My highly personal Top 5 Nintendo machines

Since I was a boy I’ve been a loyal Nintendo fan having owned pretty much every machine there is at some point (even a Virtual Boy for a time!) so I thought it’d be rather fun to do a Top 5 of my favourite Nintendo machines of all-time, I must stress this is a Top 5 highly personal to me and you may not agree with my choices and Nintendo have made many superb machines but these are my Top 5 favourites…..

Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) - This machine will always hold a special place in my heart as it’s the first Nintendo console I ever owned, in my opinion still one of the best looking and best designed machines they ever made and the controller looks and feels great and is really comfortable to use for long periods.  

Some of the most classic and iconic games ever were released on the SNES such as Super Mario World and Super Metroid.  Also many superb games were released by other software companies such as Rare’s Donkey Kong Country, which amazed many people at the time with it’s graphics and is still highly playable to this day.  Nintendo also devised the SuperFX chip which was embedded in a couple of cartridges and offered improved graphics, this was included in Stunt Race FX (still one of my favourite racers ever) and StarFox.

I don’t own a SNES console any more but I still enjoy the games on my Anbernic RG351M handheld which runs them perfectly.

A truly classic console with an outstanding library of titles.

GameBoy Advance SP - I’ve always loved Nintendo’s handhelds and this is probably my absolute favourite, I just love the compact, pocketable clamshell design, it’s perfect for on-the-go gaming!  I own the red and silver Mario SP and I absolutely love it!  The SP boasted a huge library of great titles (F-Zero, Sonic Advance, Super Mario Advance, Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission to name a few) which I still enjoy today thanks to this wonderful machine!

Game & Watch - The forerunner to the original GameBoy this series of handheld single games are still massively popular with collectors today, to begin with single screen machines were released, then Nintendo developed dual-screen units and that’s when they really took off, some brilliant titles were available including Donkey Kong (the first to feature the now familiar and much used d-pad) and Zelda, other versions were made available including TableTop, Panorama and Crystal Screen.

Within the last two years to mark milestone anniversaries of Mario and Zelda, two new Game & Watches have been released, Super Mario Bros. & The Legend of Zelda (just released this month), a review of both is coming soon so stay tuned!

To prove their popularity with collectors many of the rarer machines in excellent/mint conditions go for quite high prices on eBay.  If you want to know more about this series check out the two Game & Watch books/collector’s guides I reviewed in a previous post.

Nintendo Switch - I made my mind up after about 30 seconds of the promo video that I was going to get this machine and I’ve never regretted it since, this truly was a game-changer by Nintendo - a machine that could be played in a dock through a home TV but could also be taken out and played as a handheld.  The joy-con controllers look and feel great and despite having one of the weakest launch line-ups of titles in gaming history it’s more than made up for it since and now boasts a library of games to rival any console and a flourishing Indie game scene too.

A handheld-only Switch Lite was later released and an improved version with an OLED screen has just been released this month as well.  

An excellent and truly revolutionary machine.

Nintendo 3DS - And finally in this Top 5 countdown is the 3DS, like the Switch this was a game-changer at the time due to it’s ability to play games in 3D without the need for glasses (this could be disabled though a slider on the machine), the original 3DS was released in a variety of striking colours and offered some of the best handheld titles ever seen, many of which are still highly playable today.  It offered some of the best Pokemon titles ever seen (Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, Sun/Moon, X/Y, Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon) and many other really superb games.

A 3DS XL was later released offering a larger screen.

I own as part of my collection the very distinctive yellow 3DS XL Pikachu edition and it’s still one of my most played handhelds, a great little machine.

So there you go my Top 5 favourite Nintendo machines ever, as I said this is my personal choice and I do have many other Nintendo machines I love (N64, Wii, GameCube, DS) but these are my absolute favourites, what are your favourite Nintendo machines and why? Feel free to let me know in the comments!

Sega fan? Got an iOS or Android device? You’ll love this!

Sega have been responsible for creating some of the best games to ever grace the MegaDrive but what you may not know is that many of them are available as free downloads under the ‘Sega Forever’ banner for iOS and Android devices!  They are ad-supported however these can be removed with an inexpensive and optional in-app purchase, also if you own a mobile controller such as the Backbone One or the Razer Kishi they can be used too.

Many excellent titles are available including Sonic 2, the superb Crazy Taxi, Virtual Tennis Challenge and Dynamite Heady to name but a few, simple search for ‘Sega Classics’ on the AppStore or Google Play Store and enjoy!

Russian Subway Dogs (PS Vita) Review

One of the final games to be released on the PS Vita Store is the wonderfully named Russian Subway Dogs, a game in which you play the part of hungry dogs roaming the Russian subway system scaring the passengers into dropping food as they exit their train which you must then collect.  Sounds easy? Wrong! The game starts slowly but speeds up as more trains arrive and passengers alight, also you have to reach a certain target to proceed to the next level.

Graphically the game looks great and is great fun to play providing a good challenge.  The music is particularly good in a typical Russian style and matches the game perfectly.

