Nintendo Classic Mini: SNES with Star Fox 2

Many video game enthusiasts (myself included) missed out on the Nintendo Classic Mini: Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) due to severe stock shortages last November.

So, when the company announced it was following up with the Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) this September. I was determined to secure a pre-order from Amazon.co.uk. The 16-bit console represents peak Nintendo.

The successor to the NES captured my imagination whilst flicking through the pages of defunct games magazine Mean Machines. The sleek-looking console was released in its native Japan in 1990 with Super Mario World, F-Zero and Pilotwings. When the machine reached UK shores in 1992 it did not disappoint. Featuring Super Mario World as a pack-in, the 16-bit powerhouse had pride of place under the TV that Christmas. Super Mario World and Super Mario 64 remain my favourite franchise installments.

The "SNES", as it was pronounced on Bad Influence! a weekly tech magazine show hosted by Andy Crane and Violet Berlin in the early 1990s, introduced me to the wonders of Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. A game I treasure to this day.

Whilst last year's NES included 30 games, the SNES will feature 21 and it represents a stellar genre line-up including the unreleased Star Fox 2:

Contra III: The Alien Wars
Donkey Kong Country
EarthBound
Final Fantasy III
F-Zero
Kirby Super Star
Kirby's Dream Course
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Mega Man X
Secret of Mana
Star Fox
Star Fox 2
Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting
Super Castlevania IV
Super Ghouls'n Ghosts
Super Mario Kart
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
Super Mario World
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Super Metroid
Super Punch-Out!!

From ALIEN³ (loaned to a friend and never returned) to Super Star Wars, Nintendo's 16-bit console never failed to delight with Mode 7 and Super FX technological trickery. That said, the cartridges were expensive. Street Fighter II Turbo cost £70!

I took my machine to university where it played genial host to Super Mario Kart tournaments with housemates and friends until the PlayStation was launched in 1995. Without the SNES there would be no PlayStation. Sony's console began life as an aborted SNES CD-ROM add-on in 1988. However, Nintendo shunned Sony and partnered with Philips in 1991. The rest is gaming history.

Nintendo is putting the "n" into nostalgia with these classic mini consoles featuring childhood callbacks for fans.

"Our long-term efforts are focused on delivering great games for the Nintendo Switch system and continuing to build momentum for that platform, as well as serving the more than 63 million owners of Nintendo 3DS family systems. We are offering Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition in special recognition of the fans who show tremendous interest our classic content."

In a statement to USgamer, Nintendo said: "We aren't providing specific numbers, but we will produce significantly more units of Super NES Classic Edition than we did of NES Classic Edition.

"Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition is currently planned to ship from 29th September until the end of calendar year 2017. At this time, we have nothing to announce regarding any possible shipments beyond this year."

Pre-orders sold out within minutes on Monday. I secured mine after following a link on Eurogamer.

Nintendo's 16-bit era arch-rival Sega has recently launched Sega Forever for iOS and Android devices. Sega plans to release games from the Master System to Dreamcast. However, it's off to a stuttering start and there isn't a first-party classic console product of the calibre offered by Nintendo. Personally, I'd love a mini classic Genesis/Mega Drive comparable to SNES with excellent emulation.

Did you manage to pre-order a Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Nintendo? Which games are you excited for? Is it bittersweet because of stock shortages? Let me know in the comments below.

Saturn Wii

Excitement continues to surround the speculated appearance of Sega Saturn on Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console! Ironically this is generating, in some quarters, more interest than Friday's infamous release of Sony's PlayStation 3, which is still available for pre-order.

I'm interested to know what Virtual Console titles readers have bought (if any) and want? Here are my Wii Points purchases:

Golden Axe
Gunstar Heroes
Super Castlevania IV
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario World
Donkey Kong Country
Mario 64
Mario Kart 64
R-Type

I'd like to see the following added to Virtual Console (in no particular order):

Dracula X: Rondo of Blood (Turbografx-16)
Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest (NES)
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES)
Panzer Dragoon Zwei (Sega Saturn)

Don't forget to equip yourself with both Wii Classic Controller and GameCube Wavebird Wireless Controller (my all-time favourite controller). And link your Wii with Nintendo VIP 24:7.

