GBA - Mario Vs. Donkey Kong

PC - Fantasy World Dizzy

GBA - Mario Vs. Donkey Kong

PC - Dizzy: Prince Of The Yolk Folk

Merry Christmas!  Hopefully you got what you wanted for Christmas, be it a Wii, a PS3, or, heck, maybe something not game-related!  o_0  Enjoy time spent away from school or work and with family and friends.  But thanks for stopping by here today!  :)  Happy holidays, everyone!

DS - Castlevania: Portrait Of Ruin

GBA - Mario Vs. Donkey Kong, Wario Land 4

Genesis - Master Of Monsters

GBA - Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3

Genesis - Sonic The Hedgehog 3

GBA - Mario Vs. Donkey Kong

NES - The Magic of Scheherazade

Super NES - ActRaiser, ActRaiser 2, Seiken Densetsu 3 (J)

Genesis - Warsong

GBA - Mario Vs. Donkey Kong

NES - The Magic of Scheherazade

Super NES - Lufia II: Rise Of The Sinistrals

Genesis - Marble Madness

TG16 - Bloody Wolf

NES - Bionic Commando

Super NES - Lufia II: Rise Of The Sinistrals

Genesis - Dune: The Battle For Arrakis

GB / GBC - Alien³

GBA - Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

I got my Wii this morning!  I've just got The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess.  But that should last me for quite a while, supposedly it's really long.  I'd better get to it!  (That's why I did an update last week instead of today.  >_>)

Don't worry, I'll continue with weekend updates after this.  :)

NES - The Magic of Scheherazade, Mario Bros., Solomon's Key

Super NES - Lufia II: Rise Of The Sinistrals

GB / GBC - The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX

GBA - Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

After that massive update, we ended today with our 5000th map, thanks to Rick Bruns and one of his Lufia II: Rise Of The Sinistrals maps!  Here's the current breakdown of our maps:

1445 (28.9%) Super NES maps
894 (17.88%) NES maps
884 (17.68%) Game Boy/Game Boy Color maps
804 (16.08%) Game Boy Advance maps
420 (8.4%) PC maps

553 (11.06%) other maps

See more statistics here.

MSX - Barbarian (E), Castle Excellent (J), Contra (J), The Goonies (E), Green Beret (E), Magical Tree (J), The Maze Of Galious: Knightmare II (J), Nemesis (E), Nemesis 2 (E), Nemesis 3: The Eve Of Destruction (E), The Palace Of Death (E), Parodius (J), Rastan Saga (E), R-Type (J), Salamander (J), Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (E), The Treasure Of Usas (J), Vampire Killer (J), Yie Ar Kung-Fu II: The Emperor Yie-Gah (J)

NES - Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link

Super NES - Inindo: Way Of The Ninja, Lufia II: Rise Of The Sinistrals

GBA - Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

DS - Castlevania: Dawn Of Sorrow

An MSX section has been added.  And a whole whopping 19 games with it!  Enter that Konami code!

NES - Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link

Super NES - Super Mario RPG: Legend Of The Seven Stars

The remaining non-animated GIFs have been converted into PNGs if they were smaller (which in most cases they were) and the HTMLs have been quite optimized.  Now it shouldn't take as long to view the site!

NES - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project

Super NES - Inindo: Way Of The Ninja

GBA - Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3

Super NES - Marvel Super Heroes: War Of The Gems

Apple II - Marble Madness

Master System - Shinobi

NES - Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu, Rygar, Wizards & Warriors III: Kuros: Visions Of Power

Super NES - Marvel Super Heroes: War Of The Gems

TG16 - Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood (J)

We finally have an Apple II section!  Took long enough.  Now where's my Number Munchers and Oregon Trail?

PC - Jetpack: Unregistered!, Jetpack, Jetpack: Christmas Special!

