Tag Archive: NES


You’d be hard-pressed to convince me that I didn’t grow up in a golden age of cartoons, as there was always animation inspired by video games, movies, comic books, and action figures to be found. Shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Super Mario Bros., Batman: The Animated Series, Spider-Man, GI Joe, Transformers, and more would serve as constant imagination fuel, but often only in half-hour increments at a time. Because of this, there was a clear king of the animated landscape: the Disney Afternoon block. Not only was the animation and antics top-notch, but we also got shows for two solid hours. Four different cartoons crammed back-to-back, and we didn’t have to wait until Saturday morning for it—we got it daily. Since a lot of animation at the time took inspiration from other media, it should come as no surprise that the osmosis worked both ways, and it wasn’t long before Capcom was working with Disney to crank out games based on the Afternoon shows. Those days of my childhood are long gone, and those cartoons can no longer be found on TV. But the games—the games are back.

The Disney Afternoon Collection takes six of the most beloved NES-era side-scrolling video games inspired by the Disney Afternoon block, polishes them up real nice, and presents them to us in a single package. DuckTales, DuckTales 2, Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers, Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers 2, TaleSpin, and Darkwing Duck all make triumphant returns on modern day consoles with an assortment of bells and whistles, including an HD coat of paint or the option to stick an old-school CRT TV grain filter over everything.

Each one of the six games is basically a side-scroller with minor variations thrown in. For example, DuckTales is primarily a platformer and TaleSpin a shooter, while Darkwing Duck is both. Whatever the case may be, I always consider myself a bit of a savant when it comes to these old-school games, and if you’re like me, you’ll be thrilled to know that all the challenge and difficulty that these titles were known for back in the day remains largely intact. Enemies will respawn when you walk off screen and then back, collapsing platforms still only give you the narrowest windows for success, and health recovery items are as hard to find as health bar extenders. But, if you’re also like me, you’re big enough to admit when you’re a little rusty, and everything might not be exactly in the same spot mentally as it was nearly 30 years ago.

Luckily, in case you’ve never played these games before, or you just need that gentle nudge in the right direction until your timing comes back, there’s a brand new “rewind” feature. By tapping a bumper button, you can reverse time and save yourself from a perilous pitfall, sharp spikes, or bouncing baddie that just won’t get out of your way. Each game also has a single save state, so you can save mid-playthrough if you need to turn the game off for some reason. Of course, both of these remove a lot of the original challenge, thereby shortening each of the six games to an under two-hour experience should you resort to using those options. And I will say, removing the challenge of these games is like sucking the life out of the games themselves, since it’s not exactly like you got a ton of story back in the days of the NES. The choice of how you play is entirely up to you, though, and that is always appreciated.

If you want your initial playthrough to be about re-learning the games without the temptation of using these tools, Time Attack mode removes all potential assists. Here, all that’s changed is the addition of a clock, pushing you and your reflexes back to the 80s and taunting you with leaderboards to see just how skilled you are. If replaying the entire game sounds like a bit of a time sink, there’s then the Boss Rush mode, which also removes assists and touts leaderboards while catapulting you right into (arguably) the most memorable parts of each level. It’s still so satisfying beating that damn Moon Rat in DuckTales.

There are a few other downsides to the rewind feature beyond the lessening of the challenge, however. Sometimes, if you don’t hold it down for long enough, or if you use it in short bursts in quick succession, the entire game you’re playing will slow down (because it’s trying to catch up to the changes you’re making, but you’re making them too quickly). I actually had Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers 2 completely freeze up on me while rewinding during the final boss against Robot Fat Cat, because I was micromanaging the battle in preparation for my Boss Rush run (which I was going to do afterwards while the boss fights were fresh in my mind). So, that is definitely something to keep an eye out for.

If you are at all a Disney nerd, the biggest addition The Disney Afternoon Collection might bring isn’t even in any of the six games. Instead, it’s the Museum mode, where design documents, box art, never-before-seen concept art, and all the music for each game is available for you to check out at your convenience. Seeing the access Capcom had to the Disney vault, and now finally being able to share in some of that, is really something special.

