So far, 2004 has been the Year of Mappy. My favorite classic arcade game has had two exciting announcements in as many months. DATELINE JANUARY: Nintendo is celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Famicom with special GBA re-releases of classic NES games, including Mappy. They're mainly collector's items and they're priced as such: around $20 US... but of course these puppies aren't going to reach the States anyway. But there is no region lockout on GBA cartridges, so I've already imported a copy of Mappy. The only downside (apart from the price) is that this is the NES version, not the original arcade game. If you'll recall, the NES one is a low-res, high-sucky version.
DATELINE FEBRUARY: Toy company Jakks Pacific is continuing their mega-successful TV Games series with a new Namco unit that includes Mappy. Last holiday season, their Pac-Man and Atari TV Games toys were huge hits... you've seen them, the things that look like an old video game controller that plug directly into your TV. Very retro. So a Ms. Pac-Man edition is forthcoming, and Mappy has made her playlist. This is actually better news than the GBA game since this will be the real, true Mappy game. And it's for your television, not a tiny GBA (or MAME) window. Although the GBA game will still be the one I can play in airplanes and car rides.
So I've added my own hoo to the hoo-hah by re-designing my Mappy website. I still have some bits to work on, but it's more or less complete. I must be in a red phase this century. I also took the opportunity to re-christen the site "Mappyland," an obvious nod to Mappy's second crappy NES game. I was beginning to think that the old name, "Mappy Mecca," was the teensiest bit insensitive. Plus, who wants to add more weight to anybody's religious claims. I wouldn't call a Mappy FAQ a "Mappy Bible" for the same reasons. Just taking back a little word power.
Mappyland has also benefitted from some new content courtesy a fan who sent me pics of some truly crazy crap from Japan. Sure, you'd expect to see Mappy keychains... and you've always hoped somewhere there's a plush doll... but a Mappy cigarette lighter shaped like a pistol? It's true, and it's in the new Mappyland scrapbook.
And this little tweak I hemmed and hawed about. I took down the ROMs for four Mappy games. Number one, I don't follow the MAME scene to know if/how they work with the latest version. I assume they do, but I'm not sure. Number two, it just isn't right to give them out, especially since the original Mappy is readily available for purchase... on Windows, on PlayStation and soon on the TV Games toy. I may put Hopping Mappy (the Japan-only sequel) and Mappy Arrangement (the rare two-player remix) back up, because they are still just about impossible to find anywhere but MAME. I don't know yet, and because it is a legal and moral problem, I'm erring on the side of respect for Namco at this point.
