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Messiah NEX Console Written by Brian Green (C) Brian Green, Particles! Famiclones. Nintendo-On-A-Chip. SuperJoys. Whatever you want to call them, you've seen them everywhere - at the flea markets, in the middle of malls and in places. They are the modern day Nintendo NES that are mass-produced in an illicit part of China where copyright laws seem to be non-existent. Many of them are of questionable quality - cheap plastic, connectors that snap off easily. The latest trend is to package them into a real console with removable controllers instead of putting a limited amount of non-expandable games into a joystick. This allows you to play your old NES cartridges on a more modern system. Blinking Blue Screen of Death Why not just find an old NES Console and play your games on the real thing? The main reason is due to the wonderfulness that is the connector on 'toaster' NES'. Over time it bends and looses contact with the cartridge causing the well-known phenomenon that is the 'blinking blue screen of death' when the console is powered on. There are lots of home-remedies that are supposed to take care of this - cleaning the connectors on the cartridge, 'blow the dust' out of the cartridge. You can even replace the connectors themselves. However, it doesn't appear any of these methods offers a permanent fix. It's an inherit design-flaw of the original console. That's where the Messiah NEX comes in. NES Savior? Unlike the current Yobo Famiclone that's floating around for roughly $30, it becomes apparent as soon as you open the box that the Messiah NEX isn't any ordinary famiclone. The console itself is very solid. The cheap plastic that you normally expect has been replaced with an original NES sort of plastic. It doesn't feel that you'll break it while trying to shove the cartridges in an out of the slots. Yes, slots. The Messiah NEX offers both a 60-pin connector on top for Famicom cartridges and standard 72 pin NES cartridges in the front. The NEX uses standard NES controllers but also includes an updated controller in the box. This controller looks more like an SNES controller with a turbo and slow button included on them. Another neat feature is the use of optional wireless controllers which are available from Messiah. Also included in the box is a very well written manual as well as a miniature Digital Press Rarity Guide for NES cartridges. Putting The NEX Through The Paces There has been much written on the compatibility of famiclones with real NES cartridges. The general consensus is that roughly 95% of all Nintendo cartridges are compatible with the both famiclones and the NEX itself. On a lazy afternoon, we tested about 40 NES cartridges and 25 Famicom cartridges that we just bought to see how well the NEX worked. The general observation was that all NES cartridges we tried sans one worked. That cartridge has not been confirmed working at the time of this review on any system so it's not necessarily the fault of the NEX. Some cartridges did not work first try that resulted in us removing and reinserting the cartridge many times. This is quite possibly due to the age of the cartridges themselves - the contacts become dirty over the years. There are a few things we observed during the testing of the NEX: Some games ignored the Start/Select button on the custom NES controller that was included in the box. When replaced with a standard NES controller, they worked fine. The Famicom cartridge slot had issues with some cartridges, especially pirate cartridges. It became very difficult to remove the cartridges once inserted. It took some brute force to remove them from the slot causing some worry if we'd break the connector. Conclusion Is it worth it? Definitely. Dropping the cash on a console that will play both domestic and import games as well as the ability to use all NES peripherals makes this system a bargain. Though you might want to keep a real NES console on hand in case you hit an incompatible game, our tests shows that this will not happen too often. Pick one up before the big N decides to clamp down on these. Price: $59.99 Messiah Pros Great replacement for your aging NES Console Uses standard NES controllers Plays both Famicom and NES games Construction is high-quality Cons Is not 100% compatible with all NES titles. Occasionally difficult to remove cartridges from the Famicom cartridge slot. Included controller not compatible with all games.