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10 QUIRKY INNOVATIONS FROM THE GOLDEN AGE OF CARTRIDGE GAMES

24/10/2016

19 Comments

 
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Nintendo is still keeping its Switch cards close to its bosom, but one secret revealed by last week's reveal presentation is this secret: it looks like a return to cartridges for Nintendo. The potential pros and cons of this move hardly need spelling out, but - who knows - maybe it will allow for some interesting expansion of the Switch further along the line?

​Here are ten cartridges which did exactly that back in the day.
SONIC & KNUCKLES (Mega Drive)
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There was so much hype leading up to the release of Sonic & Knuckles, that when it finally showed up it was hard not to let out an existential gasp of ennui, and lay face-down on the carpet for eight hours.

Essentially, it contained the missing half of Sonic 3 - split into two due to memory constraints - but featured a unique "lock-on" cartridge, which allowed you to slot Sonic 2 or 3 into the top. Excitingly, this revealed a few new bits to Sonic 3, or allowed you to play as wall-fisting Knuckles in Sonic 2. 

Suffice to say, it might've been the first squeal of desperation from a Sega that would soon do its best to drive repeatedly off the same short pier.
SUPER GAME BOY (Super NES)
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There was much mocking from Digitiser prior to the release of the Super Game Boy - who would want to play horrible, black and white Game Boy games on their TV? Our opinion was this: "Massive idiots".

As it turned out, we did. Not only were we idiots, but it turned out that the games were more playable using the Super NES pad, and you could actually work out what was going on, without having to sit beneath a very bright light, or employ some sort of audio transcription service.

Nicely, some Game Boy titles were optimised for the Super Game Boy, featuring colour(ish) graphics when played on your telly. Also: beautiful custom borders. We had it good back then.
GAME BOY CAMERA (Game Boy)
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Unfortunately, the aforementioned Game Boy screen pretty much rendered the Game Boy Camera a complete waste of time. That's not to say there wasn't a certain degree of interest in the novelty of an affordable digital camera back in 1998, mind (it was featured in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's smallest).

Naturally, Nintendo wasn't content with merely releasing a camera - and there were various ways it could be used to customise your photos, and included a handful of bundled mini games. However, once your photos were printed out on the Game Boy Printer, it was fairly apparent that the device was no replacement for an actual camera. Unless, that is, you think pictures look better when viewed through some sort of monochromatic gauze.
MICRO MACHINES 2: TURBO TOURNAMENT (Mega Drive)
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We sunk countless hours into Micro Machines 2, in the Digitiser office. Alright: probably not countless. But at least 16 hours. Maybe more.

Part of the appeal is that it offered multiplayer larks, thanks to Codemasters' patented J-Cart, which featured a couple of extra joypad ports. Pete Sampras Tennis was actually the first J-Cart game - but the system really came into its own with the sequel to the original "little cars" game. The real innovation with Micro Machines 2 is that eight players could compete at once, with two players per joypad. And for "innovation" read "step too far".
KIRBY: TILT N' TUMBLE (Game Boy)
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There were a few Game Boy games released which included a motion sensor in the cartridge. Kirby Tilt N' Tumble was notable, however, for being the only one to boast a transparent pink case. 
BOKTAI: THE SUN IS IN YOUR HAND (Game Boy Advance)
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Pokemon Go wasn't the first Nintendo-associated game to require players to go outside; Konami's Boktai had an integral light sensor, which charged the player's in-game weapon, when exposed to the sun. Or, presumably, a lightbulb. 
POKEMON PINBALL (Game Boy Color)
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Rumble features are pretty much par for the course these days, but when Pokemon Pinball was released, the idea of a vibrating handheld was shockingly new. The pack was notable for its weight: not only due to the rumble technology, but due to the fact it also required its own AAA battery. The feature was widely criticised as being little more than a gimmick, which swiftly got old.

​Of course, it didn't get old; it got refined, and shoved into every games controller from that point onwards.
GUITAR HERO: ON TOUR (Nintendo DS)
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Porting a game series famed for its elaborate fake guitar controller onto a handheld isn't an obvious choice, but Guitar Hero: On Tour did a reasonable job of translating the original game. It came with a custom controller, which slotted into the Nintendo DS cartridge port reserved for Game Boy Advance titles. Consequently, the game didn't work with subsequent iterations of the DS, which did away with the Advance backwards compatibility. Also, it took away any real opportunity to "throw shapes" - at least 80% of the fun of Guitar Hero and its ilk.
AIR RAID (ATARI 2600)
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It's remarkable that this 1982 Atari VCS shoot 'em up is all but forgotten today, for it came on a unique T-shaped, blue cartridge. It's believed to be one of the most collectable games ever, with a complete copy of the game selling for over £20,000 on eBay, back in 2010. Why is Air Raid so rare? Because it barely sold, due to its awfulness - making that auction sale all the more absurd.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA (NES)
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Coloured cartridges were quite a thing back in the day: we remember Donkey Kong 64's yellow casing, and the blood red plastic of Maximum Carnage. Gold cartridges are more rare - and this golden The Legend of Zelda cart rarer still. Except: it isn't. Ironically, the golden Zelda cart is fairly common among collectors, as it was the default colour run for the original release of the game. More rare is the much more dull-looking grey cartridge, which was released subsequently. 
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19 Comments
Nick
24/10/2016 05:11:12 pm

What the bloody hell was that. Where were the ostriches, the krakens (kracki?), why weren't the cartridges attacked by bees. I don't come here for informative lists looking back on the gaming trends of yesteryear. Huffff!

