The Nintendo Entertainment System, and its Japanese counterpart the Famicom, need no introduction – if you’re reading this magazine, you’ll know that the 8-bit hardware catapulted Nintendo to a position of global leadership in the videogame business, and hosted the first iterations of countless classic series. Though marketing played an important role in this commercial and cultural success, it wouldn’t have been possible without the hardware. After all, the ColecoVision and the Atari 5200 were less than a year old when the Famicom launched in Japan in 1983, and the 3DO and Atari Jaguar were on the market by the time developers finally abandoned the NES in 1994. A machine simply can’t stay relevant for that long without hardware that’s flexible enough and capable enough to keep up with the changing tastes of gamers. But the NES wasn’t just a titan of its time – plenty of developers are creating new games for the hardware, pushing it harder than ever with modern development tools.
This story is from the Issue 248 edition of Retro Gamer.
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This story is from the Issue 248 edition of Retro Gamer.
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PLAYING CO-OP
This month's collector isn't going it alone
The 400 Mini
MORE FUN, LESS HASSLE?
THE MAKING OF BURNOUT 3 TAKEDOWN™
THIS IS THE REMARKABLE STORY OF HOW CRITERION'S DISASTROUS DEAL WITH EA TO REMAKE A CLASSIC SKATEBOARDING GAME SOMEHOW LED TO THE BRITISH STUDIO CREATING ONE OF THE BEST RACERS OF ALL TIME
PSP Go
While Sony was no stranger to tinkering with its hardware, the PSP got a lot of attention over the years – the PSP Go was the fourth major iteration of the hardware, and the most radical redesign.
THE IMPACT OF 3rd STRIKE STREET FIGHTEr III
THEY SAY THIRD TIME'S A CHARM, ALTHOUGH STREET FIGHTER III DIDN'T IGNITE FIGHTING GAMES IN THE SAME WAY AS ITS PREDECESSOR UNTIL 3RD STRIKE. MEMBERS OF THE FIGHTING GAME COMMUNITY TELL US HOW THIS COMEBACK CEMENTED ITS PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF 2D FIGHTERS
ARCADE WRATH OF THE MUTANTS
A NEW TURTLES BEAT-'EM-UP IS FINALLY HEADING HOME AFTER YEARS OF DELIGHTING ARCADE-GOERS WE TALK TO EUGENE JARVIS AND MARC-ANDRÉ JUTRAS TO LEARN HOW THIS THROWBACK BRAWLER CAME TO BE, AND HOW IT'S BEEN EXPANDED FOR CONSOLES
THE MAKING OF STAR TREK 25TH ANNIVERSARY
SPACE MAY BE THE FINAL FRONTIER BUT STAR TREK ADVENTURE GAMES WERE PRETTY MUCH THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY IN THE EARLY NINETIES. AT LEAST UNTIL STAR TREK: 25TH ANNIVERSARY CAME ALONG A GAME THAT DARED TO GO WHERE NO STAR TREK GAME HAD GONE BEFORE
Datasette
If you’re going to adopt a common storage method across a range of computers, it makes sense to make the hardware as widely compatible as possible – and that’s just what Commodore did with the Datasette, known by the model numbers 1530 and C2N.
THE MAKING OF CAPTAIN BLOOD
AS HE TRAVELS THE HYDRA GALAXY IN HIS SHIP THE ARK, CAPTAIN BLOOD MUST TRACK DOWN AND DISINTEGRATE HIS FIVE REMAINING CLONES. TO DO SO, HE’LL HAVE TO COMMUNICATE WITH SEVERAL ALIEN SPECIES USING THE UPCOM, A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE DEVICE. UNIVERSALITY IS THE KEY CONCEPT BEHIND THIS WIDELY ACCLAIMED FRENCH CLASSIC
SUPER METROID AN ENDURING LEGACY
AS NINTENDO'S SCI-FI CLASSIC TURNS 30 WE REVISIT THE PLANET ZEBES AND SPEAK TO DEVELOPERS OF BOTH METROIDVANIAS AND ACTUAL METROID GAMES TO LEARN WHAT MAKES SAMUS ARAN'S 2D ADVENTURE SO SPECIAL
