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Likewise, Super Mario Bros. 2 as released in Japan was very similar to Super Mario Bros. - it used similar sprites, and had almost exactly the same gameplay physics. The game was "too hard" for American audiences, apparently, so it was never released. Instead Doki Doki Panic was altered to become the American Super Mario Bros. 2.

And I still think that SMB3 is the best Super Mario game - ever! Seriously - I never really liked Super Mario World, or any of the other Marios since.

Likewise, Super Mario Bros. 2 as released in Japan was very similar to Super Mario Bros. - it used similar sprites, and had almost exactly the same gameplay physics. The game was "too hard" for American audiences, apparently, so it was never released. Instead Doki Doki Panic was altered to become the American Super Mario Bros. 2.

And I still think that SMB3 is the best Super Mario game - ever! Seriously - I never really liked Super Mario World, or any of the other Marios since.

Likewise, Super Mario Bros. 2 as released in Japan was very similar to Super Mario Bros. - it used similar sprites, and had almost exactly the same gameplay physics. The game was "too hard" for American audiences, apparently, so it was never released. Instead Doki Doki Panic was altered to become the American Super Mario Bros. 2.

And I still think that SMB3 is the best Super Mario game - ever! Seriously - I never really liked Super Mario World, or any of the other Marios since.

Or forget buying a new pin cartridge connector. Take your NES apart and fix the connector yourself. It's amazingly easy (I have ZERO skills at stuff like this, and I found it to be really easy).

There's a tutorial at www.classicgaming.com/features/articles/nesrepair

My NES now works perfectly.

An online version of that game would absolutely rock! Please Wendell, do it!

Yes there are clones out there, but none are quite so good.

The same thing happened to me, but that's far from the only bad engrish in the game. My personal favorite was "The truck have started to move."

Here are some other quotes from Metal Gear (skip over Silent Scope 2), from a great video game-only Engrish site called Whazzat!?!

I used to have this console trying to be a computer of a game.

I can't beleive this game wasn't included in this list!!!

Just look at the games you have to choose from:

- K.C. Munchkin (*cough* Pac-Man Rip off *cough*)

- Computer Intro

- Speedway!/Spin-Out!/Crypto-Logic!

- Las Vegas Black Jack!!!

- Bowling!/Basketball!

...and last but not least...

- Alien Invaders - Plus! (Just in case plain Alien Invaders wasn't enough for you kids!)

How this console is no longer popular, I haven't a clue!

(/sarcasm)

Dolemite

I used to have this console trying to be a computer of a game.

I can't beleive this game wasn't included in this list!!!

Just look at the games you have to choose from:

- K.C. Munchkin (*cough* Pac-Man Rip off *cough*)

- Computer Intro

- Speedway!/Spin-Out!/Crypto-Logic!

- Las Vegas Black Jack!!!

- Bowling!/Basketball!

...and last but not least...

- Alien Invaders - Plus! (Just in case plain Alien Invaders wasn't enough for you kids!)

How this console is no longer popular, I haven't a clue!

(/sarcasm)

Dolemite

I used to have this console trying to be a computer of a game.

I can't beleive this game wasn't included in this list!!!

Just look at the games you have to choose from:

- K.C. Munchkin (*cough* Pac-Man Rip off *cough*)

- Computer Intro

- Speedway!/Spin-Out!/Crypto-Logic!

- Las Vegas Black Jack!!!

- Bowling!/Basketball!

...and last but not least...

- Alien Invaders - Plus! (Just in case plain Alien Invaders wasn't enough for you kids!)

How this console is no longer popular, I haven't a clue!

(/sarcasm)

Dolemite

I used to have this console trying to be a computer of a game.

I can't beleive this game wasn't included in this list!!!

Just look at the games you have to choose from:

- K.C. Munchkin (*cough* Pac-Man Rip off *cough*)

- Computer Intro

- Speedway!/Spin-Out!/Crypto-Logic!

- Las Vegas Black Jack!!!

