Retro News
April2013
News Mega Man Soundtracks Released on U.S. Capcom Store
If you're in Europe, tough
The Mega Man franchise is currently indulging in its 25th Anniversary celebrations with various goodies though yes, we know, no full game to date. For fans of the series, however, recent months have given a good opportunity to buy assorted trinkets to celebrate, with Capcom also gradually bringing the first six NES titles...
Review Clash of Elementalists (DSiWare)
An Elemental Mistake
If you’ve stumbled onto any footage of Clash of Elementalists, we wouldn’t be surprised if your first impression was a good one. At first glance, the game-play appears reminiscent of SEGA’s Virtual-On series or even the multiplayer aspect of Kid Icarus: Uprising. This is a third-person arena brawler where you’re bestowed...
News Twenty Years On, It's Time To Check Out Benimaru Itoh's Awesome Star Fox Artwork
Freshly translated into English, too
Star Fox is twenty years old this year, and to celebrate that fact, translating powerhouse GlitterBerri has taken the comic intro to the Japan-only Star Fox: Mission File Printout guide and adapted it for English audiences. Featuring the artwork of Benimaru Itoh, the guide reveals the back story of the game and...
News Tales Of Symphonia Is The Most "Successful" Series Entry In The West, Says Producer
Franchise could be headed to the Wii U, too
Tales series producer Hideo Baba believes that Tales of Symphonia, the fifth game in the series, was the most popular game in the franchise overseas. In an interview with Destructoid, Baba explained why he felt it made the most impact in the West: I believe the success of Tales of Symphonia has multiple...
Review Viewtiful Joe (GameCube)
A Viewtiful debut
Joe is nothing more than an average… well, Joe, as it were. The guy loves old movies and their cheesy melodrama, so when a malevolent hand drags him into a superhero flick, he’s absolutely pumped. This is a chance to do the impossible; to pull off his favorite actions scenes with high-flying kicks, slow-motion thrills, and...
Weirdness Pick Up a Power Mitt for Awesome Motion Controlled Kitchen Work
It's so... bad, by which we mean cool
Ah, the Power Glove, it's so bad. When it made its high-profile appearance in The Wizard with the infamous line, it was during a confusing Michael Jackson-inspired fad where 'bad' actually meant 'cool', which is about as logical as the idea of wearing a glove to play games. Still, it's an iconic example of the...
News Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Talks Tetris And Giving Game Boys To World Leaders
He's rocking an awesome Limited Edition Astro Boy Game Boy Light, too
It's no secret that Apple co-founder Steve "Woz" Wozniak is something of a legend at Game Boy Tetris, but seeing the man in action is something else. Game Informer managed to infiltrate Woz's hotel room recently, and recorded some footage of him dominating at
Review NAM-1975 (Wii Virtual Console / Neo Geo)
War is heaven
Although NAM-1975 was an early Neo Geo release, it's certainly not short on fun. Released in 1990, it took a simple shooting approach and built an interesting war theme around it. Simple mechanics and a level of playability that wasn't too common in the genre made for an amazing gameplay experience. Now SNK Playmore is bringing back...
Feature Ten SEGA Mega Drive / Genesis Games We Want on the Wii U Virtual Console
They skipped Wii VC, so now their time has come
Earlier this week we were rather pleased the share the news, based on a couple of sources, that Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse looks set to come to Wii U. It's unclear whether it'll be a straight-up re-release (on the Virtual Console) or a remastered port, but whatever the case it's a SEGA...
Ninterview Per Fhager On Combining Embroidery With Video Games
"Video gaming is an important medium that reflects our time"
Video games and art regularly collide with spectacular results, but the work of Swedish artist Per Fhager is one of the most surprising examples of this fusion of interactive entertainment and the world of visual crafts. Fhager's work has been displayed all over Europe, and manages to...
Review Harvest Moon (3DS eShop / GBC)
Under thresher
The Harvest Moon series has always promoted the ideals of hard work and patience over the instant gratification found by more recent prods at gaming agriculture like Farmville. This attitude is even more apparent in Harvest Moon on the Game Boy Color than other iterations, as the handheld game crops the series down to its very roots...
News Translated 1997 Interview with Miyamoto and Itoi Reveals Nintendo 64 Insights
Details on their professional relationship, the 64DD and N64 advertising
Japanese translation blog Yomuka! has produced a full English transcript of an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto and Shigesato Itoi (MOTHER series) that originally appeared in Japanese gaming magazine, The 64 Dream. The extensive interview from December 1997 provides a great...
