The Unofficial NES/ Famicom Visual Compendium - Book Review

Over the past few years Bitmap Books have been releasing visual compendiums of retro game consoles. They have done some sterling work for the ZX Spectrum, Commadore 64 and Amiga but when they started a Kickstarter last year to raise funds for a NES Visual Compendium I quickly backed that and so did many others, it sailed past its goal raising 8 times the required amount!. I've spoken at length about my love for the NES before and the chance to grab a book full of stunning pixel perfect artwork from some of the most formative games in the medium was too good a chance to pass up. I backed the 40 pound tier which meant I would get the book in a lenticular case, a chiptune CD, 50 glitches NES postcards and a Famicom Disc System laptop sticker and a digital copy of the book.  

So after what seems like a millennia I finally received my copy of the book this weekend, but was it worth the wait?  

Well to start off with the lenticular case enveloping the book snugly is a thing of beauty; sturdy and impressively weighted this feels like a premium item, not one built to cash in merely on nostalgia but to be a reference or coffee table book of substance. The book itself has a slipcase and the paper stock of the pages is of good quality, with the book containing over 500 pages it is a hefty tome but expertly crafted with sewn binding. The printed images are immaculate and crystal clear and the occasional interviews and smattering of quotes are nice touches. The reflections of gamers on individual NES titles is a thoughtful and personal touch and shows that this was a true labour of love.  

There are a few titles given the privilege of gatefold pages which lay out the artistry behind these titles and a few of my favourites include Mario Bros 1, Punchout and Kirby's Adventure.  

So the book is a very worthwhile purchase and a must for any NES/Famicom fan. The glitch postcards are a nice addition and as I've done some glitch art in class myself I really can see the beauty behind the broken. The sticker is fine and whilst not the finest of print quality it looks alright. The CD is a nice bonus and whilst I can't imagine listening to it that often it was a good incentive for the tier I bought in on.  

Overall this is an essential purchase for NES fans and gamers as a whole as some of the art and games contained within have left a long lasting legacy in gaming. Beyond that, it's just a darned pretty book! 

My One True Gaming Constant in Life- Nintendo

In late March 2015 my wife and I welcomed our beautiful daughter, Jasmine, into the world. In the last couple of years since her birth we've been through a massive amount of change- some of it good and some of it bad; staying up most of the night to her howls and calling NHS Direct worriedly at 3 a.m. only for her to fall asleep inexplicably happy after half an hour, hearing her say her first word ('Dada' if you were interested) and seeing her walk for the first time with a huge grin on her face. As a parent these moments of joy and and fear make up much of your waking life and you'd be surprised at how quickly you adapt to it- it becomes a part of your life as naturally as breathing. I've written already about how my gaming life has been impacted by the introduction of a baby into my life but something that has not changed in all this is the presence of Nintendo. 

My second mancave was in a much smaller room which I was given as a favour from my wife. It was full of DVD's, CD's, graphic novels, models and plushies. It was great but felt a bit crammed!

I first came to gaming when I was 6 and lived opposite a video rental store in East Ham, East London. The shop had a few arcade machines including the sit-down Pacman table, Space Invaders and some other ones which I can't remember. I fell in love with the colours, lights and sounds and blame it for getting me run-over when I was rushing with my pocket money across a busy street. Luckily I only had a graze on my head and lived to tell the tale and play games. I asked my parents for a computer but money was always tight so I had to content myself with playing my friends' computers. They had a ZX Spectrum and Spectrum +2 and the games wowed me but when my best friend got an NES for his 10th birthday my whole world changed- Nintendo was in my blood now. Together we would play our way through Double Dragon, Mario 1 and 3, Zelda, Micro Machines and many more. At the time I was playing the NES I was bought an Amstrad CPC 464 with green monochrome screen for my birthday. I loved the aged Amstrad machine, particularly enjoying Rainbow Islands, Bubble Bobble, Dizzy and Target Renegade, but wanted an upgrade and so worked hard on my car-washing round to purchase a Master System as the NES was still very expensive. The Master System was a good machine but the NES was much better in terms of gaming catalogue and so I still played it much more around my best friends house.