- Bowling!/Basketball!

...and last but not least...

- Alien Invaders - Plus! (Just in case plain Alien Invaders wasn't enough for you kids!)

How this console is no longer popular, I haven't a clue!

(/sarcasm)

Dolemite

I used to have this console trying to be a computer of a game.

I can't beleive this game wasn't included in this list!!!

Just look at the games you have to choose from:

- K.C. Munchkin (*cough* Pac-Man Rip off *cough*)

- Computer Intro

- Speedway!/Spin-Out!/Crypto-Logic!

- Las Vegas Black Jack!!!

- Bowling!/Basketball!

...and last but not least...

- Alien Invaders - Plus! (Just in case plain Alien Invaders wasn't enough for you kids!)

How this console is no longer popular, I haven't a clue!

(/sarcasm)

Dolemite

I used to have this console trying to be a computer of a game.

I can't beleive this game wasn't included in this list!!!

Just look at the games you have to choose from:

- K.C. Munchkin (*cough* Pac-Man Rip off *cough*)

- Computer Intro

- Speedway!/Spin-Out!/Crypto-Logic!

- Las Vegas Black Jack!!!

- Bowling!/Basketball!

...and last but not least...

- Alien Invaders - Plus! (Just in case plain Alien Invaders wasn't enough for you kids!)

How this console is no longer popular, I haven't a clue!

(/sarcasm)

Dolemite

I used to have this console trying to be a computer of a game.

I can't beleive this game wasn't included in this list!!!

Just look at the games you have to choose from:

- K.C. Munchkin (*cough* Pac-Man Rip off *cough*)

- Computer Intro

- Speedway!/Spin-Out!/Crypto-Logic!

- Las Vegas Black Jack!!!

- Bowling!/Basketball!

...and last but not least...

- Alien Invaders - Plus! (Just in case plain Alien Invaders wasn't enough for you kids!)

How this console is no longer popular, I haven't a clue!

(/sarcasm)

Dolemite

I used to have this console trying to be a computer of a game.

I can't beleive this game wasn't included in this list!!!

Just look at the games you have to choose from:

- K.C. Munchkin (*cough* Pac-Man Rip off *cough*)

- Computer Intro

- Speedway!/Spin-Out!/Crypto-Logic!

- Las Vegas Black Jack!!!

- Bowling!/Basketball!

...and last but not least...

- Alien Invaders - Plus! (Just in case plain Alien Invaders wasn't enough for you kids!)

How this console is no longer popular, I haven't a clue!

(/sarcasm)

Dolemite

Its game cartridges were about the size of a credit card. You could use those same games in the color hand-held version!

I still remember all those Bonk's Adventure commercials. Don't think I ever played it though... maybe at K-Mart or something...

Carl

Lucasetc is not without a sense of humour; in their classic Amiga game Night Shift you controlled a toy company called Industrial Might and Logic.

My adopted geek can kick your adopted geek's ass! Well, actually, I doubt either of them could kick anyones ass, but mine does play a mean game of Scorched Earth.

It sounds like the MOO series is a lot like Starflight, but I never got into any of them. Can you still buy the ealier version? Should I bother looking on ebay or whatever, or just wait for MOO3 and play that? I mean, will playing MOO2 help me to appreciate MOO3, or is 3 a stand-alone game?

-B

Actually, it's not as powerful as the old SNES, it's lacking in several departments, but the most obvious is sound (it cannot play the same number of instruments as the SNES could), as well as colors/resolution.

If you want a true SNES in portable form, check out VCS Portable Site.

--LordKaT

. For the worst of the worst games (i.e. Custer's Revenge) I was thinking that the screenshot shows a cowboy shooting to the left an Indian to the right. But... the explanation is about pr0n. LOL....


Wanna try it?

It was Donkey Kong for the Intellivision. Yeah, I'm sure it was worse than the other versions, but hey, I didn't know any better.

