TurboGrafx-16 CD Games Added to Wii Virtual Console

When I was a kid, TurboGrafx-16 was one of those consoles that I wanted solely because of the name. I mean, come on. ‘TurboGrafx-16′. It didn’t just have Grafx, it had turbo Grafx, and that ‘16′ suffix made it all the better because it was a number higher than ‘8′. Incidentally, that’s the same reason I wanted an Atari Jaguar (RARRRW!) for about a day and a half.

Alas, I never claimed a TurboGrafx-16 as my own, mostly because I never saw one. The game section (more specifically, ‘corner’) at our local ghetto Wal-Mart was dominated by Sega and Nintendo products, and absolutely nothing else. I grew up assuming that the TG-16 was a fantasy some kids at school had collaborated on for a creative writing assignment.

Evidently it wasn’t though, as the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console has effectively demonstrated. Since the debut of the system and its emulation service nearly a year ago, over a dozen TG-16 titles have been added to the North American menu, allowing me to play the games that didn’t exist in my little closed off Seahaven.

Like a lot of the big ‘we’re totally amazing and awesome’ consoles of the early-to-mid 90s, the TG-16 was given a CD add-on. Although it was the first system to do such a thing, it didn’t have the impact that Nippon Electric Company (NEC) hoped it would.

Two of the TurboCD’s offerings (‘Gate of Thunder’ and (‘Super Air Zonk’) will be added to the Virtual Console, according to Gamespot, although they won’t be on discs and hey, waitaminute- the Wii only has 512 MB of internal memory. How is downloading a 700 MB CD supposed to work out? Obviously a lot of compression has been involved with these downloads.

From what I’m seen of the discussion after the GameSpot story, there’s a lot more history about NEC and their ill-fated CD add-on, so be sure to check it out.

The Worst Game of All Time

When asked what the worst video game of all time is, most people are quick to read off a short list of commonly scorned titles. Superman 64. The Matrix. That Mortal Kombat Gameboy Advance cartridge.

Well, they’re all wrong. The worst game of all time is Where’s Waldo? for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It’s so horrible that it made the inside of your NES corrode and rot when it hit the contacts. It’s so astoundingly terrible that it was responsible for fourteen plagues, ninety murderous rampages, and one forgettable children’s cartoon show. It’s so undeniably and marrow-tearing AWFUL that several future filmmakers played it and went insane.

Curse of the Nintendo Handhelds

• I was around six years old when the Nintendo Gameboy first came out, and it was the greatest thing I’d ever heard of in my life. It took me God only knows how long to save up $ 80 for this thing, then longer to actually find one since all the cool kids in town had bought them up. It was bulky, the graphics looked like ass, and a lot of the software was less than sub-par. But I loved it. Oh my, did I love it. I played it so much that the screen eventually died.

• Unable to kick my Gameboy addiction cold turkey, I immediately went out and bought another one. Or my mom did because of Tetris, I don’t remember. And who cares. Little was I aware that the Nintendo overlords had been quietly observing me the whole time, and decided that they needed extra money for a project that involved virtual reality or something.

• So about a week after I replaced my Gameboy, they came out with the Gameboy Pocket. It was compact, and the screen was easier to see because the graphics were no longer booger-green and blurry. I got one of those, and left my old GB model to rot in the junk drawer.

• But I was too late, because Nintendo suddenly came out with the Gameboy Color. Color! Oh boy! And not ‘color’ as in casing variety. I mean literally, COLOR. I saved up, I rushed out, and I bought one… only to discover that ‘color’ meant ‘not black and white’, and little else. See, this time I was expecting some backlighting to go with the package. I was still limited to playing in broad daylight or with a battery-operated attachment. Nintendo is the reason I wear glasses now.

• I was stuck with the Gameboy Color now, which, like its predecessor, had a mixed bag of good and lousy software. At least I had the Super Gameboy to fall back on when I got tired of my retinas being incinerated on a daily basis. I was aware that my masters were hard at work on a new handheld not far from release. Would my dreams finally come true? Would this be the ultimate portable machine?

• Before I knew it, the Gameboy Color was obsolete, another inanimate object to be tossed in with the broken TV remotes. Now the thing to have was the Gameboy Advance. Not only was it supposed to be the most efficient handheld ever, it was something completely new, as opposed to a cheap upgrade like the GBC. I first got mine when I was around 17 (that should give you an idea of how long I’d been falling for this stupid trap). It was fantastic. It was unreal. It was…

• What the hell, Nintendo? They got everything right this time except one very important thing. Once again, they failed to provide backlighting for their product, and soon my prescription eyeglasses had to be swapped out to keep up with the complete lack of visibility the Gameboy Advance had.

• But that’s because I hadn’t learned from the mistake I’d repeated over a hundred times before. I should’ve known by now that it was wise to wait so I wouldn’t end up spending more money. The Gameboy Advance was followed by the Gameboy Advance SP, which, much to the utter frustration of those who had just spent $ 99, was backlit. For another hundred bucks, you could actually see the games and not risk going blind in the process. I went out and blew more cash on the SP, and was happy for a while.

• But it didn’t take Nintendo long to pull their trick yet again. Soon they announced a funky new departure from their long-running franchise: the Nintendo DS. After attempting to rip off people again with the Gameboy Micro (which I skipped over because I’m not a total idiot) the DS was released, and promptly beat the Sony PSP to death.