Reply
Scott C
24/10/2016 06:23:32 pm

Ignore him Mr B, I believe that he was recently attacked by a swarm of swans while attempting to steal a focks egg from them (unfortunately he did not have any swan paint with him to subdue them), and so he is still feeling a little cranky.

Reply
Nick
24/10/2016 07:00:46 pm

I'll get um next time.

Scott C
24/10/2016 06:24:40 pm

Wait a minute, "Mr. B", is it indeed you that the little sisters were referring to in Bioshock?!

Reply
Kelvin Green link
24/10/2016 06:27:12 pm

What about the 32X? Ho ho ho!

I think Perfect Dark on the N64 was supposed to have a feature in which you could take photos of your friends and family with your Game Boy Camera and then import the pictures into the game and have the NPCs running around with their faces.

I have never known anyone with both Perfect Dark and the GB Camera so I don't know if this feature made it into the game or if it got dropped.

Reply
Scott C
24/10/2016 06:38:37 pm

I once had a weird dream after playing far, far too much Goldeneye 64 as a teenager. Said dream was literally as you describe; the characters were running around with blocky N64 bodies, but their faces were their real faces, and I was inside the gaming world, rather than watching it on the screen. No GB camera needed. I probably should have been outside doing something "wholesome and healthy" with my teenage pals. Hmmm, come to think of it, Goldeneye was probably the healthier option...

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RichardM
24/10/2016 06:51:50 pm

It got dropped, because politics and controversy and stuff.

See https://www.unseen64.net/2010/03/22/perfect-dark-removed-face-mapping/ for more.

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Adam
25/10/2016 10:10:55 am

I spent far too long recording tv programmes with celebrities I hated (so most of them) so I could take pictures for the facemapping feature of Perfect Dark.

I was disappointed when it was dropped.

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Grodecki
24/10/2016 10:29:42 pm

God Micro Machines 2 was so good. I can't even remember how it worked playing 2 people on a pad. Was one button left, one right, or something? I imagine it was awful but I loved it as a kid.

Reply
Starbuck
25/10/2016 07:22:09 pm

Automatic acceleration, people at either end of the pad (a "double header?"), facing each other along the "shaft", d-pad up = left, d-pad down right, something similar with the circular buttons. Unless I misre"member" totally in which case I'm wasting your and my time.

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Alastair
26/10/2016 12:08:34 am

No, correct I believe.

It worked like that on the SNES too, even though that was equipped with the multi-tap.

Spiney O'Sullivan
26/10/2016 02:17:28 pm

Automatic acceleration? But how did that work on the dreaded moving kitchen sponge?

Starbuck
26/10/2016 10:08:21 pm

The kitchen sponge was the greatest set piece of any videogame ever!

But navigable in this case via the use of a rarely touched break button.

And possibly part of a different game in the series.

Bokton Cobs
25/10/2016 11:20:57 am

I remember that the first thing most Boktai reviews mentioned, when the thing finally came out, is that you absolutely couldn't trick it with a lightbulb, it was sunlight or nowt. Most reviews also then predicted the game's failure in the U.K. for precisely this reason.

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Harry Steele
25/10/2016 12:59:44 pm

I can vouch for that- you could only play it in brilliant sunlight, which was often so blinding that you couldn't actually see the screen!

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Nocturne
25/10/2016 01:54:27 pm

I only ever managed to get through the first level out of sheer frustration due to a mix of total lack of direct bright sunlight for anything more than a few minutes and playing on a DS so the cartridge light sensor was now in an awkward position.

Billy-Bob Thornton
25/10/2016 03:04:22 pm

Which is a shame since it's a very good game with some sublime isometric pixel graphics and Hideo Kojima weirdness. The only problem is my whiteness cannot compete with the sun so it remains unfinished even after 10 or so years. Though I think you can trick the sensor with a UV bulb, but I don't live in a nightclub so I wouldn't know.

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Billy-Bob Thornton
25/10/2016 02:58:57 pm

Pasty white me tried Boktai: The Sun Is In Your Hands during summer on the GBA Micro and lasted around 10 minutes under the might of Sol. Now have to wait 6 months to go another ten minutes.

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Col. Asdasd
30/10/2016 08:27:32 am

Not to be a bore, Biff, but wasn't the Zelda cartridge also notable for being the first game with a battery save feature?

Reply



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