When the Megadrive came into the picture with Sonic my friend got that for his birthday and again I played through many of the best games with him, including Streets of Rage 1 and 2, Aladdin and Street Fighter 2. These were the times of the console wars and you were either Sega or Nintendo but never both. I was definitely Sega but this changed when another friend of mine gave me his beat up old Gameboy. It was scratched up real bad and had no back for the battery casing but that didn't matter, I loved it! So between my fix of the Megadrive and Gameboy I was all set. Later on I would swap my Master System and library of games to get a second-hand Megadrive. I missed out on the SNES as none of my close friends had it but I came back to it once the new console generation began. This was when Nintendo would become my gaming constant. I got the N64 second-hand and completed Zelda: The Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye. The N64 was awesome at the time but due to the huge gaps between games I also purchased a second-hand Playstation 1 and loved that too- completing amongst others Final Fantasy 7, Syphon Filter and Parasite Eve II.

My bedroom was spacious, light and piled high with my 'pile of shame'... comics, books and games I wanted to complete.

My bedroom (which I'd had since I was 11) was a geeks paradise and very spacious.

I even had a projector plugged in to play games. This was especially good for scary games like Project Zero 2 on the Wii.

My projector is used a lot to play games on this portable machine. The sounds not great but the gameplay is spot on.

The image is pretty clear on the wall but it's a definite step down from my original room.

When the Gamecube came out in 2002 I bought it on the day of release with my brother, giddy from the money from my weekend jobs at a clothing chain and a youth centre. It was the first ever console that I bought brand new and so it has a special place in my heart. Even though it had quite a small library it did have some of my favourite games ever including Zelda: Windwaker, Resident Evil 4 (an exclusive at the time) and Metroid Prime. As the consoles library dried up I purchased a second-hand Playstation 2 specifically to play Ico. The game had me intrigued and so I brought a shrink wrapped copy of that game and the console one Saturday after work at the youth centre and devoured the game in a few days. Of course I played loads of other PS2 games but Ico was my in, a strange in to be sure.

I bought the Xbox 360 in 2007 and loved that system, it's online service was amazing and I played some phenomenal games including Bioshock, Assassins Creed 2, Gears of War, Red Dead Redemption and Deadly Premonition. However I noticed something; all those achievements and the quest for useless XP points was getting in the way of the games for me. The simplicity of the games were being diluted with fetch-quests and the search for random doodads, a lot of the games coming out had no respect for my time and I started to dislike them for this; why did I need a 3 hour tutorial on how to move my character around a screen?

When the Wii was released I was one of the lucky few who had pre-ordered at from Game and got it on the day of release. The system was a revelation and yes I am one of those people who have the story of 'my parents never played any computer system but they did play Wii Sports.' The image of my dad playing tennis with my older brother by waggling the Wii-mote around is a happy memory for me and not at all as sinister or sordid as it sounds. The Wii had some amazing games including Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Muramasa: The Demon Sword, Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 and Donkey Kong Country Returns but as usual the games dried up and the shovelware came in. When my wife and I moved to Cambodia for 2 years she bought me a cracked Wii and I had over 200 games on it. She went away for a girlie weekend and found me in a catatonic state, sleep-deprived and I'm sure a bit smelly as I am a completist and had stayed up pretty much the whole weekend playing loads of the games worrying about how I would complete them all. That is obviously not a good state to be in and so I decided to relax about games and not get caught up in the whole 'complete everything' spiral. I went back to the Xbox 360 but was very picky in what I played as so many were very padded experiences, I started critical pathing some of the games which made them still very worthwhile in my opinion. I also only played the Wii games I was interested in and completed pretty much all the ones I had wanted.

I then bought a Wii U and even though it has been a commercial failure, it has had some phenomenal games; Bayonetta 2, Super Mario 3D World, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (which incidentally has one of the greatest soundtracks ever) and Rayman Legends. I've found myself more relaxed about my gaming habits and again have only played the games that have interested me and respect my time.

