"Pimped out" NES Everdrive N8

From Krikzz (famous for his Everdrive line of flashcarts) and DuoR (well known PCEngineFX modder) we have the NES Everdrive N8 "Pimped Out" edition.

Whats is the Everdrive N8?

Well, it is a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) which allows you to load (from an SD card) any NES and Famicom Disk System rom you want on real hardware. In other words, games you typically play on an emulator can be played on the real console.

What is the advantage?

Since we are executing the game code directly on original hardware, the experience is exactly the same as if we were playing with the original cartridge.

Dude, I still don't get it, can you give an example?

Let's say you wanna play The Flintstones: Surprise at Dinosaur Peak on a real NES console. You would have to shell out some serious cash for the original game or ask someone to make a reproduction (good luck with that one). With this cartridge, you can play the game just like if you were using the real cartridge.

Another example would be if you want to play a homebrew or a hacked game, like for example DPad Hero, Mario Adventure, the translated Final Fantasy II or maybe the 32 teams updated roster version of Tecmo Super Bowl.

What about compatiblity, will all games work?

The compatiblity is great, the most popular titles such as Mario, Megaman Ninja Gaiden, TMNT, etc work just the same as playing them from the real carts.

What really surprised me was the fact you can play FDS games. The original Zelda, the original Mario II (Lost Levels), All Night Nippon Super Mario, Doki Doki Panic, etc are fully playable on the NES. Even if a game asks to switch to side B, that's no problem, the Everdrive will switch it for you. Pressing the reset button will save your data to the SD, simulating saving to the floppy disk.

Unfortunately not all roms work, some of them (most notably the multicart cagmes) will throw an A5 error (rom is bigger than 512 kb), other will throw a non supported mapper error. Krikzz is continuosly working and compatiblity may be increased on a future firmware update.

One of the most notable non working games is Castlevania 3, luckily, its japanese counterpart Akumajo Densetsu works, although it sounds a bit odd. This is because of the extra sound hardware present on the Famicom but absent on the NES.

Can I save my progress in Gold Medal Challenge, NES Open Golf, etc?

Yessss!!! For those games which featured a battery (Kirby, Turbo Racing, etc) the Everdrive saves our progress in a .sav file inside the SD card. So no more frustatration because you lost your progress in Zelda. Also, these .sav files are compatibles with emulators, so you may continue / resume to / from other devices as you wish.

What is this "pimping" all about?

Normally, if you order a flash cart directly form Krikzz, you would typically get the bare PCB or for an addtional $15 you would get a (not so inspired) shell and that's it. The price would be something like $124 + shipping. However, if you order 10+ unit you get a discount.

So, what our friend DuoR did was order 10 PCBs directly form Krikzz.

Once he got them, using original shells, he:

- Cut a hole to insert / remove the SD card.
- Painted them in the buyer's requested color (the options if I remember correctly were, no paint, charcoal, blue and black)

- Designed and applied a cartridge label
- Conditioned a "universal" box
- Designed and printed a box insert and manual.

The result can be apreciated in the video. The final price was $115.49 including shipping and it looks way cooler.

I'm pending to edit the video and show the Everdrive itself in action.

Until the next time.

(2) They;re called universal because they can be used with any videogame cartridge. The truth is DuoR had to cut a few pieces of plastic and decorate with a cool Everdrive label so the NES cart would properly fit.

Sega-16 challenge

I recently joined the Sega-16 challenge. More info here

Going through all the sports games is going to be the hardest part of the challenge, so I'm contributing by playing one of my all time favorites: Tecmo Super Bowl II.

I had so much fun that I didn't document the first season but I'll definitively do it during the second and third seasons. 

Sega Master System Model 1

...and I got the system the following week.

Nice looking machine, I love it. Too bad the library of games was not as impresive as its competitor.

Curious thing, Ghost House was remade into a Brazilian SMS game, Chapolim x Dracula starring El Chapulín Colorado.

See you later...

Sonic Chaos (Sega Master System)

Looky what we have here:

A complete in box Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos for the Master System. 

Being released in 1993 in Europe and Brasil only, the SMS version is somewhat rare to find in North America, copies rarely surface on eBay but they don't command very high prices (an example of rare does not mean expensive). At the time of this writing I just got mine for $31 USD.

I've only played this game before on my Game Gear and on emulators. The game just doesn't feel like a typical Sonic game and I think that's good since the Master System just doesn't have the blast processing power of the Genesis.  

The level layouts, the enemy distribution, the power ups, the music is all in the right place. But my favorite part is you get to play as Tails in 8 bit for the first time, just awesome.

