Nintendo Game and Watch Super Mario Bros 2020 for Xmas!

For Xmas this year my wife was kind enough to buy me a Nintendo Game & Watch specially released in 2020 by Nintendo to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of Mario!

Back in the 1980's, like many other kids of that era, I had a couple of Nintendo Game & Watch games, specifically Oil Panic and Octopus.

Later on I picked up Mario Bros and Donkey Kong Game & Watch games.

I gave them all away when I got my first Nintendo Gameboy in 1992 and kind of forgot about Game & Watch until the Nintendo DS era, when Nintendo released two Game & Watch DS games for it, under the now closed Japanese and Australian Club Nintendo. You had to buy a lot of DS games to accumulate enough points in Club Nintendo to redeem for these special items.

Being able to play some favourite Game & Watch games again on the Nintendo DS like Octopus, Donkey Kong and Oil Panic was fantastic.

Club Nintendo Australia allowed you to redeem points for some special extras and titles not released outside Club Nintendo. I got these DS storage containers from Club Nintendo Australia before it shut down.

The cream of the crop of these redeemable items though was only available from Club Nintendo in Japan - a 2010 remake of the very first Game & Watch game, called Ball, originally released in 1980. 

Luckily for me, my wife and I had bought a number of DS games in Japan during my many years working there on various IT projects, and this allowed me to get this very special Game & Watch:

Here is the special edition Game & Watch game called Ball.

The unit itself was quite small compared to the later Game & Watch games like Octopus and the even larger dual screen games.

Here is Ball up and running on this special Game & Watch!

I still have this Game & Watch!

In recent times I was interested in getting Donkey Kong, Octopus and Oil Panic Game & Watch games back again, but the prices on Ebay have just got stupid in 2020. Maybe one day.

Nintendo seriously got my attention in 2020 with the announcement of the new limited release Super Mario Bros Game & Watch. Predictably the pre-orders for Australia sold out within hours and sadly I missed out.

I was very disappointed, but my wife tracked down a Japanese version of the Game & Watch Super Marios Bros released in Japan in 2020 and got it shipped to Australia in time for Xmas!

I was really happy to get this!

This Game & Watch is a little bit special. It has a full colour screen, and runs the NES versions of Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros 2. Like all Game & Watch games, it also has a Clock time functionality. It also has a special Mario themed version of the original Game & Watch game Ball (the original shown in the 2010 remake above)

Here is the case:

It has a clear cover with various Mario themed images, which can be removed from the gold coloured cardboard case:

When opening, it was a nice touch to see the "Special thanks to you" on the flap:

Here is the Game & Watch Super Mario Bros:

It is a beautiful system, and looks very similar to the original Game & Watch games of the Octopus era. It is a little bit wider on the right hand side to accommodate the A and B buttons to be located side by side rather than on top of each other as they were on most Game & Watches. This has been done presumably so it matches up to the NES controller button locations. Kinda makes sense since it is the NES version of Super Mario Bros.

Here is the rear of the system - disappointedly there is no built in stand so that the Game & Watch can sit up by itself when in Time mode (a common feature of the original single screen Game & Watches) - I will need something else to allow me to do that:

There is a power button and USB-C port on the side of the unit for power on/off and for USB-C charging. No pencil battery and battery cover to lose. Glad about that!

On first power on you get a nice Mario image - amazing to see a colour Game & Watch screen:

The Game & Watch switches to Time display mode, which has a great Game & Watch second tick sound, and nice Mario another enemies move around the screen and adjust the time as it changes. The screen backdrop changes from night to day depending on the time, which is another nice touch.

When you select Game option, you can choose Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 2, and the Mario themed Ball to play.

I couldn't wait to play Super Mario Bros, and jumped right in. It plays identically to the NES version, but it does remember where you are in the game if you decide to power off or switch to time mode later on. This is great!

My wife reckons the screen is a bit small, but Game & Watch screens were always small!

I recorded a quick video showing the Game & Watch Super Mario Bros in action:

You can access the video directly on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/FM9MBg-oYXo

If you get the chance to get one of these Game & Watches while they are still available, and especially if you love Game & Watch games, I highly recommend grabbing one.

Prototype game on AmigaOne X5000

Today I wanted to take a look at a recently released game for AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition called Prototype from Dark Castle Software and ported to AmigaOS 4.1 by Kas1e. I tried it out on my AmigaOne X5000.

