Summer CES. The prototype is barely playable, but it is still an interesting piece of history.

The second release is of the scrapped NES port of Atari arcade racer Hard Drivin’. This was released as part of the 10th anniversary celebrations of the prototype focused site Lost Levels, run by Frank Cifaldi. Cifaldi had recently caught up with the NES version’s programmer, Mark Morris, who was working on the game for Tengen. As you’d expect, the game was a bit much for the NES hardware, but it’s still a pretty admirable effort.

Via RetroCollect

One of my favourite features of the original GameCube version of Animal Crossing was that players could find and trade playable NES games – and even download them to their Game Boy Advance. This feature was scrapped for the Nintendo DS version Animal Crossing: Wild World, and did not return for the Wii game Animal Crossing: Let’s Go to the City or the recent 3DS game Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

That trend looks to continue, according to a Kotaku interview with series producer Katsuya Eguchi. Eguchi cites Virtual Console as the reason for the change, stating “We thought that playing games inside of a game is kind of funny, and we wanted to do it. But now there’s a Virtual Console where you can play classic games, so we don’t think we will be doing that in future titles.”

That’s pretty much the reason anyone would have expected, but it’s nice to have confirmation (and closure).

The classic side-scrolling beat’em up Double Dragon II: The Revenge was released on the Japanese 3DS eShop this week as part of the handheld’s Virtual Console service.

Released for the Famicom in 1989, the home version of Double Dragon II differs greatly from its arcade counterpart – featuring different level design, additional story sequences, a different final boss and a different ending.

The Virtual Console release supports Download Play, allowing two players to play co-op with a single copy of the game, and will set you back 500 yen. We hope to see the game outside of Japan in the near future.

The Nintendo Entertainment System is a difficult system when it comes to picking the best games. It’s one instance where the phrase “rose tinted specs” really comes into action. Many great video game series were started on the NES, but many of them do not hold up today. We have selected the absolute best games on the system to showcase in this article. If you want to start collecting games for the NES, these are ones that you absolutely must get.

The Essentials are games selected by the RGA team (along with a few highly knowledgable friends) and are the games we consider to be the best on the system – without question.

Our criteria for this list was simply that the game must be available in English, not just PAL. That does rule out a couple of quality Famicom only releases, but we will cover them in our upcoming NES Imports feature. Read on to find out our selections! (continue reading…)

The NES software library wasn’t exactly brimming with strategy games – outside of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, they were really more the domain of home computers. NES homebrew developer Rizz is seeking to plug that gap with his newest effort Armed for Battle.

No release date has been set, but Rizz has confirmed that he will be demonstrating his work at the US Midwest Gaming Classic at the end of the month.

The Nintendo Entertainment System is an icon of the 1980s. It’s the console which introduced video gaming to millions of people across the world. As we kids of the 1980s grow older, it’s our nostalgia for the NES and other consoles which drives us to begin collecting video games.

For those of you who are just starting out collecting games, or missed the NES the first time around, this feature will tell you everything you need to know about the NES. (continue reading...)

Before we went dark for a couple of weeks (long story short: I got a new job, needed to adapt), we’d been harking on about the Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Program. Well, it starts tomorrow, and being the timely chaps they are, Nintendo has revealed the full list of games that will be made available through the program.

They are:

• Super Mario Bros.
• Donkey Kong Jr.
• Balloon Fight
• Ice Climber
• The Legend of Zelda
• Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
• Metroid
• NES Open Tournament Golf
• Wrecking Crew
• Yoshi

Let the cheering/bitching commence.

The highly rare, but intolerably bad Cheetahmen II has been a source of amusement for many retro gaming fans. It may be the leading contender for the title of worst game on the system, but there’s never a shortage of interest in the game, mostly due to how ludicrous the entire concept is.

Cheetahmen II is also notorious for being unbeatable. Even if you’re fortunate enough to get a hold of one of these rarities, the game itself cannot be finished – it will usually end at the fourth level after beating ApeMan, unless a rare glitch occurs, and even then, the end boss never appears in the game.

However, PacoChan has come to the rescue. He’s released a hack which fixes numerous glitches in the game, including the one that prevents you from beating it. Expect to see some funny and very painful Let’s Play videos popping up on YouTube in the next few weeks.

Via GameSetWatch

Last week it was announced that NES games would be coming to the 3DS Virtual Console, first to Nintendo Ambassadors (i.e. anyone who buys a DS before August 12 and logs onto the eStore), and then later in the year for everyone else.

According to IGN, a Nintendo of America spokesperson confirmed that these NES games will be coming with some upgrades, most notably multiplayer capabilities. “When the NES games become available to the general public later this year, they will include additional features such as multiplayer simultaneous play. Ambassadors will then be able to download those updated version at no cost,” the spokesperson said.

Let the Ice Climber fights begin again.

Source: IGN

It seems that there are a few caveats to go with the recently announced NES and GBA Virtual Console news.

Nintendo Australia has announced that the 3DS system will drop from $AU349 to $AU249 on August 12, with similar price drops occuring across the world. As a bonus for early adopters (anybody who buys a 3DS before September 1), Nintendo will be giving you 10 free NES and 10 free GBA games, some of which we elaborated on in our earlier story.

It’s not as cut and dry as these games simply appearing on the Virtual Console store and you downloading them. On September 1, Nintendo will be pushing out “early bird” versions of the 10 NES games. They won’t have any of the usual VC trimmings, and it is understood that the NES emulation is at a beta stage. These titles will be added to the Virtual Console store at a later date, and joined by other classic NES games.

It gets weirder with the GBA situation though. No date has been announced for when these will be available to download, and it is understood that Nintendo is not planning on adding the GBA to the Virtual Console – instead, these 10 GBA games will remain exclusive to the 3DS early adopters and will not be for sale later down the track.