And so on to the Nintendo Switch. I've pre-ordered it and am awaiting it with bated breath. Even though many of my friends and colleagues are worried about it as they feel Nintendo's last few entries into the console market have been underwhelming, for me it doesn't matter. I play Nintendo games for the Nintendo experience. They very rarely create games that have fat and take liberties with your time. Their games are usually polished and refined to the highest degree and this is what I pay for.

I've found that even though I have more responsibility in terms of finances and family, Nintendo has been a constant. It offers me hours of comfort and pound or pound has given me more joy than any other media. I often get people asking me when I have the time to play games and the funny thing is that even though I don't have the time I used to have when I was in my adolescence or teens, I do have a spare couple of hours most evenings.

My daughter goes to sleep at 7 ish most nights and my wife is close behind at 8:30, being a lark whilst I am most definitely an owl. This means I get a couple of hours gaming in most nights and have smashed through tonnes of games in the past couple of years. I could spend a few hours working my way through tutorials on some 360 games but most Wii U games don't have long-winded openings and so I just jump in and there I am collecting bananas and trying to stop my island from freezing, or there I am trying to smash Peach off the arena with my Falcon Punch... it goes on.

Nintendo is a constant in my life and even though the company doesn't always get everything right, what it does to is provide a library of bonafide classic games that stand the test of time (for the most part). I hope that as my daughter grows up I can share my passion for gaming with her and show her the Nintendo universe and the wonders contained within.

Top Chiptune Soundtracks You Don't Know

Soundtracks nowadays are similar in style and vein to movie scores, full of cinematic scope and bombast, which is great as it leads to fantastic scores like the ones for Journey, Thomas Was Alone or DMC. However there was a simpler time where space was limited and the sound files had to be compressed and optimised to fit on a cartridge with 8 or 16 megs. This economy of scale led to thoughtful and creative masterpieces that are still iconic even today.

Now we could rattle off the famous game soundtracks that usually fit into many of the 'greatest Megadrive / SNES / NES soundtrack compilations' which you can find on YouTube but I want to choose a few pieces that time has forgotten. This is away from the usual Castlevania, Sonic, Megaman and Mario soundtrack scores as everyone knows them and loves them. I'm talking about the rarely heard soundtracks of yore. Here are a few of my favourites, maybe you could tell me yours!

This music plays during the Underwater levels from the Disney game World Of Illusion. It also plays during Mickey's Coral Reef section.

Music from R-Type 1987 by Irem- this level could be described as looking like the contents of a stomach, possibly after eating genetically modified food.

Thunder Force 3 - Stage 5: Ellis. This music was so upbeat and rocking that I loved leaving it to last!

Nintendo Quest Review

Nintendo Quest is a Kickstarter-funded documentary based on a simple premise; a young man, Jay, has to find all 678 original NES video games which were released in North America within 30 days. This sounds like a simple enough task right? In this day and age of the internet auction sites and online shopping it's a no-brainer, but to make it more challenging no internet or auction sites can be used and his current collection cannot be included.

This is a promising set-up, full of potential for insights into Nintendo history, a deep look at gaming and collectors and a look behind the recent surge in interest in retro gaming collection.

The documentary starts by talking heads saying things like, "It'll be a transformative experience", "He's going to go on a journey and find a lot out about himself" and so on, all set to background fast paced rock music! He's not after the holy grail, it's NES carts!

As an avid collector I love the thrill of finding carts in the wild but I would never be as hyperbolic as this documentary is. When Jay is finding the carts there is a UI (User Interface) that shows his money level and his NES cartridge count but there isn't a monetary value represented and the cost of the games isn't shared either. In some scenes I expected Westlife's 'Flying Without Wings' to be playing in the playground, all set to slomo images of the protagonist, Jay, digging through the carts.

When compared to something like 'From Bedrooms to Billions', again a documentary about gaming but this time about people making games in the 70's/ 80's, the information was interesting but well paced and not so hyperbolic, it made it a much easier viewing experience.

Nintendo Quest  fails to be insightful on what is a fascinating topic. For a documentary all about the vintage gaming scene it is fails to look at the reasons behind the scene, the cost of the hobby and even why there is a resurgence in old skool gaming. The documentary has a lot of potential but ultimately fails to deliver, being quite meandering and unfocussed.

