It’s taken 20 years to get here, but I’ve finally archived one of the Reggies TV Entertainment System adverts which were shown on South Africa TV – likely from Saturday 2nd November 1991.
Anyway, around 2003 both my brother and I were over for the holidays, and we decided to have an epic video marathon. So we set the TV, machine and tapes up in an old holiday caravan, and spent a couple of weeks watching most of them (we skipped the documentaries and long series like Lonesome Dove). After exhausting the films we even started watching the Smurfs. Drunk on Christmas wine it was actually kinda cool, and very nostalgic. At one point we also spotted some ads, including those for the Reggies machine.
Fast forward to today and I was determined to fine this ad. Well, it’s taken at least 12 tapes, watching the 3 or 4 hours of footage on fast-forward to finally find it. I went through every Smurf tape in the box, assuming the ad was during a kids show, and couldn’t find it. I went through all the kids shows and films – nothing! I did find some cool stuff though: half a Kurt Russell film, where he’s a journalist searching for a serial killer. A video for Tom Petty’s Learning to Fly, broadcast on daytime TV, which BLEW my mind back when I was ten years old (Google it to find out why). Some really cool adverts, including one for Volkswagen, where a guy overtakes one on his bicycle. And a show celebrating the 2nd Birthday of the M-Net TV channel. I also found an old news story regarding the 1993 WTC bombing, which was rather chilling, and also a news story from Waco.
Also, while I have your attention, and since we’re talking about M-Net, if anyone has any old monthly M-Net TV guides circa 1986-1995 I would be interested in having one or two of them (for certain research purposes).
(TV spot for an unrelated Famiclone by Haitai, the Supercom.)
Golden Bell also had female employees, but they were merely assigned with cleaning and testing the freshly assembled consoles.
The big shots at the company: President Yu Yunshik (left) and Oh Hyunse.
When I first started blogging, one of many things I intended to do was showcase other great blogs. I never actually did this, until now... If you like the original Famicom, or Famicom games in general, then step inside Famicomblog. 
Quite a daunting task considering there’s 1051 official releases, probably a few more if you count especially exotic limited edition games, where they replace main characters with bowls of Ramen and such like. It’s actually a task I’ve sometimes considered doing myself, especially if I became an overnight millionaire and had more time to spend on whimsy. I bought the LEVEL X Famicom almanac, which lists every official Famicom game, its exact date of release and initial cost, along with a photos of the box. There’s also some excellent write ups on releases of significance (such as the strange Takeshi Kitano game). It’s been a joy to read. Likewise, in an unofficial sort of way, this English language blog provides a nice companion for the Famicom fan.
Living in Europe Famicom cartridges are extremely rare (outside of conventions I’ve never seen Famicom carts “in the wild”), which really only leaves eBay and that kind of takes the fun out of it. Of course blogger Sean lives in Japan, studying at Kyushu University's Graduate School of Law in Fukuoka, so he has easy access to them, and often at very reasonable prices. The blog details his adventures to various retro stores, lucky finds, insightful opinion, surreal escapades, and other points of interest.
What makes the blog especially pleasant is that Sean posts with more clarity and eloquence than many other bloggers. The Famicom was my first system, and I write about games professionally, but were I to do something similar it would be a nostalgic, messy affair prone to deranged and eclectic tangents. To me blogging is a rapid stream of consciousness – much to the ire of those who take me absolutely seriously all the time (I tried putting SATIRE warnings on some entries, but this only angered them further).
Along with clarity of thought (which I assume is a benefit of lawyerly shenanigans), Famicomblog also manages to be both whimsical and serious when needed – the five Excitebike cartridges on tour in Fukuoka was a thing of Biffo-esque genius (Mr Biffo being the pseudonym behind Digitiser, a sort of Monty Python for gamers).
Another interesting entry was on the nature of collecting games and how they hold their value, compared to baseball cards for example. His analysis of the situation was worthy of publishing in a print magazine – as he states, games actually serve a purpose compared to other things which can be collected but only looked at. Physical media is also likely to end at some point, with download only games. Famicom games are the perfect collectible – many are cheap enough to allow regular purchase on a limited budget, and they can offer hours of fun actually being played. Then, when put away, they’re infinitely more attractive to look at than other cartridge media.
