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Inside the NES Worlds of Power Series
If you grew up in the 80s, chances were you'd at least heard of the Nintendo Entertainment System. For those of us that read Nintendo Power, ate Nintendo cereal, and (ahem) for a brief time even wore a Nintendo hat, the NES experience was fairly powerful. As such, reading about Nintendo games is a perfectly logical step. 1up has a long piece looking at the World of Power book series, a series of novelizations of some of the most popular NES titles of the day. Castlvania, Master Blaster, and Metal Gear all received the literary treatment ... with varying degrees of success. From the article: "This trend toward whitewashing death and violence also extended the books' text. In Blaster Master, all the defeated 'underboss' characters that look like mutated animals turn out to be holographic projections placed over formless blobs. In Metal Gear, Solid Snake is described as a 'walking arsenal,' yet he only uses his various weapons to shoot locks off doors. In Ninja Gaiden, Ryu's father is shown losing a duel to the death in the game's prologue, and is said to have passed away in the book's early chapters. Yet he turns up at the very end of the book, very much alive. In Infiltrator, a double agent that is ordered to be sent away to be 'voided' has his fate described as either having his memory wiped, being exiled, or getting demoted." So, how many folks (besides me) actually read these thing?
From TFA:
In Ninja Gaiden, Ryu's father is shown losing a duel to the death in the game's prologue, and is said to have passed away in the book's early chapters. Yet he turns up at the very end of the book, very much alive.
Tsk tsk tsk. Someone didn't play the game through. Ken Hayabusa IS alive until the end of the game.
pfft, you pussy. Wearing only a Nintendo hat?
I used to wear shirts, Hats, underwear, my shoes had Nintendo laces, I watched the Super Mario super show, read Nintendo Power like it was the bible, ate the ceral, played my NES like it was a gift from god and was damn proud of it.
you make it seem like it's an emberassment to of worn a hat. Tell that to the so called "fanboys" of today with their aligent to a system that don't have any of the merchandise that goes with the system to truely define you as a fanboy!
nothing beats it!
Monstar L
I never owned a NES, but definatly a SNES, and it was amazing. I really cherished that console and honestly, many of the games on it have never been beaten in my opinion. Yoshi's Island, the original Super Mario World, to name a few.
I even play a lot of Nintendo's re-makes for the Gameboy on my DS now.
Power Series huh? But does it actually converge?
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
The article summary refers to "Blaster Master" as "Master Blaster" and then the article says it was a Capcom game, when in reality it was a Sunsoft game.
Blaster Master
I just pooped your party.
Wow. I was actually reading Castlevania the other day (the actual book, not the transcription).
I read the Metal Gear novel when I was very young. I remember it being a very interesting book too, though that may have been because it was my first action novel. I had never even played the game, heh. The book gave hints on how to play the game after every chapter, which I thought was neat. Of course, having never played the game, I didn't know if the tips were actually useful, or just filler to try and push the game. I did eventually play the game Metal Gear with an emulator and was severely disappointed. I don't think I could make it off of the third screen.
The only other big difference I recall was that in the Metal Gear rendition, the cigarettes were never acquired or used by Solid Snake -- even though they gave you a significant boost in the amount of time you had to escape the facility at the end of the game!
Wrong on so many levels. Being the fan of the original game that I am, I can tell you that no locks get shot off in the game, ever, at all. Solid Snake's "arsenal" (which, in my memory was varied and useful) was used to shoot up guards, guard dogs, blow up tanks, and the like. Locked doors were *always* opened via the use of various key cards (numbered 1-8). If at any time you approached a locked door without the appropriate key card as your active item, the door did not open. There was no lock to shoot off.
The later Metal Gear games? I did not like Snake's revenge, and never really played any of the Metal Gear Solid games... they might have lock-shooting action. But Metal Gear? I have to question the authority of the writer on this one, because as somebody else points out, simple game titles and publishers aren't even cited correctly.
I read Blaster Master along with Castlevania when I was about 12 years old. At the time, I thought Blaster Master was an awesome book. I'd get all pumped up and slightly frightened when I came to a part in the book where a boss battle would be described. From a 12 year old me's perspective, I give the Blaster Master book a 9/10. INTENSE!
