I'll still buy a Generation Nex...

carpecarne · November 1, 2005

...I've been lucky with working ol NES's..although I usually found it was the dirty carts that messed up a pristine machine.

I babied mine over the years and it still doesn't blink..it's just I'm not so into the older NES games anymore, just the atari stuff. Not to say I don't love it, it's just that I didn't find myself using it enough.

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Would you like to donate it to the Carpecarne Church of Total Acceptance?

Gordon · November 2, 2005

I just got my Generation NEX today via FexEx, part of the first shipment. First off, the included controller is terrible. The buttons are slanted and mushy, the controller itself is tiny, and it's an awkward button layout to begin with. The sound on _all_ the games I've tested (incl. SMB1, 2, 3) is off and not accurate (compared to being played on an original NES). Huge bummer. Also, games like River City Ransom do weird stuff when you play them, including garbleing up the menus, changing colors, and generally not working properly. Castlevania III doesn't even work at all for me either (just a blank green screen). Did they even test this thing? How hard could it be to make a 100% compatible NES clone in 2005? And how could they possibly say it's compatible with anything when the sound is messed up with every game?

I highly recommend staying far away from this me-too capitalize-on-retro-craze rip-off. (It has game compatibility akin to a $5 Chinese famicom clone.) For $60 You could get an original NES with a new 72-pin connector in it, some REAL NES controllers, and 10 decent games. Heck, you could probably even get the top-loading NES for less than this. Avoid the NEX and get the real thing.

Gordon

P.S. If anybody wants me to test NEX compatibility with any games, let me know. I have 207 NES games, so I might have the one you want to test.

Flojomojo · November 2, 2005

I just got my Generation NEX today ...

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Wow, Gordon, did you register here just to bitch about the Nex?

Can you compare it to some other clones, especially the Neo Fami, which it seems to resemble?

keilbaca · November 2, 2005

..this is off topic, but I have a buddy who was ripping through Zelda the other day, and he can STILL SAVE HIS GAME!!...what, those batteries have gotta be almost 20 years old!!...and they still save his game?...what sweet design that was!..a battery backup that OUTLASTED his system!!

Yikes!

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A friend of mine wanted a Zelda, and the battery died. Soooo... I just opened up the Zelda, got a 2 AAA holder, taped it down (its not going anywhere). Soldered the hot to the + on the battery, and the ground to the -. That will last him for years to come.

JB · November 2, 2005

A friend of mine wanted a Zelda, and the battery died. Soooo... I just opened up the Zelda, got a 2 AAA holder, taped it down (its not going anywhere). Soldered the hot to the + on the battery, and the ground to the -. That will last him for years to come.

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Not really...

Alkalines have a lot crappier shelf life than lithium cells.

And if I recall correctly, at the levels the SRAM in the carts draw, shelf life is more important than raw capacity.

Woulda been better off adding a socket and another button cell.

Jagasian · November 2, 2005

P.S. If anybody wants me to test NEX compatibility with any games, let me know. I have 207 NES games, so I might have the one you want to test.

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While Messiah has a compatibility list on their site, the guy who made the list admitted that he stopped recording notes for every game that had issues that did not prevent playing the game. It would be best to make a list that did include such notes, as it is misleading to see their chart and think that your favorite game runs perfectly, only to get a NEX and find out that while it does run, there are graphical glitches and missing sounds.

Jagasian · November 2, 2005

Can you compare it to some other clones, especially the Neo Fami, which it seems to resemble?

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All comparisons that I have read, which compare it to a Neo Fami state that it has even worse compatibility than the Neo Fami.

Jagasian · November 2, 2005

A friend of mine wanted a Zelda, and the battery died. Soooo... I just opened up the Zelda, got a 2 AAA holder, taped it down (its not going anywhere). Soldered the hot to the + on the battery, and the ground to the -. That will last him for years to come.

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Not really...

Alkalines have a lot crappier shelf life than lithium cells.

And if I recall correctly, at the levels the SRAM in the carts draw, shelf life is more important than raw capacity.

Woulda been better off adding a socket and another button cell.

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I have experience with replacing SRAM batteries with coin cell battery holders. For SNES games, I found a holder that fits nicely right in place of the battery. But for NES games, you will need to solder a wire from each terminal of the battery holder to the PCB, and then place the holder in the empty part of the cart above the PCB. The benefit of the NES coin holder option is that the battery is easily replaced the next time around, as the coin holder that I use has a "press to eject" feature. Even better is that you can shake, hit, or drop the cart and the holder will not accidentally eject the battery. I've also found a source for top of the line, highest capacity coin cell battery replacements. Most other places sell batteries with a reduced capacity.

Gordon · November 2, 2005

Wow, Gordon, did you register here just to bitch about the Nex?

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Yes. I felt it very necessary to warn people before they waste their money on this thing, thinking that it would finally help them replace their aging NES (as it is marketed.. but as you can now see, that's more than a little misleading).

