Dr. Morbis

Well I've got some good news for you! Read on... Fortunately, it has come to my attention that there are 50 Million-odd *real* NES's out there (give or take), with all of those issues already solved See? Dreams really do come true! (all in jest, of course)

^So the original Gradius is worse than ET because a game that was released years after it has a major glitch? That's like declaring Hitler's Great-Great-Grandfather to be a terribly evil man.

Thanks for the info guys - looks like I'll be passing on the seller's offer. Omegamatrix: sending a pm shortly...

I come to you, oh AA gurus, with some questions about MotoRodeo. First, is there a way to tell if a sealed one is NTSC or PAL by just looking at the box? The one in question has all English on the front and back, but it doesn't explicitly state anywhere what region it was made for. My second question is price: I had the opportunity to buy a sealed one for $80 this weekend but passed - temporarily. I'll most likely have the same opportunity next weekend, so I'm wondering if that is a great deal, a horrible deal, or the going rate. This database says it's R10, but it's one of those late-era red box games that seem to have a propensity for showing up in droves out of the blue. Anyway, any light shed on this game would be appreciated.

^I'll make it even easier for ya: Nintendo[Age]. The forum already has the most hardcore NES collectors around, and the site itself has a NES database that is second to none, with individual rarity listings for boxes, carts, and manuals.

I've got a Master Builder cart in near mint condition which I would like to trade for Cosmic Commuter (the last Activision game I need to complete the set) and/or Frankenstein's Monster. I'll take either title with a handful of commons, or I'll trade for a swack of commons that I need (I'm only at 250 right now, so I need a ton of commons), or for both titles listed above straight up. PM if interested and I'll try and reply within 48 hours. Thanks.

How about Smash TV, has anyone mentioned that one yet? It seems the 7800's architecture would've been really well suited to handle it. Although I do think it would be a colossal waste for some homebrew programmer today to port a game in his spare time that can already be played effortlessly on some other console. How about an entirely original game for the 7800, like, say a new RPG???

Sounds like Looping for Colecovision to me.

$10? Honestly, Dance Aerobics has to be one of the top 5 most common factory sealed nes games out there. Easily.

I honestly think your best solution is a Toploader NES (model 2 official NES). Games will work every time with no cleaning and they're pretty sturdy. The only real problem with the toploader is the degraded video quality through the RF, but at 5 years old, I hardly think you kid will be too worried about that. FWIW, I have a nephew who is also 5 years old. I gave him a standard toaster NES on his 2nd birthday and by now his collection has grown to 22 games in only 3 years. The key was that I gave him one of my spare cleaning kits and spent a lot of time showing him how to use it, and also how to slightly adjust the position of the cart in the slot while holding in the reset button to make the games work. Now he's better at it than a lot guys my age that I see! So if you've got an above average kid, I don't think you have to dumb his gaming down so much, just give him a standard NES and teach him the ropes.

If you only need a few, your best bet is probably going to be to suck and pay eBay price for a handful of them. An eBay search for "NES box protectors" or something similar should turn up what you're looking for.

For some reason, I was laughing out loud for like 15 minutes after reading this. I couldn't contain myself. I kept picturing some hapless new king in the middle ages who can't seem to run his new kingdom to save his life. Now I have to find this game and try it out

Paranoid, you erroneously detach the GAME, as you put it, from the box art, cartridge, etc. I can't speak for anyone else here but, for me, it's not about the GAME, it's about the EXPERIENCE. The box art, cartridge, sweaty CX40, and of course the GAME are all a part of that experience. The game is by far the biggest part of the experience, but it cannot recreate the experience all by itself (for me at least). I have every VCS ROM, but the questions that always run through my mind concerning ROMs are: A) Who doesn't? B) Who cares?

Forget the graphics (good as they are), it's the music that blew me away when I first played it. Thunder Castle is, by far, my favourite game on the system and I think the gameplay is just right. It really gives me that creepy running-through-a-haunted-forest-in-medieval-times feeling when I first boot it up and hear its eery tunes.

I'm not a fan of Symphony of the Metroidvania, but, as usual, it's looking to walk away with the win. I'll take I, III, and IV, in that order, any day.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained FWIW, I've had roughly 500 transactions on eBay, and I've been ripped off exactly 3 times. Those are pretty good odds I think. There are those who think that most people are inherently good, and there are those who think that most people are inherently bad. If eBay's any indication, I'll go with the former

Well nothing on NES really approaches that. But there is one game with similar imagery: Chiller by AGCI has like corpses and alive/half-dead people racked up and whatnot and you use a light gun to shoot parts of their body off (among many other targets). If it isn't Chiller you are looking for, I'm guessing it's not on NES.

I have 474 CIB mint NES games and all the boxes are in their own plastic protector box As one poster mentioned, I don't know how the hell I'm gonna get ahold of a CIB Stadium Events either and I LOVE nes music...

I actually ran into this glitch once when I was going for my personal record. I was in like the 300k's and I thought it was game over when I dropped a bomb and only had one bucket left. Then, miraculously, my last bucket didn't disappear and I got to keep going. Of course I didn't investigate how the glitch happened, I just thought it was a one in a billion occurence. Now I know how/why it happened. As for the water in the bucket disappearing/reappearing, could it have something to do with the VCS not wiping the onboard RAM fully when you flick the switch off then back on right away?

That second page looks nicer and less scrunged. So..... are you planning on a hardcopy release, or bytes only?

Man that looks like it is going to be one sweet guide. Is it going to be in electronic form only or in paper/hardback? BTW, where are you going to fit each game's label art. I prefer Box art myself. In your preview page you have two of the three things I like to see for each game: box art, title screen, in-game screen. The only other book I've ever seen that had this style was the original "Official Nintendo Strategy Guide" (or whatever it's called) from 1987. The only problem with that one, is that it only covered 90 games - though, that was the complete NES set at the time of publication. I've always wanted a book that was just the same, but with ALL games. Looks like you are certainly on that course.

MICRO MACHINES!!!

I think it's fairly safe to say that this kid was not even alive in 1988, or 1989, or 1990, etc. etc.

I'm sure that posting this question in an Atari 2600 forum won't at all skew your research... or the results

NES was #1 when I clicked the link.