Nintendo Popeye Bottle Glitch

I finally captured video of the Popeye bottle glitch on the Nintendo NES.  Normally jumping down on the see-saw will kill you if you get hit by a bottle on the re-bound.  To avoid it, after you jump, press to the right and at the precise moment when the bottle should hit you press the punch button.  Popeye's animation will not change but if you time it right you'll get the points and not die.

Rolling Thunder

So if you have not figured out that Rolling Thunder is the game made when Shinobi met Elevator Action then... well you know it now.

I've never played Rolling Thunder. I've seen it once in the arcade. Watching the demo it looks as though the story goes like this... you are a spy or secret agent (Shinobi) and you're on your way to rescue a woman. You can jump to levels high above and below you (Shinobi). And you can go into rooms (Elevator action) to pick up items like ammo.

The girl in the game looks hot as does Tengen's box art.

Video Games Live

6:17 - 6:58 is the most relevant part of this video:

A Small Pedrogames.Com Spending Spree

I purchased a couple games from pedrogames.com tonight.  My budget has been cramped recently so I had to be pretty selective.

The first game I bought was WWF: Steel Cage Challenge.  I've always had an interest in wrestling games and have posted about them before (http://www.salzmafia.com/labels/wrestling.php).  But two things occured that started to make me jones for this game.  The first is I finally got to watch "The Wrestler" and it was an incredibly cool movie.  I don't particularly like movies with alot of action and no dialog, but this movie was perfect.  If you haven't seen it yet, there is a popular scene in the movie where the main character "The Ram" returns home (to a trailer) from the hospital after recovering from a heart attack.  He now needs to take it easy and he's bored.  Looking down below his TV he sees his Nintendo and invites a neighborhood kid over to play Wrestle Jam.

Wrestle Jam is a fictious game.  It doesn't actually exist as a rom or cart that I know of and from what I read it was specifically programmed for the movie.  Here are a few screen shots:

"The Ram" and a neighborhood kid talk about "Call of Duty 4" while playing Nintendo.

The title screen to Wrestle Jam.  "The Ram VS. The Ayatollah"

The match begins!

Anyways The Ram beats the kid to a pulp, and the kid, bored, wants to go home.  Well in reading comments on other blogs about this same story (which is two years old as of this posting) much of the comments compared the game to other wrestling titles on Nintendo.  Wrestlemania is probably the closest:

So, I started looking at videos of all of the different wrestling games and I stumbled upon WWF: Steel Cage Challenge.  The animations in this game really caught my attention which is the second reason why I wanted it.  It was released in 1992, near the end of the life of the NES, so it's no surprise that it looks as good as it does:

We'll find out in less than a week if WWF: Steel Cage Challenge is worth it or not.

The next purchase is going to remain a secret for now.  But I'll give a hint.  If Elevator Action and Shinobi had a child together it would be this game.

RBI Baseball

Man, I love RBI Baseball on Nintendo.  There is sooo much to love about this game.  I first played the original VS. RBI Baseball at a Pistol Pete's Pizza (which was like a Chuck E Cheese).  It was in a dual Nintendo VS. Cabinet.  Super Mario Bros. was on the left, and VS. RBI Baseball was on the right.

It's a shame that Nintendo and Tengen had to have their differences.  The cool thing though was that a licensed copy was made for Nintendo prior to their legal struggles.  Originally programmed by Namco, Tengen did an excellent job.  Falling back on the less is more philosphy that I've spouted so many times on this blog, RBI Baseball provides exactly the bare minimum to be a true baseball game.

A nifty tune plays at the start, but the moment you have a man on base, woah boy watch out.  The tune turns stressful.  It doesn't matter if you're pitching or batting, you're engaged.  You're committed.  And that music doesn't help!  Throw the ball and pray they strike out.  Have the ball thrown to you and pray it's a homer.

RBI is quite possibly the greatest baseball game ever made...

Pac-eye Popman Popeye Pac-man

Oh how I've missed Popeye on Nintendo. I promised myself last year to get the record and it just hasn't happened.

I was reading an interview with the creators of Donkey Kong and Popeye and they pointed out something that I have long forgotten... Popeye is Nintendo's Pacman. In Pacman you collect dots and in Popeye you collect hearts, notes, and letters. Pacman has tunnels but so does Popeye. Pacman has energizers but so does Popeye (spinach).