Master System - Golden Axe Warrior

NES - Akumajou Dracula Special: Boku Dracula-kun / Kid Dracula (J), Rygar, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game

Super NES - Inindo: Way Of The Ninja

Arcade - Flicky

This afternoon, we got our 500,000th hit!  That's half a million visitors!  And more hits than I imagined I'd ever get when I started this site.  Thanks for your interest and support that's helped us get this far and last this long!  :D

Master System - Golden Axe Warrior

NES - Rygar

GBA - Mario Vs. Donkey Kong

PC - ZZT

NES - Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu, Rygar, Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link

Super NES - Castlevania: Dracula X

Genesis - Alex Kidd In The Enchanted Castle

I've finished using PNGGauntlet on ALL of the maps!  I've ranted and raved on the forums enough about it.  It optimizes .PNG files (our favourite file format) to be as small as they can be, especially when "Brute Force Compress" is checked on.  Some maps are now a fraction of their original size with no loss in quality.  Less bandwidth usage for me, and quicker loading for you!  Everybody wins.

NES - Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu, Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link

Super NES - Rockman & Forte (J)

Genesis - King's Bounty

GB / GBC - Donkey Kong

Super NES - Final Fight, Seiken Densetsu 3 (J)

PC - Alien Syndrome

Haven't had a good news post in a while.  Thought I'd point out that we now have a Sharp X68000 section.

GBA - Wario Land 4

X68000 - Granada

NES - Bubble Bobble, Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link

Super NES - Breath Of Fire

PC - Driver

NES - Star Trek

GBA - Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3

NES - The Legend Of Zelda, Wacky Races

NES - Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link

Genesis - Desert Strike: Return To The Gulf

GB / GBC - The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening

GBA - Wario Land 4

GBA - Mario Vs. Donkey Kong

NES - Adventures In The Magic Kingdom, Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link

GBA - Yoshi: Topsy-Turvy

NES - Dragon Warrior, The Guardian Legend, Kid Icarus

Genesis - Sonic & Knuckles, Kid Chameleon

GBA - Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3

NES - King's Quest V: Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder

GB / GBC - Mega Man III

Affiliate - Portable Review

NES - Super Mario Bros. 2 (J)

NES - 8 Eye's, Arkanoid, Kid Icarus, Metroid

Genesis - Castlevania: Bloodlines

GBA - Wario Land 4

C64 - Shōgun

GBA - River City Ransom EX

Affiliate - VGMuseum.com

PC - Fallout, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood Of Steel

NES - A Boy And His Blob: Trouble On Blobolonia, The Lion King (E)

Super NES - The Lion King

Genesis - Granada, Phantasy Star II, Sword Of Vermilion

GBA - Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3

PC - World Of WarCraft

Genesis - Granada

GB / GBC - Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3

GBA - Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3

PC - Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure, Twinsen's Odyssey

NES - Super Mario Bros.

Genesis - Sword Of Vermilion, Wonder Boy In Monster World

GBA - Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3

Super NES - The 7th Saga

NES - Mega Man VI

Super NES - The 7th Saga

GBA - Pokémon: FireRed Version, Pokémon: LeafGreen Version

Super NES - Final Fantasy V (J), The 7th Saga

NES - Contra Force

Super NES - The 7th Saga

NES - Mega Man V

I got back from Los Angeles yesterday.  E3 was exhausting.  Well, it was the first one I went to, so I wasn't sure what to expect.  My leg cramped up really bad this morning; probably a delayed reaction from all that walking around and less sleep than usual.  I think it was worth it, though I didn't get a chance to check out as many games as I wanted to.  Not sure when I'll get around to writing a full report, or if you'll care by the time I do, but here're some impressions.

This year it's all about the Nintendo Wii.  Or at least with a five-hour line (at its longest), multiple times longer than the dwarfed PlayStation 3 line, you'd have to think so.  In the past, nearly all of the Wii controller's detractors have been people who haven't actually touched the thing, while nearly all the people who had tried it love it, so I suppose that's the reason why it got all the attention it did.  I thought the motion detection was a little over-sensitive at first, but it's just something to get used to.  You wouldn't want it under-sensitive, though, otherwise you really would be knocking things over during play.  And the games?  With big games like Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess, it's not going to have the drought that the GameCube did in its first year.  Other games like WarioWare: Smooth Moves and Wii Sports are just plain fun if you don't want a grand adventure, and perhaps more importantly, to get people used to the controller.