It is one of the first games to take advantage of the A-Eon released Warp3D Nova OpenGL ES 2.0 functionality. It is great to start to see games for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition take advantage of the latest software developments that really push the functionality of the AmigaOne systems forward in 2019!

What surprised me was just how great a game this is! It is a modern remake of the classic Irem game R-Type, released on most 1980's/1990's computer/console formats, including on the Classic Amiga many years ago.

The graphics take advantage (and require) the new A-Eon Warp3D Nova and latest A-Eon Radeon HD drivers to function. So you also need to have a Southern Islands Radeon HD graphics card installed in your AmigaOne system or A-Eon Radeon HD driver supported AMD Radeon HD chipset card to play this game.

If you don't have Warp3D Nova or Radeon HD drivers yet, you can purchase it from Amistore, separately or as part of the Enhancer bundle. If you don't have Amistore installed on your AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition system you can download it from here.

The game Prototype itself is free and can be downloaded from os4depot here.

Once extracted to a drawer and the game launches, showing a nice animation and intro story to set the mood for the game:

There are some instructions on the main menu screen to help with the game, although anyone familiar with R-Type will not need to read this! Kill anything that moves!

Being a remake of R-Type, it is a sideways scrolling shoot-em up, with the usual power ups and enemies to fight. The impressive part is the quality of the graphics and sound, and the game is easy to pick up and play:

The power ups are great and make disposing of enemies much easier, but the game gets harder and harder as you go!

Some of the enemies are tricky to dispatch, but I never felt it was impossible at any stage. I think the difficulty curve is hard but fair.

I had such a big smile on my face playing the game on my AmigaOne X5000. Why? Because I am so glad to see quality games like this on my modern AmigaOne  system in 2019! It is great!

Here is the end of level boss and yep, he (it?) is hard to beat:

Sure enough, I couldn't beat him!

I uploaded a video to YouTube with a play through of part of Level 1 for those interested to see the game in action on my AmigaOne X5000 (apologies for my reflection on the screen in the video but my screen is very reflective!). The game runs smooth and looks fantastic in my opinion:

Basically, this is a great game. If you haven't already, download it today! I can't wait to see more Warp3D nova accelerated games on my X5000 soon!

Amiga Racer WIP v1.6B on X1000

Today I am taking a look at the Work in Progress game called Amiga Racer by AmigaTec, running on AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition on my X1000.

This game is a remake in the style of Lotus Turbo Challenge by Gremlin in the early 1990's on the Classic Amiga.

This game is very much a work in progress, and as I write this game is running as v1.6B. 

It is free to download for AmigaOS 4.1 and MorphOS (I think there is a linux version too), but if you donate some money for the games' ongoing development, you get a keyfile that activates extras not included in the normal versions, no donate screen, and even a mention in the game itself on the title screen and program window too:

You can download the AmigaOS 4.1 version of the game from os4depot.net and also the latest version from the AmigaTec website.

The main menu of the game is also in development - some parts are functional and some are in progress. At the time of writing this entry, you can Start Game, choose from 3 tracks and choose a number of cars. 

There is also a live update feature which works and will update the game from the internet to reflect the latest changes.

Here is the Live Update process after it has just completed.

Like Lotus, when you start the game you choose the music you want to play on that track. Each track has it's default music track, but it can be changed here before the game starts:

As the game starts it is a curious blend of Outrun and Lotus! The music is great.

A lot of work has gone into the graphics used on the tracks to take advantage of the greater capabilities of the X1000. At the same time it retains the look and feel of the original Lotus game - still feels a bit like Outrun to me!

 You can also press "F" to make the game run in full screen, or press it again to return it to run in a window.

 On the car front you can choose from a Mercedes CLS, Delorean, Porsche 911 or Koenigsegg.

Florida USA is the default track, but you can also choose Bavaria, which has a snow landscape and Xmas theme tune even!

It is certainly nice to be able to select from some interesting music - no doubt more to come!

Here is some screenshots from the Bavaria track with the snow falling:

I think this looks great!

Amiga Racer as a game is incomplete at this stage, with plenty of work still to go. Please be aware of this when trying it out.

But if you are interested to download and follow along as the game is developing, then Amiga Racer is interesting to muck around with! I have donated and have been enjoying the ride so far!