Aladdin Deck Enhancer (NES)

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VideoGameCritic
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Aladdin Deck Enhancer (NES)

Postby VideoGameCritic » August 6th, 2017, 1:47 pm

I've have this thing and several games for it sitting on my shelf for about 15 years now. Finally getting around to reviewing some of them. Looking at the Aladdin box, this 64K upgrade promised to be "the future of console game play".

This thing doesn't even work in my normal NES. The Codemasters logo appears repeatedly, as if the game keeps restarting. Fortunately I have a top loader which seems to work okay.

The pack-in game is Dizzy the Adventurer. It's a combination of platforming and puzzle solving. I can't imagine Codemasters thought this Humpty-Dumpty mascot was going to sell.

None of the games I've played look any different from normal NES games.

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pacman000
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Re: Aladdin Deck Enhancer (NES)

Postby pacman000 » August 6th, 2017, 4:20 pm

By the time this was released most NES games already had extra RAM in the cartridges. This was a cost saving method for Codemasters; they didn't have to put extra RAM in every cart.

Dizzy was already a popular character...in Europe.

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ActRaiser
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Re: Aladdin Deck Enhancer (NES)

Postby ActRaiser » August 6th, 2017, 5:12 pm

Wasn't the original intent that you could "in theory" get real, full NES games for cheaper than normal? If I recall correctly the deck had all the extra chips and the cartridges only had the memory. In reality they released just about when the SNES was coming out or close enough to not make a difference.

Of course, memory is hazy from reading about this in EGM, oh, 20-25 years ago.

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pacman000
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Re: Aladdin Deck Enhancer (NES)

Postby pacman000 » August 6th, 2017, 5:38 pm

Yes, ActRaiser.

"Camerica, who made the Game Genie, now has a new gizmo in the works which will drive the people at Nintendo crazy (as usual). The gizmo, which you insert into your NES deck, contains various MMC-chips - meaning that the expensive chips no longer have to be included in every cartridge and because of this new invention, cartridge production cost can be reduced quite a bit. What Nintendo's lawyers have to say about this, we don't know. I'm sure we'll soon have more about the Aladdin, which is what Camerica calls their gizmo.


Translated from Danish to English"

From NESWorld: http://www.nesworld.com/article.php?sys ... ckenhancer

TSR also had a good article about it, if memory serves:
http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/odd/aladdin/aladdin.html

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Re: Aladdin Deck Enhancer (NES)

Postby goldenband » August 6th, 2017, 6:25 pm

Based on this page, it sounds like the Deck Enhancer games are essentially identical to their standalone cart releases, except for Dizzy which has faster character movement and more stars to collect, plus the 10-inning bug in the Quattro Sports baseball game. So it looks like you've already reviewed most of them, basically speaking...?

I haven't played the NES/Aladdin version, but I kinda liked the Genesis version of Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Crusade, i.e. Cosmic Spacehead.

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Re: Aladdin Deck Enhancer (NES)

Postby CaptainCruch » August 7th, 2017, 3:28 am

VideoGameCritic wrote:The pack-in game is Dizzy the Adventurer. It's a combination of platforming and puzzle solving. I can't imagine Codemasters thought this Humpty-Dumpty mascot was going to sell.


Well, Dizzy was one of the most popular game series on the ZX Spectrum, so I guess that's why Codemasters 'imagined' it might (also) sell on the NES...

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Re: Aladdin Deck Enhancer (NES)

Postby goldenband » August 7th, 2017, 11:35 am

goldenband wrote:So it looks like you've already reviewed most of them, basically speaking...?


To elaborate on this:

Bignose Freaks Out - already reviewed (review itself seems to suggest it's the Deck Enhancer version)
Dizzy the Adventurer - already reviewed (Deck Enhancer version)
Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy - not reviewed
Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Crusade - not reviewed
Micro Machines - already reviewed (both versions!)
Quattro Adventure - already reviewed (review itself indicates it's the Deck Enhancer version)
Quattro Sports - already reviewed (Deck Enhancer version)

So I guess it's Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy and Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Crusade that are coming up? Oddly enough there are Genesis versions of each of those, both of which I own, though Fantastic Dizzy is so huge in scope that I've never really tried to take it on.

You haven't reviewed my favorite Codemasters/Camerica game -- Firehawk, a very nice mission-based helicopter game that's like a substantially upgraded version of Raid on Bungeling Bay. I think you might enjoy this one.

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Re: Aladdin Deck Enhancer (NES)

Postby VideoGameCritic » August 8th, 2017, 9:52 am

Actually I reviewed both Dizzy games, not realizing I had already reviewed one of them. I'll probably meld the old and new versions together.

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Re: Aladdin Deck Enhancer (NES)

Postby goldenband » August 8th, 2017, 11:29 am

VideoGameCritic wrote:Actually I reviewed both Dizzy games, not realizing I had already reviewed one of them. I'll probably meld the old and new versions together.

Ah, got it! Well, it might be fun to include information about the differences between the two releases of Dizzy the Adventurer if you're up for it, as they're almost two different games (a bit like Captain Silver on the SMS).

Will you be reviewing Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Crusade with this set too?

And, while it's not a Deck Enhancer game, don't overlook Firehawk -- I really do think it's their best game for the NES.


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