Whatever served as imagination fuel for you as a kid tends to turn to nostalgia fuel as an adult—kind of like how dinosaur bones turn into oil. It’s clear that a huge part of the appeal of The Disney Afternoon Collection for a gamer such as myself is that I get the chance to relive a large part of my gaming childhood with this assortment of games, and even get to play some of them for the first time (I missed out on the sequels originally because I had already switched to the SNES by then). Besides a few hiccups with the rewind feature and the occasional crash, this is a great way to relive the past or to use it as an introduction to a new generation of Disney fans—as long as they can appreciate the 8-bit “vintage” look.

Publisher: Capcom • Developer: Digital Eclipse • ESRB: E10+ – Everyone 10 and up • Release Date: 04.18.17
7.5
It’s pure nostalgia, but if you loved these games as a kid, there’s just enough new features to bring you back to it again—and they hold up well enough if you have someone you’d like to introduce these games to for the first time
The Good New optional rewind features and save states serve as nice crutches while you shake the rust off.
The Bad Occasional crashes and lag caused by liberal use of the rewind feature.
The Ugly Your realization of how skewed time was as a child, when you find out none of these cartoons made it more than 100 episodes (DuckTales’ 100th was its final, while no others made it that far).
The Disney Afternoon Collection is available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox One. Review code was provided by Capcom for the benefit of this review. EGM reviews games on a scale of 1 to 10, with a 5.0 being average.

Industry veteran and current Microsoft Studios creative director Ken Lobb explained that Black Tusk’s take on Gears of War would be “innovative” and run on Unreal 4 in a recent interview with Edge.

“I think the reality is what we have is innovative Gears Of War. That’s what I believe they’re going to make,” said Lobb. “They’re an internal studio, but the reality is it’s cool to have [an IP] that can be a grand slam right out of the gate. The concepts they’ve been toying with are awesome. You take what they were thinking about and their expertise on Unreal Engine 4, because that’s what they’ve been playing with since their founding, and really go with the IP.”

Ken Lobb has worked in the games industry for over 20 years, helping craft such memorable classics as G.I. Joe for the NES and Goldeneye 007 for the N64 (he’s who the infamous Klobb was named after). He even took part in the discussions that led to Metroid Prime before joining Microsoft in 2001.

Black Tusk is a relatively new first-party studio, founded in 2012 under the Microsoft banner, and was supposedly working on an original IP before being charged with Gears of War. To help get the feel of the franchise, long-time Gears of War producer Rod Fergusson was also brought on as studio manager when Black Tusk took on the project.

No other details about this new Gears of War project have come out yet, as Black Tusk only began work on the project a few months ago.

In anticipation of next week’s release of DuckTales: Remastered on PSN, Nintendo eShop, and Steam, and next month’s release on XBLA, Capcom sent a special package out to remind some of us of those great childhood memories we might’ve had playing the game.

At first we here at the EGM office thought it was just a lunchbox with the sweet art for DuckTales: Remastered plastered on the front. A fine piece of swag in and of itself. But, as I am wont to do with most packages that come into the EGM office, I gave it a good hearty shake before placing it down and realized there was something inside the tin bin.

Upon opening it, to our joyful surprise, we found the contents of the box were possibly as valuable as the whole of Scrooge’s moneybin. The lunchbox had been holding a limited edition golden NES cartridge for DuckTales (ours was numbered 107 of 150). Now, we don’t know if the cartridge is actually a legitimate, playable cartridge, but it has contacts and is well put together enough that we at least vow to bring an NES into the office tomorrow to try it out.

Along with the cartridge came a certificate of authenticity, several Duckburg themed coupons similar to those that you might find in an old school NES box, and advertisements from Capcom to check out some of their other classic games like MegaMan, Bionic Commando, and Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins.

You can check out the fully laid out contents of the box in the pictures below. Woo-oo!

UPDATE:

The NES cartridge does indeed work after some tests (and several NES’s) and is the 1989 version of the game.

The pink puffball still packs a punch

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since I first put Kirby’s Dream Land into my Game Boy and bounced the pink puffball—though he appeared more white on the limited color palette of the handheld—around Green Greens. With almost two dozen more starring roles across all of Nintendo’s platforms since then—and, of course, a couple of smaller roles in games like Super Smash Bros.—few other gaming icons are as deserving of their own celebratory collector’s edition.

