Retro Game Modding
Perhaps it's time for a "real" post for a change. I've been working a lot lately on my retro gaming shit. Figured I should document it. I have a long list of consoles to do various updates to, and other things to do. But first the coolest one...
I dumped my Trog NES prototype.
It is in fact a prototype and has never been dumped. I went ahead and did a diff on the files and noticed only a small portion of the game was different. Looking in a hex editor I assumed it was some sprites (since the hex wasn't random). Pulled it up in a sprite viewer and it did look like sprite tiles. I thought it might have said "Win!", which I figured would have meant maybe the ending wasn't completed. I looked up the ending on Youtube and saw it said "WOW!" so I thought for sure that was it.
I played through my prototype and beat it and it is indeed the difference. The "WOW!" in the release version grows in size and animates, and on my version most of the animation save for the first frame is missing. That's it, that's the only difference!
I plan to release these roms (both iNES and MAME version) along with documentation on it (with videos of the ending difference) on my website soon.
Here's quick list of a bunch of other things I did recently:
One my SNES's center plastic pin on the power input broke off (I guess this is a common problem with plastic getting brittle). I ordered a new plastic piece and soldered it in. Looks good as new.
I got all my Everdrives from the Ukraine. They are all loaded up with ROMs and ready to play. So now I can basically play every game on the original console for NES, N64, Genesis, Gameboy/Gameboy Color, SNES, Master System, Game Gear and Turbo-Grafx.
Another thing I got from Ukraine was a Famicom to NES converter. I have a 52-in-1 pirate Famicom cart that I wanted to play on my NES. I bought a cheap NES Golf game and had to hack the cartridge a bit to get it to fit in, but it works!
The latest thing I did the other night was RGB mod my Nintend 64. Someone built a little board you can solder on to the N64. It really only works if you have a very early N64 model, and thankfully I bought it when it came out so the mod was easy. Still, the wires are tiny and I'm not the greatest at soldering yet. But the picture looks awesome!
Speaking of awesome RGB, now that I have several system hooked up to my RGB monitor, I could never go back. It just looks so good, especially on retro content.
I have a bunch more stuff to work on with my old systems, but I'll post more when I get more done!
I dumped my Trog NES prototype.
It is in fact a prototype and has never been dumped. I went ahead and did a diff on the files and noticed only a small portion of the game was different. Looking in a hex editor I assumed it was some sprites (since the hex wasn't random). Pulled it up in a sprite viewer and it did look like sprite tiles. I thought it might have said "Win!", which I figured would have meant maybe the ending wasn't completed. I looked up the ending on Youtube and saw it said "WOW!" so I thought for sure that was it.
I played through my prototype and beat it and it is indeed the difference. The "WOW!" in the release version grows in size and animates, and on my version most of the animation save for the first frame is missing. That's it, that's the only difference!
I plan to release these roms (both iNES and MAME version) along with documentation on it (with videos of the ending difference) on my website soon.
Here's quick list of a bunch of other things I did recently:
One my SNES's center plastic pin on the power input broke off (I guess this is a common problem with plastic getting brittle). I ordered a new plastic piece and soldered it in. Looks good as new.
I got all my Everdrives from the Ukraine. They are all loaded up with ROMs and ready to play. So now I can basically play every game on the original console for NES, N64, Genesis, Gameboy/Gameboy Color, SNES, Master System, Game Gear and Turbo-Grafx.
Another thing I got from Ukraine was a Famicom to NES converter. I have a 52-in-1 pirate Famicom cart that I wanted to play on my NES. I bought a cheap NES Golf game and had to hack the cartridge a bit to get it to fit in, but it works!
The latest thing I did the other night was RGB mod my Nintend 64. Someone built a little board you can solder on to the N64. It really only works if you have a very early N64 model, and thankfully I bought it when it came out so the mod was easy. Still, the wires are tiny and I'm not the greatest at soldering yet. But the picture looks awesome!
Speaking of awesome RGB, now that I have several system hooked up to my RGB monitor, I could never go back. It just looks so good, especially on retro content.
I have a bunch more stuff to work on with my old systems, but I'll post more when I get more done!