Monday, January 05, 2004
Needle in a Haystack
I don't know if I've mentioned the new 'Gaming System' we got 'the kids' for Christmas. And I'm too lazy to go find out. :) It's an interesting little gadget. I'll try to describe it.
We got it at the mall at one of the little 'Sweat Shop Direct' Christmas-time mall kiosks. You know the ones that sell the things you would have only guessed you could buy on TV at 3am.
Supposedly it has 7600 games in it. Which to me seems a tad high. Especially since the games in question are the original Nintendo games. I would never have guessed Nintendo was THAT prolific! So, really, you know they're lying about the 7600 games. They have to be! Which makes me wonder why they aimed SO high. I think just as many people would buy their product if it were advertised as having a more believable number like say 1000. Really if you're going to be lying so plainly at least kick it up to 1 Million or something.
At the mall this 'Amazing' system was playing Duck Hunt. The kids fell in love.
Lets see if I can describe the thing itself. Imagine a Nintendo 64 controller with a couple extra buttons on top and no 'Z' buttons. Now make it out of cheap cheap plastic in a third world country, take special care to make all of the buttons a little 'sticky'. Since there's that funny little center joystick that isn't needed in any of the games, lets put it on there but make it so it doesn't move at all. Apparently now we have an inconvenient thumb rest. Just for kicks lets put a cartridge slot on the BOTTOM of the controller where it will completely interfere with holding the controller comfortably and cause bruises on the pointer fingers of all who dare to use it. :) (Wait why do I need a cartridge slot if there are 7600 games INSIDE? Are you trying to tell me Nintendo made 7601 NES games?)
The '7600' games are inside the controller itself. There is no 'box'. It plugs right into the TV. Out the front of the controller you can also plug in the second controller which is a Super Nintendo controller made of the same cheap plastic in the same third world country. It has a small 1 1/4 inch or so 'joystick' that you can screw into the arrowed thumbpad. I don't know if that was something you could do with the originals or if that's something new, but I haven't found it especially useful. Also into the front of the first controller you can plug the gun. Which reminds me of a water gun or perhaps a cap gun but us definitely nothing like the original Nintendo gun. It's even painted to look 'real' so in a pinch I suppose you could cut the wires and use it to rob 7-11.
As I said before we got this for the kids. Specifically for Duck Hunt. Which isn't bad because I imagine every original cartridge of that game has been played to oblivion. We paid (I think) $45 dollars for the system. But hell for 7600 games! Surely it was worth it. ;)
Oh, yeah, about that... Got it home plugged it in. 7600 games listed! Can you imagine? Of course they're listed 20 to a page and after about 6 pages they start repeating, and repeating all the way to 7600. And some of them aren't right at all. Burger Time for instance, isn't Burger Time at all! Grrrrr.....
One other thing worth mentioning is that this particular product doesn't appear to be made by anyone...anywhere. I looks all over the box it cam in and not only does it not say Made in China (Indonesia, Hong Kong, Arkansas) it doesn't even have a company NAME! No address, no Nothing! It also predictable doesn't say Nintendo anyplace on the box. LOL Surprisingly (not) it doesn't appear to be officially licensed by Nintendo.
There's the haystack, here's the needle.
So far I've paid $45 so my kids can play Duck Hunt. Possibly not the best investment ever, but not the worst either. I'm sure their well honed duck blasting skills will come in handy. If I can ever get them to stand back at least a foot from the TV. :)
But today I made a discovery, I hit gold. Maybe it's the influence of the Video Game beast, or perhaps it's just a newly born appreciation for simplicity. I found the funnest game in there. It's called Binary Land. I don't know why I never played this before. It's the awesomest game! Some of you I'm sure have played it and can attest to it's sheer awesomeness.
It's basically a maze game. There are two penguins (male and female supposedly although they could easily be a gay couple as long as one is green and one is pink with a bow, which I'm sure we all recognize can happen in male/male or female/female couples as well) the penguins start on separate sides of the maze and have to meet in the center top at the pink heart where they share an impassioned kiss thus completing the level. The catch is that you control BOTH penguins! You control one primarily (that is it does what you tell it to) and the other does sort of the opposite. Ok, if you tell the one to go right the other goes left. But if you tell the one to go up, they both go up. And there's a time limit! And spider webs and spiders and lasers and bonus prizes and bonus levels! It's totally cool!
