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The
COLOR
GAME AXE
WARNING!! This Page contains a lot of images! But hopefully,
that is what you were looking for, so it may take a while to load.
A website for
those who are considering buying a Game Axe, or who already own one. Or for the
collector who wants to be well versed in Asian import video game consoles.
A Gameboy Color shown next to the Game Axe to show size.
Many thanks to the people who found my site useful, and who sent
me the great emails. Also, thanks to Lin Wen Ping, Ivan Chen, and their team at
Legend Technologies (Redant) in Taiwan.
Greetings, fellow Nintendo fans. Have you ever dreamed of
playing NES games in the palm of your hand? Didn’t it seem logical that the NES
had great potential to be a handheld? This is a page for those who are
considering buying one of these incredible machines that I feel proud and
privileged to own. Most people who own and sell the Game Axe units know little
of what is “under the hood” and who makes it. This is a website that is the
result of my exhaustive research about the Game Axe.
WHAT IS THE GAME AXE?
The Game Axe is a fully-functional, unlicensed, portable Nintendo
Famicom clone by Legend Technologies LTD. It offers complete portable gameplay
for 8-bit NES and Famicom cartridges. It is the second portable famicom ever
made, and the only one still in production. The Game Axe functions as a
portable, and as a home console. The Game Axe is a complete portable gaming
solution for gamers who enjoy their classics on the Nintendo Entertainment
System.
Let’s go back in time
about 6 years, to the year 1995. 1995 was a banner year for video games. 1995
gave us the first Playstation, the Sega Saturn, The massive flop, VirtualBoy,
and the sneak peak at the Nintendo 64. During the late 80s and early 90s, many
companies in Asia were hard at work producing Nintendo Famicom Clones. For
those who don’t know, Famicom (FAMIlyCOMputer) was the Japanese name for the
Nintendo Entertainment System. Copying the Famicom turned out to be a serious
business in countries around the world, giving way to all sorts of bizarre
offshoots from the system. It was during that time in the mid-nineties, that a
Taiwanese hardware manufacturer, called Redant, created the Game Axe in the
shifting winds of the gaming industry.
The Game Axe was never
intended for release in the US, and back then, since the Internet wasn’t nearly
as expansive as it is today, Americans really had no knowledge of this system.
It was partially successful on the Hong Kong and Japanese markets, but it never
took off into the mainstream.
New Game Axe box art.
Last year, Redant
decided to re-package its Game Axes and sell them with a new box and a slightly
different look, shipping them off to Japan’s Akihabara electronics district.
Since the Internet made acquiring import video games easy, the Game Axe took
off at online auction houses such as eBay and Yahoo!
A serious problem that
arose that hurt the credibility of the Game Axe during its re-launch was that
it turned out that some people were getting units that were heavily damaged or
cosmetically blemished. This turned off many influential video game magazines,
such as ign.com. It was really
unfortunate that IGN couldn’t have gotten a new unit, as I did.
It might interest you to
know that the Game Axe was not the only Handheld Famicom ever made. There was
one more that was handmade, and is so rare, they are literally impossible to
find. This system is called the Top Guy, and hardly anything is known about it.
It has a unique feature, which is a low-power VHF transmitter than will make
any TV in the vicinity display the game you are playing. Aside from this weird
(and illegal, due to Part 15 of FCC regulations) feature, the Game Axe is
superior in every way to the Top Guy.
Good luck finding one of these, and if you do,
please do your part to the classic gaming community and get the info out there!
It was rumored that less than 1000 were made.
THE SPECS AND RAW INFO
Manufacturer: Redant, a Taiwanese video game
hardware company, a division of Legend Technologies Ltd.
Power: 9 volts DC, center-negative
polarity, between 500-1000mA / Or 6 AA batteries.
Always insert the batteries with
care. Make sure your AC adaptor is set at 9v DC, Center-Negative polarity.
Battery
Life: Approximately
2.5 hours on alkalines. Much longer using Energizer Lithium or NiMH batteries
CPU: NMOS 6502 (8-bit) running at 1.8
MHz, Multi-Memory Controller ("memory management" unit)
Graphics: PPU (Picture Processing Unit) 16kb
VRAM
Sprites: 64, 8 x 8 or 8 x 16, 256 Bytes RAM
Display: 3.8 inch Passive Matrix LCD screen
with miniature fluorescent tube backlight. LCD screen (along with sound) is
switchable, to conserve power.
