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16-in-1 DS case is accountingly efficient
The case : cartridge size ratio for DS games is like 300 : 1. You could fit a huge pile of the tiny games inside a single case, but then there's a grand total of one secure slot. A bit of overkill for the cases, then, but the awesome boxart on most games needs to be acknowledged -- so no smaller, please.Leave it to the rest of us to solve this problem, Nintendo. A handy little uber-case has been found, and you can secure 16 DS carts inside with ease. It comes in clear, pink or black, and retails for around eight dollars. Much better price than some other accessories. Check out some more images after the break, and head to the official accessory page for extra goodies.It's settled, then. You'll have your brilliant stack of DS games all lined up nice and pretty, so visitors will realize how cool you are when they drop by. Little do they know, the cartridges will be stored safely in your bag! Find a mega-case and get efficient, because Nintendo wants you to. Alternatively, check out the best of our collection and try to one-up those wacky devices with your own DIY concoction.
DS Daily: A longtime companion calls it quits
This weekend, we had to do something that made us feel horrible, but in the end, was for the best. Like that scene in Old Yeller, we had to put down one of our DS carts (Mario Kart DS, oddly enough). You see, all of the inserting and ejecting of the cartridge with our DS caused something to get loose in there and now the cart cannot be read by the system.It got us to wondering about this happening to others, namely you all, who probably play their DS a lot more than we're able to. So have you played a game so much this has happened? Have you never heard of this happening? What's your oldest DS game?
Working NES squeezed into ... an NES cartridge
All right, we'll admit that headline is a little inaccurate. The heavily modified Super Mario Bros. cart shown above actually plays Japanese Famicom carts (like the not-at-all-bootleg Super Bros. 5), not the slightly larger American NES carts. Semantics aside, we're sure you'll share our sense of awe at the accomplishment of fitting an entire video game system into what, at one point, was used to hold the data for a single game. All the pieces are there, believe it or not, including A/V outputs, a svelte power switch, and two controller ports sticking out at the bottom of the cartridge. The machine seems like a one-of-a-kind hack, and doesn't look like it's going to be sold any time soon. It's a shame, too ... we' d love to get our hands on one of these, if only so we could plug in our Flash Memory PowerPak via an adapter to create the ultimate NES-cartridge-shaped hacking monstrosity. [Via Engadget]
NES cart becomes NES system
If you don't think this is awesome, you should have the nearest human being check you for a pulse. French modder Kotomi, who you might recall made some pretty awesome DS and Wii-based stuff, has put his skills to the test and managed to fit the guts of a NES into a Super Mario Bros. cartridge. Pretty impressive, if we may say so.But, Kotomi, buddy, pal, couldn't you have gone with a game that was, oh, a bit crappier? Sure, Super Mario Bros. is a fairly common NES game, we get that, but if it were us, we'd probably find the worst NES game we could and rip the innards out of that. It sure would be satisfying to rip out the guts of a crappy NES game. But, hey, that's just us.[Via Technabob]
Famicom clone closes the circle with an NES cart for a case
Just when you thought it couldn't get any more meta than a full NES clone hacked into an NES controller, somebody goes and mods up an NES cart to play Famicom cartridges. The all-in-one unit includes a pair of controller plugs, video out and that all-important reset switch in a pretty slick package. That's great and all, but when our grandkids start building PS3 clones out of discarded Blu-ray cases, we're seriously going to start freaking out. [Via technabob]
Today's most oddly musical video: HarmoNESica
It should be a no-brainer. You blow into a harmonica. You blow into an NES cartridge. Putting the two things together should result in more efficient blowing. And indeed it does. All you have ti do is watch the video performance on the new instrument to see how much it blows.The creator of this monstrosity of musical design has put together some detailed instructions for those who would dare to replicate this feat in the comfort of their own homes. Choose your cartridge carefully, though -- as the instructions note, this is a game you should be comfortable essentially making out with. So Yo Noid! is probably out.
Cartridge clock pulls us back in time
Have any old NES carts lying around that you're not using? If you can possibly spare to sacrifice one to a greater (or lesser, depending on your opinion) cause, this might be a fun project: the NES cart clock. Of course, if you're not up to a little DIY project, you can pick this one up at Etsy, courtesy of seller GeekGear. While we can't decide of Days of Thunder is a good choice for hanging on the wall or propping up on a nightstand, we can certainly think of a few NES games that might make good craft projects ....