Weirdness Looks Like Link Is Versed In The Japanese Art Of Kyudo Archery
They sure know their Far Eastern archery skills in Hyrule
We sure get sent some unusual news tips here at Nintendo Life, but when Ben "Mikeyman64" Barger decided to tell us about a cool feature he'd found in Super Smash Bros. Melee, we knew we were onto something a little more out of the ordinary. According to our tipster, Link's bow-work in the...
News Wiggy Design Mod Finally Makes The Sega Nomad Truly Portable
Better screen, internal battery and improved sound - it's the Nomad X
As you'll already know, we're massive fans of Wiggy Design's Rose Colored Gaming here at Nintendo Life. Wiggy's motto is "New ideas for old games", and his most recent upgrade certainly lives up to that. The Nomad X mod takes Sega's portable Genesis / Mega Drive console and makes...
March2013
News Grant Kirkhope Wishes He Could Make Banjo-Kazooie 3 For Nintendo
Explains why Rare chose to make Nuts & Bolts
Banjo-Kazooie is revered by many as one of the best games to ever grace the N64. The platformer, which starred a docile bear and a wise-cracking bird, could have ended up being something completely different as it was originally set to be a highly ambitious venture known as Project Dream. Speaking as a...
News GoldenEye 007 Multiplayer Took Just Six Weeks To Make
Rare staffers put it together right at the end
In 1997, Rare released GoldenEye 007 on the N64 and it became an absolute classic that arguably redefined the first person shooter genre and revolutionised the way multiplayer was done on home consoles. It all nearly never happened though as according to Grant Kirkhope, the composer behind the game's...
News Best Buy R.O.B. Saga Reaches a Happy Ending
S.A.V.E.D.
Best Buy has decided not to destroy the R.O.B. unit that nearly cost an employee his job. The robot, which an employee unsuccessfully attempted to take home instead of being recycled as part of Best Buy's Renew Blue program, will instead be sent to the company's corporate headquarters to be put on display. Best Buy had some enthusiastic...
Review Art of Fighting 3: The Path of the Warrior (Wii Virtual Console / Neo Geo)
Third time's a charm?
Art of Fighting sprang onto the Neo Geo arcade scene in 1993 and brought with it several innovations that would become a staple of future Neo fighting titles. For one thing the game featured huge character sprites, some spanning nearly the height of the screen. It also introduced the now famous SNK zoom system that would keep...
News Best Buy Employee On A Mission To Save R.O.B.
Battling corporate policy for the sake of gaming history
An employee at Best Buy is currently at risk of losing his job in a desperate bid to prevent a Nintendo Entertainment System Deluxe Set from being recycled. Sharing his story on Reddit, a customer recently brought the set into the store to have it recycled as part of Best Buy's "Renew Blue"...
"Not just another NWC cart auction"
A copy of Nintendo World Championships 1990 owned by none other than "Gamemaster" Howard Phillips has recently sold on eBay for an incredible US $17,367. The game was listed as part of a unique package being offered by Howard, including an all-access badge he wore during the original competition in 1990 and a...
News Print Your Own Goldeneye Remote Mine
Golden gun not included
Anyone who played Goldeneye 007 back on the N64 will no doubt remember the countless weapons and traps included in its multiplayer mode. ComradeQuiche of Thingiverse has combined his fond memories and technical know-how to create a replica of the remote mine using a 3D printer and has posted the model for all to use. The...
News Star Fox Developer: I Wanted To Say "Screw That" To Shigeru Miyamoto
Dylan Cuthbert reveals the magic of working with Nintendo
Star Fox is one of the Super Nintendo's most enduring classics, thanks largely to its ground-breaking use of 3D and tight, immserise gameplay. However, had Dylan Cuthbert — one of the game's key developers — had his way, it might have turned out very differently; something he now admits...
Review Forgotten Legions (DSiWare)
Tower offence
Forgotten Legions tells the story of a character named Merkhovious, who is apparently a wizard or some other type of magic user. He started using dark magic and was quickly banished from the town of Riverkeep, because the higher-ups there frown upon that sort of thing. Now Merkhovious is back, and he’s brought an army of undead...
News Gaze Upon The Mega Man Figures You Will Never Own
Custom made and packed with awesomeness
There's no shortage of Mega Man figures out there — the popularity of the character both in the west and Japan has ensured a steady flow of cool merchandise — but unsurprisingly most are based on the anime-style iteration of the character, and not the one found on the western boxes. Although they're not...
