Gameboy

Where do cartridge batteries go when they die?

So, I’m just back from an adventure here. I’ve worn my Castlevania addiction on my distressed leather sleeve for some time now, and it should come as no surprise that my collection of Castlevania software is pretty comprehensive. Of course, that doesn’t help much when a particularly rare game craps the bed.

Some might not be aware that cartridge-based games in many cases contain a small battery. This supplies constant current to the game so that it doesn’t forget its game saves when switched off. The Legend of Zelda for NES was notable as the first cartridge to do this, eliminating the need for password saves in console games (as seen in Zelda’s contemporaries, like Metroid).

While I have yet to encounter an NES Zelda cartridge (from 1987, people) with a dead battery, my copy of 2002’s Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance surprised me last year by forgetting all the saves on it. It didn’t take me too long to figure out the battery had died.

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Gamestop to stop selling Game Boy and Game Boy Color games.

I stopped into Gamestop today to return my overpriced copy of Professor Layton and noticed a sign on the front counter that said they would no longer be accepting used Game Boy and Game Boy Color games in early April. These games are no longer in production, which means when the games they have in stores are gone, that’s it.

This is not a big deal for someone like me, because I know Gamestop’s prices for used games are far too high, especially with resources like half.com and eBay at our disposal. This is notable for those who prefer to buy their used games where they can see them and test them first-hand though. There’s something to be said for that, of course, and this is Gamestop closing the tap on the 8-bit wonder in a sense.

Game Boy Advance games are not impacted by this change, and according to the woman I spoke to at the store, there are no plans to reduce prices on the games in stock in order to clear them out.

At the risk of ending this fan’s world… it’s a Metroid II remake!

Regardless of how you feel about them (well, us), fans of Nintendo games are a breed apart. Many won’t let the obvious legal danger of playing around with Nintendo’s IPs deter them from making their own versions of Nintendo’s classic games. Case in point is this surprising remake of the 1992 Game Boy game, Metroid II: Return of Samus, which I reviewed for Aeropause. Go ahead and read that one, I’m proud of it. I’ll wait.

So what this loyal fan, going by the name DoctorM64, has done is ripped the assets out of Metroid Fusion (hey, you can read a review for that, too) and used them as a starting point to rebuild the ol’ monochrome beep-fest in much the same way Nintendo did for the original Metroid with Zero Mission (hey, what do you know…).

It’s Windows-only unfortunately, but judging by the video at the source, it’s some impressive work that clearly took a really long time to do. Let’s keep in mind that the better this man does, the more likely he is to be shut down with a firmly-worded cease and desist letter. He even points out that he’s aware of that on his blog. Brilliant job though, this guy should be cooperating for a Cave Story sequel instead of getting himself in trouble like this.

Source: Fan remake of Metroid II is not only awesome, but also playable at DSFanboy.

Capcom store marks certain items, including Zack & Wiki, down 15% for the Holidays.

Now may be the time to stock up on everything Capcom, because their online store is boasting a 15% discount through the Holiday season on everything in a special Hot Deals category. Well, not now exactly, but starting tomorrow. Some included items include titles that are now out of print, but are still available while they last.

In addition to fun stuff like Resident Evil 4, Dead Rising, and Phoenix Wright, there are some really cool games that you might have missed like Godhand and killer7, and even some really high-quality Street Fighter and Darkstalkers figurines. Again, some older titles are available in LIMITED quantities, and when they

Aeropodcast No10: Carrying the Torch edition.

Sunday, October 7th, 2007

Recorded Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 10pm EST/7pm PST.

After a series of cancellations that came at us like a barrage, Joe and I were wondering if we shouldn’t have had those black bean, garlic and tripe sandwiches. We carried on anyway though, because of devotion to our listener.

This week, I’ve got a much higher quality headset, more adjustments have been made to how the podcast is put together, and we’re working at a higher bitrate from beginning to end. Hopefully this will improve the listener experience a bit. Let us know what you think.

Download the podcast here (53.3 MB, 58:14).
Subscribe via iTunes | RSS | Odeo | Digg

Full show notes are available after the jump.

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The Megadrive Sound Sequencer

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007

It’s been a while since I’ve written about an artsy, custom-made game device, and this piece inspired me to start again. Sound engineer, hacker, electronic gadget guru - call him what you will but Gijs Gieskes has created a device that should, in my opinion, have Nintendo or Guitar Hero knocking on his door for rights to his creation.

