Retro Shamer - The Rocketeer

Based on the 1991 feature film, The Rocketeer casts players in the role of America's number one pilot of the 1930s. The game is composed of eight stages, but two of the stages -- the airplane race and the hangar shoot -- repeat without good reason. Viewed from an angled perspective, the awkwardly controlled airplane race consists of circling around a pseudo-3D airfield, trying to stay close to pylons without hitting them or the other planes. The first-person hangar shootout has enemies barely moving and only popping up in a few places, while the final battle on a zeppelin features sluggish combat. Despite colorfully detailed graphics and pleasant and varied music, The Rocketeer never takes flight as an action game. i enjoyed this game most hated it

snes vs n64 comparison screen

killer instinct and spawn snes console releases?

Starfox 2 promo box art

life cycle

This is the first version of the life cycle that was released around 1995. The cycle hooks to your snes system via a small box which allows you to play two of the games that were released. Mountain Bike Rally and Speed Racer

Satellaview

Not that rare, but still a nice item to possess. This is a Satellite Modem System for the Super Famicom that could be used to download games, news and various other stuff through the japanese St. Giga tv-channel. Amongst these were various otherwise unreleased games, such as sequels to Zelda3, Chrono Trigger, Excitebike, F-Zero, a remake of Zelda 1, various small RPGs by Square etc. The service was stopped in 2001.

Sample and test cartridges

Various beta-version and test or sample cartridges. These were used to test the games in-house or sent to video game magazines for previews. The games on these cartridges often differ from the released retail versions and usually exist in quantities from 1 up to 20. The pcbs shown on the picture are Super FX, SA-1, 8Mbit Lorom, 16Mbit Lorom/Hirom and 48Mbit Lorom/Hirom. The cartridge labeled "game processor ram cassette" is believed to come from a never released Nintendo end-user game development machine, much like the Sony Playstation Yaroze. The machines US patent number is 5680534. Schematic drawings can be found here and here. Recently, some of these carts have popped up at a japanese reseller of used games.

Snes - Development Unit - RARE

This is the holy grail of SNES dev collecting. A full-fledged SNES with rom emulator, realtime debugger, graphics and sound converter, MIDI-interface and SCSI-interface to communicate with a PC. While these were commonly used by licensed SNES developers back in the days, Nintendos NDA forced them to either destroy the units or return them to Nintendo after the company stopped producing SNES software. This is one of four units worldwide known to be in collectors hands.

Review - Unreleased star fox 2 for Snes

Back in the '90's, The Super NES was pushing the limits of the gaming world. With the advent of 3D gaming popping up in the arcades, and new consoles on the horizon with "lush 3D world's", Nintendo didn't want their user base to jump train and hop on with the other guys. In order to do so, they introduced the Super FX chip. This little diddy was able to provide a math processor to the system via the cartridges and allow developers to release real, 3D polygon based games.

One game that became the flagship Super FX game was Star Fox. This was an incredible flight shooter game. The premise was all to familiar in many aspects, but it was a fun and exciting game with plenty of difficulty. It has since spawned a few sequels. However, of all the sequels released, ONE was never released to the public. That was Star Fox 2 on the SNES.





This title was amazing. It was supposedly going to use the Super FX 2 chip to allow for more polygons, faster frame rates, and better texture mapping. Star Fox 2 also had a new way of play. Rather than being led to particular worlds and locations, you could actually plot your course there, making alterations along the way.

Rumor has it that the title was anywhere from 70% to 95% complete, and from the way the game played, it shows. There is a comment over at Wikipedia that quotes a programmer for stating that the Japanese version was 100%, minus the debugging system was still in place. The beta 1.1 release of the game has all of the menu's, sounds, graphics, and game play in place. It has only one level, and three difficulty settings. Surprisingly, with the use of a newer released SNES emulator, you can easily play the game.

Is the game playable? VERY much so. I played through the beta 1.1v and completed it to the point of defeating Andros, and being able to view the credits. I did this on the normal difficulty setting, so I am not to certain if you are able to actually defeat the game on higher difficulties.

Now, rumors persist that the game was canceled because Nintendo was just about ready to release the Nintendo 64 (N64), and Miyamoto wanted to distance the SNES and the N64 when 3D was concerned, as the N64 was supposed to be the only true 3D console in Nintendo's arsenal.

In regards to components of the game living on, Star Fox 64 inherited the All-Range mode, Multi-Player mode, and Star Wolf scenarios. Some of the flight mechanics also carried over, such as the barrel roll to deflect incoming shots. The Nintendo DS version of Star Fox, Star Fox Command, inherited the game play style seen in Star Fox 2, being the Semi real time map, and mission styles.