News Hyperkin Details RetroN 5 Super Console In Video Announcement
Coming in July, plays 9 different game formats and upscales via HDMI
We knew that Hyperkin would be officially revealing the RetroN 4 console at this year's Midwest Gaming Classic, but the company surprised everyone by lifting the lid on the RetroN 5 instead. It pretty much showcases all of the functions that were hinted at with the RetroN 4, and...
Feature Nintendo Life's Staff Favourites - NES
Let's begin at the beginning
One thing you may have noticed, if you're a regular visitor to Nintendo Life, is that we're more than happy to wear our retro-enthusiast, rose-tinted spectacles as often as possible. A merger with VC-Reviews in April 2009 is an important part of our history, and we often share entertaining blasts from the past and wax...
Review Super Pang (Super Nintendo)
Forever blowing bubbles
Capcom is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2013. Since the company formed in 1983, it has published a host of classic titles from the Resident Evil series, countless Street Fighter games and many timeless iterations of Mega Man. One of its lesser known titles is Super Pang (known as Super Buster Bros. in North America), an...
Hardware Classics NEC PC Engine
Emotion Engine
It's a common misconception that the Nintendo Super Famicom and Sega Mega Drive were close rivals in their native Japan. In reality, Sega was in fact third in the pecking order, and it was NEC's PC Engine which fought so bitterly with Nintendo for domination of the sales charts. A collaboration between hardware manufacturer NEC an
Review Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream (Wii U eShop / NES)
Heavy Hitter
Boxing is a fascinating sport. Two human beings enter the ring, then skilfully and tactfully beat the tar out of one another using nothing but their own gloved fists. It’s the perfect fodder for a video game, and that’s exactly why the Punch-Out!! series is such a classic. Originally released in North America as Mike Tyson's...
Clone alone
The medium of video gaming has arguably witnessed some of the most ridiculous story lines in the history of humankind. Let’s face it, if you went to a literary agent with the concept of a portly Italian plumber giving up hunting giant apes and travelling to a land filled with talking mushrooms to save a princess from the clutches of a...
Video Zelda: A Link To The Past Gets Condensed Into Just Four Minutes
One of the best games ever in less time than it takes to eat a burger
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is unquestionably one of the best Zelda instalments, and quite possibly one of the greatest video games ever made. The games offers hours of top-notch entertainment, but YouTube user vgcuts has managed to cram all of that awesomeness into...
Review The King of Fighters '98 (Wii Virtual Console / Neo Geo)
The best there ever was
For many 2D fighting game fans, The King of Fighters '98 represents the zenith of the series; the crowning glory of the only rival lineage to truly bloody the nose of Capcom's genre-defining Street Fighter. It's not hard to see why this is the case; the game looks stunning, has a massive roster of characters and boasts one...
Video Pokémon Snap Gritty Reboot Spoofs Jurassic Park
"Welcome to Pokémon Island!"
The Gritty Reboot team — which did such a fantastic job on Harvest Moon earlier this month — are back with another Nintendo-related trailer, this time based on the N64 title Pokémon Snap. The clip boasts the same astonishingly high production values as it predecessor, and this time spoofs the Hollywood smash-hit...
News Earthbound Creator, Shigesato Itoi, Gearing Up to Play SNES Classic in Live Stream
Watch and be jealous of Japanese gamers
Earthbound — or Mother 2: Revenge of Gyiygas in Japan — is one of those titles that's permanently on the agenda for some retro gamers; its absence in the West is a continual source of disappointment. With apparent licensing issues keeping the critically acclaimed classic off the Wii Virtual Console, the...
News Super Metroid is 19 Years Old Today
A defining game of the 16-bit era
We couldn't forget this anniversary now, could we? 19 years ago Super Metroid was released in Japan, though it was in later Western releases that it truly found an adoring audience. While not the first game in the series, it's arguably the most commonly cited and recognisable adventure starring Samus Aran. Whether...
News This Is How You Recondition A Game Boy Advance
From second hand to factory fresh
Last week, we interviewed Rose Colored Gaming's Matthew "Wiggy" Wiggins about his unique range of console modifications. In the feature, Wiggins revealed that he gets quite a kick out of buying grimy-looking games and systems and then freshing them up for a new lease of life, and in a recent blog post on his site,...
You jelly?
Aside offerings such as I Must Run!, there haven't been a huge number of endless runner-style games on DSiWare. CIRCLE Entertainment's latest title, Goony, aims to fill that gap a little, while also proving that you don't necessarily need legs or a baffling amount of stamina to star in the genre – if you're a creature made of jelly, you...