It's nice to see a game so radically different be in all actuality be the same...

Street Fighter 2010

As I lay here on the couch it's hard to imagine twenty years have passed since I first played Street Fighter 2010 on Nintendo. If anything, I can definitely feel it in my joints. On a cool morning my hands and wrists sound like popcorn no doubt caused from investing my youth in videogames.

Anyways in this game we find "Ken" who had no interest in exploring the frontier until his friend and partner (perhaps he turned homosexual) was found as a "pile of jelly" on the floor. It's been years since Ken was king of the street fighting circuit but "that's nothing that a few bionics can't handle".

This game has great graphics and beautiful sound. It almost makes up for the dumb plot and lousy controls. Each stage is a glorified bass battle. You shoot a short range weapon and can do more moves by pressing in certain directions and pressing b. You can jump climb and throw your controller in anger because killing the bosses are pretty difficult.

I 've never beatened the game because after four or five continues on the first planet shouldn't be necessary. It's too difficult to be fun. In later stages the screen has to auto-scroll (like an airship level from Super Mario Bros. 3) and if you die on the boss you start over having to scroll through the level again.

I'll re-emphasize that this game is beautiful including the advertisements for a strip club. But outside of that the game is a few hours worth of aggrevation.

Video Game Rain

Here in Las Vegas we've been getting the left over rain from California.  Rain here is about as rare as it is to find in video games.  Here are two very excellent examples.  The first is from Fatal Fury on Tung Fu Rue's stage.  Each battle in Fatal Fury has three scenes.  Usually they are day time, dusk, and night depending on which round you're currently fighting in.  On the "day" stage of Tung Fu Rue's the skies are cloudy with thunderbolts coming down on top of the buildings in the distance.  Start round two and here comes the shower!  The rain in itself isn't nearly as impressive as the splashing on the ground.  It's a pretty neat special effect.

Next up is Ghouls 'N' Ghosts.  The rain at the beginning of the second half of the first stage is pretty impressive.  First you experience wind with an occasional leaf flying through the air and trees shaking violently in the background.  Then you get a few random drops, and then you get the flicker of an intense shower pouring down on poor Arthur.  The random drops continue and it breaks up what would otherwise be boring rain.  Like Fatal Fury this rain works very well.

Tag Team Wrestling

Tag Team Wrestling for Nintendo NES is just awful.  And I hate to say that of any game, but there is no other way to describe it.  If there was ever a low point in the history of Data East, this game has to be it.

It's pretty embarrassing.  From the title screen press "Start" then you'll immediately hear "Ding!" and the match begins.  The characters barely look like wrestlers, and the fact that they have two frames of animation (which is limited to moving legs) doesn't help any.

Half of the time I couldn't decribe to you what was happening on the screen.  Seriously, concentrate on the screenshot.  Where does one wrestler begin and the other one end?  Why does the audience look like zombies?  Actually it just looks like a bunch of heads on the floor.

There is at least one redeeming thing about this game and it's the box art.  It reminds me alot of early Atari box art where a professional artist actually took the time to create something that captured the mood that the publisher wanted to convey in the game.  It's just a shame that the game doesn't have the energy that the box has.

Toki Nintendo

Taito is known for making some excellent arcade conversions.  Toki for the Nintendo, which was originally manufactured by TAD for the arcade is an excellent adaptation.  Although, I wish that Taito focused their efforts on making a version of Rastan...

The game was a sleeper, being released near the end of the life of the Nintendo NES in the United States.  But it definitely shows what the NES was truly capable of hardware-wise.  If games like this were released along side the launch of the NES, then I imagine the Super Nintendo could have been pushed off a few more years, sans competition from SEGA.  There are alot of amazing things that can be done with a palette of 16 colors.  It requires alot of creativity and patience.

So anyways, you're a caveman of sorts whose woman has been kidnapped by a "giant fist" which you set out to rescue.  A wizard appears and turns you into a money/chimp/ape what have you.  A bunch of enemies, including other apes attempt to attack you.  As an ape you can spit fire and pick up items that will make you spit more fire.  You can pick up a football helmet and wear it and you'll be invincible.  As you can see, the plot is ridiculous.  But who cares, the music, gameplay, graphics, and controls are fantastic.