Another thing which I was reminded of when browsing the blog, is how fed up I am of the current hardware generation. This always happens to me when things progress in the industry, and I never adapt well to change. It took me a long time to make the jump to the PS3, and a little longer still before I finally bought an HD TV. Then I had to upgrade my HDD to 500gig. About £800 in total, British money (which is maybe like $1,200). Now Sony want me to upgrade to PSN PLUS, which is more money, plus a 3D TV which I don’t want, and I dunno, does this also need some kind of 3D glasses attachment? Probably two if I want two player gaming. Then of course there’s two Move controllers, a PS3 eye camera, the adjacent dongle for the Move controllers... OH, and let’s not forget that I need to buy a whole bunch of DLC content to unlock stuff which is ALREADY ON THE DISC (motherfuckers). I still don’t even have a Mic for my PS3. Anything else I need? Good thing I don’t own a 360 too, because then it’s LIVE, and Kinect, and god knows what else.
It’s not that I inherently dislike new things. I was fine getting a PS3 in the end. The problem is, I am still happy with my PS3 and willing to spend money on it, without the hassle of acquiring a whole bunch of new hardware keys to remove the arbitrary locks placed by developers. I don't believe 3D or Move will enhance my enjoyment. The fact Microsoft has apparently demanded X360 developers cater for Kinect is shameful – I don’t WANT to jump around like an ape or play STANDING UP. The Wii in my eyes has been a failure as far as control goes, since suddenly needing to the point at the screen (ala Metroid Other M) doesn’t enhance the experience, it’s a pain in the ass. The same for waving and shaking and throwing. None of it has enhanced my experience – the more layers of gimmickry and unsought complexity you place on something which is intended for recreation, the less interested I become.
The above images is NOT from Famicomblog, rather it’s a ‘random’ from the internet – possibly InsertCredit’s old forum. Maybe not, I can’t remember any more. Credit to whoever posted it.
The second category would be countries which, due to economic or political reasons, piggyback off another country’s scene, most commonly China, Taiwan and Hong Kong’s pirate scenes, to create their own distinct melange. Egypt, like most of Africa, falls into the second category, with most of its pre-PS1 hardware and software being Chinese bootlegs, and anything more recent appearing to be semi-official imports. There were an inordinate amount of boxed PS2s available, which I can only assume are part of the official quota exported to Arabic countries.
Several years ago, when I wrote the monthly Global Gaming column in Retro Gamer, I often thought I’d like to compile a book detailing the videogame scenes in all world’s countries, since as a follower of videogames, it interested me to see the arcades that children in Africa or South America frequented, or the game centres from North Korea. I interviewed a lot more people than the countries I eventually covered, and one of the biggest problems, besides whining readers complaining that I didn’t accurately cover enough in 2 pages, was that a lot of these scenes were based around Famicom piracy. Since English was the second language of many of those I spoke with, it wasn’t easy to turn their matter-of-fact descriptions into floral prose which conveyed the exotic beauty of the indigenous cultures which were a backdrop to the games. It’s this blending with local culture which makes it so interesting, and without it I was often left with emails which read too similarly.
Two of the best descriptions I had included one from Sergei Servianov, who described how his love of Soviet antiquity and videogames came together when visiting his grandmother and walking through the Russian woods to a local arcade; the other was from Amir Asghari, originally from Iran, who described in equal parts Tehran’s MSX scene and the conflict with neighbouring Iraq, which left stores reduced to rubble and forced his dad to burn the manual to his copy of Metal Gear, out of fear that the militaristic images within could land them in trouble.
Mostly though, by being unable to see things for myself, Global Gaming was painfully frustrating to research. So when I visited Egypt in March 2010, I was eager to see its gaming scene personally.
The highlight of my trip was not the pyramids or Sphinx which, thanks to the excess of loud tourists, had a gaudy and unappealing atmosphere. Rather it was the 3 hour night-time tour by car of downtown Cairo and a visit to the Ataba and El Mosky markets and their electronics stalls. There’s also Khan El Khalily market, but that doesn’t have any videogames – it also caters heavily to tourists, and every nationality is anticipated. The most amusing incident was seeing Arabic hawkers shouting out “Nihao!” and, in broken Chinese, try to entice anyone of East Asian origin to their stall.