Sound: pAPU (pseudo-Audio Processing Unit),
4 analog channels, 1 digital channel – Standard Nintendo square, sawtooth,
triangle, and sine waveform processing. Supports all known audio mappers.
Connectors
Left to right, Main
Power, DC in, Famicom Cartridge slot, A/V Out.
DC in
RCA A/V in, via component video
Y-cable connecting to 1/8” mini jack
Controller 2 (note, you CAN get a blaster for the GA!)
A/V Out, using standard Sega Genesis (second generation) A/V out
cord
Phones
Famicom Cartridge Slot
Buttons: A, B,
Turbo A, Turbo B, Start, Select, Reset, LCD toggle, Main Power
Knobs: (located on
bottom) Brightness and Volume.
Speaker: Can be turned
up extremely loud with crystal clear sound and little or no distortion. Headphones
also sound great.
Price: Between $89 and
$125 brand new.
Compatibility: All licensed Famicom and NES carts, Japanese, American, and
European. Almost all non-licensed carts as well. PLEASE NOTE, that to play
American and European NES carts, you need a special adaptor, which is usually
included when you buy a Game Axe. You should also note that the American NES
carts are so huge and heavy, that they are impractical to play and take with
you, unless you use the special method that I will describe later below.
Every American cart I threw at this worked
just fine.
The Game Axe does not have a Famicom
expansion slot.
The Game Axe uses Unlicensed(Pirate) Famicom
controllers. The reason for this is that the original Nintendo-made Famicom had
the controllers built in, and therefore, no place to plug them in. So, in a
sense, the Game Axe is compatible with all of its unlicensed Cousins.
Note: Even
though this does look like a Vectrex or Sega Genesis controller port, it is
NOT! Do not attempt to use any other controllers with this other than unlicensed
Famicom controllers, or it will damage your system!
SOME ADDITIONAL NOTES:
Unlike most handhelds, the Game Axe requires
you to remove a battery when using the AC adaptor, otherwise, it will just keep
drawing off the batteries.
When saving a game, such as Zelda, that
requires you to hold the RESET button in while powering off, please take in
mind that with the Game Axe, it usually doesn’t work. I just get to the point I
want to save and kill myself, and select “SAVE” (in Zelda). The Game Axe has no
problem doing automatic memory saves, such as in Kirby’s Adventure.
The Game Axe is extremely picky at the kind
of AC adaptor it uses. I would not get one when you order it, instead, take it
with you to the stores and try one until you are satisfied with it. If the GA
doesn’t like the adaptor, it will cause color distortion, scanlines, and make
odd humming noises. My father, who is an engineer, says it is due to poor DC
filtration. Pick a nice adaptor, you will really notice a difference.
The Game Axe can come with a colorful assortment of accessories.
The Zapper only works when you hook
it to a TV.
I am a retro-gamer, and an Emulation enthusiast. It’s not to say I don’t enjoy the new games. I have Nintendo 64 games and a high-end PC I constructed to handle the most demanding 3D games. My Gameboy Advance has been pre-ordered.
The Game Axe is certainly a head-turner in college. I walked
into Funcoland and it was gazed at in fascination and awe. Many have said “I
have to get one of those!”
Playing the Game Axe is much akin to playing a Sega Game Gear.
The buttons are a little close together, though. Although you quickly get used
to it. I have very large hands, and I can still play a game all the way through
with much enjoyment.
Here are some
shots of the Game Axe in action!!
Note: Some images
may be slightly blurry. This is due to the fact that it’s hard to hold my dad’s
crappy digital camera perfectly still, that close up. The Kodak DC200 is very
sensitive to movement. Reflections you may see in the display are from me
holding the camera. The display has been painstakingly kept clean and polished
by me.
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 3
Kirby’s Adventure
The Legend of Zelda
Games Tested with my Game Axe:
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 3
The Legend of Zelda
Metroid
Skate or Die
Little Nemo, Dream Master
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Excitebike
Castlevania
Metal Gear
Mickey Mouscapade
RC ProAm
Don Bluth’s Dragon’s Lair
Kirby’s Adventure (Some occasional very, very
minor color and sprite glitches [hardly noticeable, as you can see], due to the
fact that this game pushed the NES itself to its absolute limits, and was an
astounding game)
The
Cartridges
As you may or may not know, the Game
Axe is designed to take Japanese Famicom cartridges. These are very much different
from the American NES cartridges. They are much smaller, and shorter. It’s safe
to say that the NES was the worst system ever designed on the outside. Its
cartridges were oversized, and cumbersome and the NES was a front-loader,
instead of a top-loading design, which allows the cartridge to make better
contact, and reduces wear and tear.
