The 10 Commandments of Famicom Multicarts

[pango]

10. Thou shalt have a rediculous amount of Contra edits on your multicart that bring it's number to 1200-in-1.

9. Thou shalt include a strange discoloration of Sonic the Hedgehog on your cover, yet not include anything about Sonic in the cart itself.

8. Thou shalt spend no more than 2 minutes on the label.

7. Thou shalt include on this label statements that lie about PS2 compatability.

6. Thou shalt bastardize the names of every game to a strange random phrase such as, "Small Ding Dong" or "Rapshord Gun."

5. Thou shalt spell these names wrong nonetheless.

4. Thou shalt include a very poor pornagraphic hack of Super Mario Brothers.

3. Thou shalt be sold on Ebay for over 60 USD.

2. Thou shalt hack every other game to include Pikachu and many other Pokemon.

1. Thou shalt spell "Pokemon" incorectly.

[spoon]

Thou shalt include Road Fighter.

Thou shalt have atleast two versions of Super Mario Bros.

Thou shalt make the player have to get up and reset their system to select a new game.

Thou shalt include Mario Bros. on a "Light Gun' multi.

[Dr. Morbis]

Thou shalt remove the copyright info and/or the title from most title screens.

Thou shalt purposely butcher the title of most games

Thou shalt accidentally butcher the title of all remaining games not intentionally butchered.

[Sanriostar]

Thou shalt have the following fucking games OVER and OVER and OVER: (I.E. on every cart)

Pac-Man
Galaxian
Super boy/SMB
Monkey Kong1 (DK)
Monkey Kong 2 (DK Jr.)
Monkey Kong 3 (DK3 or Mario Bros.)
Space Fortress
Macross
Battle City
Baloon Fight
Pinball
Nuts and Milk

Thou shalt never use any game that uses any other than 8 or 16 KB memory mappers.

No matter how much you want it, real SMB2 will never be on a multi you buy.

[Li Wang]

4. Thou shalt include a very poor pornagraphic hack of Super Mario Brothers.

...what?

[Jorpho]

You don't want to know. Really.

[Sotenga]

1. Thou shalt have at least one Castlevania game on there, preferably the first.

2. Thou shalt create hacks meant to damage one for life.

3. Thou shalt graphically enhance at least one game for the better.

4. Thou shalt lampoon Dubya in a humorous manner, preferable by replacing a monkey-like opponent in a game with him.

5. Thou shalt not exempt phalli from the cartridge.

6. Thou shalt hide thy cart's maker's name cleverly at one area in some game.

7. Thou shalt transform a power-up into a swastika. (Eep. Hey, I don't hack games, they do. I'm not a Nazi, dammit!)

8. Thou shalt scale down a SNES game and from its ashes, conjure up a poor NES-suited rendition.

9. Thou shalt bastardize yon backgrounds so they repeatedly flash and force seizures out of gamers.

10. Thou shalt hail Wilford Brimley. OATS.

[Raedon]

Thou shalt have fewer actual games the higher the game count goes. 32-in-1 shall have 32 games; 1,000,000-in-1 shall have 2, one being duck hunt with no gun.

[pango]

Thou shalt include many of the "master" works from the elusive Hwang Shinwei such as Wildball, Brush Roller, or that crappy 3D Tetris game

[Pantechnicon]

Had the following actual conversation this weekend with a very unsavory looking fellow whom I will refer to as "Ivan" (Eastern Euro accent, cheap cologne, Adidas sweatsuit and bling-bling) in a San Diego mall selling Famiclones in a kiosk (related topic here).

Ivan: "Ah, you have seen these before, yes? These are $49.95"

Me: "Yes. How can you have 76000 games on the machine?"

Ivan: "Well, a lot of these games are 'old school', you see."

Me: "I understand that. But you're probably still looking at nearly a gig of storage."

Ivan: "Well, some of these games are actually old Atari games."

Me (incredulous): "Oh, really? Like what?"

Ivan: "Um, Galaga! Is number 14 on menu."

Galaga, of course is the Famicom version.

Me: "This is the famicom version of Galaga. Atari only made one port of Galaga for the 7800 and this isn't it. In any case, I know for a fact that Galaga is still copyrighted by Namco, and that the famicom chipset this device is using still the intellectual property of Nintendo, which brings me to ask how you're getting away with selling these in the U.S."

Ivan (changing the subject): "Uh, you have seen him at a better price? No!"

Me: "Yes. QVC sells the Power Joy II for $30.00. It doesn't have as many games (and by the way, Ivan, there is no freaking way this thing has 76000 games on it), but it does have a cartridge port as well as an integrated light gun. Besides, I had a Super Joy III like this and the motherboard melted as soon as I plugged it in."

Ivan: "Ah, but I give you warranty."

Me (thinking): Sure. And I'll bet you $76000 that the day after Christmas your customers with warranty issues will never see you again because you'll be back in Trans-Baikal by that point.

Me: "Well, I'm just saying that the Power Joy is better built and cheaper. And you still haven't answered my question about legality. Not like I personally care, mind you, but don't you worry that Nintendo will come sue your butt off for selling these?"

Ivan (exasperated): "Okay, smart boy. How many you want, hm? You buy more than one and I give you deal, yes?"

Me: "I'll think about it, Ivan."

Made for an amusing afternoon.

[Jorpho]

My entry for last year's "humorous game review" contest:

The other day in Chinatown,
I met this guy named Li.
He had a strange Famicom cart
For which he wanted a buck or three.
I'd never seen quite the like before,
Just heard a word or two of lore.
No way that it came from N-O-A,
But the price was really cheap
And so the money I did pay!

I blew up old Excitebike carts;
an adapter I did find. (Mwa ha ha!)
And when I got the cart plugged in,
The choices on my screen shined. (Ha ha ha!)
There were all these cheap old favorites
From way back in the days of yore (Ha ha ha!)
Alongside Pac and Ice Climber,
Some I'd never heard of before.

Game hack roll call:
Tekken (What the?)
Kong Country (Nuh-unh)
Street Fighter (Oh please...)
Broooos! (That ain't right)

If you're wondering what other games it has,
Or if there are other hacks (La La La)
Well, it's got SMB two thousand times.
Variety's something it lacks.

It's ASIAN PIRATE MULTICART THREE THOUSUND! (Twaaang!)