The Warp Zone - Unlock The NES Inside Of You

Adapters? Why would you have a whole section on adapters? Strange. Very strange. Let me explain. It started way back when I went to my local game store and I found 2 weird Famicom games for the Nintendo system. I bought them both and I immediatly went home to play them and "gasp" they didn't work in my control deck.

Whats a panick stricken Nintendo gamer supposed to do? I went straight to TSR's NES Archives in search of an answer. I searched and searched and finally I found it, a section on Famicom adapters in NES carts. I looked it over twice or so, and I finally decided to look through my carts for Famicom adapters, yes this must be the way to go.

I look through my collection to find out that all of the carts have those security screws thus I couldn't open any up to take an adapter out. I go to Funcoland and I buy myself a copy of Hogans Alley. It was one of the games listed to have adapters in it, wasn't it?

I get the game home and finally manage to get it opened. All of this work for?!?! NOTHING!!!. Absolutly nothing! There goes five bucks down the drain along with a Hogans Alley cart. A few weeks later I stop over at Funcoland again. The employee asks me what I want and I ask him if I can look at several Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt carts. Not sure why I did this for SMB/DH wasn't supposed to have an adapter inside of it. Anyways, the guy asks why and I explain that you can tell a difference between carts with adapters and ones with out adapters by their slightly different weights. The employee then grabs a stack and sticks one in each hand and he starts balancing them up and down to see if one weighs more than another. He claims they all weigh the same so I leave. Several months until I get to the mall.

I finally go the mall and I stop in at Babbages, they sometimes have a few used NES games. I see a Gyromite cart so I grab it and then I try to see if it weighed more than any other cart. It seemed to weigh more, but could it be my imagination? I decide I'll risk it just incase.

I get home and this cart does have a Famicom adapter in it, to my amazement. The point is after my Famicom adapter experience I started getting interested in Famicom adapters so here they are.

I never said this section would be just for Famicom adapters did I? I had you guys going there for a second with that big explanation about Famicom adapters and such. Well anyway here we have an adapter for Australian gamers, this doohickey is known as a HES Dongle. You plug this into your HES cart and it lets you play your HES games on your Nintendo system. Neat isn't it? Just wait til you see whats next.

Here we go with the Famicom Adapters. The famicom adapter pictures to the left looks alot like one that Nintendo patented only the one they patented never came out. I would have to suspect that this adapter was made over in Asia somewhere yet I do not know for sure. The text looks like it was taken from the stickers on the back of licensed Nintendo games. Strange. There is also a small round sticker in the lower corner with the words "This Side Up" written on it. And did I mention that there is a tab thing to pull it out of your system (not in picture)?

The converter at the right is named Game Converter. What an appropriate name for a game converter! It has a generic looking label; the adapter looks generic in general. I guess it works just as good as any other converter though others look nicer in looks. picture of the back can be viewed here.

Spica is a well known company which produces a large amount of unlicensed games, similar to the works of Supervision. Apparently Spica produced a Famicom adapter too, known as Spica T89. T89 sounds like it would be the name of a calculator...seems as if Spica copied that idea too.

The Honey Bee adapter is the Famicom adapter of choice in the NES community. This paticular edition has a nice gold casing. The adapter has the words "Honey Bee" written on it thus its name. I am really not sure what makes the Famicom community like these things better than any of the other adapters, they all work the same.

The last adapter included in this section is the type of adapter I use. These are found in Hogans Alley, Gyromite, and other old carts. These babies work just as well as any other adapter and they are in carts that are slightly heavier. Finding these adapters are quite hard though. If you wonder why then read the top portion of this page. Also note that I WILL NOT be responsible for you buying a cart that should contain an adapter but doesn't. I.E. My Hogans Alley Experience

Well guys, that pretty much wraps it up for adapters. I could include the Game Genie and Action Replay if I wanted, but I decided to place them somewhere else where they fit in better. I hope your Famicom adapter experience turns out to be better than mine. Now go out and buy some import games!