Truly I am the court jester of article titling.

I said I had more of these. Ignore the 8-tracks, they won’t be going anywhere because they’re not mine. When the other cabinet from last week was too full, I stuck a few things in here, but now that I have some room I can put them all together. This required me to take the LaserScope out, but once I review it, I’m going to sell it off anyway (you’ll see why when I get to it) so I can stuff it in an unused corner for now.

So what are we pulling out of there?

When you think of the Nintendo Entertainment System’s controllers, you think of a square box thing. Near the end of the NES’s run, around the same time they introduced the top-load console, they redesigned the controller to be more ergonomic. Although I had the regular front-load controller and the square controllers, this was an improvement so I was glad they were also released separately. I still have the old ones for spares or if I play with someone else. I don’t get to play very often.

The original controller and Zapper are currently in a different spot, but as the clutter cleaning continues I plan to put them with the other video game stuff. Come to think of it, I think that’s where I put my game manuals, too. I know what next week’s project is going to be. 🙂 (For those of you coming for reviews, they’ll be coming soon enough.)

These are peripherals for the CD-i, an attempt by Philips to create a video game system. There’s a history that I’ll get to in a future report. The Game pad came during the tail end of the system and while I would have rather gotten the game controller design they made beforehand (which resembled the NES controller above), this did fit well in my hand.

The other item is the I/O port splitter, which allowed you to hook up a second controller or the “Peacekeeper” light gun (which I also own and will review in good time) because for some odd reason none of the CD-i models I’ve ever seen had a second controller port. This gives you a partial idea of why the system failed…there were multiple models but nobody was treating it as a game system.

The Game Genie is a blessing to those of us who suck at video games, but love playing them and want to get to the end of the game. Attach it to the end of the cartridge (or “game pack” as the NES cartridges were called) and input codes to change how the game played. Certain codes allow you to cheat, changing the rules to make the game easier to play. Hardcore gamers, hate this, thinking that by using it you’re not being fair or honest or something like that. “You’re making it too easy.” They forget that there are also codes that can make a game harder, and some that just changed colors, enlarged sprites, and other silly things.

The version I have is, of course, for the NES, but Galoob had also made one for the Sega Genesis system. Once the video game industry made the switch from game cartridges to CD’s however, the Game Genie went away. There was a disk-based counterpart called Gameshark that would work for CD-gaming systems, but I don’t know how it worked or what became of it.

There are a few other things as well. Some games saved using a password system, so I have a notebook for that, and a steno book that I used to keep my high scores in. I’ll have to revisit that. The other is a desk encyclopedia that came with my NES version of Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego, the only time I know of the PC game franchise making a move into the console market. Now that I’ll be putting them in the same spot I may keep the game in the box. If I keep the game.

There could probably bit a bit more organizing, and once I’ve gone through the games and made some space, I will do just that. For now, however, I can at least find my games and controllers to being going through them and reducing my overload. I also have games for the CD-i, the Game Boy Advance, and PC that I will review in the future. One more bit of organizing to do, to find the rest of my gaming gear and that process can begin.

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