Even without the videogame element it was incredible to see how people lived and worked in this heavily populated, heavily polluted city. Thousands of cars thronging through night-time streets which lacked any form of road markings, adhering to invisible lines with a mutual understanding of which side has which direction. Cars and trucks miss each other by a hair’s breadth or less while a swarm of vespas zoom past at speed.
Countless carhorns blare and fight against the noise of misfiring engines which pour black soot on to the street. If I didn’t know better I’d believe the blaring horns somehow offered divine protection to their drivers. In the sky above the Imams call out the evening’s prayers from the minarets of Cairo’s mosques, chanting Allah Ahkbar (God is Great), and other Islamic prayers. Inside the safe bubble of the car my driver’s radio plays middle-eastern pop-music and there’s a taste of dirty gasoline in my lungs from the open window. Lighting a cigarette we drive on and are smothered by the smell from Arabic spice merchants, while passing by us is a man on a bicycle, one hand on the handlebars, the other on a basket sitting atop his head, longer and wider than the bicycle and stacked high with freshly baked bread. No amount of words or pictures can fully describe the intensity of downtown Cairo at night.
(This bread bicycle photo was taken on a second trip to Cairo, during the day)
We walked down an alley lined with trinket stores, then crossed a major intersection and reached, what I was told, were the Ataba and El Moscky market areas. Leather bags, mobile phones, sunglasses and pretty much anything you want, is probably available somewhere here.
Trying to describe things is almost impossible, since the scene is one of visually intense, ordered chaos, and I only spent maybe 30 minutes exploring. The outer front of videogame stalls was probably less than 50 meters to walk from one end around the street corner to its other end, whereupon you reach PC territory. These are open air though, and beyond them, deeper within the urban maze, are further stores positioned around concrete columns. As you go deeper it becomes less obvious whether you are under cover of a roof or not, and some passages within this labyrinthine mass are only big enough for people to pass through single-file.
Along with hundreds of PlayStation controllers, many of which appeared counterfeit, there were several models of Famicom clone. Although manufactured in China, there were some featuring Arabic writing, and some systems even came with Arabic keyboards. One store owner referred to them as being “Atari Family” games. The prices for Famicom clones ranged from 40-60 Egyptian Pounds (EP), which at $1 to EP5, is like $8-12 converted. Famicom cartridges were exclusively multicarts, from 4-in-1 carts up to several-hundred-in-one (more on these later), and they cost between EP5 and EP10 ($1-2). I also found what appeared to be official SNES units priced at EP190 ($38), plenty of Mega Drive 2 systems at EP75 ($15), and even more PS2 units at EP850 ($170), though I suspect the guy was hiking the price because a foreigner was asking. Everything in Egypt has two prices: one for foreigners, and one for the locals. The PS3 (models 40GB and 80GB) ranged in price from EP1600 ($320) up to EP2500 ($500) depending on store and model.
It’s interesting to note that the successful systems are those that were easy to pirate for. Succeeding the Famicom are bootleg Mega Drives and enormous stacks of 4-in-1 MD cartridges costing EP10 ($5) each. While I saw the SNES units, plus some controllers and a few dirty cartridges with damaged labels, this was only at one store and miniscule compared to the bootleg MD stuff all over the place. Following this was the PS1, then PS2, and an enormous amount of copied CDs/DVDs. A bootleg copy of God Hand on PS2 to a tourist was EP25 ($5). Some stores also stocked legitimate Wii and PS3 merchandise, though curiously I didn’t see anything at all for the Xbox 360, which I know you can pirate for quite easily. I have no idea if the Saturn was ever popular or even sold in the area. There were also plenty of boxed GBA games, presumably pirates, and also PSP systems. I didn’t spot the DS anywhere, but I wasn’t really looking.
