October 22nd, 1998 Melt the Ice to reveal the future... Oh, here's the real scoop on the "Secret Project". Are you sitting down for this? Okay, click here. Does this mean that Dmg Ice is going to change forever? Yes, and no. It means it will get better; but don't worry. This site is going to move in "sections"; not as a whole. Well, this is going to rule. Are you scared yet? The project also means more insider information and interviews. Not to mention a BETTER Pokédex, and more power, hits, and other cool stuff. It's a site to see. NOT all of Dmg Ice is leaving though. Some stuff is staying here. Even after the final parts of the move. Dmg Ice will STILL be updated even during the move. And after words? Dmg Ice will still exist; but it will be a little different. Not by much though. Oh, the move also allows me to get away with TONS of stuff. Just like www.nintendorks.com. (Just not as blatant.) I can even get help from some pros. All the reviews sitting in my e-mail are going to get unedited, html facelifts for the site as well. Oh, life is getting sweeter. Oh, here's "Crave's" website address www.cravegames.com. They have three new games coming! They are of Men in Black, Gex 2, and Pitfall. Men in Black has a full color intro cartoon. :) Cool. Well. Peace out people! October 20th, 1998 I've already got the life; but I'll sell it to you. Just small stuff for this news brief. :) yes, this one IS brief. Well, I was informed of some misinformation on the specs and a little bit of stuff about the Gameboy Color. Peace and thanks goes to Mark Stubberly for checking and correcting the information. Okay, Pokemon does not use the MBC5 chip, it uses MBC3. Only GBC exclusive games need to be MBC5 games and the GB Color has 32K of memory, and 16K of VideoRAM. Oops. Thankfully, The Gameboy Color supports SGB palletes and will use those on Super Gameboy Games. So games like Galaga/Galaxian will be arcade perfect. Games like Donkey Kong 1994 will be amazing. :) Kind of cool? Yup, oh, by the way. Nintendo's "Travis" just reviewed "Pokémon" in his "Trav's Test Drive". As the French would say. "Viva La Frogboy! Passer le Saler et beurre!" No I will not translate it. You shouldn't have been sleeping in French Class. Of course, I only took it to hit on women. :) "Pouvoir nous commencer aux goűts spéciaux?" (Okay, that was inappropriate. Sorry, ignore it. Okay, it's rough translation was supposed to be: "Can we get kinky?" See, that one was gratuitous. But, it works...) Well, that's it for now. :) October 15th, 1998 Everywhere is disappointment? First the bad news.. Gameboy Color is going to be VERY tricky to operate with older titles. The Palletes are well, a bit akward. When you pop a Normal Gameboy Game in the Gameboy Color, the Title screen shows up and you need to make controller configurations to set the colors of the games objects, sprites, etc. So, to demonstrate this I have listed the commands. :) BG stands for "Background Objects". OBJ0 stands for "moving object 0" like for example: "Link". OBJ1 is another moving object; say an enemy. Once you get the hang of it; the code part isn't too bad. :) Button Code BG Color OBJ0 color OBJ1 color Green & Blue Red Red Up = Brown Brown Brown Up + A = Red Green Blue Up + B = Dark Brown Brown Brown Left = Blue Red Green Left + A = Dark Blue Red Brown Left + B = Gray Gray Gray Down = Yellow, Red, Blue Yellow, Red, Blue Yellow, Red, Blue Down + A = Yellow & Red Yellow & Red Yellow & Red Down + B = Yellow Blue Green Right = Green & Red Green & Red Green & Red Right + A = Green & Blue Red Red Right + B = Reverse Reverse Reverse The Color palletes SOUND worse then they actually are. The palletes actually are cool. It gets better and a little "fast" fingerwork and testing can achieve what you want. Some of the pre-programmed palletes are good too. The Gameboy Color supports Super Gameboy Palletes and uses those; so you don't have to go through the button thing with games like Donkey Kong, or Wario Land 2. If you put a Gameboy Color Only game in a normal Gameboy instead of getting a blank screen; you will get this message: "This game can only be played on Game Boy Color", Gameboy Color Cartridges are colored slightly different then standard Gray cartridges. Maybe they are a darker gray or white? I found this information on an official site. I also noticed a little "bang" at some of the latest rumours. "The increased power and capabilities of Game Boy Color have led many to speculate about converting popular NES games to Game Boy Color." Wanna guess who "many" is? It's us and you. :) Well, the good news is that NES game ports ARE possible; but the games must go through a little "Squashing" to fit into Gameboy Color's resolution and screen size. The pictures demonstrating this showed Super Mario Bros. 3 as an example. (Heh. Heh.) I have a Portable Color Television from Sony. (Uh huh.) I hooked up my old NES to it via the AV cable and the screen on the TV is smaller then the Gameboy's Screen. There was NO loss in clarity by the loss of size. Legend of Zelda 2 was still readable, Super Mario Bros 3 was still just as good. If a resolution shift is all that stands in the way; by all means overcome it, Nintendo. (Okay, there is a part about the different CPU and memory architecture.) Well, as I discovered about Pokémon; there's a new chip running in your Gameboy games. Older games use "Memory Bank Controllers 1-3". The new stuff uses MBC 5. (Pokémon does this.) What happened to four? Well, the current sizes being offered are up to 32 Megabits. Bad thing? It's expensive to buy right now. (Otherwise I would order a blank 32MB with Eeprom and an emulator.) Oh, yeah. There's MORE! Well, the Gameboy COlor has twice the memory of Gameboy and all that good stuff; but in the NEWS Flash I was WRONG! Gameboy Color doesn't have 2MBs of RAM. It has FOUR. Cool. Speaking of Cool; here's some Pokémon good stuff. The latest issue of Newsweek. (It has Bill Clinton and Hillary on the cover. It's an old picture of them back when they were just dorks; instead of lying, decrepit dorks. The headline is "The Children of Watergate".) It's the October 19, 1998 Issue. The article is found on page 10. The Article goes like this. (Copied ad verbatim.) "Hidden Monsters A beautiful fall day. Yellow leaves and warm sun. A father and three children out for a family stroll. But what's with the arcade music? Why are the kids glued to thier Game Boys? Forget autumn splendor. It's Pokémon time. Nintendo's latest offering for Game Boy hit stores last week and quickly sold out. Pre-teenyboppers simply cannot rest until they capture 150 monsters hidden throughout the game. What's next? Pokémon cartoons, comics, fast food - and 150 monstrous stocking stuffers." Well, that's all I have for you right now. :) Okay, so it's not. Pokémon is now the fastest selling game ever in the United States. Selling over 300,000 units in a week. (Mainly because the hardcore people like me bought both versions.) Blue outsold Red. Hmm. Well, back to thawing that Ice!