Litter Box

Do you own an NES? Do you love your NES? Are you all about those 8-bits? That 6502 processor? That majestic grey slab? It’s hard not to. Just look at all those great games. From Super Mario Bros., to Castlevania, to Mega Man, to Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition, it was a library packed with bright stars and hidden gems. Maybe you’ve played them all. Maybe you’re thinking that the system just doesn’t have anything more to offer. What if I told you there was a whole different world of NES games that you may have never even heard of or considered? Such a place exists. It’s called Japan and they kept a lot of good stuff to themselves. Only their console of choice was a bit different, it was called the Famicom and it only differed in small ways from our familiar NES. The main differences merely come down to form factor. The Famicom looks entirely different from the NES to the point where you wouldn’t recognize the two are basically the same system. The Famicom has a toy-like appearance, with a brighter red and beige colour scheme and a prominent eject button. The controllers are hard-wired in and their cords are ridiculously short, better accommodating a Japanese living room. In terms of technology, the Famicom is practically identical to the NES with some minor differences. The one change that prevents you from sticking a Famicom cartridge into your NES (without an adapter) is the addition of the 10NES lockout chip, which Nintendo used to prevent developers from releasing games on their own cartridges. The result is the NES cartridge uses a 72-pin connector, whereas the Famicom only has 60 pins. So why not just use an adapter to play all your Famicom games on an NES? You can do that, but there’s a few differences to be aware of. The Famicom includes a microphone on the second player controller. While the technology is too limited to really do much with it, it is utilized in such games as The Legend of Zelda and Ganbare Goemon. Most prominently, it’s usage is found in Takeshi no Chousenjou in a puzzle where you must sing karaoke. However, you probably don’t want to play that particular game, as it was designed specifically to make players miserable. Then, of course, there’s the Famicom Disk System, an add-on that allows you to play various games off specialized floppy disks. This little corner of the Japanese library never received a comparable attachment in the west, but some of its more prominent games, including Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, and Metroid, all found their way to their own grey slabs of plastic. One sacrifice that had to be made in porting them, however, is that they lose access to one special feature; an additional sound channel. A casualty in the switch to a 72-pin format, this extra sound channel allowed for more depth to be added to soundtracks like Metroid’s. Konami, in particular, would also release custom cartridges with added sound chips that again added extra sound channels. The most prominent example of this is the Japanese version of Castlevania 3, Akumajou Densetsu. Those may seem like minor differences that can easily be overlooked, and really, they are. However, there’s still the matter of the games that didn’t cross the pond to North America. As part of their licensing deal, Nintendo of America limited publishers to only 5 releases a year. This meant prominent publishers like Konami withheld such titles as Getsu Fuuma Den and the Ganbare Goemon series in favour of licensed games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There are a lot of games that remained locked in their country of origin that are entirely worth playing, even for monolingual gamers. You can even find games by Nintendo themselves like Famicom Grand Prix II: 3D Hot Rally and Joy Mecha Fight never crossed the pond. Personal favourites like Crisis Force and Challenger, are somewhat unheard of over here, but are completely worth playing. So maybe check out a Famicom when you have the chance, and if you already have, are there any games that you consider your favourite?