I also wonder where that Game Compatibility list was when I preordered the thing. It wasn't up on the site. If I had seen it, I definitely wouldn't have ordered one. Also note that a game like River City Ransom (the first game I tested with it, incidentally) shows up on their list as working, but in fact if you play it, the first intro-stage has really weird colors, THEN it shows the title screen, and then you start playing. God knows how else it's garbled up if you keep going.

But the dealbreaker for me is the inaccurate sound in every game I've tried. It bugs the holy living heck out of me. If even it played Super Mario Bros. 3 (or another classic) perfectly, I would be happy. But NoooOo...

Can you compare it to some other clones, especially the Neo Fami, which it seems to resemble?

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I've never had any experience with the Neo Fami, so I can't compare it. But I HIGHLY suspect that the Messiah guys didn't do the hardware development on this machine. I think they simply repackaged the latest Asian grey-market Famicom clone, perhaps adding the wireless feature themselves in the process. If anyone can find some hardware design credits on their site (There are none in the system manual, only to the "President" and some marketing guys), let us all know. This whole thing stinks like fish.

Happy gaming,

Gordon

n8littlefield · November 2, 2005

Wait - so River City Ransom doesn't run well either? Holy smoke, and I thought no Castlevania 3 was a deal breaker for me. I'd go nuts if I had bought it!

Gordon · November 3, 2005

Wait - so River City Ransom doesn't run well either? Holy smoke, and I thought no Castlevania 3 was a deal breaker for me. I'd go nuts if I had bought it!

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Just a note. I just posted a quick Generation NEX review on my new blog at Vintagecomputing.com. Tell your friends and all of us who were dumb enough to buy this thing so we can compare notes.

Gordon

Lacan · November 4, 2005

Funny thing is that my Family Boy Vol 4 can play River City Ransom perfectly.

n8littlefield · November 4, 2005

The Yobo runs it too. I'm frankly blown away that the NEX screws it up.

atarilovesyou · November 4, 2005

...find the real deal, period. Who wants a crummy knockoff?....we're smarter than that.

Jagasian · November 4, 2005

I am not sure if anybody else has noticed this, but there are "news articles" that hype up the NEX, and seem to be nothing more than a marketing ploy. Messiah is the slimiest company I've yet to see try to cash in on the recent retro gaming craze. Take this quote from an MTV news article for example:

"A small Los Angeles company, Messiah Entertainment, has promised to release this week the NEX, a system that plays NES games and even enhances the experience with wireless controllers and the ability to play rare Japan-only Famicom games."

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1511657/2...017/index.jhtml

Rare Famicom games? Give me a break, Famicom games are even more common than NES games. Furthermore, your NES can play Famicom games via a cheapy $5 cartridge adapter. Another obviously paid for "news article" makes an even more bald-faced claim:

"To sum up the Messiah NEX will be sleeker and trouble free, works with all our games, and accessories, dual mono, and plays Japanese ports."

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art36274.asp

Works with all our games and accessories, huh? We know that %5 of the USA NES games don't even run, but Messiah refuses to give figures on how many games run without problems. It is probably a much much higher percentage. Also, where do I plug my Family Basic Keyboard or other Famicom peripherials? Where are the Game Genie compatibility tests? In conclusion, it looks like Messiah simply repackaged a crappy NOAC based Famiclone, and then spent some money on fake news articles, advertisement, and hype.

omne · November 4, 2005

Good god man, are you on the payroll of a rival clone maker or something?

Press releases are hype. By their very definition. It's like calling out a salesman for trying to sell a product.

Your definition of slimey must apply to many many companies. IMO you are burning off your valid clone credibility with this rhetoric.

Edited November 4, 2005 by omne

Gordon · November 4, 2005

I am not sure if anybody else has noticed this, but there are "news articles" that hype up the NEX, and seem to be nothing more than a marketing ploy. Messiah is the slimiest company I've yet to see try to cash in on the recent retro gaming craze.
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I agree with you wholeheartedly, Jagasian. I guess I hoped so badly that they would be the real deal (with gamers' interests in their hearts, not just money) that I got suckered in. They did a great job of marketing.. too bad the product doesn't live up to the hype.

Speaking of engineered news articles and the like, I found an entry on the Generation NEX in Wikipedia the other day, which was an obvious plant by the company. I promptly edited the article to more accurately reflect reality (of course, the article shouldn't be there to begin with).

Then I looked at Lik Sang's NEX page, and no surprise, there's a glowing review. I left a more realistic review three days ago, but it has yet to show up. I somehow doubt it ever will, because they actually want to sell these things.

The same thing goes for Gamestop's NEX Page. Well, no shill review, but I did leave a realistic review three days ago and it hasn't showed up either. Big surprise.

Yeah; Messiah sucks. I guess it's time to move on. But I really did want to warn people to stay away from these snakes-in-the-grass.

Gordon

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Vintage Computing and Gaming Blog

omne · November 4, 2005

So, do you guys read the Official Xbox Magazine as well for balanced and honest reviews about Xbox games? How about frank commentary on ubiquitous Xbox disc read error, or HDD failure?