I should be receiving my Master System with 19 games sometime on Monday then I'll try this game on real hardware. Until then...

My experience with Barnes and Noble

Back in October I ordered a refurbished Nook Color from the B&N website. I used their "free shipping" option. 

Their free shipping option uses UPS Surepost, (I didn't know at the time) what that means is UPS will deliver the package at your local post office and the US Postal Service will take care of the delivery.

Everything seemed to go fine until the package was supposedly delivered to my "local" post office. UPS also provided with a USPS tracking number on their tracking page. 

The USPS website only stated "Electronic shipping info received" which officially means a shipping label was created. No cause to concern at that point since sometimes the post office can be lazy updating the electronic status.

While Hammond is not my local post office it is only 20 miles from where I live so the package shouldn't take more than a day or possibly two to arrive. Five days after, no sign of the package, and no change on shipping status, so I contacted UPS. As expected they asked me to contact the Post Office in Hammond. The post office tells me they didn't receive a package from UPS.

At that point I decided to contact B&N explaining the situation. They're answer was they cannot refund my order if don't return the product, which obviously I couldn't do because UPS screwed up the shipping in first place. After about six emails and two weeks with customer service (if you can call it customer service) it was pretty obvious they were unwilling to help. 

I had to contact my bank and place a charge back to get my money back.

If you want to get a Nook Color (which is a decent tablet once you root it) you're better off buying it from Amazon, Ebay or Best Buy.

Brand New copies of Sonic Birthday pack still available from NCSX

Update 06/25/11 : As of today, there are still Birthday Packs availale from NCSX.

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If you never got a hold of this awesome Sonic Adventure 2 Collector's edition then now is your chance. NCSX still has unsealed copies from the original release (6/23/01), set at $63.90. Their goal is to sell them all by June 23, 2011 (Sonic’s 20th Anniversary).

I just ordered my second one ( I got my first one back in 03). If I were you I'd order it now because they'll be gone pretty soon. It seems their stock is now less than 30 !!!

Here is the link to the product page;

http://www.shopncsx.com/sonicadventure2birthdaypack.aspx

Sonic Colors review

I didn't get this game right away. Past Sonic titles on the Wii (Sonic and the Black Knight was decent but not spectacular either and don't even get me started with Sonic and the secret rings) made a skeptic. Also, the title name didn't inspire much confidence either.

So i decided to wait a bit more for reviews to accumulate, seeing how most of them are positive I decided to pay full (Wii) price for the game. Well, I also like it very much. I'm surprised to say it is the first good Sonic game in a while. Unlike Sonic 4 which in my opinion was a huge disappointment.

Controls: Highly playable, all kinds of control schemes Wiiremote, Wiiremote + Nunchuck, Classic controller and Gamecube controller (personally I prefer using the classic controller pro). Fast and enjoyable to control, I like the added mobility in the water stages. I don't like the fact you now need an alien powerup to follow a trail of rings, just doesn't feel natural.

Visuals: Colorful and detailed stages, smooth transitions between 2D and 3D environments. I like how the water looks and the overall level design alto ugh sometimes it may be confusing. One problem I found is is that sometimes Sonic appears to be too small in the 2D environment, it's like they wanted to show more things at the same but it can be uncomfortable having to get closer to the TV.

Sound: The music is deep and matches (so far) the stages you're playing. Mostly techno, very well composed. You get the option to choose the voice acting so you don't have to suffer with the cheesy english voice acting (although this new cast is better than the 4kids cast). Strangely you cannot change the language until after beating the first two acts of Tropical Resort.

Instead of experimenting with werehogs, having a bunch of playable characters or adding a lot of nonsensical exploration (Sonic 2006 anyone?) this time Sega kept it clean and Sonic is the only playable character. Platforming action at its finest, you finish a level then the next one opens, that's it. The fun is still there, the challenge is still there. Alien powerups are optional for the most part, but sometimes you have to use them in order to advance.


The difficulty is moderate for the most part but sometimes they got a bit carried away with the 2D 3D transition bosses specially with the final boss.

As per replay value, there is a mini game called the "Sonic Simulator", it is pretty much a series of "virtual" 2.5 D platforming stages. The music sounds sort of 16bitish and the stages look like they are unfinished because of this simulator kinda theme. I just began playing that part of the game so I don't know what happens when you finish all of those stages.


In order to unlock of all the Sonic Simulator stages you have to collect all of the red coins scattered throughout the stages. Also as a reward you'll be able to unlock Super Sonic as playable character. 

Overall this game is a vast improvement over past Sonic titles and definitively a step in the right direction. It's a shame Sega didn't release it on other consoles (or at least the Xbox 360).