Almost overlooked to quote Sony boss Howard Stringer on the Wii:

"Wii is a wonderful device, but has a different target audience. If we fail, it is because we positioned PS3 as the Mercedes of the video game field. PS3 is after a different audience and it can be whatever it wants -- a home server, game device, even a computer."

Wii Wins!

This afternoon I received a belated e-mail from Virgin Media in response to the BlogSpot issue. Here's an extract:

Thank you for contacting the Virgin Media Econtact Support Team.

I am sorry to hear you have been having issues with your broadband service.

This issue is happening due to a new address range being released to Virgin Media. Some sites filter out access attempts from addresses that are not currently in use. However, they need to update their filters when they are advised that a new range has been released, which some sites have not done. We are in touch with the hosts of BlogSpot to try to get them to update their filters, and until they do there is nothing further that we can do...

Virgin Media's explanation is congruent with Blogger's and therefore I wanted to post this for the purposes of balance and fairness. And to address any concerns that readers, also affected by this issue, may have had. For me, the matter is closed.

I can now connect a brand new Belkin High-Speed Mode Wireless G Router to my cable modem and update the Wii's firmware and download the latest addition to the burgeoning Virtual Console gallery - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. But first, I need to buy a 2000 Wii Points Card. A Wii Points Card is used, in much the same way as an iTunes Gift Certificate, for downloading extra features and content, including the greatest games from the NES, Super NES, N64, Sega Mega Drive and NEC TurboGrafx video game consoles.

Wii Play

Wii arrived this afternoon. Looking forward to some retro-goodness (via Virtual Console) from this coming Friday.

UK Virtual Console releases, December 15:

Urban Champion (NES)
Solomon's Keys (NES)
Pinball (NES)
Columns (Mega Drive)
Gunstar Heroes (Mega Drive)
Ristar (Mega Drive)
Dr. Robotonik's Mean Bean Machine(Mega Drive)
Alien Crush (Turbografx)

UK Virtual Console releases, December 22:

Donkey Kong Jr. (NES)
Soccer (NES)
Tennis (NES)
Space Harrier II (Mega Drive)
Toe Jam & Earl (Mega Drive)
Military Madness (Turbografx)

UK Virtual Console releases, December 29:

Baseball (NES)
Ice Hockey (NES)
SimCity (SNES)
Super Probotector (SNES)
Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
R-TYPE (Turbografx)

The Triforce Grants Gaming Greatness

For Generation X the name Zelda is synonymous with teatime television hit Supermacromation series The Terrahawks and Nintendo!

Like Mario, Zelda is the brainchild of Shigeru Miyamoto thus sharing the high production values of its sibling. Zelda has, inevitably, spawned its own lifestyle merchandising. From action figures to cereals. And lest I forget to mention the animated series too, which is now available on DVD!

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) introduced me to the wonders of Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

A Link to the Past follows the adventures of Princess Zelda's and Link's ancestors, referring to the characters from the two Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) games The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Thus, A Link to the Past takes place before the events of the first two Zelda games. The game's endurance was typified by its inclusion on the Game Boy Advance (GBA) title The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords.

With the imminent arrival of the Zelda franchise on both the Nintendo DS (Phantom Hourglass) and Wii (The Twilight Princess). The continuation of Link's award-winning adventures is assured and I, for one, don't intend to miss out.

All I Want For Christmas

In keeping with the spirit of the upcoming holidays. The following list features all my computer and video game hardware owned to date. Most of which were received as gifts at this time of year!

*Atari VCS 2600
*Binatone Mk6 Game System
*ZX Spectrum 48K
*ZX Spectrum+ (same as above, but with 'improved' keyboard)
*Commodore 64 and 1541 Floppy Disk Drive
*Nintendo Game & Watch (various Mario titles)
*Sega Megadrive (Genesis)
*Atari Lynx II
*Super NES
*Apple Macintosh Performa 5200
*N64
*PSOne
*iMac DV SE
*Sega Dreamcast
*PlayStation 2
*XBOX
*GameCube
*LCD iMac G4
*GBA SP

Over the years I purchased innumerable video games from The Fuse Box. During my teens the store, an independent brick-and-mortar retailer located in Exeter's Sidwell Street, was a treasure trove - Rescue on Fractalus!* and Koronis Rift, displayed on the in-store monitors, held me spellbound - before its untimely closure and the advent of etailing. Somewhere in the attic of our house is a dusty old cardboard box that contains Atari, Commodore and Spectrum games (cartridge, cassette and diskette formats) in their original packaging! I've no idea whether or not my Commodore 64 still works (1992 being the last time it was used) and the first ZX Spectrum was passed on to a younger relative only to meet an untimely demise.

