 |
 |
Super NES/Famicom Mouse |
|
|
Super NES/Famicom Mouse |
 |
|
| Nintendo released the Super NES Mouse
in the US in 1992, and sometime around that time in Japan, which I am not exactly sure of
currently. It was also released in Europe, though I do not known when. It is, basically, a
two button mouse that plugs into controller 1 or controller 2 on your SNES, depending on
which game you are using. The US and Japanese mice look and function identically. The
design of the European mouse is unknown, but is probably the same. The idea was to help bring PC gaming to the SNES, however, this device ended up being mostly used for the game of sorts that came with it, Mario Paint. Mario Paint is an interesting cart. It was, in fact, a descent art program. It is much like many popular PC art programs; different brushes, floodfill, spray paint, and the like. One unique thing about Mario Paint, is that it allowed players to create music, using a strange interface; it consisted of four music lines, like printed on sheet music, and using different symbols such as mushrooms, fire flowers, and the like, you could place them on different points on the lines, and thereby make different tunes. You could also make your own "stamps", which are premade pieces of art you can put anywhere in your current work. When you made a stamp, you brought up a 16x16 grid, where you could place various colors in each square of the grid. The game with a set of premade stamps; mushrooms, and other Mario and Nintendo paraphanelia. Mario Paint also comes with a little "coffee break" game, where you can hone your mouse skills by swatting flies that come buzzing across the screen. You can also make very short animations, by saving the same picture you made over and over again with minor adjustments (just like animation on paper!). You can only have up to nine frames on animation, which, I assume, makes horribly choppy animation. Nintendo gives some unique uses for Mario Paint, such as recording your animations and other artwork to video tape, and saving them or sending them to friends. The biggest drawback, however, is that the cart, of course, has a finite storage capacity. You can only save so much of your creative work, which is in fact, not much; only one picture, one song and one animation can be saved. Oh, and you can't print out or transfer your artwork, either. Mario Paint may be good for the kiddies, and those just looking to play around with an art program, but is by no means for someone interested in doing serious computer artwork. The following is a last of SNES Mouse compatible games. If have missed any, please let me know.
Source: Nintendo Power magazine #39, Zerothis |