I've never played Intellivision Donkey Kong, but I have played it on the 2600 and trust me, no matter how bad anyone says the Intellivision version is, the 2600 version is far, FAR worse-- it is simply awful.

Funny thing is, for years (and very occasionally to this day) the sound effects from 2600 Donkey Kong were used in TV shows and some commercials as 'generic video game sound'... the one example I can remember off the top of my head is in an episode of Sliders ("Obsession"?), during a scene in the hotel bar.

~Philly

If you play ROTT when your system clock indicates that it's one of five different holidays, the "group picture" of the five main characters is changed slightly. In addition, on Christmas, the music for the first level is changed to a familiar Christmas tune. The holidays and effects are as follows:

Easter (date varies) - Lorelei Ni wears Easter Bunny ears.

Cinco de Mayo (May 5th) - Ian wears a sombrero.

Independence Day (July 4th) - Doug holds an American flag.

Halloween (October 31st) - Thi wears a witch's hat.

Christmas (December 24th) - Taradino wears a Santa Claus hat, on December 25th, new music plays in the first level the first level.

Also, there's a way to get all five "holiday hats" in Rise of the Triad to show up on the screen at the same time. If you finish the game the right way, and destroy all the larvae in the last level, watch ALL the credits (takes several minutes). You'll get to a screen that says "The HUNT is victorious. The End." Do nothing. Let it sit there for about a minute or two, and you'll get another "The End" screen where all five "holiday hats" are shown at once.

I couldn't have been the only one hoping for the title "Terminator 3: Rise of the Triad", eh?

(for those unaware, see also this explanation of 3DRealms' Rise of The Triad)

Find a c64 or Apple emulator for Linux, and find the Apple or c64 images.

Not sure about the c64 part, but for the Apple emulator and ROM (Or should I say image?), look here. You should be able to find the Apple II for Linux emulator if you look on Google.

Here's a little something.

From the article:
As a side note, EA's classic Square/Circle/Triangle corporate logo was devised by Barry Deutsch of Steinhilber Deutsch and Gard design firm . They proposed the three shapes to stand for the "basic alphabet of graphic design," and they rasterized them to connote technology. About a year later, ATT unveiled a similar treatment in their logo.

Here's a little something.

From the article:
As a side note, EA's classic Square/Circle/Triangle corporate logo was devised by Barry Deutsch of Steinhilber Deutsch and Gard design firm . They proposed the three shapes to stand for the "basic alphabet of graphic design," and they rasterized them to connote technology. About a year later, ATT unveiled a similar treatment in their logo.

...was Custer's Revenge. I remember watching a discussion on Donahue about that game.

Man, I can still remember how much I hated E.T. on the 2600 as a little kid. Some Atari 2600 E.T. karma whoring:

More about the game.

The author discusses coding it up in 5 weeks.

Man, I can still remember how much I hated E.T. on the 2600 as a little kid. Some Atari 2600 E.T. karma whoring:

More about the game.

The author discusses coding it up in 5 weeks.

Herzog Zwei is one of my favorite games of old times. I believe the real time strategy aspect of the game was the first of it's genre.

One time (no not in band camp) I played a game head to head with a friend for four hours with neither of us doing much damage to each other's main base. Had to quit the game.

My favorite rare game was written by a now dead transsexual for the Apple ][. And I am not trolling, Cytron Masters rocked and transsexuals wrote a lot of games during the 80s! Weird but true...

The faux pas isn't the target audience itself-- it's a bad misjudgment of how far "market penetration" (if I must wax Corporate for the moment) will go among said target audience.

Or, to put it more clearly-- this CD is targeted at bringing open-source software to people who otherwise would not use it, or maybe even have heard of it.

But how many of those people are going to have heard of OpenCD.org? Joe Beer and his wife Martha surely aren't reading SlashDot. Or Kuro5hin. Or $OTHER_GEEK_HANGOUT_SITE.