Video It's a Fighting Robot Controlled By a Famicom Controller
Step aside, R.O.B.
Video game enthusiasts are often wonderful people, in that they'll do something unspeakably cool and awesome simply because they feel like it; that's why we rather adore quite a lot of video game culture. We also like anything that fuses modern technology with retro gadgets, which is exactly what this Japanese genius has done...
Video Someone Has Hacked Nic Cage's Face Into Zelda, Just Because They Can
"We had no goal, only Cage"
Oh boy. Some things in life simply defy explanation, so we won't even bother, but merely offer this befuddling video and allow you to draw your own conclusions. YouTube user Criken has created a texture mod for The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask which liberally coats various surfaces in the game with the face of...
Round Table Let's Talk About the F-Zero Franchise
Ready
With SNES classic F-Zero coming to the end of its spell as the 30 cent/30 pence Famicom Anniversary promotion on the Wii U eShop, some of us in the Nintendo Life team thought that it was the perfect time to talk about the franchise. With just four main releases — include the GBA title but discounting the arcade unit — it's not been...
Review Mega Man 3 (3DS eShop / NES)
Sibling rivalry
It's fitting that Mega Man 3 introduces our hero's antagonistic, cocksure older brother Proto Man, as the game itself seems to eternally duke it out with its own brother Mega Man 2 for the coveted title of Best in Series. But wherever you may fall on the question, there's no doubt that this third installment in the classic franchise...
News Legend Of Zelda Hacked To Make Zelda The Hero
Well her name is in the title, after all
Recently, we saw Pauline switch roles with one-time romantic attachment Mario, and now it's the turn of Hyrule's most celebrated couple to change places. Animator Kenna W. decided to mod The Legend of Zelda to realise one of her childhood dreams — to get to play as the titular princess: For me, I played...
News The Game Boy Color’s Only First-Person Shooter Comes Back From The Dead
Unreleased Tyrannosaurus Tex emerges from exitinction
2001 was supposed to see the release of UK-based Slitherine Software's Tyrannosaurus Tex, a first person shooter for the Game Boy Color which boasted smooth 3D action and a compelling deathmatch mode. However, prospective publisher Eidos — now part of Square Enix — decided not to release the...
News This NES Arcade Unit is a Perfect Introduction to Gaming
All for one lucky little girl
Earlier today we posted an article on The Electus 64 II Mini, a handheld Nintendo 64 that resembles a glossy, chunky Game Boy. And rather like London buses (wait for an eternity and two come at the same time), we've been directed to an arcade cabinet that plays NES games — just like the handheld N64, that's actual...
News The Electus 64 II Mini Brings the Sexy Back to Nintendo 64
Packed with features that actually work
When it comes to modded consoles — which in this case means one that plays actual cartridges, not ROMS — we've seen plenty of innovative efforts over the years. Enthusiasts with a flair for hardware tech have produced handheld GameCube systems housed in tupperware boxes — we kid you not — a Super NES...
News Sami Cetin Regains PAL Super Mario Kart Time Trial World Title
Niece Leyla Hasso bags the women's world title, too
UK Super Mario Kart champ Sami Cetin has regained the PAL version Time Trial World Title for the second time. Sami previously held the title from September 1998 until April 2004, and beat one of the World Records set by former title holder Karel van Duijvenboden of the Netherlands on Sunday, March...
Review Wrecking Crew (3DS eShop / NES)
I'm gonna wreck it!
It’s common knowledge for most gamers that Mario has been in countless games over the years, in which he has taken on a bevy of different roles and occupations. From race-car driver to boxing referee, Mario has done it all. Curiously enough, just about the only job Mario hasn’t performed in a video game is that of a plumber,...
Fire Emblem's old rival deserves a second chance
As you dig yourself into Fire Emblem: Awakening’s monstrously addictive campaign, spare a thought for some of the other turn-based strategy RPGs which haven’t been given the chance to impress an entirely fresh generation of players. Like Langrisser, for example. Chances are, unless you really know...
Review Legend of the River King (3DS eShop / GBC)
Nothing smells fishy here
Natsume is mostly known for its Harvest Moon games, but what you might not know is that there is another long-running series from the same developer - in fact, its first game predates the first Harvest Moon by 6 years. Legend of the River King is one of only four games in this series released outside Japan, and it's now...
