Sonic Chaos - Sega Master System

Snowed in and nothing to do means we’re playing retro games.

We picked out Sonic Chaos, which is one of my favorites for the Master System. This Sonic game plays much like its Genesis counterparts, with a few exceptions. Chiefly, it’s MUCH easier – with an abundance of rings and secret 1-ups, its rare to ever see the game over screen. Playing as Tails makes the game even easier, with his flying ability and extra lives, but the downside is you can’t collect any chaos emeralds. It’s the perfect game to power through in a couple hours. You have fun doing it, and at the end feel you’ve accomplished something.

Chaos is fun, even if it is on the easy side. So why, then, wasn’t it able to compete with Mario? There were 4 Sonic releases on the Master System, and none of them were released until 1991. Thats 6 years after the first Super Mario – by this time, we’re already playing Mario 3, the depth of which is far beyond that of the Master System Sonic games. Not to mention, Sonic for Genesis also came out at this time, so unless Master System was all you had, you weren’t playing these games.

Why did Sega continue to publish and produce games for a system on it’s way out?

It just so happened that Sega had also released it’s handheld, the Game Gear during this time. The game gear used the same hardware that was in the Master System. This was a smart move on Sega’s part; Master System games could be ported, and new titles could be released on both systems, so they could continue selling to their Master System base.

So going back to Sonic Chaos:
Decent graphics and interesting levels make this game fun to play and will keep you coming back to find all the routes and secrets. Some may find the levels too easy, which is true, but I happen to like games that I can beat without cheating.

Rings Galore

Rarity wise, Chaos is nothing special, fetching $8 – $15 on the Master System and $5 on Game Gear. That being said, it’s not easy to track down a copy, so grab it if you see it.

• Graphics:   4
• Sound:        3
• Controls:     4
• Fun:             5
• Value:          3
• Total:         3.8

I thought it was high time I featured some of the awesome game inspired art that’s out there. Game art itself can be amazing, but I love seeing what players come up with when their creativity runs wild with their favorite games. Without further ado, my first game art round up.

This first is one of my favorites, a Mario inspired digital painting by Orioto. He has a lot of great video game art, so check out his gallery.

I only recently found this one. I thought it was a great re-interpretation of cute and cuddly Youshi.

A creative 3D take on a video game classic. Plus, it’s a wallpaper!

My good friend Jameson9101322 created this excellent rendering of Pyramid Head from the Silent Hill series.

This, apparently is a traditional acrylic painting. It depicts the crossover between the Dig Dug world and the Animal Crossing World. I LOVE it! I want a print of this…

Another beautiful Orioto. Many people agree that Zelda is one of the most moving franchise, and this piece accurately depicts the mood of a young boy just charged with saving the world.

I’ll be doing more of these round ups so if you have suggestions, please leave them in the comments!

Mario Characters Figurine - Club Nintendo Reward

Yesterday my reward came for achieving Club Nintendo Platinum status for 2010. This years reward is an awesome Mario characters statuette. The figurine is of decent quality (although maybe not as nice as the toys released a year ago), and as you can see, it’s a pretty awesome arrangement of the characters, sans koopa.

I expected the figures to be plastic, but they’re actually some kind of soft rubber. The paint job is good, although there were a couple scuffs from shipping. The detail molded into these figurines is great, I mean Luigi’s pants even have pockets! A high quality figure over all.

Mario ? Box - Club Nintendo Packaging

What’s awesome about Club Nintendo though, is not just the prize, but the experience. Who doesn’t like getting presents in the mail? And when you open up the package you’re greeted with a friendly thank you card from Nintendo. Beneath that is the PRIZE BOX! This has to be the coolest product box of all time – it looks just like a mario ? box. Those that know me know my game room is filled with boxes. This is almost as good as the reward itself!

I’m pretty ecstatic with my 2010 reward. I hope I can achieve platinum again in 2011. My only gripe with this year’s reward is that there is nothing on the statue itself to denote that its Club Nintendo exclusive. It would’ve been nice to see the Mario hat emblem on the front.

I’m going to tag this one as Retro and Rare. Already it’s fetching around $50 on ebay. We’ll see where it goes from there. Not retro you say? Check out the logo on the back of the box. Why they used the Super Mario World logo here I’m not sure, but I like it.