Kirby’s Dream Collection compiles six of Kirby’s earliest and most iconic titles in Kirby’s Dream Land (Game Boy), Kirby’s Adventure (NES), Kirby’s Dream Land 2 (Game Boy), Kirby Super Star (SNES), Kirby’s Dream Land 3 (SNES), and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (N64) in their completely original versions. The package also comes with a detailed art book highlighting Kirby’s designs over the past two decades; a 45-track, 60-minute-long music CD with original and remastered tracks from all of Kirby’s adventures, and three episodes of Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, the Saturday-morning cartoon Kirby starred in for 100 episodes.

Now, the skeptic would say that Nintendo simply just slapped some ROMs onto a disc in order to capitalize on Kirby’s anniversary, and they wouldn’t be completely wrong. Nintendo fanboys would say that Nintendo’s simply trying to keep the experiences authentic and preserve the classic gameplay. And they wouldn’t be wrong, either. But I know that, personally I would’ve loved some updated graphics or even some color in the Game Boy entries—and for the games to completely fit my 42-inch TV screen.

The lack of new polish on these older titles also hurts the collection’s appeal to younger gamers who may be less familiar with Kirby and want to learn about this classic gaming protagonist. Don’t worry—this won’t turn into a “back in my day!” review—but I’m sure younger gamers’ heads will explode at the concept of playing a game that looked like the original Kirby’s Dream Land compared to the kind of graphical output they may be used to with modern systems.

Now, just because the aesthetics of these classic games don’t enter the modern era in any way doesn’t mean the platforming and puzzle action don’t translate. The NES and Game Boy games feel just as tight as they did two decades ago, and they translate perfectly to the Wiimote. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that the later games, especially Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, actually felt better than I remembered with the simple new Wiimote layout. Though, maybe it’s just that the Wiimote feels better in my hands than the N64 controller did.

Aside from the six original games, Kirby’s Dream Collection also features an interactive timeline showing key dates in Kirby history as well as a bevy of new challenge levels inspired by his most recent Wii adventure, Kirby’s Return to Dream Land. These unique levels have an old-school arcade feel as you specialize in one of Kirby’s powers, whether it’s Beam, Sword, Spear—or one of the many others featured in that game—and attempt to clear the level and set a high score while also beating the time limit. As you set certain scores in each level, you’ll then unlock the right to attempt other, more-difficult-to-wield abilities.

If you’re a big Kirby fan and grew up with him like I did, this is a nice total package. The games don’t completely stand the test of time, but this offers older gamers a nice chance to reminisce and see how far we’ve come. Plus, considering the $39.99 price tag and all the extra features the package comes with, Kirby’s Dream Collection reminds us that’s it OK to think pink every now and again.

SUMMARY: Not all of the games in this classic collection stand the full test of time, but for die-hard Kirby fans, the entire package is more than worth the price tag.

  • THE GOOD: Six games, an hour of music, an art book, and three cartoons makes this a sweet package.
  • THE BAD: No graphical enhancement whatsoever—really just a bunch of ROMs.
  • THE UGLY: You ever stop to think about what Kirby’s enemies must go through when they get eaten?

SCORE: 8.0

Kirby’s Dream Collection: Special Edition is a Wii exclusive.

Originally Published: December 26, 2010, on Youtube.com/CGRUndertow

As a part of CGR Undertow, I reviewed my 20 year old NES cartridge carrying case.

NES Max Controller Review

Originally Published: December 14, 2010, on Youtube.com/CGRUndertow

As a part of CGR Undertow, I reviewed the NES Max Controller.

Originally Published: December 11, 2010, on Youtube.com/CGRUndertow

As a part of CGR Undertow, along with Derek Buck and Kevin Lind, we discussed just what is the greatest Super Mario Bros. game of all time.

Originally Published: December 4, 2010, on Youtube.com/CGRUndertow

As a part of CGR Undertow, I looked back at Zelda II: The Adventure of Link for the original NES.