Gaming e-Reader

[Semjaza]

[B]MY server is down, pics should work in a few hours...unless they are working obviously heh[/B]

I took some pics later on in this too... My brothers just got done with my GBA, and I never cleaned it. So it's a mess lol. Also, the coating on the GBA doesn't like my flash at some angles so the pics are kinda funny, but still readable.
-----------------------------------------------------------

I finally picked up an e-Reader with DK Jr. today. I also grabbed the other sets of cards available: Tennis, Balloon Fight, Pinball and Excitebike.

[img]http://www.ria.net/~binary/cardpacks.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.ria.net/~binary/ereader.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.ria.net/~binary/readercomparison.jpg[/img]

For people that don't know what the e-Reader is... It's an accessory that plugs into the GBA's cart slot. You scan special e-cards through a slot in the e-Reader and they do different things. Certain GC games can make use of them as well when you use the GBA/GC cable.

[img]http://www.ria.net/~binary/readergba.jpg[/img]

The e-Reader is about $40 and comes with a full 5 card set that make up a classic NES game (DK Jr. or Pinball, you can pick), as well as another pack that contains an Animal Crossing Card, a Game and Watch Manhole game card and 3 Pokemon cards.

I first tried out DK Jr. In the pack were 5 cards. On either side of the card is a strip of dots which have to be scanned through the reader. So I plugged the reader into the GBA and started it up. The first thing I noticed is that the e-reader isn't as top heavy as it looks. It's incredibly light, barely heavier than a Gameboy cartridge.

Once the GBA is on, you are brought to a menu. I was surprised that it actually had a voice that spoke and told you what to do. A female voice tells you what menu you are in, or what you should do next. It's nothing amazing, but it's pretty clear. The music wasn't bad either heh.

[img]http://www.ria.net/~binary/readermenu.jpg[/img]

Anyway, you are given two options: Scan Card and Communication. Communication lets you hook the GBA and e-Reader to a GC or GBA. I'll get into the GC thing later with Animal Crossing. Scan card brings you to a screen that lets you do just that. For DK Jr. I scanned one side of the first card and heard a chime. You have to do it rather slowly, otherwise you get an error sound and must scan it over again. It's easy to get used to though.

[img]http://www.ria.net/~binary/cardscan.jpg[/img]

Anyway, all five cards have dot strips on either side. You can scan the cards in in any order, the e-Reader doesn't care. For DK Jr, when you first scan a card a little image appears and is divided into 10 pieces. Each time you scan a card another piece is added to this image until it's completed. When you are all done you can run the game.


The e-reader also gives you the option of saving any one program to memory, so you could save DK Jr. to the memory in the reader and not have to scan it all over again. When something is saved to the reader, a 3rd menu choice is available that lets you load that application right away. You'd lose this data when you scan in another game though.

[img]http://www.ria.net/~binary/acapp.jpg[/img]

The NES emulation is pretty good. All the sound and graphics are present. The graphics are [i]slightly[/i] smushed though, but it's only really visible with text. Text looks as though the bottom pixels of each letter were removed, but it's still perfectly readable. Controls are the same as on the NES, and pressing L and R at the same time give you the option to Reset the NES or continue.

The Game and Watch Manhole game was only one two-sided card. It's exactly the same as on the old Game and Watch systems...same graphics and beep sounds. The game is pretty damn fun though, especially once it speeds up.

Then I tried the Pokemon cards. They look just like standard Pokemon cards, other than the fact that they have a dot strip and E logo on them. Machop and his too evolutions were included in my pack, and when all 3 were loaded you got to play a boulder smashing game with that Pokemon. Nothing amazing, but a pretty cool feature. I hear future cards will act like Pokedex data with the reader, which might be a thing people are interested in.

Last, I scanned the AC card that was included. When I scanned it, it told me to go use this at the ETM in AC to use it. It also gave me a password which I could mail to any animal in town for another free gift. So I wrote a letter to one of the animals with the password. I'm still waiting for a response, but apparently you get a totally different item this way than you would by scanning it at the Post Office's ETM in AC.

In AC when you select "Other Things..." at the ETM you are given the option to scan a card or load the AC Reader program. I made sure my GBA was connected to the GC (the e-Reader has an extra port for the cable). I then selected Communication in the e-Reader menu and selected GameCube. From there you can have the GC transfer the data to the GBA.

Took about 45 seconds and then I was given the option to scan my card. The ETM told me to go check my mail, and when I did I saw that I recieved a letter from K.K. Slider. He included a free gift, a recording of K.K. Ska. I was also impressed by the fact that one card can hold a basic tune (it plays out of the GBA when you scan the card, it's familiar to AC players), some graphics and other data. Not bad.

So basically I got two items out of this card that I wouldn't have had otherwise. Apparently, future cards will also include letters, patterns and furniture on them. Unfortunately, they aren't being released until sometime in October.

So that's that, sorry for writing so much lol. Ask any questions if you have them. I think this could be a very cool device in the future if used properly. I really hope Nintendo is trying to get other companies to make use of this device.

I'll try to scan some cards in later if anyone actually bothers to post in this thread lol.

[VP-Master]

That sounds pretty cool, expecially the fact that you can play classic NES games. I really hope Nintendo puts good use to this new GBA technology.

[James]

[color=royalblue]That looks great...but I personally think the whole idea is a but redundant.

I mean, I can understand the usefulness in say...Pokemon Trading Cards. But what's the point of having these other games?

I would have thought that Nintndo could find a better delivery system for the other NES games.

*shrug* I guess that to me, it just seems kind of pointless having to scan a few cards to play one NES game. Especially given that you actually have to purchase the E-Reader device itself.

But having said that, I'm sure that Nintendo has other plans for it as well. So yeah, I'll be interested to see what else Nintendo has planned for it. I probably won't buy one until there is more available for it.[/color]