So Sony puts a motion sensor in the PS3 controller, which I'm sure you've heard by now, and went from their "bananarang" to the same overall Dual Shock controller design they've had for years.  I'm surprised they weren't booed right then.  So Nintendo's come up with the directional pad, four-face-button standard, shoulder buttons, analogue stick, force feedback, and now motion sensing.  Or at least been the first to incorporate it into mainstream console gaming.  Sony's always blatantly copying them (I hear there's a Brain Age-type game coming to the PSP, even), so I personally think they deserve less than an underwhelming E3.  I had always considered a PS3 above an Xbox 360 if I were to consider a second next-gen console, and maybe still do, but that certainly wouldn't be from what I saw (and what I didn't see) at this year's E3, let me tell you.

What I would get next is a DS Lite.  Those are sleek.  Many good DS games coming out, the first of which is New Super Mario Bros.  True oldschool Mario action "for the win", as they say.  And Yoshi's Island 2 is also coming soon.  With Super Princess Peach a few months ago, and the GameCube's upcoming Super Paper Mario, it's almost like all the good 2D Mario games coming out are to make up for over a decade without any.  (If you don't count the heavily puzzle-oriented Mario Vs. Donkey Kong, and its upcoming DS sequel, Mario Vs. Donkey Kong 2: March Of The Minis, that is...those are good but it's not smashing bricks and stomping Goombas, you know?)

I've got some maps to eventually put up when I'm done recuperating from E3, but please send them in.  Don't let my slowdowns slow you down.  When I get back up to speed I don't think there will be any more major delays this year.

Happy birthday to VGMaps.com!  We're four years old today!

Affiliate - Digital Phantom

I'm caught up!  No more backlog!  At least I don't think so; everything that I've received I've put up.  I know some of you have been holding off on sending me maps this past month, so I guess you can bombard me again...  >_<  Keep in mind that with E3 around the corner, I'll be in LA for most of next week, so you may not necessarily see updates on the next two weekends.

Master System - Castle Of Illusion: Starring Mickey Mouse

Super NES - Mega Man X 3

GB / GBC - Bill & Ted's Excellent Game Boy Adventure, Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge, Donkey Kong Land, Mega Man II, Solomon's Club

GBA - Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, Yoshi: Topsy-Turvy

Super NES - Secret Of The Stars, Super Mario All-Stars

Let me take a moment of my time to say "Shut up about how much you hate the name 'Wii'."  The Console Formerly Known As Revolution now has a name that's odd, childish-sounding and the butt of many jokes.  So what?  If you can convince me that the childish name "PlayStation" doesn't sound like a designated area of a day care or that "Xbox" isn't equally crude, and that these stupid names actually cost them sales, then you get a point.  If you never thought of them that way then you prove another point I'm making that people will play games on them if they're marketed to believe they'll enjoy them, and that odd names become part of the lexicon when the product proves itself.

I'm not a Nintendo fanboy, at least not solely on the fact that I don't totally freak out over something like this either way.  I also wouldn't have picked the name, I'll agree with you there, but making immature jokes about bodily fluids and gonads don't exactly help your case when you sound like a six-year-old.  In short, if you think the "Wii" sounds stupid, you're only going to make it and yourself look more stupid by continuing to spaz over it without a shred of intelligence.

Seeing as how I don't think the name affects the games, you can look forward to my impressions of the Wii in less than two weeks, as I'll experience its games and their unique control scheme(s) (and whatever other features the Wii may have) when E3 comes 'round.  And I hope for your sake you'll be able to overlook its name after E3 shows us what it's got.

