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NES Classic Edition review: The best and worst of retro gaming
"I don't want to sit on the floor while I play video games," my buddy Josh told me. "I'm not 7 anymore." My friend was parked just 4 feet away from my 40-inch television, playing Ninja Gaiden on the NES Classic Edition -- a tiny re-creation of Nintendo's original home game console. The diminutive game system has everything a nostalgic gamer could want: an iconic design, a built-in collection of 30 classic games and pixel-perfect emulation. But for Josh, the two-and-a-half-foot-long controller cables were a deal-breaker. It's a shame, too: Almost everything else about the NES Classic is perfect.
Nintendo's Famicom Mini is Japan's NES Classic
Nintendo fans in its home country are getting their own teensy retro console, as well. Today, Mario's creator has revealed the mini Famicom, a shrunken version of the original NES the company released in Japan. Just like the mini NES for the west, the Famicom mini fits in the palm of your hand and plugs into your TV via HDMI. It comes with two wired controllers instead of one, but the bad news is that it follows in the footsteps of the New 3DS -- it doesn't have a bundled AC adapter. You'll have to buy that one separately.
Analogue's beautiful, aluminum NES gets a smaller spin-off
The NES Classic is equal parts neat and limited -- after all, it has the correct look, but can't be expanded beyond the 30 games built into it and won't play nice with existing NES controllers. Cheap? Sure, though it's maybe not the tiny retro machine fans have been hoping for. That's where the makers of the custom-built Analogue Nt come in: they've built a smaller, less expensive version of the console called the Nt mini that's set to ship in January 2017.
How modern tech saved my 'Dragon's Lair' arcade game
In the early 1980s, the arcade was still the place to play the newest and best video games. Sure, consoles existed, and were just starting to give arcades a run for their money -- and were even starting to shed their wood-grain home-furniture look for a more modern feel. But home play still lacked the arcade's mystique. As attendance began to dwindle, game makers started looking for a hook; something incredible and new that would lure people back to the arcades to spend their quarters.
My pointless quest to achieve perfect retro console fidelity
It all started about four years ago when I came into an old Sega Saturn system from the mid-90s. It was an entire console catalog that I completely skipped over back in the day. I hooked it up to my TV and soon I was knee-deep in classic fighting games like Street Fighter vs. X-Men and shoot-em-ups like Thunderforce V. The low-poly art style was gorgeously retro, but I quickly realized that the image was stretched and distorted on my HDTV. I Googled "retro console fidelity," and that's where it all went wrong.
Hands-on with Hyperkin's Retron 5: emulating nine classic consoles with help from Android
This year's Electronic Entertainment Expo might be all about the next generation of gaming hardware, but not in Hyperkin's E3 booth: these guys are looking backwards. We dropped by to check out the Retron 5, the outfit's latest machine to traverse the library of older gaming titles. All told, this iteration strolls through half a dozen hardware cycles, offering compatibility for a full nine video game systems. It's more than a simple hardware emulator, however -- this machine offers save states, cheats and visual filters too.
Project Unity stuffs 20 classic consoles into one: if you can't play it, it's probably too new (video)
Most gamer who want to play with more than one or two vintage console platforms often turn to software-based emulators that may or may not be above-board. How about stuffing all of the authentic hardware into one controller and one base unit? Modders at Bacteria's forums have developed Project Unity, an attempt to natively address 20 consoles across 17 actual platforms folded into a single device. The gamepad, arguably the centerpiece, includes two each of analog sticks and directional pads, along with multiple shoulder buttons and a central button grid that can either be used to steer an Intellivision or fill in for otherwise missing controls. Stuffing the unique controller hardware into one gamepad obviously presents problems with board sizes and the laws of physics, so much of the relevant circuitry sits in modified NES cartridges. Our only dismays are the lack of original Xbox support and the slightly imposing challenge of aggregating and modifying that much classic gaming componentry in one place -- if you're more concerned about convenience in your retro gaming than preserving the original feel of that Sega Master System or SNK NeoGeo, though, you've just found Utopia.
