Nintendo's Console Accessory Cheapness

Nintendo's consoles have, for the most part, been somewhat high priced over the years. The company likes to keep it that way, you will not see a Nintendo console in a bargain bin or heavily discounted, even toward the end of its lifespan. The maintenance of price contributes to its "prestige branding." Nintendo usually makes a modest profit on the consoles it sells, unlike Sony and Microsoft it does not solely rely on software sales to make up the cost of hardware production. But those profits come at a price for the consumer, especially in Japan. Let's see how Nintendo cut costs when releasing consoles in its native country.

Dai Yakyuu! - The 8-bit Explosion of Japanese Baseball Video Games

Baseball & Famista '94

Baseball (Yakyuu) has had a long history in Japan. Imported from the United States before World War II, Japan built leagues and fielded players that have maintained the popularity of the sport more or less ever since. When video games became accessible to the Japanese in the late 1970s, they tried to mimic a wide range of human competitive activities, not unlike American consoles. Judging by the Famicom's game library, baseball would have been the most popular sport played in Japan by far. Dozens of baseball games were released during the decade of the Famicom's active commercial development, let's take a look at some games and some trends in these titles.

Random Computer and Video Game Musings

Sometimes I have something to say but the topic is not worthy of a full blog post.  In this case I have gathered four topics which I believe are interesting but not necessarily related and put them into this consolidated blog post.  Enjoy!

The Official Nintendo Player's Guide - Review of the First US-Based NES Game Guide

When the NES was just starting out in 1985 and 1986, there really was not a whole lot of information available about the games for the system other than TV and magazine ads and the manuals, advertisements and posters included with the games.  At the beginning of 1987, Nintendo began publishing a subscription newsletter called the Nintendo Fun Club.  Priced at $2.50 an issue and continually improving for its seven issues before Nintendo expanded the magazine to become Nintendo Power, it was one way by which Nintendo could connect with its ever-growing audience of fans and game players.  The magazine began by offering tips and previews for the latest games, but the early issues were fairly limited in their ability to provide a comprehensive look into more than one game per issue.  So Nintendo advertised a special book in its later issues of the Fun Club, The Official Nintendo Player's Guide, copyright 1987.  In this blog post I will take a look at it and its significance to Nintendo's history.

Nintendo Board and Chip Manufacture and Third Parties

I have often read that Nintendo, as of the Nintendo Entertainment System and everything thereafter, made all cartridges for its systems and required third parties to buy chips, board and other raw materials from them in order to have their software run on Nintendo's systems.  While this was often true, the rule was not an absolute one and at times exceptions were made.

Nintendo does not make anything, it does not construct silicon wafers, it does not extrude plastic into molds, it does not own factories or fabrication plants which do these things.  Nintendo designs and patents chips and products, but turning those designs into reality is a function of contractors.  Obviously Nintendo has to work closely with those contractors to ensure its designs can translate into workable devices, but it is not correct to say that Nintendo really "made cartridges".  In this article we will look at instances where Nintendo permitted third party cartridges to be made.

Nintendo's 8-bit Obsession with Golf

Golf is popular in most parts of the world with any concentration of wealth.  It is rather popular in Japan, at least for those who can afford to play it.  Green fees and club memberships are extremely pricey in Japan, so it may not be any surprise that many people who enjoy the game may have to turn to less expensive alternatives to get 18 holes in.  Most video game systems have a golf game, or something intended to resemble golf, released for them.  When Nintendo was releasing early titles for its Famicom, a golf game was a natural addition to its sports library.  But Nintendo kept revisiting the sport with its 8-bit systems, so let's explore how its implementation of golf evolved throughout the 8-bit lifespan.

Official Variations of the Nintendo 8-bit NES/Famicom Console Hardware

Nintendo tried to get its 8-bit system into homes across the world.  It was most successful in Japan, the United States and Canada.  But it also distributed its hardware in many other countries, usually with the assistance of a local distributor.  Some of these systems are rather rare, but have been documented to exist.  In this blog post let I will attempt to identify every officially licensed variation of the 8-bit hardware Nintendo ever released.

Metroid II - Return of the Sidescrolling Action/Adventure Exploration Game

Original Game Boy Palette

Metroid II was released during a relative drought of quality first party titles from Nintendo for the Game Boy.  Nintendo had released all the launch games for the system in July of 1989, Alleyway, Super Mario Land, Tennis and Tetris, but after that its releases had dropped substantially while its third party licensees like Konami and Capcom picked up the slack.  While Nintendo released other games like Golf, Solar Striker, Qix, Radar Mission and F-1 Race during 1990 and 1991, it was not until Metroid II was released in November of 1991 that one was really reassured that Nintendo was going to give its handheld system its best.  More classics, like Super Mario Land 2, Wario Land, Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and Donkey Kong would follow about once a year thereafter.

Original Game Boy Palette

Metroid II helped cement the fact that certain premium games would have battery backed RAM.  Almost every classic game Nintendo developed for its cartridge systems thereafter would also have the extra battery backed RAM. The extra RAM allows for a more forgiving saving system than passwords.  The original Metroid, whether played on cartridge or disk, did not save your current health and did not save your location except at an elevator (Famicom Disk System Metroid always restarts you at Brinstar.)  There are save points liberally scattered throughout Metroid II's SR388.

Original Game Boy Palette

Graphically, the smaller screen resolution (160x144 vs. 256x240) and limited number of colors available (4 vs. 52), when compared to the NES, required certain compromises.  The graphics artists could scale down Samus compared to her NES sprites, or keep the NES scale and show a smaller screen area.  Nintendo had scaled down the graphics for Super Mario Land, but the result looked rather simplistic and lacked detail.

Original Game Boy Palette

The designers made the right choice in keeping the scale the same.  With a larger scale, they could show more detailed backgrounds and enemies.  This is important in a large game that is limited to a four color monochrome palette.  As a result, while most parts of SR388 look natural, other parts look like they were designed by intelligent beings.  Samus' armor is much more detailed, especially after she acquires the Varia suit.  Also, her left/right facing sprites are not totally mirror images of each other, now her arm cannon is always on her right arm.

Super  Game Boy Default Palette

The enemies too take on a greater variety.  Most look like the planet's indigenous life, but some enemies look and act like constructs or robots gone haywire.  The same enigmatic power statutes appear in both Metroid and Metroid II, but their connection to each other, the Metroids and the Space Pirates is not detailed until later games in the series.

Super  Game Boy Default Palette

The sound and music in Metroid II is often underrated.  The music starts out fairly jaunty and adventurous, not unlike the Brinstar music of the original.  When dealing with the Chozo-inspired structures, the music is rather clinical not unlike the music for the Chozo rooms in the original game.  Metroid encounter music sounds appropriately frantic.

Super  Game Boy Default Palette

After that, the games sharply diverge.  Metroid has a distinct musical theme for each area.  Metroid II does not.  In many areas, you will only hear something akin to ambient noise.  The noise tends to become more ominous as you descend deeper into the planet.  Finally, toward the end of the game, you get new music, but it evokes an undercurrent of dread and foreboding.  The final areas are almost completely devoid of non-Metroid lifeforms.

Super  Game Boy Default Palette

Gameplay wise, the smaller screen gives a more claustrophobic feel to the game compared to the vast, empty spaces of Metroid.  Control has improved in many ways. Samus can now duck and shoot and shoot downwards from the air.  These additions eliminate much of the frustration of the original Metroid.  There are no longer cheap hits when you pass through doorways.  The new items are the space jump, spider ball and jump ball.  All prove very useful.

