D-Pad Hero is a really cool homebrew game for the NES and it’s pretty easy to see where the game draws its inspiration from, which is Guitar Hero and its ilk.

The game is freely available from the developer’s website in ROM form. While you can run the game on an emulator on a PC, check out the following videos whereby the game is played on the Nintendo DS with the help of a flashkart and nesDS, a NES emulator for the NDS:

It’s really scary playing the game on the DS, its as tough as nails. Some of you may have notice that the videos taken were during the game’s listen mode. I won’t be posting up a video of me playing the game; it’s too embarassing with my ineptness.

Click here to download the game.

The hotel that I was staying at for the past three days (Awana Genting Highlands) had a convenience store which also stocked several video game consoles, no doubt for bored tourist kids who can’t be bothered with all the great outdoor fun Awana has to offer. The jungle trails which played host to Trailblazer 08 (read my race report here) are of particular interest, but anyways..

The shop had a couple of Sega Genesis for sale, but these aren’t your run of the mill Sega Megadrive consoles. One thing, not only do they support the usual cartridges, these have games pre-loaded. The price? RM 169, or USD 48.

It does sound like an expensive piece of kit, and before you Sega/retro loving nut rush off to get one, here’s an alternative, the cheaper and official Sega endorsed product, the Sega Mega Drive Twin Pad Player.

Loaded up with 20 Sega licensed games (including Alien Storm, Altered Beast, Sonic and Knuckles, etc), it also plays original Mega Drive and Genesis games. The console comes with a convenient NTSC/PAL switch, to switch the console between the US NTSC Genesis and PAL Mega Drive modes. Best of all, it is now selling at a discounted price of USD 29.90 over at Play-Asia.

Here’s the description of the console, taken from Play-Asia:

The Sega Mega Drive Twin Pad Player from Sega’s official China distributor AtGames brings back all the memories of Sega’s 16bit era. This official product does not only feature twenty hot built-in Mega Drive games, but also plays all original Sega Mega Drive and Sega Genesis games from all regions* (Japan, USA and Europe) as well as specially designed AtGames RedKid cartridges**. Further included in the package are two six-button joypads, an AV Mono cable, a multi voltage power supply as well as an instructions sheet.

The Twin Pad Player features standard Mega Drive joypad ports, so other official or third party pads can be connected in exchange of those ones that are supplied with this bundle.

*Note: The Twin Pad Player features an NTSC/PAL switch to switch your console between US NTSC Genesis and PAL Mega Drive Mode. Japanese Mega Drive games can generally be played in US NTSC mode, however some newer titles (such as Comix Zone) are not compatible due to region protection code. Incompatibility of some other titles may also occur.

**RedKid cartridges are officially licensed Mega Drive cartridges distributed by AtGames. Various game cartridges, including multi game compilations are and further will be made available in the future.

Interested? Click here for purchase details or to find out more about the pre-loaded games in this console.

I went on an eBay shopping spree today, snagging a bunch of Nintendo-related stuff. I couldn’t believe it myself, but here are the items that I purchased today:

• Brand New Pokemon Diamond (English) for the Nintendo DS ~ USD 20.50. I felt bad after the auction concluded because I hijacked the bidding 30 seconds before the auction ended.
• Brand New Tetris DS (English) for the Nintendo DS ~ USD 32.02. This was a crazy auction with plenty of drama and last minute max bids. It would seem that everyone were on the look-out for Tetris DS. The next copy of Tetris DS from the same seller was sold for over USD 40.
• An European SNES (I think) complete with 2 gamepads, power supply and what looks to be 4 original games ~ RM 100

eBay is addictive. So watch out people!

This Kid Icarus stuff is rather tough. No wonder I have got no love towards platformers. However, the “I’m Finished!” message had me in chuckles the first time it appeared after the character plunged to his death.

I still think it’s due to a programming issue (deliberately or otherwise) that doesn’t allow the player to descend down levels, leaving only one way, up.

The game actually looks grittier than its own cover, and an interesting note for collectors, the game was released as part of Nintendo’s Famicom Mini Series, number 24 to be exact. Sold out on Play-Asia, I can only find one used copy on eBay.

R4DS owners and other flashcart owners would be happy to know that the game runs pretty well on the nesDS, with no problems so far. Now if only I can get pass that old hag..

Some people might say the Playstation 3 looks like a sandwich maker or an expensive BBQ grill and I tend to agree with them. However, I do think that the PS3 does take after some retro consoles. Don’t believe me? Have a look at these sandwich maker-like video game consoles of yesteryear:

The NEC PC-Engine Duo, released way back in 1991 had Bomberman hidden in its OS and multi-regional, unlike its earlier PC-Engine models.

The Fujitsu FM Towns Marty was released in 1993 and had a PC microprocessor, a 386 running at 16 MHz to be exact, for a brain.

The Philips CD-i would probably be the sucker of this entire bunch, with only 90 games released throughout its entire product life-span. The picture above is of the CD-i 450 released in 1994.

Notice the distinctive curve on top of each console? Yup, sandwich makers were in vogue years ago

At first I thought purchasing an old SNES was rather retro cool (check out my previous post), but there’s an even better, albeit, unofficial console out there in the market, the Super Nico Fami. This thing plays BOTH Super Famicom and Famicom games!

Check it out at Play-Asia. Click here for further details.

I just spent RM 80 (about USD 25) for a used Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It’s in pretty good condition, with just the cartridge flap being loose and the controllers a little less sensitive than what I would have liked.

The seller included 4 games, albeit they are pirated ones but it shouldn’t be a problem looking for original stuff online. Looks like I’ll be spending more time at Play-Asia’s classic section.

Anyways, back to more Super Mario World.