Around 1995 a Danish postal order company called "CAT Computer", later Scandinavian Computer Club, was unloading American NES games in special lots they
called "NES Happy Packs" which was either 2 or 4 American NES games, brand new I might add, sold along with this type of adapter/converer called NES-8. The
games retailed from 99,- to 200,- Danish kroner which sure wasn't a bad deal and I'm kicking myself these days for not having bought more of these
packages - unfortunately I wasn't making a whole lot of money in those days.
The games sold by the Scandinavian Computer Club was a good mix of licensed and unlicensed NES games, but mainly unlicensed games and this was actually
my first encounter with the world of unlicensed Nintendo games, which I actually though were some sort of Atari games at first. Some of the games I got
from these happy packs were Vindicators (Tengen), Menace Beach (Color Dreams - Black cart version), Moon Ranger (Bunch Games - Black cart version),
F-15 City War (American Video Entertainment), Krazy Kreatures (American Video Entertainment), Dragon Spirit (Bandai), Death Race (AGCI) and
ShockWave (AGCI)
Unfortunately the Computer Club went backrupt, or at least out of business before I was able to buy a lot of these packages, how I would've loved to get
one of the Secret Scout games they kept showing in ther advertisements.
So, what does this converter do that was included with the Americans cart. Well while it does look like a Game Genie it really doesn't do a whole lot more
than allowing foreign games to be played on a European NES console or wise versa, yes it can also be used to play European NES games on an American NES
console.
It doesn't need a game piggy-backed like the GameKey converter which also is exposed here at NES WORLD, and the NES-8 actually has better compatibility than
the GameKey. To be compatible with any NES console there's a 3-way switch on one side of the converter which can be switched if the game flickers on and off,
which caused by the Nin10 lockout curcuit.
Other than that there's really not a whole lot to say other than this converter works like a charm and it the best converter I've ever used to play American
games, and it has happened quite a few times over the years. Oh, the box says "Made in Taiwan" which would indicate that it's the work of Sachen but it's just
a wild guess really.
Get one of these babies if you can - they don't turn up too often.
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