News Richie Branson Celebrates Chrono Trigger Anniversary With a New Rap
Three free tracks, album on the way
Last summer we directed you to a music track from rapper Richie Branson, called Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, which combined rap with enough game references to satisfy almost anyone. He's now returning with a new album that's focused on SNES classic Chrono Trigger, and to celebrate the 18th Anniversary since its...
News Mega Man Boss Battle Exhibition Artwork Now on Sale
Worldwide shipping is available
While Capcom may be showing little love for its iconic Mega Man franchise, fans and those inspired by the games continually do so in the developer's place. One example is the Mega Man Boss Battle exhibition currently running at the Gauntlet Gallery in San Francisco, a showing open until 31st March. It features a...
Ninterview Wiggy Design On Breathing Life Into Old Systems
Console modification with the human touch
Although it's always exciting to open up the latest and greatest consoles and get to grips with the incredible advances being made by hardware manufacturers, there's something about vintage systems which makes them appealing long after they fall out of fashion and become technologically obsolete. Your...
News Dad Hacks Donkey Kong So His Daughter Can Play As Pauline
Role reversal
Remember the story of Mike Hoye and his daughter Maya? He didn't want her to have to play The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker from a male perspective, so he hacked the game to make Link a "she". YouTube user Mike Mika has performed a similar trick, this time making the hero of Donkey
Review Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge (Game Boy Advance)
The dynamic duo go portable
When we at Nintendo Life think of Rare’s masterpieces from the Nintendo 64 era, we think of expansive and adventurous games like Donkey Kong 64, Jet Force Gemini, and of course the beloved Banjo-Kazooie series. Off-the-wall characters, exuberant locales, and an epic sense of scope added to the hook of what made these...
News Harvest Moon Gets The Hollywood Reboot Treatment
Down on the farm
Hollywood reboots are pretty tiresome these days — it would appear that film-makers have run out of new ideas entirely. Still, every cloud has a silver lining, because the loathsome trend of pilfering ideas from the past has inspired the YouTube series Gritty Reboots, which parodies the process but uses video games for its ideas,...
Review Easter Eggztravaganza (DSiWare)
All cracked up
Whenever a major holiday is just around the corner, it’s no surprise that a flood of related products hit the market just in time to grab the attention of consumers. It happens with almost everything, from food to toys to lawn ornaments, and video games are no exception. While it’s not fair to knock a product for being a blatant...
News Kickstarter Launched For SNES Super 4-in-1 Multicart
$10,000 funding goal in place
A Kickstarter campaign has been launched to produce a Super 4-in-1 cartridge for the SNES. The cart will contain four homebrew titles: Mazezam, UWOL: Quest for Money, Skipp and Friends Unexpected Journey and N- WARP Daisakusen. The creators are looking to secure $10,000 to fund the project. At the time of writing, they...
News F-Zero AX Found Hidden In GameCube F-Zero GX
Arcade version discovered by hackers
If you're one of the thousands of people that still despairs that the arcade version of F-Zero GX — cunningly titled F-Zero AX — was really hard to find in its heyday, and has since all but died out, we've got some good news for you. The intrepid folks over at The Cutting Room Floor have found that the...
Review Puzzler World 2013 (DS)
A puzzling affair
There are a number of reasons why the Puzzler World series continues to see new life on DS. For one, it's still a bestselling series, which is no doubt partly down to the DS's impressive install base around the world. However, it's also the fact that the titles' word and logic puzzles — which historically have been restricted to...
News Hyperkin's RetroN 4 To Support SNES, Genesis, NES and GBA Software
Everything but the kitchen sink
Hyperkin has been producing hardware clones for a few years now — clones which provide a decent alternative for those moments when your trusty SNES dies on you and you can't abide the feeling of buying a second-hand replacement. We've already covered the RetroN 3 and SupaBoy Portable on this site, and found them to...
News It's Chiptune Album Time, and This One's For SEGA Fans
Oh, the sweet beats
We may be called Nintendo Life, but ever since the Wii Virtual Console came into being it's given us a viable excuse to talk about a lot of other systems, including Nintendo'a arch-nemesis of the early-mid '90s, the SEGA Mega Drive / Genesis. Which is no bad thing, the games industry, past and present, is about a lot more than...
News Super Metroid Symphony Album to be Released on 19th March
Another arrangement from the Synthetic Orchestra
While many enthusiasts and talented musicians create terrific remixes or orchestrations of popular game soundtracks, not all are as prolific or well-regarded as the Synthetic Orchestra. The creation of Blake Robinson, the studio is his project to take well known themes from various sources — many of...