Not to be a fatalist, but I don't think this CD (which is an EXCELLENT idea in concept) will get very many users. Sure, here and there a rabid OSS person will show it to all of their friends, and that's a Good Thing. But one thing SlashDot readers (and posters) tend to underestimate is the colossal "mindshare" Windows and Microsoft products in general hold. People, realize-- to many people in this country, Bill Gates is a "great business leader", to some almost a hero. Many people aspire to be like him, and hardly anyone (excepting geeks) has anything against what he's doing. We at SlashDot aren't quite so complacent-- but the great masses of people in this country ARE!

Going against the MS monopoly with this nice OSS CD is like... well... To make an analogy to Star Control 2, it would be rather like going up against a fully-loaded Ur-Quan Dreadnought in a Shofixti Scout. With the Glory Device broken...

Go to the Star Control Timewarp to see a group of people trying to make, from scratch, a worthy successor to Star Control 2. It currently has a working Melee game, and the full single player game is in the works.

At some arbitrary point in the past, Accolade put Star Control 1 and 2 on CD-ROM. They even disabled the copy protection so you didn't need to consult the starmap each time you wanted to start the game. IIRC the boxed set was $20, purchasable at local mall game stores. Also, the folks at "The Pages of Now & Forever" put together a Star Control 2 buying guide...

That reminds me... OT, but did anybody ever buy the Ultima I-VI compilation on CD-ROM? I wanted that so badly. Was it everything an avid Ultima player dreamed about?

I can't believe nobody has mentioned TimeWarp yet. From their website:

* A fan created project that intends to create a science fiction war / exploration game based on the Star Control Universe.
* More specifically, the idea is to ignore the ravages of The Third One and create a worthy successor to Star Control 2.
* It currently sports a fully functional, 8-player melee engine with all the ships from Star Control 2,Star Control 3 and a slew of wholly original creations.
* The Melee game supports two-player games over the Internet or a LAN, with future plans to allow 8 or more players in a single game.
* It's also got Gob, a game of survival with custom ship upgrades.
* The full single-player game is in development.
* It will make you irresistible to members of the opposite sex.

I've tried it myself and coming from an old sc2 fan i'd say they're getting something. I'm sure they could use some help too. Hopefully they wouldn't mind the extra hits from /. =P

One of the best things about SC2 was the thumpin' music. My friend had the Gravis Ultrasound card and the music totally ROCKED! In the PC version, the music was done in Amiga MOD format, a four-track music system based on sound samples. It was amazing what could be done with just four tracks. MODs were featured heavily in the demo scene for a while.

You can imagine how pleased I was to find the music in MP3! Grab them here: http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/3do/music .shtml.

Starflight was released in 1986. It featured CGA graphics (EGA later?), diplomacy, 80 star systems, 5 races, simple trade interstellar and planetary navigation and a plot that games today can't touch. Published by Electronic Arts.

Starflight II: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula, released in 1989, this was a worthy sequel. It featured more star systems, more sophisticated diplomacy, VGA graphics, moderatly complex trade and additional plot elements. Published by Electronic Arts.

Star Control, published in 1990 was a pretty cool melee game. It offered a few ships you could fly around, develop strategies for and have realtime battles with either against an opponent or an AI. Published by Accolade.

Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters, published in 1992, was what Starflight 3 should have been. It had many elements of the starmap of Starflight, many of the underlying plot elements and game engine of that series with the Star Control melee combat grafted on.

Starflight 3: Mysteries of the Universe, yet unreleased, is an Open project with many of the original Starflight crew, Binary Systems, aiding in consulting or programming.

Here's what I want to know: Is there any official link between the Starflight and Star Control families? Was there swindling involved? Was I deprived of a Starflight 3 I would have paid double for vs. a Star Control? Why oh why? As far as I'm concerned, the Open Starflight 3 will be great, no matter what, but the real Starflight 3 that seemingly "almost was" would have been worthwhile.

Apologies for the long rant it took to get here. Any responses appreciated.

Pardon me, I think I hear the Uhl whispering in my head.