There's drama, suspense, romance, and danger, mystery, homosexuality, it is literally a game for THIS century! So what it was doing on the original NES I will never know. It was ahead of it's time. Expect to see it soon on a cell phone near you. :)
Comments-[ comments.]
We got it at the mall at one of the little 'Sweat Shop Direct' Christmas-time mall kiosks. You know the ones that sell the things you would have only guessed you could buy on TV at 3am.
Supposedly it has 7600 games in it. Which to me seems a tad high. Especially since the games in question are the original Nintendo games. I would never have guessed Nintendo was THAT prolific! So, really, you know they're lying about the 7600 games. They have to be! Which makes me wonder why they aimed SO high. I think just as many people would buy their product if it were advertised as having a more believable number like say 1000. Really if you're going to be lying so plainly at least kick it up to 1 Million or something.
At the mall this 'Amazing' system was playing Duck Hunt. The kids fell in love.
Lets see if I can describe the thing itself. Imagine a Nintendo 64 controller with a couple extra buttons on top and no 'Z' buttons. Now make it out of cheap cheap plastic in a third world country, take special care to make all of the buttons a little 'sticky'. Since there's that funny little center joystick that isn't needed in any of the games, lets put it on there but make it so it doesn't move at all. Apparently now we have an inconvenient thumb rest. Just for kicks lets put a cartridge slot on the BOTTOM of the controller where it will completely interfere with holding the controller comfortably and cause bruises on the pointer fingers of all who dare to use it. :) (Wait why do I need a cartridge slot if there are 7600 games INSIDE? Are you trying to tell me Nintendo made 7601 NES games?)
The '7600' games are inside the controller itself. There is no 'box'. It plugs right into the TV. Out the front of the controller you can also plug in the second controller which is a Super Nintendo controller made of the same cheap plastic in the same third world country. It has a small 1 1/4 inch or so 'joystick' that you can screw into the arrowed thumbpad. I don't know if that was something you could do with the originals or if that's something new, but I haven't found it especially useful. Also into the front of the first controller you can plug the gun. Which reminds me of a water gun or perhaps a cap gun but us definitely nothing like the original Nintendo gun. It's even painted to look 'real' so in a pinch I suppose you could cut the wires and use it to rob 7-11.
As I said before we got this for the kids. Specifically for Duck Hunt. Which isn't bad because I imagine every original cartridge of that game has been played to oblivion. We paid (I think) $45 dollars for the system. But hell for 7600 games! Surely it was worth it. ;)
Oh, yeah, about that... Got it home plugged it in. 7600 games listed! Can you imagine? Of course they're listed 20 to a page and after about 6 pages they start repeating, and repeating all the way to 7600. And some of them aren't right at all. Burger Time for instance, isn't Burger Time at all! Grrrrr.....
One other thing worth mentioning is that this particular product doesn't appear to be made by anyone...anywhere. I looks all over the box it cam in and not only does it not say Made in China (Indonesia, Hong Kong, Arkansas) it doesn't even have a company NAME! No address, no Nothing! It also predictable doesn't say Nintendo anyplace on the box. LOL Surprisingly (not) it doesn't appear to be officially licensed by Nintendo.
There's the haystack, here's the needle.
So far I've paid $45 so my kids can play Duck Hunt. Possibly not the best investment ever, but not the worst either. I'm sure their well honed duck blasting skills will come in handy. If I can ever get them to stand back at least a foot from the TV. :)
But today I made a discovery, I hit gold. Maybe it's the influence of the Video Game beast, or perhaps it's just a newly born appreciation for simplicity. I found the funnest game in there. It's called Binary Land. I don't know why I never played this before. It's the awesomest game! Some of you I'm sure have played it and can attest to it's sheer awesomeness.
It's basically a maze game. There are two penguins (male and female supposedly although they could easily be a gay couple as long as one is green and one is pink with a bow, which I'm sure we all recognize can happen in male/male or female/female couples as well) the penguins start on separate sides of the maze and have to meet in the center top at the pink heart where they share an impassioned kiss thus completing the level. The catch is that you control BOTH penguins! You control one primarily (that is it does what you tell it to) and the other does sort of the opposite. Ok, if you tell the one to go right the other goes left. But if you tell the one to go up, they both go up. And there's a time limit! And spider webs and spiders and lasers and bonus prizes and bonus levels! It's totally cool!
There's drama, suspense, romance, and danger, mystery, homosexuality, it is literally a game for THIS century! So what it was doing on the original NES I will never know. It was ahead of it's time. Expect to see it soon on a cell phone near you. :)
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