Tag Archive

12 In 1 Retro Console, The Retro Freak, Coming Soon From FunStock Retro

Posted on March 4, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Who doesn’t love a good 8-bit or 16-bit from their childhood? Perhaps checking out a console that existed before you did? Retro games can introduce you to genres that are no longer considered mainstream or help you relive some of the definitive games that helped shape the games industry into what it is today.

Imagine having access to the physical libraries of 12 different consoles all from different manufacturers from the past 30+ years, this is possible thanks to the upcoming release of the Retro Freak from UK retailer FunStock Retro you will now be able to have up to 16 consoles under your television without a jungle of tangled cables.

In terms of compatibility the Retro Freak supports cartridges from the following systems:

  • NES
  • SNES
  • Famicom (Japanese SNES)
  • SNES (PAL)
  • Game Boy
  • Game Boy Color
  • GBA
  • SEGA Mega Drive
  • SEGA Genesis
  • PC Engine
  • Japanese Turbo Graphics 16

Direct emulation via the included cartridge slots isn’t the only thing that the Retro Freak will bring to the crowded console clone scene. With built-in USB ports this neat little device will support a number of USB enabled controllers including those from the Xbox One and PlayStation. If you’ve got a USB genesis or SNES controller those are supported as well. Each system’s controller layout and be customized and this little white box even gives players the ability to add turbo functions through the system’s menus.

Here are a few shots of the Retro Freak system menus:

Retro Freak also gives players an extra degree of control with its ability to copy a game cartridge directly to a mounted SD card – removing the need to keep cartridges cluttered around the television like you did when you were 8. If one of your older cartridges no longer has a working SRAM battery, making manual saves impossible, the Retro Freak can back up saves directly to a mounted SD card.

More information about the Retro Freak are available at the Funstock Retro website. Currently the Retro Freak is priced at 169.99 EURO / $240 CDN and offers free shipping within Europe or to North America for $5.99.

0

Before Smash Bros, there was World Heroes 2

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Erika

World Heroes 2 Header

Broken Bootlegs is a series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition covers possibly one of my favorite Famicom fighters: World Heroes 2.

During the prime of fighting games in the 90s, there were a few game characters that I wanted to see duke it out on the screen, including Mario and Sonic. Sadly, this wouldn’t be realized to its fullest extent till Super Smash Brothers Brawl. There was one bootleg game that fulfilled some of those fantasies, though. Not to be confused with game that shares the same name released by AES and SNK, World Heroes 2 by Cony Soft pits 12 playable fighters against each other in all it’s bootleg glory!Read More

0

Nintendo announces Mini Collector’s Edition NES

Posted on July 14, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Its what you always wanted right? Ok, maybe not. But its a good start. After the success of Pokemon Go it seems Nintendo have decided that cashing in on nostalgia will be their business strategy. I am not at all surprised to see Nintendo announce something like this. Its a good time for retro. 30 retro games, in a nice tiny package, just in time for holiday! Its a good time to be a Nintendo shareholder.

Ok so what is it already

Its an NES, but tiny, and with an HDMI port. Its going to be ready packed with 30 games. Nintendo of Canada’s General Manager and Senior Director Pierre-Paul Trepanier said of the device.  “We wanted to give fans of all ages the opportunity to revisit Nintendo’s original system and rediscover why they fell in love with Nintendo in the first place The Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition is ideal for anyone who remembers playing the NES, or who wants to pass on those nostalgic memories to the next generation of gamers.”

Nintendo says this is a near identical mini replica, I assume the buttons wont work, as the thing is literally palm sized, and that also means all the games are emulated. Two player support is confirmed with a second controller costing 10$

The NES Classic will be available to purchase in stores on Nov. 11 for $59.99. All of games available to play on the console are listed below.

This looks like something that I would find at walgreens

This looks like something that I would find at Walgreens when I forgot to buy a toy for a kids birthday

What games?

The system comes packaged with an HDMI cable, an AC adapter, and one NES Classic Controller. But you really just want to know the full list of 30 games, right? Here it is.

·      Balloon Fight™

·      BUBBLE BOBBLE

·      Castlevania™

·      Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest™

·      Donkey Kong™

·      Donkey Kong Jr. ™

·      DOUBLE DRAGON II: THE REVENGE

·      Dr. Mario™

·      Excitebike™

·      FINAL FANTASY®

·      Galaga™

·      GHOSTS’N GOBLINS®

·      GRADIUS™

·      Ice Climber™

·      Kid Icarus™

·      Kirby’s Adventure™

·      Mario Bros. ™

·      MEGA MAN® 2

·      Metroid™

·      NINJA GAIDEN

·      PAC-MAN™

·      Punch-Out!! ™ Featuring Mr. Dream

·      StarTropics™

·      SUPER C™

·      Super Mario Bros.™

·      Super Mario Bros. ™ 2

·      Super Mario Bros. ™ 3

·      TECMO BOWL

·      The Legend of Zelda™

·      Zelda II: The Adventure of Link™

Man thats a lot of games, if your still reading I applaud you, I know i stopped after about 10. Some good stuff in there including the two Zelda titles and the three Mario titles. Since the games are just emulated im guessing plenty of people will love this thing for homebrew. So the list of titles may expand.

0

Broken Bootlegs- My Experience with Power Joy

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Erika

Power-Joy

Broken Bootlegs is a series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition is covers my experiences with my first bit of pirate hardware that originally my interest in playing around with bootleg games and hardware: the Power Joy.

