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Russian Pirate Famicom
I just completed the purchase of this sweet game system. A complete Dendy Junior in original packaging. It’s a game console clone of the Nintendo Entertainment System. The NES (or Famicon, depending on region) never got released in the former USSR and the taiwanese jumped on that market by gifting the Dendy to the world. (wikipedia entry on Dendy)
The console I ordered already contains 104 preinstalled games and I really hope that one of the famous Mario clones is included. The Dendy was not only a hadware clone, many uhm game developers created weird games, like “Super Mario Bros 11″ or “Kickmaster”, which were all basically sprite swap games with tiny modifications.
Super Mario doing rolling attacks in Green Hill Zone? Yeah! Mario and Luigi saving the world as Chip’nDale? Fuck Yeah!
Once the package arrives I will do some proper unboxing and share the most outrageous content with you.
Oh and BTW, if you want one yourself the is still ONE left in this ebay shop here.
This post is drunk elephant approved.
oh my god, when i was a kid i had one of those – it was an earlier model than this one, mine was plain gray plastic with colorless gamepads. It was sold with a single 4-in-1 game cartridge and I was one of the first kids in my town to get it (my dad bought it on a business trip to Moscow). Later there were tons of games sold for it, often cartridges were called “1000-in-1″ or even “5000-in-1″, in truth it was a few games (such as Donkey Kong and others) disassembled so you could access their levels separately, and those leves were each called a separate “game”.
and if you think that Mario playing as Sonic is hot, get this: there were Lion King and Alladin from Sega Genesis ported to Dendy, 16bit to 8bit conversion did not scare its authors off to the extent that Simba was left purple. AND there was Lion King 2 made by some unnamed Chinese guys, it was actually a new game where the Lion King HAD TO BEAT NAZI!
Some trivia: there were TV ad spots running for Dendy on federal channels for over a year. Search on Youtube reveals some:
http://goo.gl/aB6go
Also there was this whole media culture formed around Dendy, GameBoy and Sega MegaDrive/Genesis which reached us a few years later. There was a weekly tv show on Channel 1 called “New Reality” (Новая реальность) where a well-known anchor (and director of Children’s programme division) reviewed games for half an hour, and they would show gameplay videos, and answered questions mailed to them about how to beat a certain game.
There were booklets and whole books in pocket format, full of descriptions (usually short and way off the truth), cheats and walkthroughs for different games. There were even regularly printed journals, but I lived in a small town and only heard of those.
Also, a curious note is that there were no RPGs on Dendy. None whatsoever. They just didn’t make it to USSR.
There was Prince of Persia, though.
I had a big wicker basket full of cartridges in bright orange plastic, about 120 I think. Oh, the happy days…
List of preinstalled games Dendy Junior:
1942
adventure island 2
adventure island 3
alladin 2
metro crose
arabian
arkanoid
ballon fight
batman
batman 3
battle city
bomber man
bonks adventure
bubble bobble part 2
bucky o hare
circus charlie
contra
cross fire
dead fox
dig dug
digdugii
donkey kong
dorae bomb
dough boy
super sprint
dragons lair
dragon spirit
dream master
dr. mario
duck hunt
eigo asoli
elevator action
exed exes
exerion
flappy
galaga
galaxian
galag
geimos
gyrodine
hockey
hogans alley
hunt for red october
hydlide
ice climber
igo meikan
igo shinan
ikki
jewelri
joe mac
joust
jungle book
juuouki
lode runner
long jump
lot lot
lyxl
sqoon
macross
magmax
mappy
metal storm
muscle
night arrow
nightshade
ninja gaiden 2
pac man
pac pacland
pinball
pooyan
popeye
deflower
road fighter
robocop
rocman
route16 turbo
rumbee ard frenzy
seicross
shadow of the ninja
side pocket
sky destroyer
slalom
snon bros
soccer
star trek
son son
spartam x
western kids
star gate
super aladdin
super contra
super mario bros
taito basket ball
tiny toon adventures
tennis
tetris
tom and jerry 3
toy story
urban champion
warpman
wolverine
wrestle
yie ar kung fu
zippy race
With love from Russia!
Oh WOW! Thanks a lot. I was googling my ass off for this. That is super helpful thanks. :D
I had this one!
Buying games for it was a challenge itself. You could buy a cartridge because of Terminator, Rambo and Star Wars on the cover (I mean, at the same time), but still get Super Contra.
So you can shoot people on motorcycles ? :P
Ah, 101 preinstalled games is quite a bunch
Too bad that your IndieGogo campaign didnt work out, that Kickstarter limitation on UK and USA
is really awful, my team wants to start a campaign aswell in a couple of months, but IndieGogo
seems to be the only option (+ the other small funding sites) and it just doesn’t gather a lot of attention..
Grüsse vom Basissemester 1 ;)