Game Boy Color Built-in Custom Palette

The space jump allows you to keep jumping after you jump in a somersault.  Controlling the space jump is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. If you wait until you start to dip from the maximum height of your somersault, you will nail the next jump every time.  It is much easier to space jump against a straight wall.  You can also do something like a space jump if you touch an enemy in mid air and press jump.

Game Boy Color Built-in Custom Palette

The spider ball is a bit tricky to maneuver.  If you let go of the directional you are pressing, you may have to press more than one directional to get going in the right direction again.  Although it allows you to climb on any wall, you will get knocked off if you hit an enemy, spikes or are too close to a bomb blast.

Game Boy Color Built-in Custom Palette

There are two new weapons in addition to the ice and wave beam, the spazer and plasma beams.  Each beam cannot be used with another beam, but the beams are easy to find (the wave beam is not easy to find in Metroid).  Each have their strengths and weaknesses, and when you need the ice beam at the end, you can find another one in the final area without having to backtrack.

Game Boy Color Built-in Custom Palette

Enemies are very similar to Metroid, with the exception of the Metroids themselves.  The Metroids act like a string of mini-bosses.  Six forms of the Metroid are present in the game.  The Alpha Metroids have no attack and are easy to kill.  The Gamma Metroids are annoying, have a lightning bolt barrier and always seem to be found in inconvenient places.  Zeta and Omega Metroids are hard to hit, breathe fireballs and take lots of missiles to kill.  You have to remember how to kill the non-mutated Metroids from the first game.  The Queen Metroid takes up most of the screen, attacks with her jaws and fireballs and has a long neck.  Killing her takes a lot of missiles, but there is another way to do it.  Ironically, non-mutated Metroids are more dangerous than Alpha Metroids.  In a nice touch, the game will often warn you if there is a Metroid nearby with a Metroid shell husk.  You also can see Metroids molt into their final forms.

One criticism that can be leveled at the original Metroid is "where are the Space Pirates?"  The Space Pirates, other than their bosses Kraid and Ridley, are not introduced until Super Metroid.  Many of the enemies in Metroid, although they appear natural, are aggressive toward you.  Most of the enemies in Metroid II seem more indifferent to your presence, especially the robotic enemies.  There is no need to explain away the lack of Space Pirates on SR388.  Between the spartan graphics, minimalist music and naturalistic enemy designs and behavior, this game gives a rare sense, for the era, of being totally alone as you explore the caverns and ruins of SR388.

Metroid II allows you to have 5 energy tanks and 250 missiles (compared to the 5 and 255 of Metroid).  You start with 30 missiles and the ball and the long beam, so you are not totally unpowered when you start the game.  While most enemies give energy balls, some only give missiles.  If you know which enemies give missiles, you can replenish your supply more quickly.  Also, there are rechargeable energy and missile spots throughout the planet.  Missiles dropped from enemies in Metroid II give you 5 missiles instead of 2 as in the original Metroid.  This means you will waste less time replenishing your missile supply.

One criticism of Metroid II is that it sacrifices the non-linear gameplay of the original.  The game is controlled by earthquakes that affect the lava present throughout the planet.  Each time you clear a certain number of Metroids, the lava level will change.  The Metroid counter is useful to tell you how many Metroids you need to kill in each area and how far you have progressed in the game.  There are four main areas where you can acquire items, missile and energy tanks.  When you open a new area, all the previous areas remain open to you.  So you are given as much exploration as the original Metroid, just not all at once.  Moreover, even in the original Metroid many areas are sealed off unless you find the appropriate items or defeat the mini-Bosses first.  Even so, you can do everything you need to do in each area without having to backtrack to an earlier area.

The Metroid series is notable for being more popular in the US than in Japan, even though most games in the series were made by Japanese teams.  Metroid II was released two months earlier in the US than in Japan, which was almost unheard of at the time.  The game contains no substantial English text, making it unnecessary to make any changes to localize it.  The ROM is the same for every region the game was released in.  Future Metroid games would always be released first in the US with the exception of Super Metroid.  Super Metroid was released in Japan only a month earlier than the US, which was practically a simultaneous release in those days.  Both cartridges contain the same ROM, and English speakers have the unusual option of choosing to have Japanese text for the menus and subtitles for the opening.

Although Nintendo may have been working on a colorized version of Metroid II for the Game Boy Color, it was never released.  The Game Boy Color has a custom palette built into the unit for Metroid II, and it looks pretty nice.  The blue backgrounds look distinct against the red and yellow of the sprites.  At times, some sprites use green instead of red.  The Game Boy Color supports up to 10 colors for certain Game Boy games, including Metroid II.  Nintendo's choice of default palette for the Super Game Boy is not bad, but is a bit cartoony and needs a bit of tweaking to look best in my opinion.  Some of the alternate palette options given in the Super Game Boy Player's Guide are decent.  Even turning the green to black makes a big difference.  The Super Game Boy only supports 4 colors for non-Super Game Boy enhanced Game Boy games.

Super Metroid picks up where Metroid II left off, and Metroid Fusion has something of a "virtual" return to SR388.  Metroid games were AWOL after Super Metroid's release in 1994.  Eight years would pass before another Metroid game would grace either a home or portable Nintendo console.  The success of Metroid II meant that future quality games in the series would be made for the portable consoles.

Retro Kickstarters - Modest Goals Rewarded

I have been fascinated by the concept of Kickstarters geared to classic video game consoles and home computers.  That many have been successful indicates that there are needs that are waiting to be fulfilled.  However, most retro video game Kickstarter campaigns have had reasonable goals.  Few that have required over $100,000 to be funded have been successful.  In this blog entry I will talk about some of the campaigns and give my thoughts on their significance.

First, Kickstarter campaigns with lofty goals targeting the retro video game market will almost certainly fail.  The Retro VGS is a perfect example of a campaign so wrong headed and just plain bizarre that it justifies the trope "truth is stranger than fiction:".  They wanted $2,950,000 to fund a new retro-style cartridge only console built from a plastic mold for the Atari Jaguar shell.  Oh, it may have had an FPGA that could recreate consoles like the NES or the 2600 in hardware.  The Retro VGS campaign's risible failure has been commented to death and has really given far too much attention.

People may be more hesitant to spend their money for big ticket video game projects thanks to the failure of the Ouya console.  The Ouya raised over $8 million on Kickstarter for a $99 game console (the controller was quite a bit extra) that would play games easily ported from Android.  Despite the massive success of the crowdfunding campaign, the Ouya was sold off to Razer and discontinued within two years of its release.

There have been successes with sequels to classic games.  Wasteland 2, Dreamfall Chapters, Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded (a remake), Shadowrun Hong Kong and Shenmue III may never had been possible without crowdfunding.  Also, some designers with classics to their name like Richard Garriott,  Chris Roberts, Tim Shafer, Kenji Inafune and Koji Igarashi have found the resources to back new projects in the vein of their earlier work but which is owned by a large corporation that has turned its back on them.  (Hideo Kojima may be joining them soon.)  These games of course are designed to play on current platforms.

