The Pirate Version of Angry Birds for Famicom Is Horrible!

In Asia there are many very poor people who still buy cartridges for their beloved “Family Game” and you know what they say, where there is demand... Although you may find it hard to believe, besides the Angry Birds version, there is also one of Plants vs. Zombies! Un-be-lie-va-ble.

All due respect to those fraud artisans who have the ability to turn something into something else, to make the obsolete a novelty, to recycle the good and turn it - at least - into something not so bad. I hold them in high esteem because they are professionals of the hustle, of "what can we get away with now to earn a few pesos". I imagine them intrepid and resourceful, daring experimenters always trying to find a way around things, so that a thing is not just a thing, but something more. Remoras of capitalism, always on the lookout and protected by the lax laws of their respective countries, Asian counterfeiters come in all tastes.

Nothing escapes their attack! Clothing, toys, electronics and, of course, video games. The times when their intervention is for the worse (which is possibly most of the time), no one should care too much either. What could you expect from a Chinese copy, after all? However, the few - very few - times when Chinese pirates intervene for the better, make everything worth it.

Pirates, copyright usurpers, okay, but also sellers of illusions. Because how many people in China do you think have the possibility to play, for example, Angry Birds on their smartphones, eh? Well, I don't know what you might have thought, but it's very very few. China is a country with many very poor people.

That is why the pirate versions (famiclones) of Nintendo's old Famicom (the Chinese version of the 8-bit NES), are appliances that still circulate a lot among families in the most deprived regions. And they are also, for many of these families, a very prized luxury item. So it's not surprising that there is still a broad customer base for anything that comes out for these consoles.

The modern corsairs saw that their country (and the whole world!) was plastered with advertisements, t-shirts, stickers, magazines, posters and McDonald's combos of Angry Birds. They understood that the hardest part of the business, promotion, was already done and decided to exploit the phenomenon. Some made towels with Angry Birds, others certainly sold Angry Birds underwear and there must have been those who printed a coloring book and sent it everywhere in the world.

I, for example, bought one of those on the train, for my little nephew. And everything is fine with those, but the coolest ones seem to me these others, those who made the Famicom games of Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies, for the humble people who wanted them in their homes. Pure alchemy with bits and chips, you have to admit!

At NeoTeo we have already seen that Eastern pirates have a special predilection for the Famicom, so it's a matter of comparing these versions of Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies with other Chinese creations such as Kart Fighter, Tekken and Mortal Kombat 3, to know that it could have been much much worse. About the games, talking about physics on the Famicom is a bit risky, but not to say that this version of Angry Birds completely lacks it. However, despite the limitations, I think it is quite well resolved.

It's to be expected, at least. The ones that are not so well resolved are the other two games in the package, which you have below to download and of which I have not included videos, since they are rather modifications of other games with the face of some Angry Bird attached to the protagonist (one of those games is a modification of New Zealand Story, which is super appropriate since the protagonist is a kiwi). Much better resolved is the conversion of Plants Vs Zombies, the classic by PopCap. Watch the video and tell me if it's not a masterpiece of disaster!

If you dare to play them, all you have to do is download the ROMs. You will need an emulator that knows how to handle them, like Nestopia. Let's play!