Each stage is highly detailed and beautiful, so much so you can almost feel the jungle breeze and smell the ape dung.  There is one drawback however.  There is sooooooooo much flicker.  A trade off could have been slowdown, which may have broken away from the gameplay, but if you can look past the flicker (or through it)  this is an excellent platformer, and definately has an arcade feel to it.

Hahahaha, I can't believe I made a blog post about ape dung.  It reminds me of the time I visited the Denver Zoo with a laser pointer.  Apparently it's against the law to tease a gorilla with one.  If I ever go back perhaps I'll bring a taser or pepperspray instead.  I'm just kidding.  Apes, chimps, meth addicts, and gorillas are people too -well maybe not the apes and meth-addicts.  Speaking of meth-addics I've never seen a gorilla that was an amputee.  Confused yet?  I sure am. I'm just sad because Taito could have made Rastan but instead made Toki.

Nintendo Suicides

14 Nintendo Suicides witnessed by children of the 80's

Time Lord Nintendo: Part 1

Ever play Time Lord on Nintendo?  No?  Me neither.  Many sites on the internet report it as being a lousy game.  But the internet has been wrong before.  At least once that I can think of.  Maybe twice?  I'm not sure.  But what I am sure is that I'm going to play Time Lord here real soon.  I received a copy recently from PedroGames.Com.  It was a penny, and after looking at the screen shot of the title screen something tells me that the internet might be right!  This game might suck!  How do I conclude that from the title screen?  Two Words: Milton Bradley.

What would it be like for Nintendo, or SONY to suddenly manufacture board games?  Sounds stupid doesn't it?  So why would Milton Bradley suddenly make videogames?  Perhaps they were scared.  Maybe they thought everyone would stop playing board games and would stick to Nintendo.  Or maybe it was their way of making a quick buck?  I'm not sure.

Either way I plan to sit down and play this game and I'm going to conduct an experiment:

With knowing very little about Time Lord, I plan to sit down and play the game until I beat it or get bored of it.  Afterwards I'm going to write down what I believe the plot of the game is.  (Perhaps their is dialog in the game that provides the plot?  I honestly do not know.)  Then I'm going to consult with the manufacturer's manual and box art to see if ol' Milton Bradley described the game accurately.

Will the game live up to the hype that is on the back of the box?
Will the manual be detailed and complete about the game itself?
Are their hidden clues that reveals what Milton Bradley's motivation was to meddle in the software business?

Stay tuned for part 2...

LukieGames.Com

Part 1: Shinobi

Some people associate personal memories and events in their lives from the popular music, movies, or world events that were happening at the time.  With myself, I associate the events from my life with videogames.

Such is the case with Shinobi.  I first saw the arcade game in 1988.  It was at a 7-11 here in Las Vegas on the corner of Bonanza and Pecos.  My elementary school was going to have a 4th of July fireworks stand in the parking lot and I went there to check it out.  Instead of buying fireworks I blew a bunch of money on Shinobi.  Eventually it was released on the NES by Tengen.

I played it once or twice on the NES at a friends house and I remember briefly owning a copy but now twenty years later, I don't recall what happened to my copy.  Then about a week ago I thought about the game and remember how crazy stupid it was:  The children of the leaders of the world were kidnapped and you need to rescue them!  Awesome.  The arcade game had a slightly different plot in that the children of Ninja's were kidnapped.  Whatever.  It does explain why all the kid's have Katanas behind them.  Who cares, let's move on.

I decided that it was imperative to own a copy again, and besides... if I'm going to collect all of the original Nintendo games, I'd eventually have to get it.  I thought I saw a copy at Play N Trade here locally, but it was a bust.  It looked like their retro inventory was wiped out from the holidays. 

So I went back to the one place I knew I'd find a copy: http://www.videogamepriceguides.com/

Shinobi was pricey.  Too pricey!  It seemed that many eBay sellers who didn't specialize in games felt a used, scuffed copy with a partial label was worth $40 or more.  Some were more reasonable, and I was willing to buy it, even if I felt it was a little overpriced.  PedroGames.Com, one of my favorite sellers, had copies for about $9 plus shipping.  But I had already spent my Pedro budget, and had already exceeded my complete budget for January.