Couch Cushion Roots I picked up my first controller when I was 7. I spent many afternoons at my babysitter’s; she had two teenage sons, and naturally, they owned an Xbox. I spent hours gaming beside them on the couch, getting my ass kicked over and over. I’d never had more fun. Many of my best memories from childhood consisted of playing Halo (2001) on co-op with a couple of friends, slaughtering the Covenant—or each other—late into the night. Those experiences where what got me into gaming. Next thing I knew, I was playing Animal Crossing: Wild World (2005) on the bus before school. It was a 40-minute ride, which gave me and my friends just enough time to show off whatever new improvement to our houses we’d just gotten, and perhaps vandalize one another’s gardens. Local multiplayer has been around ever since video games were introduced into living rooms across America. Pong (1975) is arguably one of the first and most renowned introductions of multiplayer for players; it was multiplayer-only, easy to understand, and non-committal, making it incredibly easy to pick up for just about anyone. From there, local multiplayer began to blossom; couch co-op came to define much of the 1980s and 1990s for gaming, with just about every console supporting local multiplayer. It was common to have numerous sets of controllers, and you would have to bring them along if you were going to visit a friend --heaven forbid one of their controllers ends up busted. This trend continued into the 2000s with the Xbox, PS2, and Gamecube. The mid-2000s also saw the proliferation of the wireless controller, making couch co-op even more fun and convenient. However, a contender emerged in the 21st century that would prove to be an undeniable threat to couch co-op and the greatest shift in gaming multiplayer since its nascence. The Rise of Online Multiplayer Xbox Live was released in 2002 on the original Xbox. It wasn’t the first attempt at bringing the World Wide Web to gaming consoles, but where the Dreamcast failed, Xbox Live soared. In two years, it managed to acquire one million users strong. Nintendo and Sony followed suit, with the Nintendo Wifi Connection Service and PlayStation Network, respectively; the latter is still around. Couch co-ops and LAN parties suddenly weren’t necessary; all you needed was a broadband connection, a headset, and a console, and you could have a night of gaming with the boys, even if they were continents away. You no longer needed to walk or drive to a friend’s place and be forced to use their crappy second controller with the missing B-button. And if that wasn’t awesome enough, you could also play with anyone - you no longer needed a friend to play with. Matchmaking let you duke it out and play with anyone around the world, while MMO’s like World of Warcraft (2004) allowed you to join an entire community of players from the convenience of your own home. Guilds, raids, and entire economies were accessible in a virtual fantasy world. In short, the magic of the online multiplayer was on full display. However, it also contributed to a significant disconnect. Those with whom you had once gamed were replaced with an anonymous crowd spanning the globe. They did not have a name or a face; at best, a vague username gave you an idea of who they were. There is only so much you can glean from someone named “catsbecauseyeah” on the internet. That anonymity—combined with the competition of many multiplayer games—has led to a problem: toxicity. Flaming, Raging, and Toxifying Online titans like League of Legends (2009) and CS:GO (2012) suffer this issue. Abusive and toxic behavior has swelled like pustules on the skin of otherwise pristine gaming experience. It’s expected to trash talk a bit with friends when playing together, but wishing death upon their families is a bit much. With more players flocking to competitive online gaming, the stakes have risen for them to play the best they can. In League of Legends or Overwatch (2016), your performance is reliant upon other nameless, faceless players with whom you have no other relationship with besides this strange, enforced codependency. Expecting strangers who have never met (and most likely will never meet) to work together is a tall order. Of course, it’s not impossible. The success of the aforementioned titles is a testament to that. But the evolution of multiplayer onto the online sphere has led to this progressive trap. Camaraderie is on the decline. Return to the Sofa? There is an undeniable intimacy in gaming beside a friend—or a foe. Online multiplayer has grown to be more and more dominant in modern gaming, so these experiences are growing rarer and rarer with each wave of titles. Who could pass up a classic LAN party with the lads? Or a round of Mario Kart (1992). Even in college, I find people would much rather play Overwatch sitting beside one another, rather than from their respective dorm rooms. Seeing the frustration on your friends’ faces in a rousing match of Super Smash Bros (2014) only makes the competition that much more juicy and personal - perfect for dorm feuds. Of course, I’m not a giant fan of everything about local multiplayer. I won’t necessarily argue for split-screen; I was never a big fan of being confined to half of the TV screen, and we all had that friend who’d “accidentally” glance at your half of the screen. But the days of Pictochat and LAN parties left behind an undeniable nostalgia for a good reason: they were effective. 343 Industries’ announcement that local multiplayer would make a return in upcoming Halo games was met with incredibly positive reception from fans. Pokemon Go (2016) is another title that found incredible success with local multiplayer, which turned out to be groundbreaking with its efficacy on mobile smartphones. It was a sweeping phenomenon that dominated 2016, encouraging players to meet up in real locations, support their respective teams, and catch Pokemon and hatch eggs together. The gaming industry would benefit from recreating these intimate experiences. Nintendo was praised for its announcement of the offbeat and DIY Nintendo Labo, which will without a doubt bring out the inner kid of many adults. With concerns over online toxicity, a relaxed and friendly approach to gaming like that of Nintendo’s is a breath of fresh air. Victory, defeat, and everything in between—these things constitute gaming. Win-states and loss-states elicit emotion, and those emotions are amplified when shared with another. Whether the gaming industry will set its sights back on local multiplayer is a mystery, but at least there’s hope.