A fitting final release for the Vita, excellent value for money and well worth picking up if you own Sony’s handheld.   TRJ RATING : 4.5/5

These SNES books are fantastic!

As a loyal Nintendo fan going right back to the SNES I was very keen and excited to receive these two books containing everything you could ever want to know about the Super Nintendo, and these books are fantastic! Lavishly illustrated, both over 500 pages and of a very high quality they are a must for any Nintendo fan!

Super Nintendo Anthology Gold Edition (Geeks Line)

As well providing a very comprehensive section detailing and reviewing each and every SNES game, this impressive tome also has a number of excellent additional features : Hiroshi Yamauchi : The Man Behind the Machine, accessories, the rivalry with Sega to name but a few.  The section detailing the SNES games is particularly well done, giving a review, star rating and displaying the box art for each game.  A truly fabulous read.

SNES / Famicom : A Visual Compendium (Bitmap Books)

The second SNES book is not quite as comprehensive but still weighs in at over 500 pages presented in a slipcase with a holographic front, this basically details the games aiming to be more of a pictorial companion.  It is still a very worthwhile read, well produced and providing comprehensive information about the SNES games.

I highly recommend both these books for dipping in and out of and as a source of reference, excellent.

Best Android Emulators

Having owned and been enjoying an Android powered retro handheld, the Powkiddy X18s for a couple of weeks now I’m of the opinion that, with it’s superb choice of high quality and great looking and performing emulators Android is the best platform for retrogaming for sure, detailed below are some of the best emulators in my opinion :

Redream (Sega Dreamcast) - A great looking emulator for Dreamcast offering perfect performance with an easy to use and attractive interface automatically downloading the box art too for your selected games.

Drastic (Nintendo DS) - Offers a choice of screen layouts for the Nintendo DS games, you can either display the screens side-by-side, top and bottom or switch between them, again the games run perfectly and is really great to use.

M64 Plus FZ Pro (Nintendo 64) - My favourite emulator for Nintendo 64, again like Redream it automatically downloads the box art for your games offering a visually attractive interface and perfect performance even on Goldeneye!

John GBAC (GameBoy and GameBoy Color) - There are a couple of reasons why this is my favourite emulator for GameBoy and GameBoy Color, one is that full support for Super GameBoy enhanced titles is built-in, it automatically scans your device for the games saving you the job of doing so, it is also possible in the Settings to choose the correct original green palette for GameBoy titles and to top it all off performance is perfect, there is an advert which appears after exiting each game but an optional in-app purchase is available for £3.99 to remove these.  Also when exiting a game you are automatically given the option to save your progress.  A really excellent emulator

Virtual Virtual Boy (Nintendo Virtual Boy) - I am constantly surprised that with the complex nature of Virtual Boy games that emulation of them is possible at all let alone as perfect as they are on this emulator, they look and play great!

PPSSPP Gold (Sony PlayStation Portable) - An emulator for the PSP offering a wealth of tinkering options in the settings for getting the best out of the games, again a visually attractive emulator thanks to the game icons displayed, and it performs great, even God of War : Chains of Olympus runs pretty much perfectly on my X18s, a title which has always struggled on my Anbernic handhelds, the best choice for PSP.

These are just some of the many great emulators available for Android, there are many more great ones available but these are my personal favourites, happy emulating!

Antstream Arcade

A couple of years ago at a retrogaming show I witnessed a stand demonstrating a service which promised streaming of classic videogames called Antstream, well that service is now a reality.  The service is available on Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, Amazon Fire and Nvidia Shield and having had the Android app installed for about a week now on my Powkiddy X18s Android handheld I’m rather impressed!

The service allows 1,000 free plays before you’re asked to pay £9.99 a month for unlimited access, this is a really generous amount and gives you an excellent chance to try the service out.  There is a great selection of classics to choose from including Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Asteroids to name but a few, there are around 1,000 titles in total to choose from! So far the games I’ve tried out play really well with no stuttering, buffering or lag at all, another useful feature is each time you select a game to play the app tells you how many free plays you have left before you have to pay to continue.

A really highly recommended service and with the 1,000 free plays, no real reason not to try it!

Atari : Game Over Documentary

For many years it had been the stuff of gaming folklore that when the E.T. - The Extra Terrestrial video game was released back in the 80s for the Atari 2600, it was so bad and sold so few copies that the many unsold copies were buried in a landfill in New Mexico, USA.

And so on April 26th 2014 the excavation was begun at the rumoured landfill location in Alamogordo, New Mexico, a total of 30 feet were dug taking approximately three hours and, due to the city authorities only allowing digging for 24 hours, a mere 1,300 of the buried 700,000 games were recovered.  The city’s mayor is now hoping to turn the site into a tourist attraction.

The story is truly fascinating, the whole thing has been made into a brilliant documentary, Atari : Game Over which, at the time of writing is available to enjoy on YouTube (https://youtu.be/O2vWvp8WXQI) and I highly recommend it.

700 games recovered will be sold by the Alamogordo City Commission, a further 100 were given to the film’s development companies and the rest given to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., and local New Mexico museums for display putting to rest once and for all one of gaming’s longest running rumours.