Now you're playing with power.

March 18, 2005 1:37 PM

They're all here. Or most of them. This will make you dust off your NES/Genesis/Turbo GraphX-16... but this time with a pixel-perfect map of every level of your most beloved games. From Amiga to Xbox. Castlevania, Zelda, and Megaman among hundreds of others and links to even more in-depth sites. Warning - some of these maps are EXTREMELY large, like 13000x5000 large. NSFCW (Not safe for child within)
posted by BlackLeotardFront (32 comments total)

Ah, memories of Nintendo Power and Gamepro magazine. Nice link.
posted by furtive at 1:40 PM on March 18, 2005

Weellll... I just learned how big a PNG has to be before Opera rolls over and plays dead.
posted by InnocentBystander at 1:49 PM on March 18, 2005

Can't say I didn't warn you. Watch out for Castlevania, Metroid, Super Metroid, and any RPGs.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:05 PM on March 18, 2005

Jesus, aren't I glad the web wasn't mainstream when I was a punk kid making my way through Mario 3. I would have beaten it in 1/20th of the time and spent the rest of my time doing something productive with my young life.
posted by incomple at 2:06 PM on March 18, 2005

That site is, quite simply, awesome.
posted by linux at 2:10 PM on March 18, 2005

This is what the web is for. It....it's like a free, online Nintendo Power!
posted by graventy at 2:18 PM on March 18, 2005

[this is good]
posted by Eamon at 2:22 PM on March 18, 2005

Wow, this is so cool. It's level design 101. Awesome link.
posted by undule at 2:24 PM on March 18, 2005

sweeeeet
posted by delmoi at 2:31 PM on March 18, 2005

hah, marble madness. That game rocked (although it had way too few levels).
posted by delmoi at 2:33 PM on March 18, 2005

marble madness! I actually finished that one. I notice no level map for Toejam and Earl. *sigh*
posted by TheStorm at 2:41 PM on March 18, 2005

This is inspiring.
posted by catachresoid at 2:43 PM on March 18, 2005

Hey! Where are the Tetris levels??
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:48 PM on March 18, 2005

I look at the Metal Slug maps, and am kind of forced to think that the horse shit that I was playing on the Genesis and SNES was total garbage in comparison, at least visually. Sonic had some beautiful levels, but nothing nearly as beautiful as these.

If I had known this as a ten year old, or however old I was when Metal Slug came out, I would have puked instead the cartridge slots of the lesser systems because they deserved no better. But then, at the time, the Neo Geo was, what, like a billion dollars and the games were a million each so it would have been out of reach anyway.

It's also frustrating because just as soon as games could have looked this good for the common man (around the release of the Saturn and PSX I estimate) they started pumping out the half-assed 3D nonsense that made me nauseated and turned off by videogames in the first place. Thanks for ruining my favourite hobby, modern technology. You will live to regret it.
posted by incomple at 2:52 PM on March 18, 2005

Incomple, I just bumped into those Metal Slug maps the other day, they really are breathtaking. I agree, too - the loss of good 2D gaming was a major setback to games in general. Companies like Treasure kept it going but its hard to when you're up against EA and such.

What was the show we all used to watch where kids played games, identified games music and scenes from games, and the winner at the end got to run through a maze with games, systems, and such velcroed to the walls? That show was bomb. They always went for the Neo-Geo, that thing was a beast.. still is, really.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:11 PM on March 18, 2005

What's amazing to me is how short all of the games appear when you show just the maps and no enemies. It's just, outside, castle, water area, the roof, mummy room, gear room, dracula. Beating Castlevania for the first time took me days and days of constant effort and restarting; yet, when you look at these maps, the path of where you actually have to move your character seems extremely short and linear.
posted by crystal.castles at 3:17 PM on March 18, 2005

Wow, I totally forgot about that show. I was so envious because there were all of these strange systems with weird controllers that I had never seen, and then these amazing games and and and and

This might be a question for Ask Metafilter.
posted by incomple at 3:21 PM on March 18, 2005

interesting that we know our way through so many imaginary landscapes. visions of printing one of these out banner size...
posted by jcruelty at 3:25 PM on March 18, 2005

jcruelty I'm absolutely with you. I want a wall-sized Metroid landscape.

And crystal.castles, I've been playing Castlevania a bit lately and I've decided the secret to it is using the holy water and whipping as fast as possible.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:27 PM on March 18, 2005

Video Power was the name of that game show. I used to get up at 6:30am just to watch that show. Good times.
posted by rlef98 at 3:56 PM on March 18, 2005

BlackLeotard / incomple . . .

The show was called Nick Arcade. And, God, did I ever want to be on that show. For further geekery, I used to read Nintendo Powers of games I didn't have and pretend I was playing them. I was a weird kid.
posted by thecaddy at 4:01 PM on March 18, 2005

Nope, rlef98 got it. Nick Arcade I still remember vividly, particularly the bizarre bits when the kids would "enter" videogames. I always wondered why, on Nick Arcade, a lot of the games would be in arcade cabinest.

God, what a weird, pathetic rush of nostalgia I'm having today.
posted by incomple at 4:11 PM on March 18, 2005

Nick Arcade was different, thecaddy, but it was almost as cool. They'd gain points for quiz questions (about games, I think) and then compete for high scores on arcade machines. Then the winning team got to be in their real-life video game thing, which looked pretty awesome at home, but probably sucked if you were doing it.

Man, I will kill for torrents of Nick Arcade or Video Power. Pure concentrated nostalgia.
posted by graventy at 4:22 PM on March 18, 2005

incomple, I'm with you on Super Mario 3.
that game had me meandering for days and days, happily killing things until I stumbled onto the right pipe (or whatever).

Ultimate labor of love.
Excellent link.
posted by Busithoth at 4:22 PM on March 18, 2005

TheStorm I think that TJ&E had random maps except for a few levels.

Personally I like these maps better when they show the starting locations of enmies as well. I still may print up that Castlevania map. The one game that I was way better at than my friends.
posted by Four Flavors at 4:59 PM on March 18, 2005

awesome.
posted by blacklite at 5:00 PM on March 18, 2005

We've got a cheap digital print lab here at TESC. 7-Color process. Huge rolls of paper.

I'm gonna make gigantic prints of the zelda maps. Either 24" square, or if my wallet can withstand it, 44" square.
posted by blasdelf at 5:04 PM on March 18, 2005

Hate to self-link (well...) but if you're jonesing for a little more nostalgia I put up a small load of NES music on my interweblog a couple days ago. I'm only linking cause its relevant... :9
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 5:44 PM on March 18, 2005

Wow. Good post. I love those beautiful pixelly levels. They really need to get someone cracking on those vintage Sega Master System games, though...
* runs to closet to hug his SMS
posted by Kikkoman at 8:19 PM on March 18, 2005

Is this when I should admit that I was working on a pixel-perfect Metroid map but now all my effort was for naught?
posted by neckro23 at 10:32 PM on March 18, 2005

This got picked up onto del.icio.us. then waxy, then boingboing. I'm a blogstar now, but I got no credit. I feel used but somehow exhilirated.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:02 PM on March 19, 2005

It appears the site has totally self-destructed.

:(

Anybody know of mirrors?
posted by Kleptophoria! at 5:18 PM on March 21, 2005