Crowdfunding true retro games designed to be played on classic consoles is a far greater challenge.  Similarly, while there have been successful crowdfunding campaigns for books, documentaries and music albums related to classic video game consoles or home computers, crowdfunding useful hardware for those computers and consoles has been a task that has been a success only to a few.

The NES has had a quite a few successful hardware and software kickstarters.  Hardware successes include the Blinking Light Win : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/113891498/blinking-light-win-resurrecting-your-nes?ref=discovery  For $20 you bought a quality NES cartridge connector replacement that, eleven months after the campaign has ended, they are still having trouble stocking.  It has fulfilled a need for a reasonably priced, quality connector from people who are passionate about what they are doing, not just some Chinese manufacturer endlessly recycling second-rate parts.

There has also been the Chip Maestro, a MIDI synthesizer device that uses the audio channels of the NES' 2A03 APU : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jarek/chip-maestro-an-nes-midi-synthesizer-cartridge?ref=discovery  This is not the first cartridge to allow for the NES audio channels to be controlled via MIDI, the MIDINES was available years earlier, but may no longer be available for purchase.

While you may ask why you need a MIDI controller for the NES when you have FamiTracker and other musical composition programs that allow for full register access to the APU, if you want to use a keyboard directly with the NES in a live performance, you need something that will respond to key presses in real time, hence these MIDI controllers.

Cheetamen II: The Lost Levels (essentially a fixed version of Cheetamen II on a cartridge) is the most successful NES-based hardware Kickstarter I know of : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/343248998/cheetahmen-ii-the-lost-levels?ref=discovery   There is a patch available for the game here : http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/778/ that allows you to complete the game and you can play it on an NES PowerPak and an EverDrive N8 with the MMC1 patch.

Despite the full ALL CAPS and somewhat discursive presentation, the Kickstarter was a huge success.  This must have been helped by the large number of NES collectors who wanted to fill a hole in their collection for $60 instead of $1,000, which is what the original Cheetamen II cartridge was going for at the time.  The promotional video with James Rofle in his Angry Video Game Nerd persona (and his 1.95 million subscribers) must have helped enormously.

Another modestly successful piece of NES software is the retroplayer.nl Championships 2015, which recreates the Nintendo World Championships 1990 cartridge and competition : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1348643050/nintendo-nes-retroplayernl-championship-2015?ref=discovery  Frankly I do not know how this got through Kickstarter because it uses Chip 'N Dale's Rescue Rangers II, Tetris and Excitebike and no authorization from any of those rights holders seemed forthcoming.  Considering that it flew well under the radar, no one may have brought it to their attention.

There are a pair of NES books on Kickstarter, the first is called the Complete NES by Jeffrey Wittenhagen :  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thesubcon3/the-complete-nes-collectors-book-physical-nes-rpg?ref=discovery
The book is being published alongside a game exclusive to the kickstarter called Jeffrey Wittenhagen's Black Box Challenge.  It is being programmed by Sly Dog Studios, no stranger to NES homebrew.  Whether their games are any good I cannot say but graphically they look pretty dull.  This game is an RPG centered around the quest to acquire all NES black-box games.  This campaign requested $15,000 and took in $24,455.  If you wanted a physical paperback copy of the book and the game on cartridge without box or manual, you would have to pledge $90.  For a more impressive hardcover copy of the book and a game with box and manual, the price increases to $170.

Perhaps the price seemed a bit steep to attract more donors.  The second book, the Ultimate Guide to the NES Library by Pat Contri, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/560468638/nintendo-nes-library-guide-and-review-book-of-750?ref=nav_search gets you a physical hardcover copy of the book for $60. Normally I do not mention books without something else, but this book is the most funded NES project ever, expecting to hit the $100,000 mark.  Pat has also had three successful Indiegoogo campaigns for his annual NES charity marathons and has also successfully raised money for four DVD volumes of his Pat the NES Punk series.

There is also documentary called The New 8-bit Heroes with a new NES game called Mystic Searches :  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1316851183/the-new-8-bit-heroes-new-nes-game-and-creation-doc?ref=discovery  The documentary is focused on the homebrew scene and the game will be an adventure game that appears to play in the Zelda vein.  Also, accessible from the cartridge via a USB port will be a modern version of the game and the NES game and the PC game can talk to each other.  Perhaps a bit too ambitious, and the $54,381 pledged is not sufficient for the modern game.

Another gentleman was able to get his NES homebrew game, Lizard, funded : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1101008925/lizard?ref=discovery  There is a homebrew game for the SNES called Syndey Hunter and the Caverns of Death.  A stretch goal enabled it to be ported to the NES : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/439982171/new-snes-game-sydney-hunter-and-the-caverns-of-dea?ref=discovery  It is the only non-NES and non-2600 homebrew game that seems to be crowdfunded.  The only other homebrew game I could find that was funded through kickstarter was Star Castle for the Atari 2600.  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/698159145/atari-2600-star-castle?ref=discovery

The Commodore 64 has seen some hardware kickstarter success.  One gentleman was able to secure the case molds for the C64c and was able to offer new cases with different colors instead of the boring beige of the original :
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1670214687/original-commodore-64c-computer-housing-in-new-coo?ref=nav_search
Unfortunately, the project manager was required to remove all references to Commodore from his campaign because the entity that holds the Commodore trademark threatened to sue for trademark violation.  Fortunately they did not catch it until late in the campaign, so there was sufficient advertisement for the kickstarter to be successful.  I understand it is compatible with any C64 motherboard with proper keyboard support mounts, and I have a nice C64 motherboard that works with a brittle, post-retr0bright failure case. Considering that the creator only wanted a modest $10K, obtaining over nine times that amount was pretty impressive!

The Commodore Amiga has seen similar success with a project (with their second attempt) to make new A1200 molds :  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/a1200housing/new-amiga-1200-cases-made-from-new-molds?ref=nav_search You will note that the name Commodore is not present when describing the project.  Of all the projects discussed here, this one is the only one which has passed the $100K mark.  However, the project managers needed to make new molds, which is incredibly expensive.  I cannot say I am incredibly familiar with the late model Amiga scene (not a lot of gaming potential there), but boy there had to be a need for these cases.  They also have room for a Raspberry Pi or a MiST FPGA board, which would not have been the case with the original cases.

Of course, I cannot leave out a mention of HD Retrovision's Component Video cables for the SNES and Genesis : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hdretrovision/sega-genesis-and-super-nintendo-component-cables?ref=discovery  Even though component video is not the best way to connect a SNES or Genesis to a modern LCD or to stream footage from one, it is still useful for those of us with big screen CRTs with component video inputs.  A hardware project I would have liked to see succeed was the hdmyboy, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/507669971/hdmyboy-a-full-hd-power-up-for-your-game-boy-class?ref=nav_search
which is a HDMI adapter/converter for the original Game Boy.  Unfortunately, 65,000 Euro is an ambitious goal and I believe that people were really expecting not just original Game Boy, but Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance support, especially with the Retron 5 out there.  How much more processing power would have been required to convert 15-bit color instead of 2-bit monochrome?  Also, the hdmyboy lacked stereo output support.

As you can see, this is a very small number of successful projects (14).  Most people who have a product usually rely on pre-orders from internet forums like AtariAge, NintendoAge, VOGONS, Vintage Computing Forums, Sega-16, PCenginefx forums or assemblerforums.  AtariAge has been extremely successful in allowing developers to publish new games for the Atari 2600 in cartridge form.  On the other end of the spectrum, kevtris had to fund development of the Hi Def NES Mod out of his own pocket, for example.  Currently, retro console and computer related kickstarters that keep their funding goals within the five figure mark stand a good chance of success.  Six figures is most likely poison to just about any campaign.