All in all, if you feel the need to experience a GRAND game that never got to be released, do a Google Search for Star Fox 2, and I guarantee you will find the beta 1.1 version. I recommend either zSNES, or SNES9x to play this title. Also, make sure you have the most recent release of these emulators. I promise that you will NOT be disappointed with this title, even though all of the text is primarily in Japanese

Snes fan mag

Major emphasis placed on Super Nintendo, a secondary focus on Saturn, Super Famicom, retro magazines and miscellaneous life memories. In short, if you enjoy reading the mad ramblings of a nostalgic retro recollective gamer -- you've come to the right place

www.RVGFANATIC.com/301.html

Snes cd info and old press

Finally Nintendo has unveiled all the technical specifications of the new CD ROM which is due to hit the Japanese and American market this fall. Super NES ND (Nintendo Disc) which it is going to be called in Japan, will have a 32 Bit Co processor which makes it superior to all other available systems. The games (discs) won’t look like common CD’s. The CD itself is going to be inside a cardridge which, apart from the CD, is going to contain 256 Kbit of RAM memory opperating like the memory in normal cardridge games. In addision a safety chip protects agains piracy.

All those who complained about the slow opperating processor of the SNES with its 3,58 MHz, can look forward to the SNES ND RISC-based processor which opperates with a speed of 21.477 MHz. In addision it contains a custom chip which actually is a further processor. This enables the CD to read RAM memory without rejecting other tasks. It has a clock frequency of 4,295 MHz. This system which Nintendo have created themselves is called HANDS (Hyper Adcanced Nintendo Data Transfer System)

The primary part of the “brain” will be located in a System Cardridge which means that it will be very easy to upgrade the console if there is any need for it.

What games are comming out for this system is still unclear. Virgin says that they plan to make a SNES ND version of the fantastic popular adventure game 7th Guest and Seta has mumbled something about the RPG Gdleen that will contain natural talk instead of text only. We hope to find out more about the other games comming for this system at the CES in Chicago early June... the same place SNES ND is going to be officially shown for the first time."

Technical specifications:

Ram memory: 8+4 Mbit
Sub memory: 1 Mbit
ROM memory: 2 Mbit
Co processor: 32-Bit RISC
Clock frequency: 21.477 MHz
Average accesstime: 0,7 seconds
Data Output speed: 150 Kbytes/second
Price tag USA: $299
In stores (USA): Fall 1993

Playstion or snes cd you decide?

Does this look a little like a SNES to you? Well, it should. Sony's first steps into gaming came courtesy of its current competitor. Sony was to partner with Nintendo in creating a CD-based expansion for the Super Nintendo. The very first PlayStation would have been a powerful collaboration between two Japanese giants, but a controversial split between the two left Sony sidelined, bitter ... and determined to beat Nintendo at its own game.

Edge Online has a fantastic piece on the history behind the very first PlayStation system, detailing the system's unexpected rise to mainstream popularity. PS1 was a technological marvel for its time, pushing the boundaries of games to what was then considered super-computing. Sound familiar? Phil Harrison reminisced about the past: "This was a super high-end workstation. And Ken [Kutaragi]'s big vision was to take that, apply it in high volume and bring it into the home." Looking at the history of the PS1, it's clear that PS3 follows a heritage of bringing unheard of power to the masses.

Mario Kart Review

There are some crazy people in this world, some people have never seen Star Wars, some people have never heard of David Beckham.

And some people have never played Mario Kart.

Mario Kart exploded surprisingly onto the scene in 1992 for the Super Nintendo. The game pitted Mario, Luigi and six of their chums and enemies against one another over a number of courses.

Racing games had been at a bit of a lull at the time. Sure they had made games like F-Zero and F1 Exhaust Heat which took advantage of the Mode 7 chip, but they were both pretty average racers.

Mario Kart made racing fun.



The main game was split into 4 cups, each cup with 5 tracks. You race each other over those five tracks to gain points (the top four gain between 1 and 9 points), and the one with the most points at the end win. This game is nowhere near a serious racing game, as you can use shortcuts (the kart only loses speed on the dirt) or use one of the multitude of Mario themed weapons such as shells, stars and mushrooms to propel yourselves into the lead. You are encouraged to race dirty.

The races are fast pace and action packed. It doesn’t matter if you take the odd corner wide or you hit an opponant, you just pick yourself up and carry on racing. The memorable music and the fact that they fitted in all sorts of Mario kameos with the courses and the enemies made this a game for all audiences - the first timers to the Mario series, the veterans and racing fans.

Another place where this game shone was the two player mode. As well as racing with 6 of the other drivers, you also get a 2 player race, and battle mode which was immensely fun in it’s day. Each car gets three balloons and you need to land three hits on your opponant to win.

It was not perfect - the fact that the same four finished in the top four places annoyed me immensely, and the fact that the enemy overtakes you on the last corner a few too many times - but it is still fun today. Sure, it’s beginning to show it’s age, but it’s still one of the most defining racing games ever made.

Pilot Wings Review

Now, I was impressed as much as the next man when the Super Nintendo finally made its way to these shores. When I saw Super Mario World for the first time I was in awe. When I saw Super Probotector I was scared witless, but still in awe. When I saw Shaq-Fu I was staggered by how bad a video game could be. But when I saw Pilotwings I was totally, totally amazed. This was a game and a half.