Review Retro City Rampage (WiiWare)
Rack up those combos, Player!
Retro City Rampage is a lot of things, but subtle isn't one of them. One of the first screens — with the title "Common Sense Warning!" — informs you that the game is packed with parodies, and it continues to bludgeon you over the head as you play. You may be a pixellated character given some freedom to romp around a...
February2013
Video Vblank Entertainment Shows You How to Make a Game for the NES
ROM City Rampage is a blast from the past
Out today in North America and Europe, Retro City Rampage is, as the title suggests, a WiiWare release that aims to remind us of gaming's older days. Inspired by the original GTA, it includes a host of jokes, references and areas designed to bring to mind pop culture of the '80s and '90s. Also included with...
News This Is What Real Life GoldenEye 007 Multiplayer Looks Like
Proximity mines always win
It's actually quite scary to think how many collective man hours the team at Nintendo Life has spent playing multiplayer on GoldenEye 007. During our formative years, this highly esteemed cartridge rarely left the console and any person that didn't own a copy and four controllers was shunned as something of an outcast...
Feature The Wonderful World of Multiplayer Add-Ons
The lengths we go to
If you want to play a bit of multiplayer in most games nowadays, and you don't have a friend nearby, it's as easy as selecting a menu and waiting for strangers to appear as competition. Online multiplayer can perhaps be a bit more personal than that, of course, with the ability to meet up with friends and have a blast, as we did...
Review Yoshi (3DS eShop / NES)
Soft boiled
Mario's loyal dinosaur companion Yoshi may have made his debut in the Super Nintendo classic Super Mario World, but one year later Nintendo gave him his own title on the rapidly fading NES. That game was Yoshi, and it's now come to non-Ambassadors on the 3DS eShop. It's a falling block puzzler, which is a genre every video game...
Hardware Classics Nintendo DS Lite
This is how you redesign a console
Let's be brutally honest here — the original DS design was ugly. Quite what Nintendo's designers were thinking when they came up with it we'll never know, but the dumpy, two-tone casing hardly got pulses racing, even back in 2004. It felt like a system that was rushed out of the door purely to meet a deadline,...
Review World Heroes 2 Jet (Wii Virtual Console / Neo Geo)
Jet setter
Speed upgrades became all of the rage during the early fighting game craze during the early '90s — Capcom practically made a living at it for a while. So when arcade gamers began complaining about the sluggish speed of World Heroes 2, SNK did the logical thing and borrowed a page from Capcom's book. When World Heroes 2 Jet burst onto...
Propellerheads
G-STYLE's latest import from Japan, Moke Moke stars a mysterious race of flying, forest-dwelling fuzzballs known as Moke. Combining the evolutionary advantages of sighted moles with the whimsical utility of those novelty helicopter hats, the Moke spend their time whizzing around the forest in an eternal contest to see who among them...
Review Castlevania (3DS eShop / NES)
Drac attack
A while back we were "graced" with the arrival of Castlevania: The Adventure on 3DS Virtual Console, an overly simplistic attempt to bring the series to handhelds. Now the NES original has arrived on the service as well, but is it still worth going batty over? If you've played almost any other "classic-style" Castlevania game, you'll be...
Hardware Classics Nintendo AV Famicom
Give the dog a bone
The Nintendo Entertainment System — or NES, for short — is arguably the console on which Nintendo's current lofty status was built. Launched in Japan as the Famicom, the 8-bit platform is home to an almost endless list of solid-gold classics, including Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Metroid,
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
Over the past few years, the DSiWare download service has seen some incredibly strange games with bizarre plots and titles. Ah! Heaven is no exception to this. Simply put, this a vertically scrolling platformer that has you taking control of a spiky haired, sunglasses wearing, nameless soul who just wants to ascend to...
Review Dig Dug (3DS eShop / NES)
Slightly soiled
In 1982, Namco released Dig Dug. By that point in time the company had already cemented its place in the gaming history books with enduring classics like Pac-Man and Galaga. Their younger brother Dig Dug never quite reached their heights of popularity, but it's still quite fun in its own right. As with many early arcade games, your...
Feature Nintendo Battle - Donkey Kong: Tabletop vs. Game & Watch
Are you ready?
During the arcade boom of the early 1980s, Donkey Kong was doing great business for Nintendo. To capitalise on this popularity, miniature versions of the arcade game were released. First, there was Coleco’s Donkey Kong tabletop, followed by Nintendo’s Game & Watch Multi Screen version. We decided to pit these ‘portable’...