For the Love of Libraries

'Libraries give us power' extolled the Manic Street Preachers in their anthemic Design for Life and how right they were. The combined collective history of the world, the knowledge and wisdom thereof is contained within. I've always loved libraries, their peace, the smell of old books and the atmosphere they give... wonderful. I've always loved reading and read voraciously in my youth and formative years. Most Saturday mornings were spent going to Barking Library, heading off to Cash Converters to look at all the cool (probably stolen and resold- this is Barking after all) NES and Megadrive games then it would be topped off by a visit to my local comic shop, Rodneys Books and Games... But it all started with the library.

I would spend hours in there perusing the shelves, reading away in a comfy faux leather chair listening to my Jean Michel Jarre recorded cassette of Oxygene. Ah the memories. Well Beyond the Frame has created a marvelous mash-up celebrating the most wonderful places in the world. So what do your library memories consist of?

Keeper of Classic Gaming

As a teacher and a parent many feel that it is my role to impart my knowledge and wisdom to the younger generation. However I got to a-thinking, apart from being older than those I teach what gives me the right to feel that what I say is correct or the choices I present are the correct ones for my wards? Rather shouldn't I help to educate the children so that they can make informed choices independently? These are profound questions which came from a very 'unprofound' place; gaming. What games should I introduce to my nephew as he gained an interest in gaming? My brother asked me to introduce his son to gaming as he had shown a keen interest in the PSP he had been playing.

Now being the Keeper of the Gateway to Classic Gaming, who am I to decide what games he should play? Of course I want him to experience stone-cold classics like Pacman, Sonic and Super Mario Bros. but maybe he should have a chance to experience gaming organically. This could include 'bad' games, like Dragons Lair on the NES or ET on the Atari.

In my formative years I played lots of 'bad' games but isn't taste objective? One only has to look online to find difference of opinion on just about anything. A prime example would be Deadly Premonition, I absolutely loved this game and in my opinion it was one of the best games of the last generation however in much of the gaming media the game was slated for being shonky and awkward. It was one of the most divisive games of the last generation garnering 10/10 on Destructoid whilst also gaining 2/10 on IGN.

Children are explorers, they like to find things out for themselves and decide what they like and don't like. I am not the Keeper of the Gateway of Classic Gaming, rather I am an observer and adviser. If the children ask me what games to play I can advise but I should not impose my tastes on them... let them explore and find their own interests organically.

Retron 5 Review

The Retron 5 has been a long time coming to the UK. Initially planned to be released in early 2014 the clone console was delayed, when the initial shipment was produced the machines went to America to fulfill orders there, unsettling those in the UK. And so we arrive, a year later than expected... But was it worth the wait?

First the preliminaries, the Retron 5 is a clone console which means it plays original hardware using emulation.
The machine has HDMI output and it is excellent, the picture clarity is superb and whilst it wont match the costlier upscalers it does a darned fine job making your old game gleam like they have never gleamed before.
The extensive menus also allow you to tinker with the visuals and add filters which significantly change the look of the game and you can screen capture images.

However its trump card is that it has 6 pad ports for SNES, Mega drive and NES controllers, for many this is the main attraction of the machine. This is just as well as the machine looks like a hideous toaster and comes packed in with a horrible controller which is best used to just navigate the menus.

Remapping joypad buttons is a treat for the games that had the jump button not keyed on for optimum ease and it also lets you save your progress at any time. For the Gameboy games you can change the screen colours and save your progress from cartridges with batteries (brilliant for saving your Pokemon progress from the mid 90s whose battery packs are dying, however this doesn't work at the moment but has been promised as a firmware update).
The machine has an SD card slot and it will only be a matter of time before some hackers figure out a way of allowing you to play the ROMs you want but may not have hard copies of.

So would I recommend the machine? In a word yes! Even though it is quite costly (£129.99) the Retron 5 is a space saving smart solution to playing your old games in the high fidelity you remember from your childhood but even better.