NES 60 pin to 72 pin converter

If you’re like me, you bought an original Famicom and a handful of games because you thought it would be really cool. Then you realized it’s nearly impossible to get the Famicom working with an American TV, unless your set happens to tune to channel 7 1/2.

The solution? Well, you could go out and buy a 60 to 72 pin converter – but, you may in fact already own one and not know it. When the NES came out in America, Nintendo was eager to sell systems and games. Rather than manufacture new PCBs for some games, they used the Japanese 60 pin version with a handy adapter inside. Eventually these were replaced with dedicated 72 pin PCBs, but it’s not uncommon to find these adapters floating around.

Notice the 5 Screws

How to tell:

1. You will only find the 60 pin to 72 pin converter in games with 5 screws. These games will not have the plastic tabs on top.
2. Look at the pins of the cartridge.  Games with converters inside will have contacts with a thin “tab” on their side, rather than in the center.
3. The converter adds weight, roughly an ounce heavier than normal games.
4. Open the damn thing – once you’ve narrowed down your possibilities, theres only one way to know for sure.

Note the contacts

Gyromite is one of the most common cart to have the adapter inside, though not every Gyromite has one (about 1 in 10). Luckily it’s a common enough cartridge that you can usually find them for a couple bucks.

Try to look at the contacts if you can before buying a boatload of  Gyromites.

Other games with adapters include:

Note the Famicom game is backwards in my toploader

• 1942
• Clu Clu Land
• Donkey Kong Jr.
• Duck Hunt
• Elevator Action
• Excitebike
• Golf
• Gumshoe
• Hogan’s Alley
• Mike Tyson’s Punchout
• Pinball
• Raid on Bungling Bay
• Rygar
• Soccer
• Stack-Up
• Tennis
• Urban Champion
• Wizards & Warriors
• Wrecking Crew

Note that when you get the converter out, it will only work one way. Thats with the converter facing forward (the way it would if it was still in the cart) and the famicom game facing backwards. Obviously this works great in a toploader, but to get it to work in the toaster will require some modification…

I stepped into a pawn shop while getting my car’s AC fixed. I was looking for something specific for NES when I noticed a cardboard box full of atari games. I asked to look, even though I’m used to seeing the standard Pac-Mans and Combats and not much else. Mixed in with the chaff I found these 3 games, Dice Puzzle, Porky’s, and Name This Game.

Of those, Porky’s and Name This Game are both about a Rarity 4 on Atari Age. Worth the $3 I paid for them, but not a whole heck of a lot more. Dice Puzzle on the other hand is a Rarity 6, and is made by Panda Inc. Panda Inc. made ripoff copies of other games, and bad ones at that. Dice Puzzle was one of their few original titles, but it still sucked.

Rarity 6 - Made by Panda Inc. maker of crappy games.

One interesting fact about Panda games is that most of them only had end labels. You can tell from the photo that there is no main label, and no evidence that there ever was one. This is completely normal for Dice Puzzle.

The value of these games is often determined by the quality of the end label. The labels used to be black, but were printed with crappy ink, and so are often discolored. Mines not great, but I’ve seen worse.

Black US version of the Pippin

I’ve been a game collector for a long time, but it was only recently that I heard about the Apple Pippin. No I’m not referring to a hobbit, the Pipping was Apple’s attempt at breaking into video games and multimedia. Much like the CD-i, the Pippin was designed to be released by multiple 3rd party manufacturers. Bandai was the first to pick it up. Apple created the technology, and licensed it to Bandai for production.

The Pippin was released in 1996, amongst the Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, and Sony Playstation. With a retail price of $599, the Pippin could not compete. There was shortage of software titles for the system, only 18 discs were released in the US.  The system was doomed, and quickly discontinued. Bandai produced less than 100,000 units, making this one of the rarest video game systems.

Apple described the unit as a ‘Multimedia Player’ – basically a computer with the ability to run interactive software on CD-Rom.

The Pippin 'Apple-Jack' controller - note the integrated track ball

Aside from having a game controller, the Pippin has other accessories such as keyboards, modems, floppy drives, and drawing tablets – further evidence that the device was really more a computer than a game console.

The Pippin was named after an apple variety, much like the Macintosh. Below are the basic specs of the unit at launch:

• 66 MHZ Power PC RISC Processor
• 5 MB RAM (combined system and video)
• 128k Flash Memory
• 4x CD-ROM drive
• 16bit video with dual frame buffers
• S-Video and composite out