GBA - Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn Of Souls

GB / GBC - Tintin In Tibet (E)

Apologies again for those of you who have submitted maps in the past few weeks.  There were some issues that I had to take care of, both related and unrelated to the site, but now I will be able to update the site again!  These three weeks have been long for me too, especially since it seemed like I was getting more maps than usual, but I will try to put up the backlog of maps in the order that I received them.  I haven't had a chance to do much in the way of offline updates, and I'll be heading off to LA for a week in May (including the attendance of E3!) so depending on circumstances it may still be another little while before you see your maps if you recently submitted them.  I can't thank you enough for your patience.

As of yesterday we moved into our new forums.  It is unfortunate that the old posts and users could not be transferred over, but it certainly can't be helped now.  I've explained what happened here, for those of you who are interested, but please reregister and join in new discussions about maps, games, or anything, really.

Atari 2600 - Adventure

A new section for oldschool gamers is now open - the Atari 2600 page!

NES - Bonk's Adventure, Contra

Super NES - The 7th Saga

GBA - Mega Man Solid X: Guns Of The Mavericks

GBA - Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn Of Souls, Final Fantasy IV Advance, Metroid Fusion

NES - Mafat Conspiracy: Golgo 13, Uncle Fester's Quest: The Addams Family

TG16 - Dragon Slayer: The Legend Of Heroes

A new section was opened today - the TG16 page, for whatever PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 (and variants) maps you may want to send in!

Super NES - Mega Man X 3

PC - King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human, King's Quest IV: The Perils Of Rosella

Too cool not to mention - the Nintendo Revolution's "Virtual Console" game download service has been officially announced to support Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx 16 games.  Monopoly on the 16-bit era = big points for Nintendo, especially with the older crowd.  If you have any sense of nostalgia, you pretty much have to get one.  The Revolution is pretty much the pinnacle of awesomeness, and they haven't even talked about the NEW games yet.  I guess they'll save that for E3.

Really early this morning, we got our 400,000th hit!  These milestones come faster now, I don't even feel like counting anymore.  I know I missed the 300,000th hit...

I'm still backlogged.  I'm still receiving maps, which is nice, but updates will come whenever they come...

Just a quick apology, that updates for the next couple weeks (at least) will be smaller, as well as fewer and farther between.  I know some of you sent me maps a week ago but I haven't gotten around to them yet.  You can keep sending in your maps, but please bear with me.  Thank you for your patience.

Super NES - Mega Man X 3

NES - Ghosts 'N Goblins, Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight

Super NES - The 7th Saga

NES - Ufouria: The Saga (E)

Genesis - Rocket Knight Adventures

Super NES - The 7th Saga

PC - King's Quest: Quest For The Crown, King's Quest II: Romancing The Throne, King's Quest V: Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder

PC - King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow

Super NES - The 7th Saga, Mega Man X 3

NES - Super Mario Bros. 3

Super NES - Rockman & Forte (J)

GB / GBC - Final Fantasy Adventure

GBA - Sonic Advance

PC - The Legend Of Kyrandia - Book Two: The Hand Of Fate

The Super Mario Bros. 3 Atlas Project is complete!  All 100 maps from Super Mario Bros. 3 are available for your viewing pleasure.  The ultimate NES game has been conquered, thanks to the work of KingKuros, Zeric, Revned, J.J. Maxx, mephea, and myself.  I hope you like it.

The next project is already currently underway, perhaps I'll make a Projects page (similar to the Maps Of The Month page) that will showcase the best of our collaborative works.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Super NES - Mega Man X 3

New section!  It's the Reviews & Rants section.  It'll be a place for me to, well, review games and rant about anything.  Maybe other writers will have their works up there too, but until then, feel free to post in the forums.

NES - Super Mario Bros. 3

NES - Mighty Bomb Jack

Super NES - Mega Man X 3

GBA - Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3

Super NES - Final Fantasy VI, Mega Man X 3

Video game advertising is pretty funny.  Often unintentionally so.  Here are some TV commercials and some print ads to check out.  Everyone's seen the classic The Legend Of Zelda commercial.  Thank goodness, I'm sure Nintendo would rather have you forget about this.  Unless there's something there I don't get.  As for the print ads, this one is still vividly in my mind even before seeing it again today.  Do they just hire anybody to make their ads?