Watching Back to the Future II (1989) I noticed Nintendo's PlayChoice-10 in the Cafe 80's scene (a veritable advertising blitz). To reiterate comments made in a previous post. PlayChoice-10 provided Nintendo with a platform to profit from the lucrative arcade market, and uniquely showcased NES titles including Mega Man 3, Super Mario Bros II and III before their home cartridge launch. PlayChoice-10 existed for 5 to 6 years and was briefly superseded by Nintendo Super System. MAME emulation of PlayChoice-10 is not yet 100% accurate, but all known titles are available including The Goonies.

nVIDIA is to produce a bespoke GeForce GPU for Sony's PS3 after Microsoft allied itself with ATi. Combined with an IBM PowerPC G5 processor and possibly OpenGL, the PS3 shares APIs with Apple! Curious said Alice. In a contractual twist, that inspires literary allusions to the one ring, IBM will power all three next generation consoles from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. Can you say NDA?

*Rescue on Fractalus! was the first time I'd ever seen the Apple ][ logo. Little did I know that years later the Apple Macintosh would have a profound impact on my creative life.

ESP

At the weekend I got into a discussion, with friends, concerning the phenomenon that is the PlayStation brand. With PSP (Sony's new handheld resembles the Atari Lynx) and PS3 on the horizon, my memory was jogged!



In the early 90's Sony and Nintendo embarked on the creation of a CD-ROM drive (PlayStation) for the Super NES. Magazine editorials excitedly published concept drawings and (I think) early production hardware photos - the drive sat beneath the console. However, when Sega released the elephantine Mega-CD to mixed reviews (the build quality was horrendous and software such as Night Trap courted controversy from conservative quarters), Nintendo halted development and/or partnered with Philips (co-creator of the CD format) on a rival project (CD-I).

Sony took the knowledge it had acquired, extensive R&D and produced PlayStation itself. Fast forward a decade and the PS brand enjoys a virtually impervious market dominance. Sega struggles as a software company and Nintendo has failed to shake its (lucrative) kids n' cartridge image.

Somewhat off topic. It appears that Firefox (version 1.0 Preview Release) has damaged my installation of Mac OS X 10.3.5. Whenever the browser was open it continuously accessed the HDD. This resulted in a kernel panic following a crash. After starting up in single-user mode (and running /sbin/fsck -f) disc errors were found! So, time for a backup and clean install once 10.3.6 is released. Thanks Mozilla!

Scream

With Halloween only a few weeks away, my pixel-pushing friends over at The Iconfactory have unleashed their ghoulish GUI goodness in the dark n' dank form of Web Attic!

Really looking forward to a late night screening of Michael Jackson's Ghosts and Thriller on the 31st.

In the meantime and in keeping with the Halloween theme. Whilst I'm still suffering post console sale withdrawal, here's the in-game logo taken from Super Castlevania IV (released on the Super NES, 1991).



Holiday season 1992 I hooked the newly unwrapped PAL Super NES to my home AV system (pre multi-channel) and was startled by the quality of the Castlevania IV soundtrack! Sonic detail was in abundance (a maximum of 8-channels were available to sound designers) with excellent 2-channel separation. A peerless platformer (it featured dancing specters Paula Abghoul and Fred Ascare), which still endures to this day. If you're so inclined, I'd recommend hunting down the original 'uncensored' Japanese Super Famicom cartridge entitled Akumajou Dracula (Demon Castle Dracula) - blood and nudity - all the trappings of the vampire genre.

Konami's Castlevania series, one of my favourite video game franchises, rarely disappoints and I've followed the Belmont family cross-platform (no pun intended) from MSX to Arcade and Genesis to GBA.