Through meandering passages I ascended stairs to places they said no tourist ever visited. The area was a complicated maze permeated by the smell of dust and burning incense, illuminated by artificial light with scant windows onto the outside world. It reminded me of a story my father told me, about when he was stationed in China, near the city of Nanchang. He explained how, upon my request for him to buy a selection of bootleg games in China, he had asked his assigned interpreter Mr Gwu to take him to a place which sold them. Gwu, having never been to such a place, asked around and then took my father to what appeared to be the entrance to a subway station. Down below was, literally, an underground black market filled with stalls selling all manner of games and electronic junk. Gwu explained that several merchants were surprised to see my father, since in 20 years of being there they’d never seen a westerner visit the place – Gwu also became somewhat agitated, asking if they could leave because he feared they could be killed and no one would find out about it (honest to God, this is how my father retells the story, whether the exaggeration is his, or Gwu’s, I’m not sure). My father didn’t end up buying me anything, because he said all the games were in Chinese and, not being able to find the names of anything on my list, assumed I wouldn’t want anything (which was absolutely the wrong thing to think). But he did bump into an old Chinese guy, in his fifties or sixties, who asked my dad if he spoke Russian – which he did, having learned it at school when Eastern Europe was still under communism. The two sat drinking Chinese rice wine, with Gwu abstaining, and the old man claimed in broken Russian that he’d fought alongside the Russian military, against the capitalist west many years ago, all the while toasting my father and calling him comrade – my father doesn’t recall if he mentioned the name of the war, but I’d guess it was the Korean, since North Korea was pushed back into China and, if Wikipedia is to be believed, was then assisted by the Chinese army to reclaim the northern part of the peninsula (where the Russian military comes in I’ve no idea, since I wasn’t aware they took part in the conflict outside of air support near the border). My dad didn’t have a camera, so I’ve no photos, and when I press him for further details he grows annoyed that I’d want to document such a story, but that’s how it was told to me. The photo below is not of this area – it was posted on a forum, possibly NTSC-uk or SelectButton, by someone else in China. But it’s fascinating nonetheless to consider the rich, undocumented culture of Chinese videogames!
I don’t know if anyone else feels the same, but with the way America and England forever seem to be in conflict with various countries of the world, I’m embarrassed to speak English in a foreign country. As such I always described myself as coming from France, since although the French have their own rocky history with Algeria and Vietnam, my thinking is it would instil less animosity than if they thought I was British. They say videogames and politics never intermingle, but walking those gaming stalls I felt the urgent and embarrassed need to pass myself off as another nationality.
While there I bought two MD cartridges, two Famicom multicarts and a cheap Famicom clone. One MD cart featured Tiny Toons, Tazmania, Little Mermaid and Battletoads – I bought it because, having no experience of the MD Tiny Toons game, I hoped it would be similar to Buster Busts Loose on the SNES. Sadly it’s pretty awful. Battletoads is also nowhere near as good as the SNES version. The second cart had Sonic 3, Shinobi, Aquatic Games and some Olympics thing. I was curious if it was actually Sonic 3, since I doubted they’d include a battery for save functionality, and I wanted to know why they’d included an anime picture for Aquatic Games. Sonic 3 is actually just Sonic 1, and Aquatic Games is the James Pond minigame collection, so all in all, a fairly rubbish cartridge. I really wanted one with Castlevania, but couldn’t see one.
You could try printing this photo off, and using it to explain to a guide where you want to go, should you find yourself in Cairo
As for the Famiclone, I was tempted to get one with an Arabic keyboard, but it was like $4 extra and I was feeling stingy. The unit I bought is functional, running in 50Hz with mono sound through A/V cables, and it’s what you’d expect from a cheap bootleg. It has a stinky plastic casing which probably causes cancer, short leads, and naff control pads. Still, at least they have a d-pad, some controllers on other clone machines have PS1-styled button d-pads which are hideously uncomfortable.
I also bought pirate DVDs of Inglorious Basterds and Terminator 4. IB is one of the worst copies I’ve seen, but Terminator is perfect. Each cost me only EP15 ($3).
This is a fleeting glance of a world in constant flux, and as I type this, I wonder what if any videogames were available in Cairo, 1985. And what about Cairo in 1995? And 2005? How have these things changed over the years? These photos and this blog post tell us little about Egyptian videogame culture – only that it exists and beyond it is a history we will never know. Some might criticise that in a country reputed to have so many historical monuments, I’m focusing on pirate videogames, but games are still an element of the cultural tapestry. I’m reminded of a documentary I saw on some far-off East European country’s film archives – possibly Romania’s. There was a vault housing hundreds of pre-WW2 film reels, forgotten by the outside world, but containing valuable relics pertaining to kings and noblemen.