NES Gameplay Trilogies

There are certain games, that while they are not part of an official series, in many respects could have been.  In these cases, the gameplay across the three games is similar.  In this blog entry I will identify groups of games which I believe share certain gameplay traits that make them an unofficial trilogy.

Gradius - Lifeforce - Jackal

All three of these games were developed by Konami and encompass what I call the Konami Shooter Trilogy.  Unlike Japan, the US did not receive a version of Gradius 2 or Parodius, but Europe never saw Jackal either.  I note that Stinger was also released by Konami, but while it is a fine game in its own right I do not consider it to be in the same league in terms of popularity or adolescent-focused pure shooting action as these games.

All three of these games began life as arcade machines.  Gradius received a very faithful Arcade-to-NES port, although it lacks a bit in the flash and polish department. Jackal is also arcade-faithful as well, but Konami truly excelled here at bringing the fast-paced destruction of this game to the less capable hardware of the NES.  Nothing essential is lost in porting.  In fact, the game is substantially  improved by end-level bosses and level transitions.  As I mentioned elsewhere, Life Force is in certain respects a better game than its arcade original, Salamander.

Of course, I cannot go without mentioning the two player simultaneous gameplay of Jackal and Life Force. Two-player simultaneous gameplay was somewhat uncommon in the days of the NES due to the hardware limitations.  64 sprites get used up very quickly, and the 8 sprites per line limitation of the NES leads to flickering very quickly.  Konami was one of the few developers who consistently could do it right with Jackal, Life Force, Contra and Super C.

Zanac - The Guardian Legend - Gun+Nac

Here we have the Compile Shooter Trilogy.  Zanac and GunNac (note the similarity of the names) are similar in that their basic gameplay model is that of the vertical shooter.  The Guardian Legend combines vertical shooting stages with exploration-style bird's eye view stages like The Legend of Zelda.

Zanac has three principal strengths.  First, it has a wide variety of powerups (eight) that have their own strengths and weaknesses.  Second, it has very solid gameplay, especially for a somewhat early title.  It is a fairly fast paced game, the controls are very responsive, rapid fire is present.  Even though it lacks varied bosses, it feels very modern.  The graphics are good and the music is excellent.  Third, the game adapts itself to the power ups you choose and reportedly your skill level.  It is not simply a randomizer, the game will behave in somewhat predictable ways, in terms of the enemies it will throw at you, based on the active weapon powerup you possess.  This mechanic makes it never quite the same game twice. You can continue at the last area by pressing start and select at the same time on the title screen (this is in the manual).

The Guardian Legend tweaks the formula quite a bit by adding overhead exploration.  You collect chips to buy items from the Blue Landers, fight bosses in special rooms and collect keys to open "corridors" to vertical shooting stages.  Your character is not just a ship but a female android (which the US version took some pains to obfuscate).  It has a password feature for restoring your game, and it is pretty long by NES standards.  There are several themes to individual areas, like water, plants and mountains, and the graphics change accordingly.  The music is some of the best on the NES.  Shooting stage bosses are varied and some are really tough (blue Optomon will make you throw your controller against the TV screen) and others are much more reasonable (even the red Clawbot and Bombarder are reasonable).  Finally, you gain many weapons and you can switch between them as often as you like, but you use up chips by using them.  Fortunately, the game is fairly generous with supplying you with chips and health items when you need them.  By inputting the password TGL, you can play the game as a straight shooter.

Gun+Nac is as to Zanac as Parodius is as to Gradius.  Unfortunately, Gun+Nac is not as well-known as it deserves to be because it was released rather late in the NES's lifespan.  Gun+Nac plays like Zanac with more powerups.  You still collect the Compile "P" chips, but you also collect money so you can upgrade your ship and buy extra lives during the levels.  GunNac is cute and goofy with rabbit and cat enemies, but do not let that fool you into thinking the game is a cakewalk, it is not.  Graphics and sound are excellent.

Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode - The Mafat Conspiracy -  WURM: Journey to the Center of the Earth

Golgo 13 and its sequel the Mafat Conspiracy are a logical choices because they use the Golgo-13 character, but WURM?  It is not as far fetched as you think.  Golgo 13 advertised multiple styles of play.  First, there are side-scrolling areas with some platform (enemy bases) and some free form (underwater) elements like Super Mario Bros.  Second, there are first person, 360 degree mode instances where you have to kill all the enemies that are ambushing you. Third, there are horizontal shooter stages when you fly a helicopter. Fourth, there are first person maze stages with traps, items and enemies to shoot.  Finally, there are dialogue and cinematic sequences when you charm the ladies.

The Mafat Conspiracy has more of the same, mostly.  In exchange for the horizontal shooting mode, you get a driving mode that looks very close to Rad Racer.  There is also a more involved sniping mode and the game is much more cinematic overall.  The mazes are still as annoying as hell, but in the manuals for both games there are maps.  Also, the platforming stages are still a bit stiff in terms of your character's control scheme but there have been some improvements from the first game.  One big one is that now button B shoots and button A jumps, it was swapped for Golgo 13.

WURM shares the jack-of-all-trades gameplay style of the Golgo-13 games.  It starts you out with a horizontal shooter stage.  You will see more than one of these and your vehicle has and can acquire several different abilities and powerups.   Second, you will have a 360 degree first person mode where you fight boss monsters.  Third, you will explore various areas as Moby in side-scrolling stages.  Moby has a gun and can kick and she controls very similarly to Golgo-13.  Like Golgo-13, the enemies on these stages are not known for their variety.  Fourth comes vertical shooter stages, which are a bit more rudimentary than the horizontal stages.  Fifth, there are also cinematic cutscenes, but these suffer from a lot of repetition in terms of dialogue and artwork.  You also have dialogue during boss fights.  Similarly to Golgo-13, you can also engage in dialogue during the side-scrolling stages.

Golgo 13 and WURM share the same designer, Shoichi Yoshikawa, and he acknowledges that he took inspiration from the earlier game.  He even made a direct reference by including the "G-13" robot in the game.   However, WURM has an unfinished feel to it that cannot be said for the Golgo-13 games.

HDMIfy your Old Consoles - Console Specific HDMI Upgrades

If you want high quality input from classic consoles to a modern flat screen TV, you need to use an HDMI converter like the X-RGB Mini Framemeister.  This converter will take high quality RGB or Component video signals and convert them to HDMI-compatible 720p or 1080p with excellent results and minimal lag. I played with a Framemeister some months ago, and wrote up my impressions of the device here : http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2015/05/fun-with-framemeister.html  Unfortunately, some classic consoles have difficulty displaying high quality video signals due to their lack of high quality video outputs.  Some enterprising individuals have made mod boards that will directly convert the video to HDMI with less lag than a Framemeister, more features and more reliable results.  Here are the projects that, as of the date of this writing, actually have been released in some form to the public.

NES - HiDef NES Mod & the AVS

The NES is one of the most important of the post-crash consoles and one of the few without a native RGB solution.  There has been a NESRGB mod board released for two years now, which works wonders with a Framemeister.  Before that people harvested 2C03 chips from Playchoice-10 PCBs and made do with the differences in the color palette, compatibility issues with color emphasis and sometimes video jailbars.