Starflight was released in 1986. It featured CGA graphics (EGA later?), diplomacy, 80 star systems, 5 races, simple trade interstellar and planetary navigation and a plot that games today can't touch. Published by Electronic Arts.

Starflight II: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula, released in 1989, this was a worthy sequel. It featured more star systems, more sophisticated diplomacy, VGA graphics, moderatly complex trade and additional plot elements. Published by Electronic Arts.

Star Control, published in 1990 was a pretty cool melee game. It offered a few ships you could fly around, develop strategies for and have realtime battles with either against an opponent or an AI. Published by Accolade.

Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters, published in 1992, was what Starflight 3 should have been. It had many elements of the starmap of Starflight, many of the underlying plot elements and game engine of that series with the Star Control melee combat grafted on.

Starflight 3: Mysteries of the Universe, yet unreleased, is an Open project with many of the original Starflight crew, Binary Systems, aiding in consulting or programming.

Here's what I want to know: Is there any official link between the Starflight and Star Control families? Was there swindling involved? Was I deprived of a Starflight 3 I would have paid double for vs. a Star Control? Why oh why? As far as I'm concerned, the Open Starflight 3 will be great, no matter what, but the real Starflight 3 that seemingly "almost was" would have been worthwhile.

Apologies for the long rant it took to get here. Any responses appreciated.

Pardon me, I think I hear the Uhl whispering in my head.

So yea. Check it out.

not many game developers can claim of such a loyal fan base

http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/petition/ (b.t.w. there is an annoying ad before you get to the "real" page, click on "continue" to get through)

from the page: "Sign this petition if you would want to play and BUY another Star Control game created by Toys For Bob"
"Approximate number of people who have signed the petition: 4476 "

Networking is not a top priority; they are trying to get the bugs fixed right now. Timewarp is a nice melee clone with networking support, though.

Depending on your price range, of course. This may not be suitable if you're not suited to ripping apart electronics, but seeing as you're installing a navigation system in your boat, I'm willing to bet you're handy enough to do a little bit of desoldering.

Portable TVs and portable DVD players both contain smaller (and in the case of the DVDs, quite high resolution) LCD screens, with backlights, that you can tear out and install into your boat and rewire as neccesary.

You may need to get a converter to switch between VGA and whatever input the LCD wants, but it can b e done. I'm not sure specifically what inputs an LCD requires, but you might check out this site for a story of a guy who's done it.

Good luck.

>I'm all for companies clamping down HARD on people that make and sell illegal products which have the sole purpose of leeching off the success of those who actually do the legitimate, hard, creative work.

After reading what you've said, I still fail to see where these products should be illegal.

Suggesting modchips should be illegal because they may be used to pirate is silly. Turning it around you're saying that someone with the skill to reverse-engineer a system and make money doing it doesn't deserve to do it because a coder might get discouraged in making software. Funny thing is, this might be a good thing. Pressure needs to be put on what is clearly a broken system (the current model of software sales) to change it into a system that can generate money without limiting the rights of others to make money (hey, I'm not an economist, just a realist, I don't know how to fix the problem).

You know what, this happens in a lot of other industries. Example: 3rd party car parts. Guess what, when you buy one of these, your car company "loses" a sale, even though they originally put the effort in to develop the product. But you don't see anyone whining about that, however the effects of these third party parts is identical to the effects of a 3rd party modchip being used to pirate software: The original developer of a product (may) make less money.

Fortunately, we don't have laws that give people a right to make money in any capitalist country (beats me about China, though).

I'm all for companies making it easier for smart people to make a living by designing products that benefit the consumer.

Oh, here's an interesting fact: Chips that break console security actually _increase_ the diversity in software. Look up info about Tengen and their clone lockout chip. And, of course, the break Tengen had allowed all sorts of cool things. Camerica's Game Genie being one of them, IIRC, and another being cool things like clone Nintendos (pushing the price of the "real thing" back down to earth, and adding cool addons, like keyboards), and "1e6 in 1" game cartridges with 16 of each game using different colour palettes (all stupid, crappy games that totally sucked, for which the developers were the ones originally ripping off the consumers).