• I didn’t buy a DS, because I knew what was going to happen if I ever did. For years now, Nintendo had been releasing these handhelds and then upgrading them before anybody had a chance to sit down and turn them on. If I got a DS, there would be another one, and another, and another. The cycle of putting out new successors and charging hundreds for them would never end.

• Sure enough, my hunch paid off. A whole new generation began learning the lesson I had when the DS Lite was released. I got it for Christmas of ‘06, and if it weren’t for the constant ripoffs I’d obtained time and time again over the years, the old DS model would be rotting beside the Pocket, Color, Advance, and Advance SP.

Thank you, Nintendo, for teaching me not to buy things from you right away.

Captain N: The Game Master Hits DVD

Oh, to be a guy who was around in the early 90s! How would we live without DVD, the blessed format that has forever preserved our memories of crap TV shows that would have never make it past the pilot in this day and age!? Shout Factory, the same company that put The Legend of Zelda and The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! in handy disc format, has now bestowed upon us Captain N: The Game Master. Now those of us in our early 20s can pretend we’re all six year olds again.

It’s an invaluable piece of game history, and with a retail price around $ 20 (at least on Amazon) it’s a steal. The only thing that would make me happier is if they released a ‘deluxe’ edition that came with a control pad belt and a talking Gameboy keychain.

Why 2007 Will Rule- The Gaming Front

The Wii Virtual Console- Okay, so you didn’t pay $ 250 (plus sales tax, plus accessories) for the world’s sleekest loooking emulator. Nor are you interested in putting down $ 5 for a copy of “Super Mario Bros.” when you can find it at the local flea market for 85 cents. But Nintendo’s Virtual Console is a revolution in backwards compatibility, and as the library grows ever larger, 2007’s forecast is nothing short of phenomenal. Alongside obvious titles like Excite Bike and Dr. Mario, you’ll be seeing the likes of Super Metroid, Ocarina of Time, and Super Mario RPG… games that more than a few people regard as the greatest ever made.

Captain N: The Game Master on DVD- Try to solve this riddle. What do: A). A guy with an NES control pad attached to his belt, B). a homoerotic narcissist, C). a walking, talking dot-matrix supercomputer, D). two midgets with annoying speech impediments, E). a brain in a tank that sounds like Audrey II, F). a dog, and G). shameless marketing… all have in common? Well for one thing, they all make for one hell of a freakshow. But they’re also in the cast of the timeless “Captain N: The Game Master”, slated for release on DVD in February 2007. It’s a vital addition to your collection of crappy early 90s video game shows, and it will go great alongside those ancient Virtual Console titles. Generation Y, Nintendo has you covered.

The Sims 2: Seasons Expansion Pack- Yeah, yeah. Feel free to call me a girl all you want. I don’t care. I have no qualms about sacrificing the remainder of my youth for the sake of these little guys. The ‘Seasons’ expansion pack will add some much needed new features to the core game, including new careers, gameplay features (your active Sim can visit other houses!), and, oh yes, the four seasons. I might as well go ahead and forward EA Games my bank account information.

Spore- It would be impossible to mention anything related to “The Sims 2″ without saying a few words about “Spore”, Will Wright’s greatly anticipated ‘massively single-player’ project. Sometime in 2007, the game (now five years in the making) will allegedly be released to the public, and history will change forever. Get ready for a revolution that should have everyone– from gamers to anti-evolutionists– going absolutely nuts.

Final Fantasy XIII- Wait, didn’t installment number twelve just come out? Yes, it did. But as Square Enix has proven, you can never add enough letters to the end of your titles, and nerds have infinite amounts of money they’re willing to spend. What evil empire and confusing progression system awaits us this time? And what manner of hentai artwork and erotic fanfiction will inevitably pollute the internet?

Duke Nukem Forever- Just kidding.

Grand Theft Auto IV- Remember that old man who spent the last several years trying to get all your naughty games banned? Yeah, too bad for him. Once again, Rockstar Games is hard at work developing the next “Grand Theft Auto” title, which will most certainly (once again) piss off a multitude of religious leaders, politicans, and ambulance stalking attorneys. And to make matters worse, it’s going to debut on the Playstation 3, which pushes the technology (and realism of violence) far beyond the other two contenders in this generation’s console war. How many cries of “the children are going to murder each other!!!” can a Blu-Ray disc hold?

Resident Evil 5- With all the incidents of flesh-eating monsters occuring over the last ten years, you’d think Umbrella would’ve learned its lesson. Well, Umbrella is long gone. But thanks to the involvement of several people from a variety of unknown fronts (Part four didn’t give us too many story details to work with) the zombies, hideous biological creations, and angry farmers continue making trouble for our (fortunately heavily-armed) heroes. “Resident Evil 5″ supposedly picks up right where the previous installment left off, which works for me, because I’d like to know what exactly the hell was going on. As far as the lead character and his/her plight are concerned, details remain sketchy, and an actual release date is up for debate as well.

Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass- I mentioned previously that the Nintendo DS Lite was the greatest gaming device I’ve yet to get my hands on, and I continue to stand by that statement. The addition of a new “Zelda” may in fact turn my love for the soystem into something creepy and obnoxious. But what else can you expect from Nintendo, the company that continues piling on quality until every last penny in your ailing wallet belongs to them? Reportedly, “Phantom Hourglass” will put the technology of the DS to full use, requiring you to have the stylus in hand at all times. Not that I’m complaining at all.