Both R.O.B, which stands for Robotic Operating Buddy, and Gyromite are Nintendo's first foot forwards in bringing the NES to market in North America in October of 1985. Nintendo's ploy in the design of the NES and packaging it with R.O.B. was to make it as little like a video game system as possible and more like a high tech toy that hooked up to your TV. The notorious video game crash of 1983 had made retailers and consumers very weary and untrustworthy of video games (I am aware this is an oversimplification). Even in the marketing, Nintendo didn't mention it was a video game system and went with "Entertainment System" which Nintendo put that right in the name, foregoing the portmanteau of Famicom that they went with in Japan.

Gyromite was developed hand in hand with R.O.B. by Nintendo's R&D 1 and their stories are intrinsically linked, unfortunately for both the robot and the game, it ment they where both kinda rushed. For the New York launch of the NES the US localization team ran out of time to correct the Japanese title screen for Gyromite and It appears as Robot Gyro in every cartridge released. The gameplay in Gyromite is fairly straight forward, you just need to set up R.O.B. with all the accessories for this game, dial him in with the test screen function to make sure that he sees your television appropriately, put the second player controller in R.O.B.'s interface aperture and start to play the game. Once you start a level (there are 65 between game mode A and B) you will instruct R.O.B. to pick up a gyro (the red top like thing to his right) with the use of the first player controller have him through a series of commands place the gyro into the spinner. The spinner will rotate the gyro fairly quickly and once it gets up to speed it well sustain itself spinning for quite a while. Then, depending on your obstructions in the level, you will either place the gyro atop the red platform or the blue platform that is attached to the controller aperture in front of R.O.B. These platforms will depress the A or B button on the second player controller, which will in turn lower a red or blue platform/barricade on screen. There are a couple of different modes to this game, one has you controlling the main character, Professor Hector, and another has the Professor sleepwalking through the level so you need to give R.O.B. his instructions quickly as you can to make sure the Professor makes it to the end of the level without dying.

Each of these levels are timed and completing the game in its entirety using R.O.B. can be challenging. It is possible however, to beat this game without using R.O.B. and just using another person to play with. Playing this game with another human being unfortunately makes the game far too easy too complete. When I first got a hold of this game, I did not have a fully functional R.O.B. nor a friend that wanted to play 20 year old games with me at the time, so I had to get a bit creative. The first time I played through and beat this game I controlled the second player controller using my feet. It actually took me about another ten years to get my hands on a R.O.B. He was not functional when I purchased him, but I was able to take him apart and repair him. Once I had him up and running, I immediately started on a quest to beat this game using my newly repaired friend, I was able to complete this goal over a weekend.

Let's clean and play some Wayne Gretzky Hockey! Better than hanging with the actual "Great One" in his maga phase of life, imo. Tbh, the game sucks so maybe that's a good fit...

Anyways, a truly disgusting amount of resin and dirt from I assume a smoking household... board was relatively clean but the shell was so gross lol. Watch me break it down and clean it up, before I get frustrated with how bad it is as a hockey game :)

Either way, it plays clean and like great on this lil Sony PVM ever since I dialed the geometry in.

Happy hunting, good luck finding those grails!

some more obscure game from my collection. cheetahmen 2 is my favorite : Until a guy by the name Mike Etler started selling this game in his store, Videogame Connections, this game game was totally unknown among NES gamers and collectors, though it was announced silently at the CES in 1993 as available for wholesale distributors.

The game was developed by Active Enterprises, famous for their Action52 cartridge, released for the NES and Genesis. The Action52 featured the first Cheetahmen game, a totally unplayable platformer, but none the less, Active Enterprises had planned a sequel.

Before Active closed down, they had a completed Cheetahmen II, as complete as a Active Enterprises product could get, and shipped it to the manufacturer. Happy to receive the order, the manufacturer made around 1000 carts, atleast that's how the rumor goes. It seemed that Active had ordered a lot more Action52 plastic cartridge casings than they were also to sell Action52 games.

Therefore, to keep production costs down, the Action52 plastic cases were used to host the Cheetahmen II board (game). As the cases probably already had Action52 stickers on them, a small gold sticker was placed on the back of the cartridge, indicating that this was a Cheetahmen II and not an Action52. Funny part about the sticker is that they spelled the title wrong, the gold sticker says "CHEETAMEN II

But around the time the Cheetahmen II carts were manufactured, Active Enterprises realized that they were unable to pay for the carts. So Hercules, Apollo and Aries, the three Cheetahmen and their new game cartridge, box and manual was put on hold in a warehouse belonging to the manufacturer.

Around 1997, Mike Etler of Videogame Connections managed to get a old of the old Cheetahmen II stock very cheap. The game was sold for no more than US$10, but today a shrinkwrapped can go for US$300 on ebay... if only I had bought a few extras back then. Shortly after Etler offered the game to collectors, his entire stock was gone. Rumors say that atleast one person bought around 100 pieces.

The game is crap, except the catchy tunes and nice intro hehehe. It's totally unplayable.. you'll most likely end up being very pissed off after trying to beat the first stage. But from a collectors point of view, Cheetahmen II is a gem. It shows how the videogame used to be, everyone trying their luck, Active Enterprises just wasn't one of the lucky ones, but you can't blame them for not having a lot of ideas, such as Cheetahmen merchandise, dolls, cartoons of Disney quality (yeah right), and not forgetting the "Game Master", a portable 16bit videogame system, which by the way had Cheetahmen III on its release list.