The Game Axe usually comes with an
adaptor that says “Family Converter 60-72 Pins.” This means it allows the
72-pin NES cartridges to plug into the 60-pin Famicom slot. Now, if you just
plugged the cartridge into the Game Axe this way, it would protrude,
unsupported for almost 9 inches, and put an incredible amount of stress on all
of the parts. That, and the slightest bump of the hanging cart could reset your
game and knock the cart out of the slot.
You can solve this problem by
cracking open the NES carts and removing the ROM Chip.
ROM chips can range in size from the ultra-thin, short Super Mario
Bros./Duck Hunt game, to the whopping Kirby’s Adventure, which is one of the largest
NES games.
1)
Cut out a piece of paperboard (cereal
box) to match the size of the side of the ROM chip with the sharp, protruding
pins. Make sure it doesn’t cover the copper contacts in any way.
2)
While holding the paperboard firmly
in place, start wrapping electrical tape around the ROM chip and paperboard
backing until it is firmly secured and sealed. The paperboard prevents the chip
pins from poking through and ripping the tape.
3)
Affix a paper label on the side that
has the flat paper backing. Clearly label your game.
4)
Seal the game up with clear packing
tape.
5)
Remember, don’t cover the contacts in
any way, or you cant play your game. The contacts are the terminals that plug
into the game slot.
As you can see, I have placed protective tape and a label on the
adaptor. However, the proper way to plug it into the Game Axe is to have the
“Family Converter” words facing you as you play. The proper way to plug the ROM
chip into the bare convertor, is to have the label/pointy pins/back of game
side facing you.
The Game Axe can take an AV(RCA)
signal in. The Game Axe doesn’t support stereo, because the NES/Famicom was
never stereo to begin with. It is very sensitive to the “stop-copy” and newer AV
signals produced by DVDs and Videocassettes (you will sometimes see half the
frame as being lighter than the other). It can technically take any NTSC RCA
signal; this includes all major video game systems, VCRs, DVD Players,
Camcorders, Cable and Satellite boxes, and other video devices. I watched “Lost
in Space” all the way through on my way back from Lake Tahoe, since my little
brother and sister had the portable VCR/TV in the back, I couldn’t see it,
because I was riding shotgun. But thanks to the Game Axe, I could watch the
movie up front. One unusual thing is the way the adaptor cord was color-coded.
Normally Yellow means video, and white means Audio-left. In this case, it’s
reversed.
The AV-in cable for the Game Axe is a
standard 1/8”(3.5mm)-to-RCA stereo cord. This is the kind of cord that hooks
from the headphone jack of a portable CD player to the RCA jacks of a home
stereo.
The following is a demonstration of
the Game Axe’s unique talent. You will have to forgive me for being a Trekker
;)
Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock ponder their
situation in
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Kirk has a rather unpleasant encounter
with an irate taxi cab driver
Admiral Cartwright assesses the damage at
Starfleet Headquarters
Mike Myers confides in a friend in the
black comedy So I Married an Axe Murderer
Mike Myers and his famous “Woman, Woman,
Woman” poem
When hooked to a TV, the Game Axe produces
a crisper, sharper picture than a regular NES. This is because the NES usually
uses an RF/VHF signal to transmit picture, and it is much more prone to
interference. The Game Axe uses AV output to a TV or VCR. The NES did have this
feature, but it was not used by many people at the time, as most TVs did not
support AV-in.
Conclusion
Well, if you have read all the way through until this point, I
must thank you for enduring my long-windedness. I hope you have found this web
page both enjoyable and informative. I figured the Internet could use a page
like this for the Game Axe. There didn’t seem to be enough information and
pictures in one place.
Are you still wondering, “Is the Game Axe right for me?” Do you
have a desire to play your old NES games on a handheld, without trying to hold
your breath for Nintendo to release a collection for the Gameboy Advance?
(Something that will never happen). Are you collecting rare video game systems,
or Nintendo games? Do you own a lot of Japanese Famicom games, and want something
to play them in? These are all questions to ask yourself. Compared to other
handhelds, the Game Axe even surpasses even the new Gameboy Advance in price.
So if you are a serious retro-gamer, or just like to play NES, I would
definitely get the Game Axe.
I enjoy my Game Axe, and I hope you will, too.
Want one? Then click HERE
- eBay is the best place to find
reasonably prices Game Axe units and accessories, as well as all of your
favorite NES games.
If you have any further questions, feel free to Email Me.