NES - Super Mario Bros. 3

GBA - Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3

Affiliate - Videolamer

GB / GBC - The Legend Of Zelda: Oracle Of Seasons

Super NES - Mega Man VII

NES - Mega Man VI, Super Mario Bros. 3

Super NES - Mega Man VII

So Nintendo's redesigned the Nintendo DS after all.  Those rumours had some substance after all.  Either that or it was a lucky guess.  Well, Nintendo has a history of revising their handhelds, so it was just a matter of time.  I absolutely love how the style matches the Revolution.  White is apparently the new black...but I'm sure models in different colours are as inevitable as well.

I already have a DS, which I got on its first day.  I might get a DS Lite so that me and my brother can finally play those multi-player games.

NES - Super Mario Bros. 3

Apparently Scott Ramsoomair of VG Cats linked to my web site.  That would explain the increase of my hits twenty-fold.  o_0  (Which, if you're curious, is ten times more than the double-boost that my site's appearance on G4TV's Attack Of The Show gave me last year.)

It's always nice to be recognized by someone bigger.  And VG Cats is one of my favourite web comics, so it's kind of extra special.

Many thanks, Scott!  And welcome, new visitors!

NES - Super Mario Bros. 3

N64 - Mario Kart 64

NES - Batman, Batman Returns

I finally saw Batman Begins on DVD this past Sunday.  Not sure why I was reminded of that...  >_>

I always thought the Scarecrow would've been one of Batman's greatest nemeses.  What with his fear gas and all.  That being said, I felt like his character was underused.  I guess his story isn't tied to Bruce Wayne and Batman as much as Ra's al Ghul's, so he had to take a back seat this time around...but looking at the other Batman films, it could've easily been a lot worse.  Like Two-Face and Bane...sheesh.  Why even bother?  Here's hoping the multiple baddies in Spider-Man 3 don't clutter it up too much.

If not for the cartoons of Batman and Spider-Man, or their video games, I don't think I would know much about them.  I was never much of a comic book guy; as in, I don't think I've ever actually went out of my way to buy a comic book.  But I'd always had at least some interest, I think, of comic book characters.  It was probably skewed more to the Marvel side, though.  So when I stumbled upon this Wikipedia article about the DC Comics Multiverse, while trying to find out what the big deal about the Infinite Crisis is, I don't know if I became fascinated or confused.

Yeah, I felt like ranting.  Go check out some Batman maps on the NES.  (The last time we had a coincidence like this, I think was with Gilligan's Island and Treasure Island Dizzy last year.)

Oops, I forgot the Mario Kart 64 maps.  Well, you'll probably see them before long, as I have to update on Sunday for Week 3 of the Super Mario Bros. 3 Atlas Project...  Stay tuned.

NES - Super Mario Bros. 3

GBA - Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3

Affiliate - Snipe Hunt Media

Happy new year!  And check it out; we've got a new look!  After weeks of work, and months of planning, I've finally got around to redesigning the site.  For over three and a half years we had this black-and-red thing going on.  And frankly, I think this cleaner-look theme is much better.  I'm sure a lot of you were hoping for an updated look for a while, but probably no one more than I.  Though the changes are mostly just aesthetic, I hope that is enough to encourage you all to look around the site some more.

A couple things that really are new are the randomizing feature and map sets on the front page, just above this news post.  These should bring forward some site features and maps that you may not have seen before.  (Unfortunately not all of the map thumbnails are done yet, so thanks in advance for your patience.)  One of the features you may see over the next two months are the maps from the forum regulars' VGMaps.com Super Mario Bros. 3 Atlas Project.  This week, it's World 1: Grass Land.  There will be another World each week!

The site is now called VGMaps.com: The Video Game Atlas, removing the unnecessary "online" portion of the name.  So when you tell your friends about the site, just say "The Video Game Atlas".  Though "VGMaps.com" works just as well.

VGMaps.com is still your source for video game maps.  Hopefully this new year (and fresh new look) will allow this site's prosperity to continue!

Discuss the new look in the forums.