Page 20 - Old School Gamer Magazine Issue #40 FREE Edition

If you are anything like me and you grew up with the Nintendo Entertainment System, then you are certainly no stranger to NES accessories. You may remember the first time you pulled the
Surfer, or other button mash heavy games. There is also a chance you are older than me and grew up during the Atari 2600 / early arcade era. If so, you probably have great memories of the NES advantage, Nintendo’s answer to bringing
the arcade feel into homes across America with its traditional arcade joystick, large buttons, and turbo functionality for tough shooter games like Lifeforce or Gradius.
Perhaps your parents bought you an NES power pad so that they could trick you into doing exercise so that you would tire out and go to bed on time. Little did they know you would end up sitting on the pad and using your hands instead for faster speeds on World Class Track Meet. The rarest of kids were just like Lucas Barton from the movie The Wizard and were able to afford the Infamous Power Glove. They
raced home to put the glove on
and could instantly feel the power surging through them like Prince Adam when he raised his sword
to become He-man, only to be
very disappointed in how well the glove worked if at all. All of these accessories were highly marketed and were very successful but the most important thing about them is that they are memorable. Everyone who owned an NES had at least one
of these or more. I could write an entire article about each of these accessories but that’s not on the agenda today. Instead, I am going to talk about a few accessories that you probably didn’t even know existed.
Let’s start off with an accessory that isn’t too far away from the normal stuff, the Archer Competition Controller. A new jersey company
called Beeshu produced many controllers for the NES during its lifespan. Beeshu produced this
odd controller exclusively for Radio Shack and it was marketed as a competition or pro performance controller to lure in children looking for an edge in hard games like Battletoads and Ninja Gaiden.
The box claims that the controller “Soups up” the capability of the NES with its contoured direction inserts, two separate buttons with variable turbo speeds, and an extra-long cable for maneuverability during the heat of competition. I have never used one of these controllers myself but I find its neon inspired color palette to be much more fun that the dull gray, black, and white look of the stock NES controller and I couldn’t help but notice the corners of the controller are rounded to prevent blisters and hand pain.
RARE NES ACCESSORIES
YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE A CLUE! by 8-Bit Steve
trigger on the NES Zapper and
felt the satisfying spring click in your finger accompanied by the loud clunk sound coming from
the gun and the corresponding blaster sound the NES produced. Maybe you are more of a platformer aficionado like me, and you remember holding the NES Max
in your hands for the first time. Its revolutionary hybrid d-pad with the circle thumb pad was clearly a direct result of parent complaints about the d-pad hurting kids’ hands from overplaying. There are also the built-in turbo buttons that significantly reduce hand fatigue in games like Fester’s Quest, Silver
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