It what seems feels a very long time ago, which probably was a little over a decade ago, I was traveling around going to garage sales looking for anything computer or video game-related like I usually do. I eventually happened upon something very unusual: a white device in the shape of a Nintendo 64 controller with a Playstation 1-styled controller that could hook into the former, and a very odd-looking cartridge that was attached bottom of first controller. Nothing else came with it except a cardboard box that had POWER JOY printed on the side. After buying it and taking it home, I found some batteries to put into it, hooked it up to my tv and after turning everything on, I saw a menu that had “64-in-1” at the top of it. I start going though some of the games like Aladdin, Circus Charlie, Karate, Formation Z, and some light gun games, to name a few. Read More

0

Broken Bootlegs- Experiences with Wisdom Tree

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Erika

Wisdom Tree logo

Broken Bootlegs is a weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition covers a few of the unlicensed games I’ve played for the NES and Game Boy that were produced by Wisdom Tree.

A long, long time ago, in an early-90s era far far away, I was starting to realize how fun Game Boy and Atari 2600 games were, and my parents were mostly careful that I didn’t play anything overtly awful or violent. Being brought up in a Christian household, my mom tried to make sure I stayed innocent enough and she’d shop at the local Christian Bookstore every so often while taking me with. I usually got to go to Funcoland either before or after we spent time in the store so I didn’t complain too much. I remember one day that the bookstore had an NES set up with a couple of different Biblical-themed games and I was pretty much glued to them while mom browsed around the store. It’s bible-themed so it’s ok, right? Right. The three games that really stood out were Joshua & The Battle of Jericho, Exodus, and Bible Adventures. Read More

0

Broken Bootlegs- Somari

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Erika

Somari title screen

Broken Bootlegs is a weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition covers possibly one of the most well-known bootlegs out there: Somari!

As briefly mentioned in the first entry of this series, Somari is not only is a bootleg of one game, Sonic the Hedgehog, but also redone to star Mario! Developed by Hummer Team, known as Someri or Somari Team for this release, is standard fare of their in-house conversions of 16-bit games to the Famicom. Things are similar enough, while having that A+ bootleg quality one would expect from Hummer Team. With that said, it’s a mixed experience while playing the game. It starts off with the Sonic 1 title screen with Mario’s face plastered on it, which was actually nicely done. While playing, I’ve noticed that the physics were a bit off, just like with other Hummer Team games, which can make timing some jumps and attacks a bit difficult. Fortunately though, is that Somari can spindash! While not cannon to the original Sonic, this does help out during a play-through and can make the game a little easier. The stages are similar to the source material, which is also good, but if you’re expecting something right out of the original game, then you’re in for a surprise. Read More

0

Broken Bootlegs- Super Mario World Famicom

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Erika

Super Mario World Famicom

Broken Bootlegs is a weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition is the appearance of one of the more well-known bootlegs out there, a pirate port of Super Mario World for the Famicom!

Due to poor jumping physics, expect this to happen quite a bit

Due to poor jumping physics, expect this to happen quite a bit

Developed by Hummer Team and released in 1995, this bootleg did something that Nintendo developers said that couldn’t be done: giving Mario a dino companion on their former flagship 8-bit system. Surprisingly, the development team did a somewhat decent job in recreating the experience of playing the game so that it’s actually playable. Surprisingly, features and items like Yoshi, Fire Flower, and Cape Feather all work just about as they did on the original game. The music is mostly faithful to the original tunes, though some of the instrument choices can be a bit hard on the ears. Unfortunately, but understandably, the level layouts that were put into the game were either partially or completely redone, and enemies were either not included or replaced with another to help with system slowdown due to too many objects on the screen at the time. One such enemy replaced is the giant Bullet Bill replaced with a series of three Podoboos. As for system slowdown, this is most noticeable while playing though the Ghost Houses, as at times, the screens are quite populated with Boos.Read More

0

The Joys of Import Gaming: How easy we have it these days

Posted on January 8, 2016 by Erika

As a kid having grown up during the 90s, I got to experience the height of the console wars in full swing: Nintendo vs Sega. Both of those companies duked it out for the dominance of the console market, with several other competitors such as Atari with their Jaguar and NEC’s TurboGrafix-16 lagging severely behind. Unfortunately, with growing up in the US, gamers such as myself missed numerous releases. Some of those were either not localized from Japan, or the translations of various games that did make it over were severely butchered by such things as Nintendo’s no-religious imagery/text policy, or had copious amounts of Engrish. Possibly one of the more famous examples of Engrish was the localization of the Sega MegaDrive game Zero Wing, which spawned one of the earlier memes of 2000/2001.

Read More

0

Wii U Getting Virtual Console – 30th Anniversary Specials!

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Les Major

Coming this Spring, Wii U gamers will be able to download content from their own version of the virtual console including Nintendo and Super Nintendo titles. These games will be playable on screen as usual, and seperately on your GamePad controller.

The service will have a limited selection to begin with, but will continue to add more as well as Game Boy Advance titles. There is also “special pricing” if you’re looking to upgrade your Wii virtual console titles you’ve transfered over to your Wii U. NES games will cost $1 for the upgrade and SNES titles, $1.50. There’s more!Read More

0

Con Bravo: Gaming Tournament & Free Play Impressions

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Broken Joysticks

During the last weekend we at Broken Joysticks got the opportunity to visit Con bravo down in the Hamilton Ontario area as our readership is already aware – and let me give a shout out saying it was one of the best con experiences that we have ever covered. Meeting the Special Guests, the con goers themselves, and the staff was nothing short of epic amounts of fun – and we’ve made a note to put this down as one of our favoured cons for the future.

While the big coverage will be coming out as the week goes on, including interviews with Spoony, Doug, and others from Channel Awesome, we’d like to make a special note on something that we usually find more then a little mundane that we thought was exceptionally well done at this con – the gaming.Read More

0

Get the latest articles and news from BrokenJoysticks and a selection of excellent articles from other sources.

Simply fill out the form below and you’ll be on your way to getting our upcoming newsletter.