Infiltrator?! INFILTRATOR! I'm sorry but that was the suckiest game I have every played on the NES. Maybe I was really bothered by the fact I couldn't even play the copter missions for 60 seconds before dying but having no progress whatsover in the land mission parts.
Still it was an amazing concept but I think it was doing way too much for the NES console. Just not fun for a kid in the late 80's.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
What irked me about the books was how MegaMan kept using metal blade on everything. Cause you know using that would have you running out before you left the first part of the stage, and some bosses would just laught it right off. I'm looking at you there AirMan.
found about five of them at a garage sale about a decade back...
Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
I win. (taken in a mirror with a really crappy camera ^^;)
Hell, I still have them! Except Infiltrator... I haven't been able to find it in years. My name is Logan, and I am a tremendous dork.
Logan Smith
More information here:4 /8-bit-lit-worlds-of-power-series/
http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2006/08/0
I had a copy of the Castlevania II spin-off novel as a child. I was very interested in it, but that may have had more to do with wishing I could play the game than anything else.
It's Blaster Master.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
I read the master blaster book. As a kid it was enjoyable.
Are you kidding me? I don't think there was anyone then who had only heard of the NES. At least for people born around 1979-1981. No one had just heard of it... you had heard of it, seen the commercials, marveled at it at your friends house, begged your parents, seen the shows, talked about it at school, read comics, played with demos at the Captron World of Nintendo store in your local mall...
The NES was everywhere. It was *THE* toy of my generation.
When i was about 10 years old at the public library. It was a very good book from what i remember. It went along with the whole regions of the game from the beginning forest, to the undergrounds lava pits, to the end castle. It also had all the princesses you would rescue from each boss in the game. From what i remember, you face each boss in the book as you would in the game. In the end you beat everything, so its a good ending for a kid. Thumbs up
The Megaman 2 novel is also online. Here's a link: http://themechanicalmaniacs.com/downloads/mm2book. pdf
I used to have the blaster master one, the metal gear one, the castlevania one, the wizzards & warriors one and I think the ninja gaiden one.
Although I dont remember actually playing any of those games on the NES.
I mean, how obscure is this? I still have the Castlevania book and one other I can't recall the name of. The Castlevania novel was a great read for me as a kid. I could almost imagine myself in the role of the boy starring in the book (even though I'm a girl...). Maybe I'll go dig up my old books and reread them sometime...
anyone interested in some brain warm ups before starting a new day? check this out: www.iqscope.com
any book that has "on to the pink caves" can't be all bad.
I remember liking the Castlevania 2 book the best, though I also read Bionic Commando and Wizards and Warriors. But I remember reading all three of them repeatedly. Good fun, even if they did go astray from the game's plot once in a while. They were still much more fidelous than many of the movie remakes, today.
The article makes fun of the "Castlevania II: Simon's Quest" book using a quote that starts with "I will drink your spirit like cherry pop!"
But this is totally unfair! That quote is from the very beginning of the book when the main character is daydreaming. It's not from the main (and more serious) part of the story at all.
(Yes, I have all of the books sitting next to me...)
Some of us are still working on the game!
Escape Pod Films: Sketch Comedy and Web Series
NES? Nope, I had a Sega Master System with Wonderboy 3, Golvellius and Alex Kidd in Miracle World, can't beat them.
I used to get a SNES magazine that was sometimes bundled with books like this - Smash TV, Street Fighter and Putty Squad were a few of them - Putty Squad was quite a good pisstake of the game icons of the time. I think it was SNES Force magazine to those of us in the UK, the one with the slightly dodgy Manga inspired drawings throughout.
nt
I once had an idea to do a short story told from the viewpoint of a soldier on the field in one of my favorite Battlefield 1942 maps, but then I thought it about for a while and realized, "Hey, that's farking dumb."
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
1up has a long piece looking at the World of Power book series, a series of novelizations of some of the most popular NES titles of the day. Castlvania, Master Blaster, and Metal Gear all received the literary treatment
Master Blaster? Blasphemy! Go sit in a corner this instant; you're no true NES fan.
That would be BLASTER MASTER.
- IP
> Castlvania, Master Blaster, and Metal Gear all received ... with varying degrees of success
> the literary treatment
Funny. I'd have thought not
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Read em? I still have mine on the shelf! Books like shadowgate really helped introduce me into the world of fantasy. The pun thing from castlevania was hilarious, and these stories I still find enjoyable to this day!