Kevtris' HiDefNES mod has already been mentioned in this blog, and it adds a whole host of features over the NESRGB + Framemeister solution.  I lay them out in detail here : http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2015/07/analogue-nt-nes-as-luxury-retro-console.html
It is the board found in the Analogue Nt HDMI version and has been sold in pre-modded systems on ebay and on the http://www.game-tech.us/ website.  The kit will be available for purchase so you can attempt to mod it yourself.  However, it requires desoldering both the CPU and PPU without destroying either chip or the PCB, so it is not a beginner mod.  Virtually all the compatibility issues with the HiDefNES mod and certain MMC5 games and the EverDrive N8 have been eliminated through a firmware update, so now is the time to consider taking the plunge.

The only obvious issue is that its FDS audio emulation is less than perfect.  The mod will not work in an original Famicom, a Famicom Twin or an AV Famicom with laser-marked CPU and PPU chips.

The basic principle of how the HiDefNES obtains the color values of each background and sprite pixel is the same as used in the NESRGB.  See here for my explanation : http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2015/06/nes-hardware-explained.html
There is now a 2600RGB board for the Atari 2600.  The 2600RGB board uses similar principles to discover the colors of 2600 pixels as the NESRGB board does for NES pixels.  Theoretically, it is quite possible for someone to develop an HDMI mod for the 2600.

bunnyboy, who runs the RetroUSB site, has displayed his AVS replica console at the 2015 Portland Retro Gaming Expo. His AVS has a 72-pin and a 60-pin connector for NES and Famicom games, and is designed as a front loader for the former and a top loader for the latter.  It uses a completely new board and an FPGA chip to provide hardware emulation for the NES.  It only outputs HDMI video and has separate power and reset buttons in the shape of NES front loader buttons.  It has built in four NES controller ports that can be set to function as a NES Four Score or Famicom 4-player adapter.  It also has a 15-pin Famicom expansion port for Famicom peripherals.

Because the console only supports HDMI output, it will not work with any Zapper or compatible Light Gun device and it will not work with the Famicom 3-D Glasses.  The FPGA inside the console does not emulate any cartridge hardware or expansion audio.  Expansion audio from Famicom cartridges is digitized and then mixed with the internal audio.  However, because the AVS uses an FPGA, it can load updated firmware to fix any compatibility issues.  Reports from the Portland Retro Gaming Expo were very positive, one person said the system ran Micro Machines correctly, which is a hard game to get right.  bunnyboy is also designing wireless RF controller without lag to go with the console via an controller port adapter.

The console can only be powered through its USB port.  The console has a scoreboard reporting function via the USB port, it will save high scores for certain known games and report them to NintendoAge.  The idea is that you play a supported game, the high score is saved and then you plug in the system to your PC and it send the score to NintendoAge.  The AVS only supports 720p while the HiDefNES can do either 720p or 1080p.  The AVS is not for sale at the moment, but bunnyboy is aiming for a just under $200 price point.  The best place for updates seems to be here : http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=7&threadid=92557

N64 - Ultra HDMI

No N64 natively outputs RGB, but some early consoles can be modded with a simple amplifier board. Most consoles, however, have a video encoder chip that only outputs composite and s-video.  These consoles require the N64RGB board.  This board acts like a custom DAC, taking the digital signals from the N64 and turning them into analog RGB video.  This will make it truly Framemeister worthy, although the s-video output from the N64 is pretty good compared to composite video.  PAL N64s need a special cable to boost the S-Video signal from the console, NTSC N64s can use standard Nintendo or 3rd Party cables.

Today, if you want to bypass the Framemeister option, you can have an UltraHDMI board installed in your system.  It works with NTSC and PAL framerates (up to 1080p for both) and not unlike the HiDefNES it comes with filters.  The Ultra HDMI filters can simulate a CRT TV.  Without the filters the lag is truly negligible, with them there is about a frame of lag.  It supports all standard digital SD and HD resolutions, as shown here : http://ultrahdmi.retroactive.be/

The mod is very involved because you have to solder a flexible mylar-like ribbon cable to the finely spaced pins of the surface mounted graphics chip, the Reality Co-Processor (RCP).  The RCP sends out 7-bit digital RGB values along with sync information.  This allows for direct digital to digital conversion to the 8-bit RGB values HDMI supports without quality loss.    The kit uses a mini-HDMI cable and only needs a small hole cut into the back of the N64.  Because the mod is very tricky and not for the beginner, the board and kit is being sold only experienced mod kit installers.  If you want your N64 modded with the Ultra HDMI, you need to send it to someone.  This site is authorized to perform the mod : http://www.badassconsoles.com/ultrahdmi/

Game Boy - hdmyboy

In one sense, it is not too difficult to obtain a good quality HDMI image from a Gameboy.  You use a Super Gameboy or a Super Gameboy 2 (for accurate speed) on a SNES that supports RGB and send the video and audio through a Framemeister.  Alternatively, you can use a Game Boy Player and a Gamecube with the component video cables through the Framemeister, but that requires running custom software to make the Game Boy Player output at a true 240p speed.

Some time ago, there was a Kickstarter for a product called the hdmyboy.  The campaign is archived here : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/507669971/hdmyboy-a-full-hd-power-up-for-your-game-boy-class
This is a fully assembled kit that you insert between the two halves of a DMG-01 Game Boy.  It adds half an inch or so to the height of the console when laid flat. It has an HDMI cable port and can support 720p or (preferred) 1080p.

Unlike the NES and N64 mods, this mod is easy to install.  It requires no soldering.  All you have to do is unscrew the shell, remove the ribbon cable that attaches the LCD PCB to the CPU PCB and insert that ribbon cable into the hdmyboy.  The hdmyboy comes with a NES controller attached internally so you can control your Game Boy.  It essentially becomes a consolized Game Boy at this point.

The Game Boy's LCD can only support four shades of one color, its video signal is fundamentally 2-bit digital monochrome signal with sync information.  This information, along with mono audio, is available through the ribbon cable.  The hdmyboy converts the digital video and the analog audio and sends it through the HDMI cable to the TV.  The hdmyboy only supports mono audio because only a mono audio signal is necessary for the single speaker connected to the LCD PCB.

Unfortunately the Kickstarter campaign was not successful.  However, the hdmyboy team still has some prototypes left here : http://www.hdmyboy.com/play/.  They are very expensive however, (a bit too expensive for what it does) but should represent the best solution to obtain true Game Boy output without using an emulator.  If they try another Kickstarter campaign again, then hopefully more people would be willing to contribute and get the price of this fine idea down.

Given a 1080p display, the hdmyboy can by default do 7x nearest neighbor scaling to give razor sharp graphics at the Game Boy's original aspect ratio.  It can also do 12:7 scaling to give razor sharp widescreen graphics and occupy almost the whole screen if you prefer.  Like the Super Game Boy it has 32 color palettes available to colorize the graphics.  While the Game Boy's sprite and background tiles have 10 valid palette selections to choose from, the Super Game Boy (unless the game is enhanced) and hdmyboy only apply colors based on the actual color value of the outputted pixel.

Seize the Advantage, the NES Advantage

The NES Advantage was the first arcade-style controller for the NES, but it would not be the last.  It is, however, the best of the bunch.  In this post I would like to explain why it is the best and what kind of games for which it is best suited.