But, alas, people usually only think in the small, short term, which is developers getting the squeeze, and not the long term, which is competition and overall coolness.

Just my 2 cents.

Ahhh ... the fond memories of Mario Brothers Lava Lotus ... Lotus 1-2-3 ... but wait its a plant too!

Step 1. GPL MAME

Step 2. ?

Step 3. Profit!

The legal uses of MAME (together with legal ROMs) have been explicitly allowed previously (see the Capcom Classics CD), and it has been made clear that MAME itself isn't for sale, rather just a license for the game ROMs and a free copy of MAME on top.

Of course, we've had a fair share of problems because nobody is willing to try to enforce our current license on the most visible license violators, who currently do not redistribute the full source code changes: MAME32K (Kaillera) and the other MAME32 (not to be confused with the "right" MAME32). GPL would probably help here to force the source changes open, or to end the development of these particular derivative works. GPL would also allow us to re-use some non-critical code from other GPL'd projects, but personally I don't see this as a big advantage. Everything can be rewritten anyway.

In any case, even if MAME were to move to GPL, I don't think the development model would change much. Due to the dubious nature of ROMs, the developer mailing list and archive simply can not be public. A public CVS server would also be quite unlikely due to the support and maintainance nightmare. There haven't been any significant forks (unlike somebody mentioned here - changing one or two lines to remove the OK screen isn't forking) nor are we currently forbidding them - and I don't think GPL would change this situation.

Oh, and if you're wondering, mame.net is handling the Slashdot effect just fine. In fact, we've served even bigger audiences successfully. Moderators should frown any attempts of gaining karma through cut'n'pasting text from mame.net ;-)

Step 1. GPL MAME

Step 2. ?

Step 3. Profit!

The legal uses of MAME (together with legal ROMs) have been explicitly allowed previously (see the Capcom Classics CD), and it has been made clear that MAME itself isn't for sale, rather just a license for the game ROMs and a free copy of MAME on top.

Of course, we've had a fair share of problems because nobody is willing to try to enforce our current license on the most visible license violators, who currently do not redistribute the full source code changes: MAME32K (Kaillera) and the other MAME32 (not to be confused with the "right" MAME32). GPL would probably help here to force the source changes open, or to end the development of these particular derivative works. GPL would also allow us to re-use some non-critical code from other GPL'd projects, but personally I don't see this as a big advantage. Everything can be rewritten anyway.

In any case, even if MAME were to move to GPL, I don't think the development model would change much. Due to the dubious nature of ROMs, the developer mailing list and archive simply can not be public. A public CVS server would also be quite unlikely due to the support and maintainance nightmare. There haven't been any significant forks (unlike somebody mentioned here - changing one or two lines to remove the OK screen isn't forking) nor are we currently forbidding them - and I don't think GPL would change this situation.

Oh, and if you're wondering, mame.net is handling the Slashdot effect just fine. In fact, we've served even bigger audiences successfully. Moderators should frown any attempts of gaining karma through cut'n'pasting text from mame.net ;-)

I think it should be available from a review I wrote for

Gawd, I loved those magazines. Antic was terrific...I lovingly dwelled over each one. And then I got a big score, when I inherited my Uncle's C=64, I got like 5 years of Compute's Gazette...WITH DISKS! So I didn't have to type in all those programs (though I put in my share of type in.)

Anyway, one of the best unknown games for the C=64 came from that magazine...Crossroads! (and its sequal) It was so cool, using character graphics with pixelated explosions to put hundreds of monsters on screen, each with their own allies and enemies among the other monsters. I wrote a review of both games that's at ... check 'em out, they're both great.

http://x.mame.net/
http://www.classicgaming.com/vault/

All the games you could possibly want. Why limit yourself to 10?