I have started a Retro Games Club in my school and we have been playing a different game each week. We started off with Street Fighter 2 on the SNES, then moved onto Golden Axe on the Megadrive and both games looked stunning on the HD 52 inch screen (for the article on this click here). This is what the machine is best for, not to replace your old original systems but to offer a way to play the games you loved in your youth in the simplest possible way,  As a soon to be father I want to make sure my child has access to the games of my youth to appreciate modern gaming. I look forward to sharing my passion for retro games without it taking over my living room and life.

Preserving the Spirit of Media Past

Preserving the past is a tricky preposition and getting trickier with the amount of information stored on fragile digital media. Filmmakers like Martin Scorsese have made it their mission to preserve classic films whilst Christopher Nolan has sought to preserve the medium of the physical film stock itself. However whose mission is it to save the audience?

We are at a watershed moment in film history, not just with the impending extinction of physical film but the demise of an audience equipped to appreciate some of its greatest works. I am a great lover of silent film and early movies, having been introduced to many in my youth by my parents and BBC 2 Sunday morning programming. I have fond memories of watching Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin. Having attended a University which specialised in media and film studies (but studying Anthropology myself) I was introduced to many 'new' old films almost through a process of osmosis. I would take 8 to 10 VHS tapes at a time and consume them voraciously between assignments, listen in to students discussing them in the library and although many years have passed I still appreciate and watch these classic movies.

The Great Dictator is an absolute classic and contains one of the greatest speeches ever written.

I was concerned that the medium would be forgotten by the new generation- these films exist out of the childrens palate don't they? Well as a teacher I have had to endure many wet plays and this past December was a particularly soggy one, so there were more wet plays than usual. So I put on some Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy short films. There was no hype, no boombast, no 3D and no dramatic Hans Zimmer score.

My 30 pupils were motionless for a few minutes, I assumed that they were struggling to find a way in but watching patiently out of politeness to me. After a few moments I asked "Do you want me to turn it off?" and the children shouted "No!" Then the laughter started, the children were mesmerised for the length of the 25 or so minutes, they requested more clips so I worked through my collection. Children don't need to be told what to like, they will intuitively try things out and relate it to their world and experiences. In this case Charlie Chaplin was like "An old Mr Bean."

In much the same way as cinephiles do not need to guard older films, we older gamers do not need to feel like guardians of gaming heritage.

This term I have started a Retro Games Club using the Retron5 with original controllers and games to introduce children to the games of yore. The first game I unleashed on them was the SNES classic 'Street Fighter II Turbgo.' The children loved it and recognised some of the main characters. This led to a discussion on other characters that the children knew like Megaman and Pacman as well as the more famous contemporary icons from more modern games. A few of the children told me that their parents had the old systems and so they played some of the older games at home.

Punchout is the spiritual father of Wii Sports boxing, a game many children have played.

This wasn't 'Fauxstalgia' (False nostalgia) but something palpable- the children could relate to these characters and games from their own experiences and those who couldn't recognised the mechanics from their current gaming experiences. In the same way that 'Punchout' was compared to Wii Sports Boxing by my children people will always find a way in and seek out the origins of thing. Our gaming and film heritage is in good hands; God is in his heaven All is right with the world.

Original Hardware, Emulators or Clone Hardware?

Playing old computer games is pretty easy nowadays with many games being available online through digital download services such as GOG, Steam and the numerous legal download services, as well as illegal emulator sites too. However when playing computer games there's nothing like to have the real thing, many of the retro games are available to play but the real problem lies with the joypads. There is nothing like playing a game with the controller it was meant for. Also for many gamers space is a premium and the problems associated with compatibility with modern television sets comes into play too.

The Retron5 comes in a very cool looking box

The Retron5 comes in a very cool looking box

I am a collector and have many of the original computers, consoles and games from my childhood but with my room being converted into a nursery for our imminent firstborn space is at a premium. So I purchased a Retron5 Clone Console, a machine that plays the original games AND uses the original controllers of the Famicom, NES, SNES, Megadrive, Gameboy, Gameboy Colour and Gameboy Advanced. The aspect I am most looking forward to is the fact that it is usable on the current television sets and upscales to 720p. Also with fatherhood around the corner the use of Save States will come in very useful I'm sure.

I will be testing the system over the next couple of weeks and will be providing my opinions and feedback here.