Design

The NES Advantage appears to have been designed in-house by Nintendo.  While it is similar to products from ASCIIWARE, it is of a very high build quality.

There were other arcade-style joysticks.  Camerica brought over the Freedom Stick and the TurboTronic, the latter has the same button layout as the ASCII Turbo Jr Stick for the Famicom.  Beeshu marketed the Jammer and Ultimate Superstick, but the only thing ultimate about it was the terrible build quality.  The Quickshot Arcade was another arcade-style stick.  The Ultimate Superstick and the Freedom Stick are wireless infrared sticks.

The NES Advantage uses a light gray color for its plastic like the NES front loader.  It comes with crevices cut into the plastic to give it some style.  These crevices are hard to clean if they get really filthy and I always thought they were a bit over the top.  The red lettering on the top can also get worn down by sunlight and abuse.

The bottom of the NES Advantage has a metal base and four rubber feet.  This gives it some heft.  To open the advantage, you need to remove the bottom feet (which are attached to the base by an adhesive) and the turbo knobs, because they screw into the top plastic with hex nuts on the potentiometers.

Features

The NES Advantage has three spring latched switches for the Turbo B, Turbo A and Slow buttons.  It has a sliding switch for the 1/2 Player button.  The four directionals and four regular buttons use rubber domes to make contact, just like a regular NES controller except these are larger.  Most arcade sticks of the day came in two varieties, leaf switches and micro switches.  Leaf switches are quiet but may be less precise, while micro switches are noisy but clicky.  Each button or directional has a separate pad, making replacement somewhat easier.  The stick has a knob that can be unscrewed and has a metal coil inside it to recenter it like a spring.

The Turbo control knobs allow for a very finely tuned turbo selection for each button independently.  This is very important because some games work better with a lower Turbo setting and other games work better with a higher Turbo setting.  An adjustable Turbo setting may simulate pressing the button one time per second, fifteen times per second or thirty times per second.  Some games do not respond to the Turbo at all, as in one shot at a time games like Galaga.

The LEDs above the buttons flash with the button presses.  As you turn the dial up on the Turbo knows, you will see the LED light up faster and faster until it turns a solid red.  At that point your eyes can no longer track the discrete turning on and off of the LED.  Because there are switches on the Turbo to turn it on and off, you never need to bother with it if you don't want to.

For many sidescrolling games, the A button is used to jump.  Turbo is not usually helpful in this instance.  The NES Advantage is often used where only the B button has any Turbo on it.  Nor is it useful in shooter games to activate a secondary weapon with a limited supply of ammo or select a weapons option.

The Slow button is essentially a Turbo Start button.  This means that you will often hear the annoying sound assigned to a press of the Start button.  Also, not every game allows you to pause, making this useless when it is pressed.  Other games will bring up a menu or subscreen, which is very distracting.  Pressing the Start button can cause you to lose other button presses, making this feature really something of a novelty.

The cable for the NES Advantage has two connectors on the end.  The end connectors are separated for the last four inches of the cable length and one of the connectors has a white stripe.  This allows you and a friend to use your own NES Advantages.  The connector with the white stripe always goes into Controller Port 1 and the connector without the white stripe always goes into Controller Port 2.  You also need to make sure that the Player 1/2 switch is set appropriately.

You can use four NES Advantages with a NES Four Score or NES Satellite.  The NES Advantage plugged into Controller Port 3 should have its switch set to Player 1 and the NES Advantage plugged into Controller Port 4 should have its switch set to Player 2.

If you are playing a two-player alternating game, you can share the NES Advantage between you and your friend.  In this case, you must flip the switch when you pass the NES Advantage back and forth.  This is useful even when you are playing alone for practice because you can play two games at once.

Overall, the NES Advantage is very durable and very responsive.  One complaint about the internals is that the buttons can get stuck.  I have read that this usually happens when the carbon pads underneath the A and B buttons get worn out or are not properly underneath the button.  You should test the buttons before you buy one if possible.

When Nintendo releases a first-party product for the NES with a Turbo and Slow features, is it really cheating to use them?  You may recall that Nintendo released the NES Satellite, which also had Turbo support, in the NES Sports Set.  Sega also put out a Genesis controller with Turbo and NEC's Turbo Grafx-16 came with a Turbo-supporting controller.  Under these circumstances, it is really hard to say that Turbo is cheating.  After all, Turbo is only simulating the rapid pressing of a button.

If one takes the argument further, then what about the Game Genie?  Nintendo never licensed the device, which came out for the NES, SNES and Game Boy.  However, Sega did license the Genesis and Game Gear versions.

Best Games

Many of Nintendo's early releases were based off arcade games.  Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Donkey Kong 3, Popeye and Mario Bros. are direct ports.  Balloon Fight is a clone of Joust and Mach Rider is a clone of Hang-On.  Galaga, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Defender, Joust, Elevator Action, the list can go on and on.  The NES Advantage offers a somewhat more authentic arcade style experience when playing these games.

The NES Advantage has its place elsewhere.  The classic Konami games like Contra, Jackal, Super C, Gradius and Life Force can all take advantage of the NES Advantage's Turbo.  Compile's top-down shooters, Zanac, The Guardian Legend and Gun-Nac are also good games for the Advantage.  Fester's Quest becomes much more playable with the Turbo function of the Advantage.  The few fighting games for the NES like TMNT Tournament Fighters could benefit from the smooth motion of the stick.

NES Satellite : Pinnacle of Early Wireless Controller Solutions

Ever since the Nintendo WaveBird controller was released for the Gamecube, wireless controllers have finally entered their own.  Using high frequency RF technology in the 900MHz and later 2.4GHz bands, it combined long distance wirelessness without a significant;y bulky design.  Later controllers for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii, Wii U, PS3 and PS4

Before the advent of the Nintendo Wavebird, previous wireless controllers, with one important exception, used infrared technology.  Infrared technology is typically used in TV remotes and is a cheap, low powered way to communicate signals without a wired connection.  In the 1980s it was fairly compact and did not add a great deal of bulk to a controller.

The NES was the first console which wireless controllers were fairly common.  Examples include the Camerica Freedom Stick, Supersonic Joystick and Freedom Connection (the latter is an adapter only) and the Acclaim Double Player Wireless Head-to-Head System and Wireless-Infrared Remote Controller.  There was even a wireless Light Gun, the Playco Toys Video Shooter (which looks like a Sega Light Phaser).

The trouble with infrared technology is that the technology requires a line of sight between the controller and the console.  This is why TV remotes tend to work only within a "sweet spot" and the NES wireless controllers were no different.  But while you can typically hold a TV remote in a fixed position, even if channel surfing, the same cannot be true for a wireless video game controller.  Excited gamers will move their controller all over the place, confusing the infrared controller and causing lag and missing hits.

The other option at the time was the rf technology used in the Atari CX-42 Wireless Joysticks.  These sticks came with a large receiver with an antenna.  Each stick required a 9V battery and had an extremely large base compared to the regular CX-40 joystick.  The sticks had an antenna sticking out the side.  In addition to the bulk of the sticks and the ugly receiver box, the sticks did not have a very long range.

Enter the NES Satellite.  Nintendo understood the problem that gamers would not keep their controllers in a straight line with the infrared receiver, so it designed an adapter that was not designed to move.  The Satellite can easily add eight feet of distance to the sev

en and a half foot controller cords Nintendo used with its NES controllers.  This is especially useful if you have AV Famicom controllers, which plug into NES controller ports but have very short cable lengths at less than three feet long.

