Ze_ro Posted October 20, 2002 Share Posted October 20, 2002 A friend of mine recently told me about this gizmo, and showed it to me at Electronics Boutique, and I have to say that it looks pretty awesome! I love the idea of getting older games on cards for a couple of bucks, and being able to play them on the road. I don't have a Gameboy Advance yet, but I was thinking that this could be the thing that puts me over the edge and convinces me to get one. Unfortunately, after looking through some information, I'm a little more skeptical... Two of the main reasons this thing came out are Pokemon cards and Animal Crossing. I don't ever plan on getting either (Lets think about this for a minute... To use Animal Crossing cards, you'd need: A GameCube, A Gameboy Advance, A cable to connect them, A copy of Animal Crossing, The e-Reader, and the cards themselves. Sweet Zombie Jesus that would be expensive). So, chances are that the amount of neat classic games would stay at around one third of the cards released, which isn't promising [*]I initially thought this thing worked on magnetic swipe cards, but now I find out it uses some form of barcode... which means the cards are flimsy paper. It would be quite nifty to have magnetic cards that you could actually load stuff on to, but I guess that won't be happening. How secure are these barcodes anyways? Is there anything stopping someone from using a photocopy? Or do I have this whole barcode thing wrong? [*]The games that exist apparently requre 5 cards, and even if Super Mario Bros was made for this thing, you'd have to sit there and swipe like, 10 cards or something... that's kind of lame... [*]At the moment, Nintendo is the only one making these cards... so the chances of seeing stuff like Pac-man, Defender or Asteroids seems slim for the time being... if these were to come out, I'd probably overlook the rest of my points. So, has anyone got one of these things yet? Are they worth it for someone who wouldn't use it for Pokemon or Animal Crossing? Another thing about this machine that seems neat to me is that since the cards are cheap, I was thinking it might be fairly easy to actually program this thing. I don't know anything about it's internals, but if I could avoid having to burn EPROMS or CD's, and instead just print off some barcode with my printer, this could lead to an interesting homebrew community. Considering the size and cheapness of the games, I can't imagine there's a lot of security involved in the cards, is there? --Zero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krisjohn Posted October 21, 2002 Share Posted October 21, 2002 http://www.nintendo-e-reader.com/ The only reason I don't have one of these is that it's not out here in Australia yet. Currently it does look there there are three main sets of games for it: * Animal Crossing (?!?) * Pokemon-e (hooked in with the trading card game) * NES titles. Quite frankly, I'm happy with just the last two. I don't intend to buy the Pokemon card game to actually play the card game, but I don't mind collecting all the swipe-able cards. And heck, I've got a NES, but that doesn't mean that this isn't a cool way to collect the classics all over again. Addressing your other points: Yes, they're just printed on card, but I don't know if they'll photocopy (might use UV ink or something). Yes, you have to swipe 5 or more cards through for some games, but it will remember the last game you loaded, so that's good news. Now I wish it'd just show up here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liveinabin Posted October 21, 2002 Share Posted October 21, 2002 I have a GC, GBA, link cable and a copy of Animal Crossing - I'm SO up for one of those!! Mind, I couldn't recommend getting all that stuff just to be able to use more e-cards (though I DO recommend Animal Crossing - wonderful game) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeftrevino Posted October 21, 2002 Share Posted October 21, 2002 I've done a test on those flimsy cards. yeah they're exactly like the basball cards so prone to fraying and bending. I bent one of the pokemon cards once and it worked. I then bent it twice more and it still worked. with the other pokemon card i decided to mark up the scan bar. using a fine tip marker i put a dot somwhere on the bar and scanned it. the bar worked until I had 6 decent dots on the bar. so the chances of messing up a card is really low. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariX Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 I have the GBA e-reader with all the games and find it a fun add-on for my GBA. Zero, I'm like you, I only want it for the games and could care less about the Animal Crossing and Pokemon stuff. Donkey Kong Jr, Pinball, Excitebike, Balloon Fight(Joust rip-off, but fun) and NES Tennis are the games available now. Donkey Kong, Mario Bros, Ice Climber, Urban Champion and NES Baseball are going to be released this year in the fourth quarter. The games are $4.99, but I have seen them on sale for $3.99. The e-Reader also comes with a game & watch game, Manhole. Nintendo has said that there will be more game & watch releases for the e-Reader, but have yet to confirm any titles. The g&w games are supposed to retail for $1.99. The cards are of nice quality and the instructions for the games are on the back of the cards, which is cool. I store my cards in plastic sheets, in a 3-ring binder, just like sports cards. Hopefully there will be 3rd party cards in the future. Classics from Midway, Sega, Atari and Williams would be cool. Maybe Midway could do some unlicensed NES cards under the Tengen label. I want Tengen Tetris! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdstuff64 Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 I have the e-reader and all the games for it too.I think it is cool,but just not worth the $45 or $40 price tag.Sure,it is a cool idea but only four games out for it?I mean,come on!And scanning cards sucks too.Whatever,maybe it will get better.Only time will tell... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubersaurus Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 Well you know, more cards ARE coming out. 5 cards for one game is something I'll live with for a 5 buck NES game I can take on the road. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdstuff64 Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 Well you know, more cards ARE coming out. 5 cards for one game is something I'll live with for a 5 buck NES game I can take on the road. Yea,good point.I just hope more games come out fast!And good ones too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikau Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 more games are coming, just not for awhile. ice climber will be one of them. the AC card set comes out soon too. i might try to collect the whole set... but remember, the original purpose of the e-reader wasnt the nes games, it was the card communcation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdstuff64 Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 but remember, the original purpose of the e-reader wasnt the nes games, it was the card communcation. Well damn,and it sure has done alot.Oh and by the way,are you too good for the use of capital letters and such?Just wondering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikau Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 theres plenty of stuff to do on the ereader, if you like pokemon... and im sorry if my english skills arent up to your standards... capital letters take too long Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ze_ro Posted October 23, 2002 Author Share Posted October 23, 2002 Well, it sounds cool, but I'm still skeptical. Plus, the things are $70 CDN around here, which is a bit much. Maybe they'll come down in price... One more question though... I looked at the back of a package of cards for one of the games, and the games looked like they were running in an absurdly low resolution. I didn't notice this mentioned anywhere, so I have to ask... are they actually that bad? Or are they just crappy screenshots? Seems odd that they would use WORSE screenshots than in reality... --Zero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariX Posted October 23, 2002 Share Posted October 23, 2002 LOL, I don't know what is up with those crappy screen shots on the game packs. The games look just like the NES version that you remember as a kid. I remember walking out of the store with my e-reader and a few games and then I looked at the back of the game packaging in my car and I was like, WTF, I've been ripped off! I was relieved when the games looked 10X better than the pics on the game packaging. Nintendo needs to fix that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikau Posted October 23, 2002 Share Posted October 23, 2002 resolution is a bit of a problem, since the GBA has a "wide screen". A few lines of pixels are taken out (usualy from the bottom), and letters and numbers appear a bit squished. but overall, playing games on the e-reader kicks ass. the whole thing is sweet, except for scanning cards! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SmileyDude Posted October 23, 2002 Share Posted October 23, 2002 Actually, the resoulution issue is taken care of by the emulator quickly swapping lines for display every frame... because the screen is a LCD, it slightly blurs together, making the display look a little better, even though it techincally can't show more than 160 lines at one time. Also, the swapping isn't as complicated as it seems -- the GBA has built in scalling hardware, so they just have to adjust the scalling registers every frame to get this effect working. I've played with this myself for a few of my projects, and it works fine on real hardware. On the emulators, it tends to look bad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdstuff64 Posted October 23, 2002 Share Posted October 23, 2002 theres plenty of stuff to do on the ereader, if you like pokemon... and im sorry if my english skills arent up to your standards... capital letters take too long No I don't like crapemon and no it doesn't take to long. I wish they did a thing like they did for the SNES or NES in Japan,you buy a blank cart for like $5 and then go to stores and get a game on it for like a buck or two.And you can keep overwriting games and such.That would be so cool and so much better.Oh well... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liveinabin Posted October 26, 2002 Share Posted October 26, 2002 Yeah, that was the Famicom disk system. Oddly enough, several disk system games are to be made available to the west for the first time ever as GBA downloads in Animal Crossing! I hear the disk system version of Zelda is one of them:) The Pokemon thing was what first attracted me to the e-card reader, but after seeing footage of Ruby and Sapphire, I think I'll pass, looks like Pokemon has had it's day. A brilliant concept, but - it seems- a short lived one. Hmm. those animal crossing cards only unlock data that already exists in the main AC game, it seems we're heading back to the days of the Magnavox Oddysey - non programmable 'key-cards' instead of new data Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ze_ro Posted October 26, 2002 Author Share Posted October 26, 2002 It's a nifty idea to have add-ons from the cards, but I can't say I'm too excited about the Animal Crossing stuff for this... if they wanted people to buy cards for Animal Crossing, then they should have made a damn card reader for the GameCube! I guess if you already have all the stuff anyways, it's not so bad though. As for Pokemon, I've played it before, and it's actually not that bad a game... it's just all the annoying kiddiness and corporate exploitation of it that annoys me. Especially with the stupid Yellow, Red, and Blue versions... why on earth would I want all three? Pokemon Snap? Hey You Pikachu? What were they thinking? I'm still surprised they never made a real Pokemon game for the N64 (that is, an RPG)... it would have been a major system seller. Hopefully they'll realize their mistake and make a GameCube version (Not that I would be in line to buy it, but it would be a good move for Nintendo) --Zero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdstuff64 Posted October 26, 2002 Share Posted October 26, 2002 Well here is my final say on the e-reader: Sure,the idea is cool.But why play NES games on GBA when I can play them on my tv?And I really don't travel too much eithrt and even then I would have a "real" GBA game to play.And even though the NES was a good system,most of the games on it were only so-so;and the fact that they can't,or have yet to,put 3rd party games on it is a con too. I still bought it,and it is OK.I guess it will be worth it for the Animal Crossing cards... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.