Aladdin Deck Enhancer for the NES

Postby **VideoGameCritic** » October 27th, 2009, 8:35 pm

A few years back a friend sold me an Aladdin Deck Enhancer for the NES, along with a few games. I'm finally getting around to reviewing these. The enhancer is a black piece of plastic that special, small Aladdin cartridges fit into. The thing is supposed to expand the console memory to 64k, allowing for "better graphics, bigger gameplay".

I was recently reviewing Micro Machines for the NES - a great game. Then I tried the Aladdin version. My friend Chris and I agreed that the Aladdin version was better, but we couldn't quite figure out why. The game was basically the same, but the graphics seemed just a little bit cleaner.

Can anyone shed some light on this mysterious device? According to the box, it's "the future in console gameplay". Who knew?

Adamant1 · Postby **Adamant1** » November 9th, 2009, 5:45 pm

The device does essentially what it says on the box. The Aladdin is essentially an extra cartridge port that contains an extra memory and graphic chip, which allows for more advanced games than could otherwise be done for the normal NES system. Being an unlicensed device, it didn't get a lot of support - only 7 Aladdin carts were ever released.

ActRaiser1 · Postby **ActRaiser1** » November 9th, 2009, 5:58 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_Deck_Enhancer

I actually remember this being mentioned in EGM. The thought process was that you'd be able to save money by having the chips that are re-used in every game part of the deck. The actual games would just be the eproms themselves without the extra lock-out chips. This great idea came out too late for anyone to notice as everyone moved on to the SNES.

Had they come out with something like this for the SNES it might have caught on. Heck I'd have purchased one to avoid $60 SNES games.