The Satellite may not look particularly heavy, but it uses six C-cell batteries, adding a bit of heft to the unit. However, with the slack in the controller cable, a gamer is free to move his controller about without disturbing the infrared connection.  It is unlikely that someone will yank it away.

Why large, bulky C-cell batteries?  The NES Satellite is a four player adapter and the infrared unit, the adapter circuitry and the turbo circuitry all need power.  Also, the Satellite has to provide power for four controllers.  The Satellite is rated for 9VDC, 150mA.  Six C-Cell betteries connected in series provide 9VDC and have a maximum 8000mA-H capacity.  Fresh batteries should give at least 20 hours of usage out of the Satellite.  Unfortunately, Nintendo did not provide an AC adapter or plug for the device, but if you can find a 9V brick of sufficient amperage, you should not have a problem with powering the device by soldering the split wire to the battery terminal connectors.

The Satellite has a power button to avoid draining the batteries when the NES is not in use.  It has separate turbo buttons for A and B.  The turbo buttons work, but the turbo cannot be adjusted, so it is not as great as the adjustable turbo of an NES Advantage. When the Satellite is communicating with its receiver, you will see a LED on the receiver light up.

It works with the NES Advantage.  The NES Advantage has an adjustable turbo feature and a slow feature, so it may drain the batteries a bit more quickly than a standard controller when the turbo is active.  It also works with the Zapper, but only in Controller Port 2.  Also, the Ctlr/Gun switch must be in the Gun position.  Finally, you will need to turn the power off and back on again (if the switch was in the Ctlr position) before the device will register the trigger function of the Zapper.  It should work with other Controller Port 2 peripherals like the Arkanoid VAUS paddle controller or the NES Power Pad.

The Satellite's only other disadvantage, other than its battery consumption, is that it must maintain a line of sight with the receiver plugged into the NES controller ports.  Moreover, that line of sight should be dead-on straight and not at anything more than a slight angle, either horizontally or vertically.  If you feel like the game is not responding appropriately, adjust the Satellite unit and turn the power off and back on.

The Satellite, when properly focused on the receiver, does not offer any appreciable lag to your gameplay.  I have tested it with games like Contra, Battletoads and Duck Hunt.  I could observe no appreciable decrease in my performance and no obvious time where button presses and game response seemed out of sync.  Modern RF-based controllers cannot make this claim.  They will add lag compared to a wired controller.  Some people state they notice it, others do not.  This is typically important for systems with a wired and a wireless option like the Gamecube and Xbox 360.  For systems that more or less exclusively use wireless controllers, the programmers should have factored in the lag from the controller.

There were not too many four player games released for the NES.  Here is the list of licensed NES games that support the NES Satellite adapter and its wired version, the NES Four-Score :

Bomberman II
Championship Bowling
Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat
Gauntlet II
Greg Norman's Golf Power
Harlem Globetrotters
Kings of the Beach
Magic Johnson's Fast Break
Monster Truck Rally
M.U.L.E.
NES Play Action Football
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Nintendo World Cup
R.C. Pro-Am II
Rackets & Rivals
Roundball: 2 on 2 Challenge
Spot: The Video Game
Smash TV
Super Off Road
Super Jeopardy!
Super Spike V'Ball
Swords and Serpents
Top Players' Tennis

Of all those games, Bomberman II, M.U.L.E. and Smash TV are the best games in my opinion.  Bomberman II allows for four-player simultaneous fun.  M.U.L.E. has a change to the town area in its NES version that makes purists scoff, but outside that change to the town, the game offers a lot of four player fun and strategy.  Its usually much easier to find a NES and a four player adapter than an Atari 400 or 800 home computer.

Smash TV is very clever, the game only supports two players at maximum.  However, with a four player adapter, each player can use the D-pads of two standard controllers to mimic the arcade controls much more precisely than by using one D-pad for each player.

Gauntlet II allows for four player simultaneous action, but while that port appears to be pretty faithful to the arcade game, it feels a little bland and has no in-game music (like the arcade).  I'm not a huge sports game fan, even on the NES.  Some people like Pat the NES Punk extol the virtues of Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat, but I am not a big fan of Super Sprint-style games on the NES.  R.C. Pro-Am II is a good single player game, but is not good for multiplayer.  I personally have a fondness for Swords and Serpents, but I cannot imagine four people coming together to play this game (the first player controls the movement).

The Shareware Publishing Concept - Challenging the Big Box Publishers

Shareware grew out of the "disk magazine" concept popularized by Softdisk.  For the price of a monthly subscription, Softdisk would send you a magazine with a disk or two every month packed with articles and reviews, small applications, utilities and most relevant to our discussion, games.  Softdisk made these disk magazines available for most of the popular home computer systems of the day, including the Apple II, Commodore 64 and Macintosh.  The IBM disk magazine was called Big Blue Disk, which had its debut in 1986.

Apogee Software, at that time in the person of Scott Miller, began the genesis of the Shareware concept in his Kingdom of Kroz series.  He built an engine that relied on ANSI text-based graphics for a game series called Kingdom of Kroz.  He published the initial games in this series in Big Blue Disk in the following issues :

Kingdom of Kroz - Issue 20
Dungeons of Kroz - Issue 29
Caverns of Kroz - Issue 35
Return to Kroz - Issue 47

The cover price for the magazine was $9.95, and every few months if you bought the magazine or subscribed to it, another game in the series would be available to you.  Eventually, it appears that Miller got tired of distributing through Softdisk and decided to distribute on his own through Apogee.  He struck upon the model that the first game in a series should be free (over a BBS) or available at nominal cost (for packaging and media) and the other games should be sold for retail prices.  The idea began to bear serious fruit and Apogee replaced Softdisk as the dominant publisher of low-cost PC games.

Eventually Softdisk brought out a game-specific subscription service called Gamer's Edge where the games would be provided by id Software.  A three month subscription to this service could be had for $29.99, sixth months for $49.99 and twelve months for $89.99 in 1991 dollars.  id Software, consisting primarily of John Carmack, John Romero and Adrian Carmack in the beginning, would fulfill their contract to provide a game every other month for Gamer's Edge as well as develop and release Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons.  Keen was released as shareware and published by Apogee.

The shareware aesthetic initially went to the lowest common PC hardware denominator.  Early games supported CGA 4-color graphics or 80-column ASCII/ANSI text modes, just like many programs that were simply shared from user to user in the 1980s.  In 1990, John Carmack had discovered how to make EGA cards perform pixel-perfect horizontal and vertical scrolling without consuming a ton of CPU time.  The EGA hardware was far more advanced than the CGA hardware, even though the resolution stayed the same and the color palette did not increase for most people. When Softdisk did not want to publish Commander Keen for fear of alienating all its CGA customers, id went to Apogee, which was not.  EGA was already an old graphics standard, but in 1990 and 1991 it had a mini-renaissance due to games like Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, Crystal Caves, Major Stryker and Catacomb 3-D.