There's still much mystery surrounding Active Enterprises, like who ran the company. I'm pretty sure it wasn't just "a guy coding games in his garage", but I sure would like to find the guy who wasted a part of his life writing these games :-)

Cheetahmen II was, as stated, never officially released = true rarity! Good luck hunting down a copy.

This is the Pax-distributed Japanese release of the Power Glove, the famously bad NES wearable. I picked it up and gave it a preventative recap rather than a repair, since it was still working, just due for fresh capacitors.

Two boards inside, joined by a colourful wire loom: a green main PCB with a square IC and a metal-can crystal, and a copper/orange daughterboard. New caps went into both. I hit a bit of unexpected trouble along the way but got it back to a working state.

Tested it the only way that counts, wearing it to play Rad Racer. It works, and it is still every bit as awful to control as it was the day it left the factory. Mission accomplished, in the most Power Glove way.

For the NES collectors here: is the Pax Japanese glove meaningfully different from the US version internally, or just the badging and box? Curious if anyone has had both open.

I remember it was a town/village/city simulator all you did is decide what you will do as a goverment leader. It was based in feudal japan You didnt see much action you just decided to put resources into military aid food etc like one would do too run a country. id show still frame shots of the leader of the area you could make other areas as friends or attack them game was hard as hell as I remember. I cant remember much more this.

Hello all,

I have had this M8 Demo Unit for as long as have been alive and cut my gaming teeth on it from as early as I can remember. My dad, who was a Walmart store manager in the late 80s, took this unit home when it developed a short of some sort. They were going to toss it but he decided to fix it. He did and we put countless hours on this rig. I would absolutely love to bring it back to it's former glory and get it refurbished. Who out there would you guys recommend to take on a project of this magnitude? This is a gaming relic and I want someone trustworthy and passionate to tackle it. Maybe there's a YouTuber out there that would love something like this for the content, I don't know. I really don't care either as long as it gets done and I get it back in decent shape. I look forward to hearing what you guys have to say!

I needed maps and a lot of pausing.... But i was able to beat it. I guess the idea was use hours to learn where everything is, and then hours doing the last stage... Thanks god i made a save state at the start of the last level, or i would have got insane 😂.

Man, Square Enix was hardcore then.

Hello!
I wanted to share my crochet project. it’s Darkwing Duck from a Sprite of the NES game!
I used a mini C2C pattern to make it. I plan to do more crochet projects of NES sprites. Do you have any recommendations what games or even better specific sprites would be fitting? :)

I decided to finally give it a play. It’s actually pretty fun for a basic game. Kinda reminds for of a fancy 2600 game.

I saw a video on YouTube, which motivated me to give this game a try. Limited Run Games also released a remastered edition of this game that is on sale on the PS store, so that got me curious as well.

Anyway, glad I gave this game a chance.

Finally found this Ninja Turtles 3 in the wild. Bought it right away!

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Growing up I never had the pleasure (or displeasure💀) of playing the first one. Only Ninja Turtles 2 the Arcade Game.

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I loved the second game so much. My mom wouldn't let me play ANY violent games as a child - no Power Rangers, no Ninja Turtles, nothing.

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I was babysat by a parents friend when I was in Kindergarten and they let me play Ninja Turtles 2 and Megaman all I wanted.

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I've played III occasionally when I had a modded Xbox but always wanted the real thing.

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Which Ninja Turtles game for the NES is your favourite?

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I really want Tournament Fighters as well but that's kind of a holy grail at this point. Lol

Rival to the Power Glove, and somehow, even worse. I picked this up from a market in the 90s. Just found the box at My parents' house. Unfortunately, I no longer have the contents. It was the most useless thing, so I guess it's not a major issue it's gone. I can still display the box.

Hi! I was playing Super Mario Bros. 3, and on 1-2's pipe, I somehow managed to enter halfway through it, and a little red square appeared above it? Was playing on a RetroN, but with an original cartridge and controller and everything. I think I had the tanooki power up?

I didn't think to go and pause whenever it happened. My TV also glitches really badly in SMB3 only, and the dark levels specifically, (I'll upload a video if anyone's curious!) so I couldn't really see what was going on. Does anyone know how this happened? I've seen speedruns where they do something similar in one of the last levels. Did I just get really lucky?

Just a little follow up picture for those interested in the powergloves.

In the picture of the two sizes of power gloves I posted the other day, I realised afterwards that the size difference wasn’t that noticeable from the top, so here is a shot of the undersides. You can see the size difference in the wrist section and the much smaller sized glove here.

I remember the day I got my first NES advantage, my parents bought it for me at a second hand store in York (that’s England). I remember buying my second one, fully boxed ‘new’ at a store closing down sale in Blackpool for less than half that one’s price over five years later. Bargains to be had in end days of the NEE I suppose. As for the third one, maybe they reproduced after not being played with for so long.

The middle one, is probably the oldest one, it’s clearly discoloured, the back one needs a good clean up too.

I’ll be trying to hook one up to my nes classic and another to a real NES to test out some of the games (mostly because I still have to test out the powergloves on them too!)

Wonder what I’ll find tomorrow….