Part 2: LukieGames.Com

Then suddenly like the ninja in Shinobi... poof!  There it was... a reasonably priced copy from highly rated seller LukieGames.Com.  Like that Progressive Insurance commerical, sometimes PedroGames.Com is the cheapest, and sometimes it's not.  (This doesn't mean I'm jumping the PedroGames Ship!  PedroGames has a huge inventory, super fast shipping, discounted shipping, an easy to read and navigate eBay store, and oftentimes very competitive prices.)

If you've ever looked at retro games on eBay you've seen listings from LukieGames.Com.  You had to of.  They even have a website that isn't an eBay store.  I've browsed through their listings many times before, but it wasn't until the reasonably priced Shinobi appeared that I ever paid that much attention to them. 

LukieGames.Com... so is it pronounced "Lucky" or "Luke-E"?  I was dying to know so I asked.  Turns out it's "Luke-E" and the story of the name is pretty cute, but unrelated to this post, so I'll save it for them to explain.

So what is the verdict?  Good?  Bad?  Otherwise?  I'd say that buying Shinobi from LukieGames.Com was an A+ experience.  The game arrived exactly as described.  There was a little bit of grime on the label, but the game was released 21 years ago, and for the cheap price I got it for I don't mind cleaning it up a little.  There was a sticker on the case, which in most cases I'd say is a big no-no, but the adhesive is so weak, and it wasn't on the label of the game so it wasn't a big deal at all.  Perhaps it's used for inventory purposes, or maybe it's a neat viral way to advertise.  Either way it wasn't a distraction at all.

I'm going to make a couple more LukieGames.Com purchases in the next couple weeks, and I'll share with you how it goes, but for now it's time to play Shinobi...

Refurbished NES Time Lapse

This is a time lapsed video of a Nintendo NES being refurbished with a new 72 pin edge connector, then being tested with Super Mario Bros. 3.  And then being cleaned up to prestine condition.

Lodi News-Sentinel - May 17, 1990

Oh puh-lease.  It must have been a slow news day for the Lodi News-Sentinel back on May 17th, 1990.

I don't believe the girl's story.  Sure, it was 20 years ago, but it's this kind of ridiculous propoganda that forced the epilepsy warning to appear on all Nintendo products.  Based on the article I'd suggest the girl just put a BANDAId over her eyes and she'd be cured.

Did you catch the hint?

Click to make the article larger.

The Southeast Missourian - Jun 21, 1981

This article from the The Southeast Missourian from 1981 is great.  Look at all of these great sexist remarks:

"Wife leaves laundry room for game room..."
"Going shopping now means going to the mall..."
"...she can spend several hours infront of the electronic screen without once thinking about cooking dinner."
"...I suppose she was thinking about putting it [the Pacman Machine] between the dishwasher and the microwave."

He also must have been high when he wrote it.  Pacman doesn't have any popcorn.  I'm surprise he didn't say lollipops, or beagles.

Daily Collegian Penn State University - Feb 14, 1980

I obtained a game.  A reasonably rare one.  But it's going to remain a secret for now.  But this post is a clue.  Dare to take a guess?

This is an article from the Daily Collegian from Penn State University.  Click the photo to increase it's size.

I like this article, because it was written around the true dawn of video games.  I like how 'Sullivan claims that Vector beam' games will be the next rage.  Do you remember when man walked on the moon?  How about when the invaders from space came?

Did you find the clue?  Did you want to take a guess at what the game might be?

Double Dragon Time Lapse

I liked the Dr. Mario time lapse so much I decided to make one for Double Dragon

Dr. Mario Time Lapse

Ever wonder what Dr. Mario looks like as a time-lapse video?  Yeah, I figured  you wouldn't.  But here it is anyways.

PedroGames And Wayne Newton

I received another buying spree from PedroGames.Com today. I have everything shipped to my P.O. Box for safety and convinience, and lo-and behold Wayne Newton - Mr. Las Vegas was a few customers in front of me. I wasn't surprised at first because celebrities are pretty common in Las Vegas but after thinking about it I'm not sure why he would go to the Garside Post office. It's the skid row of post offices and he lives less than a mile a way from the main postal hub for Las Vegas. Anyways I snapped the photo you see of him below.