DS Daily: Underappreciated feature #1,782,365
You know, the DS Daily is a great place to spur discussion and get your DS-obsessed day off on the right foot. But, we feel the need to be a bit selfish today. Instead of writing a love letter to our handheld and postmarking the envelope to our heart, we figured we'd call out one of its many small, but very lovable, features in our daily topic.Like the NES of old, the DS cart slot is a godsend for us. One of the most annoying things we find with GBA games is the whole forcefully ripping the game out of the slot thing. Perhaps it's just that we're the most macho and manly of men (how you doing, ladies?), but we always feel like we're going to rip something in half when messing with the GBA stuff. The DS has a nice spring-loaded slot that carefully extracts our games for us. It's one of the features that gets used most for us (right up there with the power button) and considering how much of a glutton our DS is (it does consume a lot of quality gaming), we're thankful the thing hasn't managed to mess up a single cart on us yet.But what about you all? What features of the DS, no matter how big or small, do you admire? The glossy finish? The durable outer shell that can withstand falling down a flight of stairs without so much as a scratch (DS Fanboy staff tested)?
Play Famicom games on your DS with the Cyber Familator cart
Using a simple but bulky cart from Japan, it's possible to make your DS play Famicom games. It'll also play NES games if you can get your hands on an adapter for the different cart shape. Mark this down on your shopping list before you make your compulsory, once-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Akihabara. [Via Technabob]
Get diabetic children interested in their health through video games
According to Australian news network Channel 10 News, a new diabetes management device known as Glucoboy has hit the market. The device was designed by Minnesota native Paul Wessel, who has a son diagnosed with the disease. He said he came up with the concept after his son forgot his Game Boy on a family trip and the whole gang had to go back to retrieve it, but would constantly hide the device used to test his blood sugar (as the child of a parent with diabetes, we've seen how hard testing can be over the course of a lifetime).The Glucoboy not only allows the user to test their blood sugar, but also get their game on. By performing the test, points are rewarded that allow the user to unlock games, which are played by inserting the Glucoboy cartridge into a Game Boy Advance or DS Lite (in its GBA slot, naturally). Personally, we can't think of a better way to get to kids, who often never travel without their GBA or DS nowadays. For more information, be sure to visit the Glucoboy website.
Alex Mauer's Vegavox album: Now available on NES
Go ahead and toss all your CD's in the garbage, along with your SACD's, audio DVD's, cassettes, LP's, EP's, 45's, 8-tracks, DAT's, Minidiscs, wax cylinders, and player piano rolls. Crush the pile down a little and throw your fancy MP3 player on top. All of that stuff just became embarrassingly obsolete, and we don't want you to appear foolish. There's a new format in town: the NES cartridge. Alex Mauer is a prolific chiptune artist who has made music with the NES, C64, Sega Master System, and Ad Lib sound chips, among others, and for his latest work, Vegavox, he's really done something special. The only way to get the album of original NES-based music is on an NES cartridge. If you need us, we'll be installing an NES cartridge slot in our car. And, of course, by "installing" we mean "cramming."[Via NeoGAF]
Wii Warm Up: Do you miss cartridges?
Sure, discs are the complete end-all, be-all in a lot of ways. Games have gotten bigger since graduating from cartridges, and that's all well and fine. But there's just one thing we miss: the freedom to be completely unconcerned about how we treated our games. Don't worry -- most of the time, we're really careful. Games are sacred, after all. But it was nice when, in a moment of frustration, you could pop out a game and literally toss it aside. Also, scratches can cripple a disc, but the worst that ever happened with most of our original NES games was that we had to blow 'em out every now and then. It was a simpler time.Do you ever miss it?
Blowin' on Nintendo games
We used to jam the game all the way back, force it all the way down, shove (of all things) one of those plastic SNES cart covers in there to keep it in place -- and then (as seen above) feverishly press 'Reset' until that sucka started up. Other techniques?See also: How did you blow your NES cartridge?