The biggest compliment you can pay Pilotwings, is that some eighteen years on from its original release, there’s nothing that’s even come close to replicating it – even with all the technical jiggery-pokery that today’s machines can provide. Even its N64 sequel - a truly fantastic game in its own right, can’t quite come up to its daddy in terms of pure nostalgic glee and class.

A true advert for ‘less is more’, the objectives are simple. Use one four modes of transport (bi-plane, hang glider, rocketbelt and sky diving) to pass your flight lessons and move onto tougher and trickier stages with an Apache helicopter and earn yourself the Pilotwings. Now, all this sounds rather tame, but when put into practice the results are beautiful. Not one SNES game uses the Mode-7 graphics chip to such great effect – starting from the beginning of your descent, the screen is able to be swung around left and right with stomach-churning accuracy (warning : don’t play just after a heavy lunch). Because of the Mode-7 and the SNES’ ability to rotate and scale everything fully, it creates a superbly lifelike effect as the ground slowly gets closer and closer, and nothing gets the old pulse racing like those last few seconds when you’re desperately trying to get your little hang-glider down in one piece.


The biplane stages, whilst not recreated in the later game, was rather fun
Great sound is in evidence throughout, the windy effects especially adding to the atmosphere, and the presentation in general is top-notch. I can’t ever really recall a game being so relaxing to play, so able to make you feel like you are soaring through the sky gently whilst sitting in the comfort of your own home. Of course it’s not all tranquility and relaxation – the difficulty level is pitched just right, but it takes time to master and a fare few joypads have bounced off the ground over the years as my sky-diver did just the same thing seconds before. A think a few people were put off at the time by it being so hard to master (every slight move of your pad would seem to vastly change your direction) but to be fair, if it had been easy to get to grips with, the game could well have been all done and dusted in half an hour.

All in all, it oozes class – no surprise considering it’s the child of Shigeru Miyamoto (the main man behind Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong, Starwing and more). No one quite like Shigsy and Nintendo can take a simple premise and make it so utterly charming that you’re still excited about it nearly twenty years on. The rumours are that a Wii version may be imminently announced, if it proves to be the case, they’ve got their work cut out to better the original. Good luck fellas

Asciiware Super Advanatage Super Nintendo Controller

For sale only £20

Super Nintendo CD controller

The two companies got as far as producing development hardware on which games would be developed for the hybrid Super Nintendo/CD-ROM system, and even produced a controller that eventually became the PlayStation pad.

Snes CD Prototype

This chunky device is purported to be a prototype for the original Sony PlayStation. As most gaming geeks will tell you, Sony and Nintendo were originally collaborating to create a CD-ROM add on for the Super Nintendo gaming system. Nintendo ultimately bailed out on the project, and the device never made it to market. Sony packed up their things, struck out on their own, and the PlayStation was born.

The device doesn’t look anything like the other prototype images I’ve seen in the past, which all were heavily “Nintendified,” so I can’t vouch for the authenticity of Game Rave’s claims. However, it’s possible that the device was a later prototype for the actual PlayStation, after Nintendo jumped ship.

Recent Snes Auction - wow

Do you like video games? Vintage games? And do you have, oh, say, $15,000 you've been trying to unload but just haven't found that perfect item?
Well look no further, as this recent and now ended ebay auction was ready to make all your dreams come true! The seller has up for sale EVERY US SNES GAME, complete in box, many unopened. The cost is high (about $20 a game), and it's totally impractical, but I for one wish I was super-rich for times like these, lol

Another Super Nintendo Portable - Love it!! want one!!

Call me a sucker for old school gaming, but the Super Nintendo (SNES) has always been one of my favorite consoles. This custom-built handheld brings back those classic gaming memories.
Perfect for the occasional on-the-road game of Super Mario World or Star Fox, this portable SNES was put together by retro modder Kotomi, who’s earlier work includes the great

It’s a really clean build job, echoing the design of the original Super Nintendo console and gamepad, only with a nice big LCD screen smack dab in the middle. The cartridge slips nicely into the back of the portable, making it about the most streamlined SNES portable I’ve seen.

One of many portable Super Nintendo's

It's a beautiful piece. The cheap case gives it a pleasingly utilitarian early-1990s design appearance, with simplistic buttons you could easily believe Nintendo would've chucked into a handheld SNES - had it bothered to make one back in the day. And look at that chunky power button. Imagine the satisfying click.

The poor guy started his portable SNES project last Christmas and eventually finished it last week. Here's how it turned out.



The chap used an off-the-shelf plastic case to whack most of the SNES bits in, then further customised the hell out of it by building his own cartridge slot to stick on the back. It also boasts two internal lithium-polymer batteries, an original SNES d-pad for authenticity when pulling off dragon punches, plus AV and headphone jacks for connectivity.