The Pedro Games came in great condition. Bad Dudes had minor scratches but it and the other 9 were in great shape. I now only have two games outstanding.. Ghost Lion and Shinobi.

I didn't get to play them much outside of a quick game of City Connection.

Kick Master For Nintendo NES

Kick Master for Nintendo NES arrived today.  It was just a fluke purchase for a buck on eBay on New Year's day.  There was some minor wear on the label as you can see above.

The back was cruddy too, but it was easily cleaned with a degreaser.

The insides had a very thin layer of film, but it wasn't too bad considering the cartridge is 19 years old.  All in all I'm pretty satisfied with it.

VideoGamePriceGuides: Game Correction

Some of the search parameters for Nintendo NES games were updated to include better results today.  Some of the games included:

Ghost Lion (including "Legend of" prevented finding additional copies)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (Too many words as part of the search)
Conan Mysteries of Time (Sellers were too lazy to include "Mysteries of Time")
Duck Tales II (which should be Duck Tales 2)
Town and Country Surf Designs II: Thrilla's Surfari (Not sure why zero copies would come up, but the search was changed to Thrilla)
Magic Johnson's Fast Break (the apostrophy delimited searches)
Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom (removed "In the Salad Kingdom")
The Adventures of Rad Gravity (Dropping "The Adventures of" yielded many more copies)

You should now be able to find more copies of these titles and a better estimate of their value and rarity.

Nintendo CABAL

When I joined and left for the Army back in 1995 I had to fly to the Phoenix MEPS station.  There are several of these located throughout the United States and they service three purposes:

1. Check your aptitude for military service
2. Check your physical qualifications
3. Check your background

Basically you do a bunch of mental and physical testing.  They then tell you what you qualify for in terms of "jobs" and then you pick your "job" and any extras that come with your enlistment (initial station, foreign tour, etc.)  This may have all changed by now, it was 15 years ago when I went through this.

So why am I wasting your time about MEPS on a videogame collecting blog?  It's all about CABAL.

Cabal means to control things secretly.  You usually hear about Cabals in South America as coups come and go as often as the rain.  But it's also a game.

Cabal was the last game I saw and played before leaving for my enlistment.  The game used a track ball which moved a site around on the screen and buttons allowed you to fire and throw grenades.  It was kinda cool... and it kinda sucked.

Just look at this marquee:

Everything looks cool except for the soldiers with the red guns  The artist shouldn't have even bothered.  Let's look at the arcade gameplay first:

Looks kinda neat. You could destroy pretty much anything if you shot it enough times.

Now lets look at another similar arcade game, that also used a trackball, RAMBO III:

This was slightly a step up from CABAL.  The only redeeming thing of RAMBO III the arcade game was that it featured RAMBO.  If it was any other clown it would have been forgettable.  But this style of gameplay would come back to haunt arcades once more with...


NAM 1975' For Neo Geo:


NAM was actually a pretty decent game.

Cabal eventually found it's way on the Nintendo, and it turned out to be a reasonable port...



Thankfully they found a better artist to create the box art.  However this is another example of a war game where the players are distinguished by their colored bandana, and in this case their wrist bands.  Perhaps these to are going to a tennis match after the war.

PedroGames.Com January Purchase

I picked up another ten games from PedroGames.Com. What are they? What could they be? It will have to remain a mystery for now. How about a hint? BD. CC. LOK. TTW. TTSS. BD (again). 3DWR. A. LOTW. TL.

Burgertime: 295750

This is what happens when you group the first three stages of Burgertime then choke on the next seven.

Best Nintendo Find Of 2010 Achieved January 1st 2010?

Can't see the tiny writing on this picture?  Then maybe you should click it to enlarge.   You see... this is (was) an auction for Kick Master, by Taito, for the Nintendo NES.

Kick Master is averaging about $18.43 right now through http://www.videogamepriceguides.com/.  A fluke perchance?  Yeah, a little bit of one.  There are a couple mint "complete in box" copies available.  Hillybilly Media has it for about $8 + change.  Videogamepricecharts.com says its worth about $2.99.  Let's look at another authority: NintendoAge.Com.  Their December E-Zine shows its worth about $7.  What about our favorite seller PedroGames!?  He has a copy for about $48 (but its one of the ones that are CIB).

Long story short... I scooped it up for a buck + shipping.