Sewing the seeds of retro: crocheted Atari 2600
Who said that grandma's skill set wasn't that useful? It's a custom crocheted Atari 2600, complete with two controllers, a game cartridge, and Pitfall on the screen. Amazing! These is exactly the sort of old school stuff we'd be filling our homes and offices up with if it was for sale in stores.Now the real proof comes when someone knits us a next-gen system complete with a multiplayer game playing out on the crocheted screen in -- wait for it -- high definition. That'd be like a million lines of yarn or something. Better get to knitting before Super HDTV gets invented.[Thanks, Mike]
DS Daily: GBA stickout
The DS Lite improved upon its predecessor in almost every way. Brighter, sleeker, and smaller .. but, alas, it perhaps became a bit too small. Due to it's decreased size, the DS Lite was unable to fully house GBA cartridges, creating a veritable tumor on your system.In days of yore, we would carry around our DS permanently loaded with both our current DS game of choice, as well as a pick-up-and-play GBA game. These days, we seek to retain our beautiful form factor and simply leave the placeholder "cart" in the slot. Do you guys care about the GBA functionality at all, and are you willing to handle the eyesore? Ladies and gentlemen, to your comments!
Tummy-rumblin' NES cartridge hits Ebay
Made from only the finest Austrian chocolate and 1 out of 3 available in the world, this milk chocolate NES cartridge looks like a Nintendo fanboy's Easter basket dream. Weighing in at about 7 ounces, the current highest bid is $41.00 USD at the time of this post. Looks delicious, but is it worth the cost? If you bought it, would you plan on eating it or displaying it? More pictures have been embedded past the post break.
Eight-bit collectors are ob-NES-sed
When most gamers talk about rounding out their collections this holiday season, they're probably thinking of about picking up some bargain priced PS2 or Xbox games. For an elite group of obsessive NES collectors, though, it's all about finding decades-old 8-bit games that are not always so bargain-priced.MTV's Stephen Totillo profiles some of the people who have made it their goal to collect all 700+ NES games in their original boxes. Between them they've sold everything from PS3's to T-shirts to fund a quest that can easily run into the thousands of dollars. Rare games like Stadium Events or a gold Nintendo World Championship cartridge can demand hundreds or even thousands of dollars by themselves.The most interesting part of the story is what these collectors do with the games once they have them. Collector Jason Smith has played all of his 700+ games for at least 15 minutes, while Omegathon winner Luke Armstrong only tried a few dozen of his carts before giving up. That might seem like a colossal waste, but as Totillo correctly points out, "if one amasses the world's greatest stamp collection, one doesn't then mail a bunch of letters."
Don't trip over that cartridge!
The above shoe is, obviously, not available for purchase in stores or via the vast series of tubes we know are the internet. This makes us sad as their is nothing we'd like more to protect out feet while we're out stomping about in the wide, dangerous world. Kudos to the artist responsible for the above shoe and we ask if he/she could possibly make another pair, maybe in a size 11?[Via Photendo]
Sonic 2 prototype now playable
Known only as "drx," some mysterious mage has resurrected a Sonic the Hedgehog 2 prototype cart and promptly dumped it (for emulation). It's an early build of Sega's sequel that's more akin to the first game than to the final version of Sonic 2. Can you spot the differences? It's been suggested that this prototype is the same alpha build that was featured in several episodes of Nick Arcade. Another early build, often referred to as Sonic 2 Beta, was stolen from a toy show in New York back in '92. The cart was pirated and sold as a final version in parts of Asia and Brazil, despite only featuring four semi-playable levels.
Hey Nintendo, make the switch to paper boxes permanent!
Nintendo's apologizing to European customers because they've had to temporarily switch to cardboard game boxes as a result of shortages afflicting that territory, according to Gamasutra's David Jenkins. Nintendo, ever sensitive to gamer needs (and we can't fault them there), is tossing a coupon into paper boxes offering customers a plastic case once supply issues have been resolved. We admit, those are some high quality plastic cases, but c'mon. The DS cartridge is tiny and holds just 128 megabytes of content. Does it really need to ship with plastic that weighs many times more than the product (3.5 grams)? It's environmentally irresponsible. We understand that large game cases help titles fight for attention on a retail shelf, but there's no reason that they can't do that fighting using more responsible materials. Comprised of bits, games should be the most environmentally-friendly products to distribute. Nintendo (and other industry players) should use this opportunity to examine packaging.