Gijs has crafted a video game - sound sequencer, built from a Mega Drive, a Gameboy and various other doodads that outputs insane, seizure like yet trippy graphics that even Cheech Marin would be jealous over. The sequencer itself controls the controller for the Mega Drive which outputs the random, music-based drawings or, for a game theme, messes with poor Sonic in his example. The Gameboy is used for the clock signal which then goes to two divide counters to the beat of 2, 4 or 8. What no 16 beat count? Still, I’m sure it’s loads of fun. Where can I get one?

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A Metroid retrospective in five parts.

Monday, August 27th, 2007

Gametrailers has been working on a Metroid Retrospective for a while now, and now that all five parts of it are out, I thought I’d share. This could be considered as much a celebration of Metroid’s 20th year as it is Metroid’s 10th piece of software, which happens when Prime 3 is released on August 27th. August 27th?! That’s Mars Day!

Well, check below for all five. Grab some popcorn, and set aside some time. They’re pretty lengthy, and even if you think you know everything about Metroid, be prepared to pick up some new data.

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Namco Museum about to hit your DS.

Sunday, August 12th, 2007

While the Namco Museum titles have hit every platform you can imagine, and many might simply turn up their nose at another appearance, I think it’s important to keep in mind that this is not Tetris Worlds. While both appear everywhere, Namco Museum contains quality. This is a budget title filled with genuine classics. While not every gamer will find every title in Namco Museum a gem, here are three notables I’d like to point out, then Namco’s press release is below for you complete-ists out there.

Pac-Man VS. was a Gamecube disc pack-in for three Namco titles in 2003 for the Gamecube: i-Ninja, Pac-Man World 2, and R:Racing Evolution. This was a project of Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, who has famously said that Pac-Man is his favorite game. It’s a multi-player Pac-Man game where one player plays as the eponymous dot-muncher on a standard franchise maze on their GBA screen, and the other three players play as ghosts with a limited field of view for each on the TV screen via the Gamecube, using Gamecube controllers. The result was that the ghosts did not know where Pac-Man was until they stumbled upon him, at which point the room would erupt with shouts of, “he’s over here!” The mechanic is fixed with the DS conversion, because while perhaps the 3 GBAs for every Gamecube ratio was pretty solid in 2003, it never seemed to work out as well as the numbers imply. Single-card download play on the super-popular DS ought to do the trick just right. Some are bound to argue that no classic is a mere four years old, but improved accessibility for a great, nigh-invisible title like this is worth any rule bending.

Mappy. Joe likes Mappy.

The Tower of Druaga is a game I had never heard of until I played Baten Kaitos on the Gamecube. One trippy, twisted location in the game actually incorporates a version of the game directly into its gameplay. Your detailed 3D character is running around a low-res sprite maze, and when you collide with the blobs in the game it triggers a full battle like any other enemy encounter in the game. Its was one of the strangest things I ever saw in an RPG, and once I did the research to find out what was going on, I loved it.

Notably missing in this collection is the original Dig-Dug, while Dig-Dug II is there. Also, Pac-Man is here, but the more popular Ms. Pac-Man is not.

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Weekend Gaming Score: The (EA Sports) Big Time

Saturday, July 28th, 2007

And here we are with the Tivoli edition of Weekend Gaming Score.

Today, while enjoying the lovely town of Tivoli, New York as they had their town-wide Yard Sale Day, I made some pretty exciting and amusing finds. While I passed up a $10 Nintendo 64 system with all the hardware, two controllers and a Goldeneye 007 cartridge (a deal I’m still not sure I made the right call on) and a Dreamcast that a guy was so desperate to unload that after he said $15 he rapidly dropped the price down to a mere 50 cents while I was walking away (a deal that had to be even more foolish of me to ignore), I picked up some deals that actually made sense for me.

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Nintendo’s perplexing stock issues throw me for a loop.

Saturday, July 21st, 2007

It seems like only seconds ago I was teaching you to break your GBA and showing you pictures of mine as an example. Actually, I kid, even though it doesn’t look so hot, my GBA still works fine. I decided to sell my stock GBA and a couple of games to make the money to buy a new GBA SP (the one with the sharp backlit screen), as incentive for myself to finish those Game Boy and Game Boy Color games that sit unfinished on the shelf, since Nintendo didn’t see fit to build in reverse-compatibility to those formats in the DS.

A couple of things I discovered. Firstly, the Game Boy Micro has a more reasonable price point now, down from $100 to about $70, but I’ve seen them as low as $50 new without really trying. That’s more like it, but unfortunately, no reverse compatibility in those.

Secondly, the same Nintendo that can’t make enough Wiis to fulfill public demand seems to be having the same problem with the GBA SP, though I saw more than a dozen DS Lites today.

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