Eventually, the shareware market was dominated by three companies, Apogee Software (later 3D Realms), id Software and Epic MegaGames (later Epic Games), even though id Software was only a developer.  id Software is known for its milestones, Commander Keen, Catacomb 3-D, Wolfenstein 3-D, Doom and Quake.  Epic MegaGames had the well-known Jill of the Jungle, Jazz Jackrabbit, Epic Pinball and Xargon. Apogee continued with Duke Nukem, Monster Bash and Rise of the Triad.  Softdisk hardly bowed out, it continued to publish games in the Dangerous Dave and Catacomb series.  Apogee and Epic published some well-known shareware titles like One Must Fall 2097, Tyrian, Raptor and Blake Stone developed by third parties.  Even some big box publishers associated with shareware developers, Interplay released Descent despite its status as shareware.

Shareware games are typically broken down into Episodes or Chapters.  The first of these was made available "for free" to encourage the player to purchase the full game.  This encouraged the established companies to start releasing playable demos of their new games, nothing advertises a game like a free playable sample of the gameplay.  Previously, most demonstration programs were just trailers showing gameplay footage running in a loop not unlike the attract mode of an arcade machine.  They were usually intended for a PC being displayed by a store.  However, whereas the commercial demo usually offered an hors d'oeuvre, a shareware version of a game contained a full episode, a free continental breakfast.  When you look at any shareware release, you could typically be guaranteed several hours of playtime, depending on the difficulty of the game.  Typically the full game would contain three episodes of roughly equal length. The later episodes would typically be a bit more difficult, maybe a little longer and sometimes offer new enemies, weapons and items.

In the DOS days, almost nothing was specifically for free, there was always a cost for acquisition associated with software.  If you purchased a shareware title in a store, you may have had to pay $5.00 because the retailer expected a profit.  If you downloaded it over a BBS you typically had to pay long-distance charges.  Downloading 1.44MB over a 9600 baud modem takes a lot longer than you think.  Services like Prodigy and CompuServe were accessed by fee-subscription only if you were using them to obtain games.   If you wanted to send away to the company for a disk, you had to pay shipping and handling.  Even if you copied a game from a friend, you were still paying for the disk, which usually ran to $1 per disk in the first half of the 1990s.  The shareware versions of the game were freely distributable as far and wide as they could go.

While sometimes the full game could be bought in stores, more frequently you had to purchase the game from the company directly by mail order. In today's world, where 2-day shipping from Amazon is considered good service, having to wait 2-3 weeks for delivery must have been miserable.  In the 1980s and 1990s, mail order was a major means of acquiring computer software.  Sometimes you could get deals and othertime you had to use mail order because your local Babbages, Electronics Boutique, Software Etc. or Computerland just did not have a copy of that particular game or application in stock.

In the EGA shareware era, platform games dominated.  These games were in short supply from the big box retailers and frequently did not compare to games being released for the NES, the dominant home video game device of its day.  NES games were very expensive, retailing around $50 and big box PC games were often priced at $50 and sometimes more.  By offering a similar product to the NES at a far lower cost, shareware games became sufficiently successful to fund small development houses.  However, none of these games had quite the magnificence of Super Mario Bros. 3 or Kirby's Adventure.  The NES could display more colors than EGA cards in 200-line modes, but in some games like Commander Keen 4-6 and Keen Dreams, the graphical objects were colorful and well-drawn and animated, making for a lively game.

However, eventually EGA became long in the tooth and everyone had VGA graphics, and developers began to follow suit by almost exclusively supporting VGA only.  Around this time, the success of Wolfenstein 3-D meant that more and more shareware games were going to be first person shooters.  Wolfenstein and especially DOOM caught the attention of the world to the shareware distribution model.  Whether legally or illegally, Wolfenstein and DOOM became nearly ubiquitous.  Who doesn't like to kill Nazis with a Chaingun and hear their dying screams?  I bet when someone killed Hitler in Episode 3, they may have said something like "Take that you Fascist pig, that's for Auschwitz!"  Established companies had to bring out their own first person shooters to compete.

Shareware games frequently pushed technical limits of the hardware they intended to be run on.  Big box PC games of the early 90s were typically relying on VGA Mode 13h 320x200 and its single video page.  Shareware VGA games used unchained mode to provide for four video pages, tweaked Mode-X-style resolutions like 320x240 and high refresh rates.  Most shareware games preferred to work within the hardware capabilities of VGA cards, I cannot think of many that supported SVGA resolutions and color depths.  Eventually shareware games like Wolfenstein and DOOM were ported to home consoles with wildly varying degrees of success.

Another issue with shareware games is that they tended to avoid less-common graphics and sound hardware.  No shareware game using 16-color graphics supports Tandy Graphics, even though games that did support Tandy and EGA almost always looked identical.  If you were looking for support for audio devices other than Adlib like Tandy sound, Game Blaster or even Roland MT-32, look elsewhere.  Adlib music quality was frequently first rate compared to strictly retail games which tended to focus more on the dominant MIDI devices of the time, the MT-32 then the Roland Sound Canvas.  Games supporting digital sound typically did not support anything beyond the Sound Blaster series and clones at first.  Eventually, however, there was some support for the Gravis UltraSound (often buggy) and General MIDI devices.

One hugely important development spurred by shareware was licensing game engines.  When id created Wolf3D, they licensed the technology out to Apogee to create Rise of the Triad, Capstone for Corridor 7 and Raven Software for ShadowCaster (published by Origin Systems).  Its DOOM engine found even more widespread support and id quickly became known for the quality of its 3D engines.  Of course, id had a secret weapon in John Carmack, who understood what was possible with hardware and graphics engines and has continually pushed boundaries for decades.  It was rare for big box companies to license their technology to its competitors, but eventually many of them would license the engines from id and Epic (Unreal) for their games.  One positive aspect from the shareware era was the policy of companies like id Software to release the source code to their hardware engines to allow others to make source ports of these games and design custom maps.  Many shareware games from this era have been made freeware compared to big box companies that will sit on their decades-old IPs.

Quake was the last great shareware game.  It may have been too successful because with the shareware release you could play multiplayer as you liked with anyone else.  DOOM had begun the process of players making custom multiplayer maps, but it was Quake where things began to explode.  Quake offered easy internet multiplayer through QuakeWorld, which was a Windows 95 executable with support for TCP/IP multiplayer.  It is no accident that Quake II and its successors were distributed on a strictly demo/retail basis.  However, where shareware began by catering to users or lower-end hardware, DOOM and Quake required 486s and Pentiums for any real playability, and those CPUs were still new and expensive at the time of those games' releases.

Windows 95 foretold of the impending doom of the shareware model.  Shareware games had to compete with a platform that was far more friendly to cheap, casual games than DOS ever was.  In addition, Windows games frequently came on multiple CDs and ran to hundreds of megabytes in size.  Most commercial versions of shareware games were not copy protected and were frequently pirated. Development costs had skyrocketed for quality products, as had support obligations to match.  In the end, the successful companies like id became a big developer with Quake II-4 and DOOM 3 and Epic a big publisher with its Unreal and Unreal Tournament series.

The closest thing to shareware today in terms of its distribution is the chapter/seasons releases from companies like Telltale Games.  In the Telltale Games commercial model, a complete story in a game was released as chapters or episodes over the course of several months.  One some platforms, now mainly mobile, you could usually obtain the first episode for free and then decide if you wanted to pay for later episodes.  If you knew you wanted the full game, you could buy a full season pass and receive chapters automatically as they were released.  On PC platforms, typically the season pass was the only option available and you just have to wait for the next episodes to be released.