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Nowhere to go but down: MicroGraphicImage's Spelunker!
Imagine, if you will, a western computer game about exploring caverns, turned into an arcade game in Japan, and then making it onto home consoles. “But Nicole, you already did a post on Pitfall II!” As it turns out, it happened twice. And things got a bit weirder than you might expect. Here we go again, but this time, it’s Spelunker.
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Pinball Takes Buttons: Building a controller for Panic Road
So, the central conceit of the supergun enthusiast is that arcade boards are interchangeable. Pop out Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition, pop in Dottori-kun, it’s all the same and it’s all interchangeable, right? But sometimes that just isn’t true. Some games take control schemes aren’t a few face buttons and sticks; sometimes, a game is a pinball game. But we still don’t have room for a cabinet– so what’s a girl to do?
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Finishing the job: Fixing the audio on Athena, for real this time
SNK’s Athena is a game that’s lingered in the background of this blog. As we saw, her game board requires -5V to create audio, so when I first got the game, I had no sound. But we solved that issue, and so I should be happy to play Athena forevermore. It turns out I missed something. It also turns out my Athena board may have a more complex past than I thought. In Athena, nobody can hear you scream. Not without a YM3526, anyway.
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Imitating the Master: The Seo Jin Super Game
Recently, Sega started to leak their plans for a “Super Game”, something that will use Sega’s classic franchises to print money so their company can survive. But it turns out that this isn’t the first time that Sega’s classic game rights have been used as part of a “Super Game”, but that time Sega didn’t make the money– let’s dig into the seedier side of the arcade business again!
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The games Nintendo didn't want you to play: Tengen
Recently, I took a look at Nintendo’s MMC line of mappers, and some other boards. All boards for the NES’ western releases had to be manufactured by Nintendo, and so they generally met certain standards set by Nintendo. But these rules were enforced by technology, not by law. And the company that had previously killed the American game industry decided to break those rules. Madness? No. This… is Tengen.
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Mr. Do Proves Our History Is Not What It Seems
This is going to be a bit out there for Nicole Express, but I have to let you all know the truth. A terrible truth that only I, Nicole Express, could have discovered. A dark secret that shows that everything the ever-ominous they have told us about our world and our place in it is a lie. A truth that, yes, can be revealed only through 1980’s arcade boards. Maybe it’s not so out of place for this blog after all.
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What made the NES so interesting?
I often like to cover oddities here; details of computers and arcade systems people may not have heard of, that didn’t sell well but had unique or interesting characteristics. But focusing on oddities like that can disguise the fact that sometimes, even systems that were very popular can stand out for unique design. Such be it with the Nintendo Entertainment System: had Nintendo’s console flopped, it’d definitely have a post already. But it doesn’t. Let’s fix that! And answer a simple question I was asked: what’s the deal with special chip games?
